[Remarks as Delivered]
Well, thank you, Satu, for that very very generous introduction. I'm not sure I've ever thought of myself as being particularly suited for anything, so I appreciate that. And let me also offer my thanks to President Suzanne Vares-Lum, and all of you for joining today.
In 1960—so, going back here a little bit—President Eisenhower arrived here in Honolulu and spoke about the critical importance of this Center to an illustrious audience, including then-Governor of Hawaii, William Quinn, and Admiral Don Felt, who was leading what is now INDOPACOM.
Now, this was during the very first Presidential visit to Hawaii after it gained statehood. Eisenhower himself, as many of you know, had signed the bill that made Hawaii a state into law. In the lead-up to that bill signing, he had gained a sense of the aspirations, the hopes, and the dreams of the people here, and he found it a great honor to help build bridges across the broader Pacific community.
Part of what was so exciting to President Eisenhower, on that visit, was that the East-West Center itself was also just getting started, and up and running. Eisenhower could not imagine a more fitting place than the Center, in Hawaii—for, quote, ‘bringing about a better feeling between the peoples bordering the Pacific all the way around.’ The Center’s success would, in his words, encourage all of us to live in greater strength, in greater cooperation, and in mutual harmony. Indeed, that was our purpose in the Pacific, and in Asia more broadly, the highest ambitions of our foreign policy.
For myself, the EWC has occupied a special place in my heart since I was a child, and one of your then-fellows, friends with my parents, used to bring me tootsie rolls when we were living overseas; he was a friend of mine, my parents. Those might not be the high ambitions that President Eisenhower was calling us to, but ever since, the EWC has been the acme of excellence, as far as I’m concerned, in building our Pacific community.
More seriously, the ambitions and aspirations that President Eisenhower spoke to, rooted in USAID’s deep cooperation with citizens, communities and countries, for building better lives, have seen considerable success since the 1960s.
- We sought to feed the hungry.
- We have sought to uplift families from extreme poverty.
- We have sought to educate children, especially girls and young women.
- We have sought to make people healthier and take care of the needy.
- We have sought to address environmental and climate challenges, and
- We have sought to promote peace.
In this respect, South Korea is a very powerful example of the possible. As hard as it is for anybody who has been to Seoul recently to imagine, in the 1950’s and 60’s, and even well into the 70s, food was scarce in the Republic of Korea, and so was income. Extreme poverty after the Korean war had turned people into scavengers. The country’s economy was on par with some of the most economically impoverished countries in the world today, and prospects for a brighter, more prosperous future seemed dim.
But, and I think many of you know the story, USAID and other development partners stepped in to help the Republic of Korea rebuild. America brought its ingenuity. We offered our resources, our expertise—and we offered it both from within the private and public sectors alike. This brought hope. USAID’s partnerships with Korea helped build up the country’s agriculture sector, its health system and its major industries—the engines that drive development. We helped expand Korea’s openness to the international economy and to trade, and that grew its economy dramatically.
Our development work in South Korea was laser-focused on alleviating suffering, sharing democratic ideals and building a foundation for the country’s long-term growth, security, and resilience.
In short order, lives became more livable. People regained their dignity. The development that took other nations to achieve over centuries was accomplished in just two generations. The country’s destiny changed, democracy delivered, and naturally, the rest of the world noticed.
The United States stopped providing South Korea with development assistance in 1980. Once a recipient of USAID support, the Republic of Korea is now a leading democracy and a strong development partner of USAID, providing $2.9 billion in assistance globally in 2021.
The success story of U.S. assistance to the Republic of Korea shows how central USAID is and can be to developing and advancing key U.S. foreign policy priorities of the day, while also advancing the priorities of our partners. And first and foremost, it is a development story. Because this is the business of USAID: offering our development expertise, offering our unique approach to development, strengthening partnerships, leveraging innovation and ideas, leveraging the private sector, and amplifying democratic values—not only to assist those in need and allay human suffering, but also to support the visions that our partners want to pursue.
