This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Ambassador Babbitt, USAID Deputy Administrator
Sister Cities International
Washington, D.C., March 5, 1998
U.S. Agency for International Development
It's a great pleasure to be here. Sister Cities
International (SCI) has been a significant force for
international understanding for more than 40 years. Long
before global markets and communications were everyday
concepts, Sister Cities was linking communities in nations
that had been enemies, as well as in nations that were long-time friends. With links between 1,158 American cities
and more than 2,000 cities in 123 countries, Sister Cities
establishes long-term relationships that build lasting
bridges.
I know our Administrator, Brian Atwood, has spoken
to you often. I am delighted it is now my turn.
Sister Cities and USAID have cooperated in a number
of projects over the years. Most recently, our Agency
supported the participation of Sister Cities International's
Executive Director Juanita Crabb -- along with the mayors
of Milwaukee, New Haven and Edison, New Jersey -- in
January at the World Mayors' Conference in India. The
U.S. visitors spoke on the importance of practical, realistic
planning, and on the need for innovative partnerships
among those with a stake in good urban management.
Devolvement of significant authorities and powers
from India's central government to local governments was
a hot issue. After the conference, India's National Institute
of Urban Affairs, one of USAID's principal partners in
India, executed a Protocol of Intent with SCI. The intent
of that protocol, as you know, is to facilitate closer Indo-American cooperation on addressing shared concerns on
managing cities.
USAID is pleased that Sister Cities International is
exploring options for working more closely with Indian
mayors, municipal commissions and key urban decision-makers.
SCI has a long history of providing opportunities for
people to reach across barriers to find common ground,
and share solutions to mutual problems. Sister Cities
propped open a window on the world for Soviet citizens
that helped to bring an end to the Cold War. You continue
to build bridges between East and West.
We value Sister Cities partnership in USAID's efforts
to strengthen a free press in the former Soviet Union. Five
new American newspapers have recently joined the Sister
Cities International Russian-American Partnerships for
Independent Newspapers, operating under a sub-grant from
the USAID-funded Media Development Project.
These new partners, like the previous eight American
papers in the program, will send executives to assess needs
of partner papers in Russia. The Murmansk Polar Truth
will be visited by colleagues from Jacksonville's Florida
Times-Union and the Golden Horn of Vladivostok by
counterparts from the Oakland, California Montclarion.
Internships and other exchanges then allow Russian
journalists and managers to see how American newspapers
function and to learn management and production
techniques.
Projects like this help to ensure that new democracies
will have the variety of independent voices needed to
maintain a free and open society, where human rights as
well as property rights are respected.
Technical assistance and training such as this have
always been an important part of our Agency's work, and they are taking on an even more important role. Training is part of virtually every USAID program.
Yesterday, for example, Brian Atwood participated in
a ceremony with a group that sends American teachers and
administrators for one-year stints to help teacher training
institutions in Africa. This group also brings mid-level
African bankers to this country for intensive four-week
training at American banks. In recent years, our training
programs have helped establish stock exchanges, banking
and justice systems in countries that had little or no
experience in these areas.
Sending U.S. health professionals to developing
countries and bringing foreign healthworkers here for
training has long been an important aspect of our efforts to
improve basic health care in developing countries. Our
goal is to help them develop both health care systems, and
the capacity to train their own healthworkers.
Prevention is one of our major health priorities, and
that emphasis is reflected in our new initiative to eliminate
Vitamin A deficiency as a public health problem worldwide
by the year 2000. As you know from pursuing your own
"Hidden Hunger Initiative" to end micronutrient
deficiencies, ensuring that children receive adequate
Vitamin A is one of the most cost-effective ways to save
the lives of children, and to prevent childhood blindness.
USAID sponsored the research that first documented
the link between Vitamin A and child deaths. We are
continuing to fund research on Vitamin A deficiency and
maternal deaths. We are also supporting research on its
potential for reducing transmission of HIV/AIDS from
mother to baby during pregnancy, delivery and
breastfeeding.
Our efforts will focus on Vitamin A education in
maternal and child programs, encouraging consumption of
Vitamin A-rich foods and providing supplements where
appropriate. We look to partner with food manufacturers
in the fortification of certain common foods with
Vitamin A.
