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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Remarks of J. Brady Anderson, USAID Administrator
to the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid
September 8, 1999
Thank you, Bill, and my thanks to all of you for being here today.
I am delighted to be delivering my first major public speech as USAID Administrator at this meeting of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid.
Because of your contributions to USAID and development work over the years, no audience could be more appropriate as I set out to meet the challenge of leading this very fine agency.
I know there are also a number of USAID staff members present and I am pleased to be speaking to you as well.
Last week, I met with Bill Reese, Carol Lancaster, Ted Weihe and Elise Smith in my office. In that meeting it was clear how hard your committee is working on many of the issues of great importance to USAID.
They made many valuable comments, but one I particularly remember came from Carol Lancaster, who observed that the way to lead the talented men and women of USAID is to "touch their values."
During my years in Africa, leaders often told me, "We look to America for leadership, not because of your wealth or military might, but because of the values you represent."
To me, USAID not only embodies the generosity, the decency and the compassion of the American people - it also makes those values basic components of our American foreign policy.
To direct such an agency is both an opportunity and a privilege.
I know you and I share many of the same values, or we wouldn't be here today. Let me make clear that I intend to be a friend to the PVO community and to work with you in furtherance of the goals we both share.
I'm very much an outsider in Washington - I haven't lived here since I worked for Senator Fulbright one summer just after I graduated from college many years ago - so perhaps I should tell you a little about myself.
My roots are in Arkansas. Not in a town called Hope, but one called Helena, on the banks of the Mississippi River, where both my parents were schoolteachers.
I practiced law in my hometown, along with my wife, Betty Wray Anderson, and later I joined then-Attorney General Clinton's staff and then his staff when he became Governor of Arkansas.
There came a time, in the mid-1980s when Betty and I and our two daughters decided to make a change in our lives.
We joined the Wycliffe Bible Translators and moved to a far-away place called Tanzania, where at the age of forty-four we studied Swahili and began five years of living and working in the villages of East Africa.
One of my most enduring memories of Africa is how hard women work.
I have seen them fetching water from distant wells or streams, chopping and hauling firewood, working in fields, often miles from their village, with a hoe in their hands and a baby on their backs. To live in a poor nation like Tanzania is to live a life defined by hardship and struggle.
That is why I am pleased that so many of USAID's programs give special emphasis to improving the lives of women and girls.
I also am grateful to this committee for the support you have given us on gender issues, because I know you share my concerns about the harsh conditions that women and girls so often face in developing countries.
Betty and I often wrote from Tanzania to tell our friends back home about our work. Governor and Mrs. Clinton were on our mailing list, and they often wrote back, and we discussed our work with them when we returned to Arkansas to visit our parents.
It was an honor when President Clinton, after his election, asked me to be the U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania - and a challenge I accepted gladly.
One of the first things I learned as Chief of Mission in Dar es Salaam was what a remarkably talented staff our USAID mission had in place. I also came to appreciate over time the immense contribution of the PVOs who were carrying out the USAID programs.
I well remember my first contact with PVOs came not long after I became Ambassador when I visited Rwandan refugee camps in Northwest Tanzania in 1994. I spent many hours talking with workers from CARE, CRS, the IRC and World Vision, and I came away with a great and abiding respect for their skill and dedication.
More recently, in Kosovo, I shared a breakfast of Coca-Cola and potato chips at USAID headquarters in Pristina with representatives of World Vision, CARE, CRS, the American Refugee Committee, and ADRA. As we discussed the urgent need to provide winterized shelter for the Kosovars, I was once again impressed by the creativity and commitment the PVOs brought to the table.
As Ambassador, I saw the important work that USAID was carrying out in democracy, education, health care, economic development and other areas. I saw those programs in action, on the ground, helping real people.
As USAID Administrator, my challenge is to help the agency carry out its mission with maximum effectiveness around the world - and to convince Congress and the American people that our mission is as important as you and I know it to be.