Korea’s story of transformation is still inspirational to us at USAID. It is proof that democracy delivers. It is proof of the potential that America’s assistance model has to offer to our partners in Asia, to broader U.S. efforts to strengthen diplomatic ties and to tighten our collaboration on security, and to communities and families seeking to transform their lives.
And today, like no other point in human history, the world is pushing us to transform—as countries, individuals, and as partners in development.
The global challenges humankind is facing are unprecedented. I hardly need to explain those challenges to those of you in the room with me, or those of you joining us online—least of all, we face unprecedented challenges in climate and the interconnected biodiversity crises. And Hawaii, like many other islands across the Pacific, is truly on the front lines of that set of challenges, as coastlines disappear, indigenous flora and fauna are at risk, and agricultural productivity is stressed.
USAID has heard the voices of peoples and nations calling for increased donor assistance on combating climate change. USAID is working to assist on climate priorities identified by the Pacific Island nations, which I’ll speak more about in a moment.
The climate crisis has also become a threat multiplier, as we can see—full scope—of all the development challenges we face, as we weather drought and heavy rain that restrict our ability to feed ourselves and force us to think twice about how we eat and grow food. And tragically, the world’s hunger and food security crisis has only increased, due to the Kremlin’s unjust war in Ukraine and the disastrous effects it has had on our global supply chains.
Today, however, as we move into a new year, the U.S. is renewing our charge to approach these challenges here at home—and overseas. Against these tests, we’ve seen the resilience of our system and strength of our own democracy, and our democratic systems throughout the region—to weather the consequences of the war on Ukraine, economic challenges, and our own internal divisions. Of course, here at home, we still have a lot of work of our own to do, but democratic processes are, by design, a work in constant progress.
And for all the fits and starts that democracy can bring, democracy remains the single best engine that we have to generate justice and prosperity over time. And this certainly applies to development, as well.
By embodying our democratic ideals in the development space, by building our partners’ capacity, even amid these intensifying global challenges, we seek to empower entire nations, entire peoples, and entire communities, to achieve their ambitions—as they define them—and build the resilience they need to maintain and sustain those achievements.
This path of empowerment in the development space is USAID’s unique and critical contribution to achieving the vision of the 2022 U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy: a region that is more open and free, connected, resilient, prosperous, and secure. And USAID believes, as our counterparts across the U.S. Government likewise believe, that the Pacific Islands are an essential part of the Indo-Pacific.
As an Indo-Pacific country ourselves—a Pacific nation since the days of our very founding—it is incumbent upon us to:
- Understand, intimately, how 21st-century challenges are uniquely impacting our friends and partners across the Indo-Pacific, challenges that equally and demand unique, locally-led solutions rooted in mutual respect, transparency, and accountability.
- We can embody the truth that lasting resilience can only come through collaborative, inclusive, and democratic cooperation with one’s neighbors.
- We must ensure that our development partnerships reflect our belief that no single nation should dominate the Pacific.
- And we should offer our friends, partners, and allies a development approach that rises to meet the challenges of today, and demonstrates clearly that the United States, working with our partners, can tackle complex challenges in a way that nobody else can.
And of course, we must also be clear eyed about the strategic context in which we operate, and the role the People’s Republic of China, animated by Xi Xinping’s ambitions, plays in both the region and around the world. It is a simple fact that what the PRC does will increasingly have an impact on our work.
None of you will be shocked that the PRC comes up everywhere I go. Many have seen the White House’s National Security Strategy. And, as Secretary Blinken has said, the PRC is the only nation with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, [has] the economic, military, diplomatic, and technological power to do so.
While development diplomacy is not instrumental of other national security priorities, USAID is a part of the U.S. Government. We are a foreign policy agency. Our Administrator is a member of the National Security Council. So people want to know, ‘What is USAID’s approach to the PRC?’ And I’ll be blunt, our PRC answer does not actually begin with the PRC—because we strongly believe that what defines our work, how it’s received, and what it means for our partners, must begin with our own story and our own value composition. It is, above all, not what the PRC does, but what about what the United States is able to offer.
