Speeches

It is no secret that the United States has contributed significantly to global carbon emissions. So we understand our responsibility to help other countries invest in adapting to today’s climate change. Since 2016, USAID has worked to help communities in the Pacific Islands lead climate adaptation projects. 

 We need to ensure that the international community gets access into Nagorno-Karabakh. There are still tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians who are there living in very vulnerable conditions. And already you are seeing, as well the gathering of testimonies from people who have fled, violence, deprivation, and with the fear of living under the Government of Azerbaijan. Our focus again, right now and, I'm USAID Administrator, is meeting the humanitarian needs of individuals in really vulnerable circumstances and looking out for and securing access to individuals who are either unable to proceed on the Corridor because it is blocked with traffic, or, in some cases, too scared to make the journey to where we are today.

President Biden sent me and our delegation here in the wake, of course, your calls with senior U.S. principals, to underscore the United States’ deep commitment to Armenia's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democracy. I know, as the head of USAID, our work with the Armenian people and the Armenian government has never been as intense and as important as it is now. I may have come to Armenia, and I hope to come again, to discuss the kinds of things we are doing to help strengthen your democracy. You're deepening democracy. 

Thank you very much for joining us today. We will be having a press conference with USAID Administrator Samantha Power, who arrived in Armenia today. I also wanted to note the presence of Acting Assistant Secretary Ambassador Yuri Kim from the U.S. State Department.

PEPFAR is really unique in the extent of its programming that is running through local organizations. I think you're up now to more than 70 percent. Just to give you some comparator on that, when I took over USAID in 2021, we were as an Agency at about seven percent of our assistance going to local organizations. Just seven percent. And that's for a lot of really understandable reasons – very hard to keep up with compliance requirements with the United States. A lot of organizations don't have the capacity, the accountants, the lawyers. We're trying to fix that. We've increased our support for local organizations by 40 percent just in the time that President Biden has been President. 

I do think they’re a priority. I mean, if you take USAID, which is the biggest national development and humanitarian agency, our assistance just this past year, increased to $13 billion in Africa.

Good afternoon, good evening, hello everyone! Thank you, Consul General Haskell for the incredible hospitality here in Cape Town. Leslie, Troy – thank you for your leadership of USAID’s work in South Africa and across the Southern Africa region.

I mean, one of the systemic ways that we're addressing it at USAID is we are actually combining our climate work and our food security work into a new bureau, recognizing that the shocks that Mark referenced – they’re the new normal.

Today, I am announcing a new commitment to action for philanthropic and private sector leaders to join in these kinds of efforts. And I want really, in particular, to thank Darren [Walker] and Raj [Shah] for being anchor partners and helping to guide this effort. I'm thrilled to kick off this commitment to action by announcing here that USAID will invest over $35 million in additional resources to help the partner countries that are gathered here today to drive economic growth, build more effective and transparent governance, and improve basic services for people. We will draw in private sector partners, as we have with m-mama and the Vodafone Foundation.

With USAID support, the Moldovan government is strengthening courts so they can be more responsive to citizens, advancing locally-led efforts to build transparency and bolstering independent media.