I do have a list of priorities for my tenure at USAID, and one of them is to improve the agency's relationship with Congress. We simply must do that or we won't be able to do the job that we joined USAID to do. I intend to be actively engaged on Capitol Hill, discussing with Members of Congress what we do with taxpayers dollars and why it is so important to our country.
Americans don't want to live in a world of failed states, civil wars, terrorism, competition for scarce resources, and endless refugee crises. Such a world threatens our national interests and the security and well being of our own citizens. I believe that USAID serves our national interests, by addressing the root causes of conflict, and I am more than willing to defend our work in those terms.
Bill Reese, in a recent letter to me, called for clear communication with the American people. I couldn't agree more. The agency has an important story to tell. We are helping millions of people - you and USAID together -- and advancing our national interest at the same time.
Together we need to do a better job of communicating this story, and your committee can help. It is essential to convey to the American people the importance of this form of engagement overseas.
Another of my priorities is USAID's evolving role with the Department of State.
I have great respect for the department and particularly for Secretary Albright. I believe the decision to have the USAID Administrator report to the Secretary of State was a good one. At the same time, the President's decision that USAID was to remain an independent agency is critical to maintaining the U.S. Government's focus on the medium and long-term challenges confronting us.
I look forward to working with Secretary Albright and her staff to make this relationship strong and productive. USAID and State have collaborated for many years. This is nothing new. I believe we can continue to improve our partnership and I welcome your advice on this evolving relationship.
During your discussions today, two panels will be addressing our R4 process and USAID's strategic plan. These are very important and I look forward to your contributions in these and the other areas you will be addressing. Rather than going into detail on these issues, I want to take this rare opportunity with you to lay out what I believe to be the major challenges facing us as we enter the new millennium.
On November 9, the world will mark the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. At that time, little did we know, or expect, that the end of one era in world history would unleash forces that had been frozen in time for nearly 45 years.
These events which precipitated the collapse of states, including the partial dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia, have led to ethnic and nationalistic turmoil in many regions of the world, including the former Soviet Union.
Africa, a major Cold War battleground and already disadvantaged by its colonial legacy, has been buffeted by a seemingly unending series of civil conflicts.
There is no better time than now to reassess our assumptions as they relate to how we view the challenges facing the global community. Such issues as global warming, environmental degradation, disease, illiteracy, hunger and high population growth rates are manifestations of deeper structural problems within many societies.
We have to understand how people perceive themselves and how they see themselves in relation to others, within their own societies. We have to ascertain whether or not there is a common set of values that instill within the individual, and groups of individuals, a greater sense of national identity.
We have to understand the tensions - societal fault lines - where crises often stem from the reality that some communities are advantaged at the expense of others.
We have to understand that conflict in many countries stems from a fractured and underdeveloped nationhood where in the absence of a broader sense of national identity and community, the seeds of democracy and economic reform will not fall on fertile ground. We have to appreciate the fact that a national identity and sense of national community reflect a sense of national purpose.
Our willingness to recognize these realities for what they are, and not what we would like them to be, is our major challenge as we approach the year 2000.
These are difficult issues that require us to reassess some of the basic assumptions of ten years ago when we celebrated the triumph of democracy over totalitarianism.
The world has turned out to be much more complicated than we had assumed. Yet that is no reason for us to give up hope. The history of human progress has been one of learning as much from our failures as from our successes. In the field of development assistance, we have learned a lot.
Some people feel that dealing with complex emergencies or responding to countries in crisis detracts from the continuing role of USAID as a development agency. I would argue that the opposite is the case. Long term development strategies, if they are to be successful, must address the root causes of potential conflict.
I think that USAID has made significant progress in incorporating conflict prevention and mitigation in its development strategies.
There is no question that as we enter into the next millennium we are confronted with immense forces of change in the world. There is much we don't understand.
This uncertainty about what we don't understand can create a sense of foreboding and even defeatism. We may feel that the problems are too complicated and too difficult for us to make a difference.
However, I firmly believe that if we open our minds to the opportunities and promise of a world of change, we can make a difference and enter the next millennium with a renewed sense of purpose.
Thank you for this opportunity to meet and to share some of my thoughts with 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 12, 2001 |
