Congressional Testimony

Testimony of Elizabeth Hogan, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee

sgruber — Fri, 24 May 2013 20:26:19 +0000

Testimony of Elizabeth Hogan, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Mr. Chairman, the impressive progress in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) over the past several decades has enabled USAID to completely shift our development approach away from providing direct assistance and toward strengthening countries’ capacity to provide for their own people. While our relationship with Mexico has been a bit different than in other parts of the region, today our joint cooperation serves as a catalyst for the Mexican government, private sector and civil society to improve their ability to address the country’s biggest challenges and ultimately lead their own development.

USAID considers insecurity related to high levels of crime and violence in Mexico to be a grave threat to the remarkable development advances of recent decades. Cartels and criminal groups have diversified in recent years, expanding beyond drug trafficking and into extortion, kidnapping, murder and other crimes that adversely affect people’s lives. Analyses in LAC countries indicate that high levels of crime and violence are a leading constraint to economic growth, because it discourages investment and diverts resources away from productive investments to security.

Statement of Nancy Lindborg, Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance

sgruber — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:46:50 +0000

Statement of Nancy Lindborg, Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Last week, along with Acting Assistant Secretary Don Yamamoto, I attended a conference in Brussels where 80 nations came together to pledge support for Mali as it seeks a pathway back to democracy, peace and prosperity. President Traore of Mali began the meeting by thanking the international community for its help and expressing his gratitude for the fact that, in the north of Mali, people are no longer having their hands and feet cut off by terrorists, women are no longer being raped, and Islam is no longer being defamed as a tool of terrorists. In his speech, he emphasized that “we must learn our lessons from bad governance and realize that the collapse of this house of cards endangered our people as well as the entire region.” He commended all of us “to address the root causes of this crisis with good governance as the first priority.”

Testimony of Deputy Administrator Donald Steinberg before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations

sgruber — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:19:45 +0000

Testimony of Deputy Administrator Donald Steinberg before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

USAID makes critical contributions to the U.S. Government’s work to aid children in adversity. Our work to help children to first survive, then thrive, is an important piece of the efforts being coordinated under the recently-released U.S. Government Action Plan for Children in Adversity. The action plan represents the work of more than seven different agencies across the government—and is one of finest examples of interagency collaboration and coordination in recent years.

Testimony of Neil Boothby, PhD , U.S. Government Special Advisor and Senior Coordinator to the USAID Administrator on Children in Adversity, before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations

sgruber — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:24:38 +0000

Testimony of Neil Boothby, PhD , U.S. Government Special Advisor and Senior Coordinator to the USAID Administrator on Children in Adversity, before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The U.S. Government Action Plan on Children in Adversity is the first-ever whole-of-government strategic guidance for U.S. Government international assistance for children. It is a requirement of Public Law 109-95. Seven U.S. Government agencies and departments have endorsed the Action Plan, which was cleared by OMB and launched at the White House on December 19, 2012.

Testimony of Administrator Rajiv Shah before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations

sgruber — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:57:16 +0000

Testimony of Administrator Rajiv Shah before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Thank you Chairman Leahy, Ranking Member Graham, and members of the Committee. I am pleased to join you to discuss the President's fiscal year 2014 budget request for USAID.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama called upon our nation to join with the world in ending extreme poverty in the next two decades. Today, we have new tools that enable us to achieve a goal that was simply unimaginable in the past: the eradication of extreme poverty and its most devastating corollaries, including widespread hunger and preventable child and maternal deaths.

Testimony of Administrator Rajiv Shah before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs

sgruber — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:21:51 +0000

Testimony of Administrator Rajiv Shah before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Thursday, April 25, 2013

The President’s fiscal year 2014 budget request responds to this call and the most critical development challenges of our time. It supports important global partnerships, including the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition and the Child Survival Call to Action, by increasing and focusing investments in food security and maternal and child health. It builds resilience in areas besieged by recurrent crisis and natural disaster, with a focus on the Horn of Africa and Sahel regions. And it advances a comprehensive food aid reform package that will enable us to feed two to four million additional people each year.

Testimony of Administrator Rajiv Shah Before The Senate Foreign Relations Committee

sgruber — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:02:29 +0000

Testimony of Administrator Rajiv Shah Before The Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Testimony of Administrator Rajiv Shah before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations

sgruber — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:23:23 +0000

Testimony of Administrator Rajiv Shah before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Testimony of Assistant Administrator Nancy E. Lindborg to the House Foreign Relations Committee

sgruber — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 20:41:52 +0000

Testimony of Assistant Administrator Nancy E. Lindborg to the House Foreign Relations Committee

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

We have just passed the two-year anniversary since the onset of the Syrian conflict. Sadly, the country continues to face a grim situation and an escalating humanitarian crisis. The dreams of those who first began with hopeful demonstrations on the street of Damascus are far from being realized. The statistics are numbing: more than 70,000 dead; more than 4 million people inside the country in need of assistance; and more than 2.5 million displaced from their homes. We have already reached the somber milestone of more than one million refugees in neighboring countries, with greater numbers of refugees fleeing the violence each day.

Testimony of Assistant Administrator Nancy Lindborg to the Senate Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs

sgruber — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 20:26:04 +0000

Testimony of Assistant Administrator Nancy Lindborg to the Senate Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

We are facing a grim and escalating humanitarian crisis in Syria. The statistics are numbing: more than 70,000 dead; more than four million people inside the country in need of assistance, including over 2.5 million displaced from their homes. We have already surpassed the somber milestone of more than a million refugees who have fled to the relative safety of neighboring countries, with greater numbers of refugees fleeing the violence each day.

And behind these statistics are the stories of individual Syrians who have lost their homes, their livelihoods and all too often their loved ones. I had a sobering visit to the camps in Turkey and Jordan a month ago with Assistant Secretary Anne Richard and Ambassador Robert Ford. We stood at the border late one night as thousands of Syrians walked across into Jordan, including one young woman who was six months pregnant and fearful she would lose her child.