USAID development practices elevate inclusion, transparency, independence, partnership, sustainability, and respect for human rights and democratic norms. And they build on decades-long history of supporting partners to achieve their own priorities and self-determination. We invest in areas critical for long-term sustainable development and the foundations for open, transparent, and just and sovereign societies.
And our results demonstrate our success. Eleven of our top fifteen trading partners today, like the Republic of Korea, were once aid recipients from the United States. We build strong societies. We work with partners on their own paths to success. That is our story, and we are very, very proud. We are proud that USAID assistance does not need to be repaid - they are not loans. USAID seeks to offer emerging economies of the future a new development model, one rooted not in debt and dependence, but in economic trade and integration, inclusivity, locally-led solutions, and the democratic values that can help transform our shared planet for the better.
We do not seek to weaponize development assistance for our own benefit, or to leverage it for our partners, as the PRC often appears to do. Rather, we pursue development diplomacy to provide public goods and strengthen the global commons. We are proud of our affirmative approach that advocates for good governance, the rule of law, and human rights protections that strengthen the foundations for free and open societies that are connected, secure, prosperous, and resilient.
This compliments our long-standing practice that emphasizes environmental impact, social impact, and financial sustainability. And yet, at the same time clear-eyed, we recognize that what Beijing does abroad can have a detrimental impact on our national security interests and those of our partners and can undermine our affirmative development agenda.
We have limited ability to change the decisions made by the PRC, but we can work with our allies and our partners to shape the environment in which Beijing operates. And in so doing, to advance our own affirmative vision for an open and transparent, rules-based society. This is where development tools can play a critical and central role. USAID can help set the table for the region and the world in which we want to live. We will work with partners to nurture open and rights-affirming digital infrastructure. To foster trusted, accountable and effective governance institutions. To advance transparent management of natural resources and to support their [our partners’] ability to make sovereign decisions in line with their interests and values free from external pressure.
We will work with the private sector to unleash economic growth and our partners’ potential. And we know that our grants-based assistance can go even further when it is put together with U.S. public and private investments, which far outstrip the resources that the PRC has brought to the table to date.
We can do all that, elevating our contributions, doubling down on our commitments, and appealing to the best parts of our rooted history in the region. That is how we will show our value, and that is how we will continue America’s leadership in the Indo-Pacific and around the world.
That approach is what USAID has to offer our partners in the region. In the Pacific Islands, specifically, we work side-by-side with governments, communities, and local organizations to advance and sustain progress.
Today, we are deepening our engagement on shared development priorities across the Pacific Islands, particularly in combating climate change and addressing climate adaptation and resilience, building local capacity, and strengthening regional connectivity.
We have reaffirmed our commitment to bolstering the resilience of our Pacific Island partners against the existential threats facing them, through additional investments as part of the USG’s Pacific Partnership Declaration. And we continue to unlock public and private funding in the Pacific Islands that will preserve the region’s rich biodiversity, help farmers adopt climate-smart agriculture practices, and assist low-lying communities threatened by rising sea levels. We will also seek to uplift principles of democracy, such as transparency and accountability—which are keys to achieving sustainable climate resilience.
USAID is also working directly with our likeminded allies and partners in the region, as well as through coordinating mechanisms such as the QUAD and the Partners for the Blue Pacific. By doing so, we are able to leverage each other's resources and technical expertise, while ensuring our work is complementary, respects existing regional architecture, and is led and guided by the Pacific Islands and Pacific Islanders themselves.
Our efforts align with USAID’s first-ever Pacific Islands Strategic Framework, which is rooted in the Pacific Islands’ own objectives and priorities, as identified in the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent. Our work builds on a foundation of success that reflects the strength of our ties and the potential of our development approach.