As you know, ensuring adequate Vitamin A
consumption is one of the most cost-effective ways to save
the lives of children under age five. If enough others join
in this effort, we can save 3 million children annually and
prevent 500,000 cases of blindness.
We are interested in exploring additional ways we can
work with Sister Cities to help reduce the prevalence of
micronutrient deficiencies that jeopardize survival and
damage children's mental and physical development and
health.
Unlike infectious diseases, of course, there is no way
to immunize children against malnutrition and
micronutrient deficiencies. It will take public
understanding and ongoing efforts.
We know that educating mothers is a key element in
improving the health of children. A child whose mother
receives even one year of schooling has a 9 percent better
chance of surviving to age five. Additional years of
education bring even greater gains.
Indeed, broad-based elementary and secondary
education -- including greater educational opportunities for
girls -- is an essential ingredient in the future development
and prosperity of all developing countries. Sister Cities
exchanges help build understanding of this -- and crucial
support for education at the local level.
Sister Cities' Latin American theme at today's
conference is particularly appropriate. Improving basic
education and increasing access and opportunities for girls
to receive education are major USAID goals in Latin
America and the Caribbean. Countries like Chile and
Costa Rica are now reaping the rewards of previous
investments in elementary and secondary education.
Two decades ago, democracy was the exception --
today, every nation in our Hemisphere but Cuba is a
democracy in progress.
Sister Cities growing presence in former Soviet
countries, Latin America and the Caribbean provides an
important resource. As in India, local officials in many
newly democratic Latin American and former Soviet
countries are taking on wider responsibilities as
governments decentralize and privatize their economies.
Relationships with local officials in the United States
can be especially helpful. What a wonderful thing to be
welcomed into the challenges of global markets and
growing democratic responsibilities by new American
friends!
Broad participation at the grassroots level is a key to
the long-term success of new democracies. Linking
citizens who may be participating in newly forming civic,
women's, trade and professional groups for the first time,
you help grassroots democracy take root. Sister Cities is
helping to build a vital support system for the institutions
that strengthen new -- sometimes fragile -- democracies and
free market economies.
Speaking in Panama last October to the Conference of
Spouses of Heads of State and Government of the
Americas, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton pointed out
something we all need to remember:
"Every democracy, whether newly formed or centuries
old, is fragile. The process of building and tending a
democracy is never-ending. Democracy can only take root
when its principles are internalized in the hearts and minds
of all people."
USAID and Sister Cities stand together in helping
those principles take root.
The exchanges you foster, the linkages you build,
open new realms of understanding and possibility for
people around the world. They open eyes. They open
minds. They open hearts.
That is what America has always been about.
Before I close, I want to mention a program our
Agency started four years ago called "Lessons Without
Borders." Some of you may already be familiar with it.
It was designed to bring home some of the many
lessons in development that USAID has learned in its work
overseas. We have conducted "Lessons Without Borders"
activities in cities and rural areas across the country -- with
some remarkable outcomes.
This program has two principle benefits:
-- First, it enables domestic and international
development practitioners to share their most effective
practices in areas like health, economic development,
housing and the environment. Baltimore dramatically
increased immunization rates. Other cities tried new
approaches to teen violence and welfare to work efforts.
-- Second, "Lessons Without Borders" has been
extremely helpful in educating Americans about
development assistance and the important work that their
tax dollars are supporting all over the world.
We recently launched a new aspect of this program,
based on a successful program of one of our donor
partners. In Norway, high school students work for a day
in their own communities, donating their pay to projects
they have chosen in developing countries. In the process
they learn about the needs and problems of developing
countries, and ways in which assistance can be effective.
Partly as a result of this early exposure, Norwegians
overwhelmingly support foreign assistance. The first U.S.
pilot projects in "Operation Day's Work" will begin next
year. There will be many opportunities for USAID and
Sister Cities to collaborate in this program.
I have brought packets that include more information
on "Lessons Without Borders," and "Operation Day's
Work," as well as our Vitamin A Initiative.
With me today is Karen Anderson, who is involved in
all three of these programs. I will take some questions
now. Please feel free to contact either me or Karen if you
have additional questions or ideas on how we can work
together more effectively.
Thank you.
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
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Last Updated on: July 18, 2001
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