Newsroom

I am appalled by the reports of increasing numbers of women and children being subjected to sexual violence every day in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) North Kivu province, as documented earlier this month by Medecins Sans Frontieres.

In a major policy speech today at the Center for Global Development, USAID Administrator Samantha Power presented a strategic approach for reclaiming and accelerating public health progress around the world. Immediate global action is needed to reverse the staggering decline in global life expectancy and to support health systems weakened by COVID-19, the global food crisis, ongoing conflicts, and a changing climate. USAID’s global health approach will unite around three foundational efforts: 1) Turn COVID-19 into a manageable respiratory illness everywhere; 2) Build up our defenses against new outbreaks and future pandemic threats; 3) Investing in primary health care workers who will be the backbone of health system recovery.

The U.S. has contributed so far about $1.5 billion in support to ensure that UN agencies on the ground primarily have the ability to reach people, we’ve reached about 4.5 million Somalis. Unfortunately, the U.S. is right now accounting for two thirds of the international appeal, two thirds of the food aid that is needed is being provided by the U.S., which we feel very privileged to be a part of contributing to, but that is not sustainable. We need other countries to step up.

Today, on the final day of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, Administrator Samantha Power held bilateral meetings with African leaders and joined President Joe Biden and African Heads of State at the Promoting Food Security and Food Systems Resilience session.

The truth is we need civil society – as government actors and as government champions of reform, we actually can't know how the policies that we implement, or that you all legislate, are being lived in the real world. We actually – we may have the best of intentions – we just actually don't know often, exactly how those are being felt, and where the slippage occurs – because things don't always work in the real world the way that they are intended.

During COP27, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced progress USAID has made in delivering on two major commitments: President Biden’s Plan to Conserve Global Forests and a USAID commitment to build our partnerships with Indigenous Peoples.