For example, to boost climate resilience, USAID has helped Pacific Islands countries mobilize more than $470 million from multi-donor international funds—including the Global Environment[al] Facility, the Green Climate Fund, and the Adaptation Fund—and helped national governments and regional bodies receive accreditation to be able to access these multi-donor funding resources. To ensure that Pacific Island countries can access these environmental funds, USAID is working with them to strengthen their capacity to develop inclusive proposals and improve funds management, and develop systems to monitor projects effectively. Let me share a few examples of what that looks like.
First, last year, a $103 million proposal to protect the region’s green resources such as coral reefs and fisheries, as well as their livelihoods and food security.
Second, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, USAID funded a project working to ensure the government is able to protect and secure the freshwater that otherwise would be threatened by climate change-linked saltwater intrusion. This will protect clean water for 1 in every 4 Marshall Islanders.
And third, in terms of capacity-development, USAID worked with the Government of Fiji to help the Fiji Development Bank gain accreditation to the Green Climate Fund, which will allow them to submit funding proposals directly going forward.
Let me share another example. To boost connectivity and usher in the economic prosperity and resilience that often flows from it, we are making strides to increase bandwidth for the internet in Palau. USAID partnered with Australia and Japan to support the development of an undersea spur cable—Palau’s second—that will connect the country to the world’s longest undersea cable. Through a $3 million grant agreement with the Australian department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, USAID is helping Palau’s state-owned Belau Submarine Cable Corporation to meet their funding requirements for cable construction—ensuring that our local partners are in the lead.
Once complete, the spur will reduce internet outages and interruptions in Palau—incentivizing private investors to do business there; remove an impediment to development; and connect Palauans to the fastest, most reliable, and most secure internet they have ever had.
And, finally, we are helping the Pacific Islands to boost their health security. Building on the over $57 million in COVID-19 pandemic assistance that USAID has provided to the region since 2020, USAID plans to invest an additional $5 million, subject to the availability of funds, to strengthen Pacific Island countries’ ability to minimize threats posed by emerging infectious diseases. And USAID will support Pacific Island countries as they develop a more skilled health workforce and improve their health systems so that they can better take care of their people.
All of these successes are built on the long-standing relationships and respectful partnerships between Pacific Island nations’ and the United States. On the lasting impact that we develop through our people-centered approach to development, rooted in our ideals. And, most critically, on our enduring friendships with ourPacific Island friends.
Since 2019, USAID has been working tirelessly to expand our presence in the Pacific Islands.
I’m proud to say that we now have staff in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and the Solomon Islands.
In September 2022, during the first U.S.- Pacific Island Country Summit, President Biden announced that USAID is re-establishing our regional mission for the Pacific in Fiji and elevating our presence in Papua New Guinea to a Country Representative Office. This will allow us to expand our presence and programming to benefit more Pacific Islanders, reflecting our commitment to the region.
We are grateful for the collaboration that paved the way for this expansion, and for the warm reception that our announcements received in the region.
For the Pacific Island to continue to flourish, each nation should be able to choose their path forward, including how they manage their natural resources and with whom they partner.
Across the entire Indo-Pacific region, USAID seeks to show countries the possibilities of a cooperative, inclusive, and—to use Administrator Power’s phrase—“big-hearted” development model: a model rooted in cooperation, in economic trade and integration, in connectivity—not debt traps, or never-ending foreign assistance dependence.
In doing so, we offer our Pacific partners a development model that celebrates the Pacific Way, as Deputy Secretary of State Sherman said in Honiara this past August—listening to and learning from our partners, especially the Pacific Island nations, to really understand their concerns, and finding a pathway forward together.
USAID’s development model reflects and embodies the values in our vision for an Indo-Pacific region: one that is free and open, one that is connected, prosperous, resilient, and secure.
It is one in which we treat one another as equals, collaborate on solutions, and recognize that democracy, inclusivity, and pluralism offer the surest path to realizing our shared vision.
And it is one which understands that it is this kind of dynamic, resilient Indo-Pacific that will serve the peace and prosperity of the world—which is what all of us wish to do.
Thank you.