Today, President Biden released the new U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS), and how we pursue a more free, open, prosperous, and secure world. As the NSS states, “our approach encompasses all elements of national power – diplomacy, development cooperation, economic statecraft, intelligence, and defense,” directly underscoring USAID’s essential role to realizing this vision, in partnership with our democratic allies across the globe.
The release of the NSS marks an important step in aligning USAID policies, strategies, and programs with those of the broader U.S. government to enhance our global impact. The Strategy will guide USAID’s work in the coming years to tackle the principal challenges facing our world: strategic competition and shared global challenges. The core strategic challenge comes from powers that are layering authoritarian governance, which is endangering peace, stability, and the foundational principles of self-determination, territorial integrity, political independence, and universal human rights. While competition for the future is underway, the NSS acknowledges shared challenges that cross borders and sit at the core of national and international security, such as climate change, food insecurity, and communicable diseases – challenges that require international cooperation to solve.
The problems we face today are complex, global, and intertwined – and no one organization or country can tackle them alone. Responding to them in a coordinated, focused, and strategic way, may well determine our planet’s shared future. As stated in the NSS: “We are now in the early years of a decisive decade for America and the world. The actions we take now will shape whether this period is known as an age of conflict and discord or the beginning of a more stable and prosperous future.”