It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Inception and Learning Event on “Sustainable and Effective Management of the Prey Lang Extended Landscape”. USAID is thrilled to begin this constructive dialogue with civil society, community members, private sector, and national and sub-national government officials. You will have a chance to share information and knowledge about your work and strengthen your commitment and efforts to conserve the forests and biodiversity. Today’s event marks the start of an exciting new partnership between the U.S. government and the Royal Government of Cambodia through USAID’s Greening Prey Lang program. This partnership will bring all stakeholders together to preserve and sustainably manage its forests and biodiversity in Cambodia.
Globally, TB is the top infectious disease killer worldwide. Every year, over 10 million people are infected, and nearly 2 million lose their lives to this disease. Over 4 million cases are undiagnosed or without proper treatment and care – in fact, 40 percent of TB cases are undetected. This can lead to drug-resistant forms of the disease. Those strains are expensive to treat and subject patients to potential side effects. The high cost of medication and loss of income during a patient’s illness can lead to catastrophic expenditures and poverty.
We are here today celebrating the strong relationship between the United States and Vietnam, due largely to two tracks of engagement that transpired concurrently. As the United States sought the return of our MIAs, the Vietnamese sought help with their war-wounded, and that is where USAID’s humanitarian work played a major role.
At USAID our job is to walk alongside our partner countries and join with them on their journey to self-reliance -- to work toward the day when foreign assistance is no longer necessary. I am so proud of the work that USAID has accomplished with our Vietnamese partners over the past 30 or so years, which has contributed significantly to Vietnam’s strong position today.
It is a great pleasure to be here at the launch of the youlead.lk portal. Any day we can support initiatives that contribute to the education, health, and employment of youth, be it in Sri Lanka or elsewhere in the world, is a good day. Young people are critical to global stability, economic growth, and development of today - and for the future. Recognizing youth participation as vital to development, USAID partners with the private sector, national governments, youth, and civil society across the world to build the capacity and empower the next generation of leaders.
Today, I am particularly proud to celebrate the launch of Youlead.lk - a web portal that for the first time gathers all the elements young job-seekers and entrepreneurs need from career development, to job-matching, from access to finance, e-learning, and mentoring, in one place. What is significant about Youlead.lk is that it is not just a platform. It is an ecosystem. An ecosystem that will grow and expand as more and more youth add to it and become part of the community, providing leverage to their ventures and ideas.
Good morning/ Sanibonani and thank you for the opportunity to participate in today’s event. It is a great honor to be here on behalf of the United States Government to bring our message of support and hope about tuberculosis control- a key priority for us all. For those who joined last year’s commemoration, you remember the theme called upon leaders to work towards a TB-free world. I was glad to be there with His Majesty, King Zwelithini to hear from Deputy President Mabuza, who acknowledged the essential role of traditional leaders in ending TB among their communities.
Today we launch a new phase of the U.S.-India energy cooperation, one which will take this partnership to the next level by enhancing India’s ability to incorporate robust analysis into energy and environmental decision-making.
Analysis and data are key to making future development choices in a complex world. It’s what big companies and economies around the world focus on to deliver value. So we wondered, why not in the energy sector which is so much more complex and can benefit from better use of data and analytics to improve planning for the future.
I certainly love it when a plan comes together. And thanks to a remarkable partnership, we celebrate Zambia’s first utility-scale solar project that will provide affordable power to the country’s households, schools, hospitals, and businesses.
WE Act aims to harness the unbounded entrepreneurial potential of Cambodia’s young businesswomen and help them find partnerships, provide key resources, and strategic advice. These and other tools will help them grow their businesses and engage with associations that can help magnify the voices of women entrepreneurs in civic life and channel their interests in the policy arena.
This project reflects a global strategy. USAID has funded similar entrepreneur-strengthening projects with great success in many countries and regions around the world. Our efforts have concentrated on strengthening the eco-system for female entrepreneurs, from reforming the policy framework to allow women to compete on equal footing with their male counterparts, to providing access to finance and venture capital. It includes mentoring and coaching by businessmen and women, integration with business associations, business incubation, and a host of other elements.
With 356 million people between the ages of 10 and 24 and 256 million adolescents, India has the world’s largest young population.
We know that when adolescents have access to health services, education and employment opportunities, they make better choices for themselves, they live longer, and they participate more in society. Better opportunities for adolescents mean better outcomes for India.
The goals of reducing gender inequality and promoting women's rights have been a priority of USAID and our partners – governments, donors, and civil society – for a long time. But despite the considerable investment so far to advance social justice and gender equality, women continue to be underrepresented in decision making bodies, not only in the private sector, at the local level and in civil society, but in the politics and government as well. The barriers that prevent women from effectively participating in civic life remain an issue for Cambodian women, who are often excluded from the more traditionally male-dominated spheres of political decision-making.
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Last updated: January 31, 2017
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