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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Remarks by Ambassador Harriet C. Babbitt, USAID Deputy Administrator
Business Women's Network Conference
October 18, 1999
Thank you, Edie. On behalf of the U.S. Agency for International Development, it is my pleasure to welcome all of you to Washington.
I want to thank Edie Fraser and the Business Women's Network for convening this remarkable event.
To have outstanding business women from more than ninety nations gathered, along with their American counterparts and leading diplomats and government officials, is a milestone in women's march to a greater role in global affairs.
This meeting embodies the spirit of globalization, with all its promise of accelerated growth and greater understanding among nations.
Yet globalization presents challenges as well. Let me quote one of the most thoughtful people in government, Under Secretary of the Treasury Stu Eizenstat.
The challenge of making globalization work for the benefit of all people in all nations, he said,
"…will guide the work of U.S. policy makers during the first half of the 21st century in much the same way as our effort to contain communism dominated the last half of the 20th century."We at USAID believe that one of the ways to make globalization both more just and more effective is for women to be deeply involved in it.
We want women involved as entrepreneurs and decision makers, and we also want women in developing nations to share in its benefits.
Our agency has, in recent years, put special emphasis on programs to benefit women and girls.
We do so not only for humanitarian reasons, but because we believe that when women and girls have better health, education and employment opportunities, they become engines of growth in their countries.
That is why, in recent years, USAID's program has included literally millions of microenterprise loans in the developing world and former Soviet states, the majority of them to women.
On my recent trip to Russia I met with women who were using these small loans to go into clothing and household products businesses.
It was an inspiring sight to see these capitalist entrepreneurs hard at work in the former bastion of world communism.
One of my USAID colleagues recently arranged for a Ukraine woman to attend a three-week business course at the University of Connecticut. The woman returned to her hometown, greatly expanded her small pharmaceutical supply business and formed the town's first women's business network.
She also told my colleague that all the Marxist theory she had learned in school was out the window. She was putting now her faith in what she'd learned in Connecticut.
USAID has many other programs to help women develop their full potential.
In El Salvador, Etelvina Lizama now has running water for the first time in her life. As a result, she and her three daughters can now devote the time they used to spend hauling water to education or more productive work.
Multiply that story thousands of times and you begin to see a real change in the lives of women around the world.
Education is one of USAID's top priorities, with special emphasis on women and girls. When women in developing nations receive just a few years more schooling, they go on to have fewer, healthier children, and the education of those children is substantially improved.
The result of our investment in the developing world is less human suffering -- and a healthier, more prosperous and stable world. That is why we say that foreign assistance is truly a win-win proposition, and one that reflects basic American values.
I also want to update you on USAID's partnership with the Business Women's Network and an important new program called the Women's Entrepreneur Corps.
First, let me again thank Edie Frazer and Flori Roberts for their leadership in this undertaking.
The Corps will place U.S. business women as mentors overseas, where they will work with USAID business development programs.
On my recent trip to Russia, I visited a similar program, a farmer-to-farmer exchange that is part of USAID's Food for Peace program.
An American dairyman was teaching Russian producers cheese products strategies for keeping costs down and quality up -- concepts not emphasized during the Soviet era when the focus was on quantity alone.
The American and the Russian cheese producers were a perfect match. The US dairyman didn't speak Russian but they all spoke cheese and understood each other perfectly.
I believe the Women's Entrepreneur Corps can be equally effective -- if we plan it carefully and find that perfect fit that will spell success.
If we do that, the Corps will benefit our own nation just as much as the host countries.
I say that because I know what courage and ingenuity women in developing nations and former Soviet states bring to their businesses as they overcome economic, political and cultural obstacles to development.
Early next month, USAID and the Business Women's Network will convene a working group that will focus on some of the specific questions that must be addressed. We have high hopes for this partnership. It can be important to us all.
The Entrepreneur Corps is just one example of the growing role that women will play in international development in the next century, and this meeting is a milestone in shaping that role.
Thank you for being here.
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 |
