Thursday, January 19, 2023

Davos, Switzerland

TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT

WATCH THE FULL EVENT HERE

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: My Swiss colleague just mentioned digitization. USAID funded three-quarters of the [Ukraine] Ministry of Digital Transformation’s efforts to embrace initially a tool like that – which has been so incredible in India in getting benefits and transactions out to the most rural areas, out of the most impoverished communities, and has itself been a tool of economic growth and capitalization. That’s how it started in Ukraine, something similar. But now, the so-called Diia app, which is used by nearly 19 million of the 30 million eligible adults – just a single app – provides 120 government services.  

And it’s not just that, right now there’s reconstruction, including that which Lugano helped spearhead – the Lugano conference. Every time there’s a construction project, that’s an opportunity for corruption. You go with your app – there’s a QR code on every permit on a construction site in Ukraine – you go with your app and the app takes you to the contracts for the individuals and the companies who are involved in the corruption. And then as a journalist or a civil society organization, you can dig into it. So even with this monstrous aggression, with apartment buildings and energy infrastructure obliterated on a daily basis, they’re still plugging away. 

And we are now looking at taking this Diia app and seeing whether other countries where leaders were elected on anti-corruption platforms – in places like Zambia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador – whether this app can actually be exported and become a tool to not only provide social services, which is incredibly important in its own right because democracy must deliver for citizens, but also to give citizens this power vis-à-vis of either government so the middlemen are not there anymore and giving assurances you can see with your own eyes, you know, what does it work?

Administrator Samantha Power Travels to World Economic Forum

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USAID Administrator Samantha Power will attend the World Economic Forum from January 17 to 19 in Davos, Switzerland. During her visit, the Administrator will emphasize the role and responsibility of the private sector in helping unlock solutions to critical global challenges. 

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