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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.

Thank you all so much. We see all of you as part of the solution. That is the basis of Feed the Future. We started this event with the Minister from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who painted a vision of what we can achieve together in partnership. The DRC is cultivating only 9 percent of their land, but has natural rainfall and the potential to become a breadbasket.

At the G7 Leaders’ Summit in June 2022, President Biden announced that the United States is expanding Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative, to reach eight new African countries, including Zambia. This expansion will help directly address the impacts of recent shocks to global food security and nutrition.

The United States government announced an additional $3 million to support transparent, credible, and inclusive political processes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This $3 million includes $2 million from USAID’s Elections and Political Processes Fund and $1 million in new funding from the Department of State’s Africa Regional Democracy Fund, and will support international and local observation of the DRC’s 2023 presidential and legislative elections by qualified, non-partisan observers.