USAID: Response of J. Brian Atwood, USAID Administrator

This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.

Response of J. Brian Atwood, USAID Administrator
at the Society for International Development Dinner
May 20, 1999

I want to thank all of you for your kind words -- and apologize to all who paid for a ticket tonight in hopes that you could sleep in the Ambassador's residence in Brazil.

I have long had a plan that I would end my career-preferably at the age of eighty plus - as an Ambassador. It is obvious that the Good Lord has something else in mind for me.

What I ask of my friends-and this room is full of them-is that you don't feel sorry for Susan and me. Judging from the humor I have heard, you don't.

We are both fatalists. It just wasn't meant to be.

My concept of a successful government career has been getting into a senior position to fight for something important. I did that. I won. And I have no regrets whatsoever.

Had we not joined together to fight for the Agency for International Development, the United States might be without a long term development program today.

There is no doubt that we would have a disaster relief program. We would have a program to support post-crisis transitions. We would have a program to sponsor conferences on democracy or one that supported our diplomacy on climate change or intellectual property right or financial system reform.

We need such programs to support our foreign policy goals and the State Department would support such programs because the payoff is immediate.

But we would have lost our nation's commitment to the hard work of development assistance. We would have lost what President Harry Truman started over 50 years ago with the Point Four Program-the somewhat idealistic notion that rich countries have an obligation to help poor countries help themselves.

The United States, in pursuing sustainable development, has changed the world. We don't do it alone --we aren't even the number one donor anymore-but we do continue to lead in development thinking and the people in this room are the reason why.

Imagine what this world would look like today had we not invested in the unglamorous but vital programs of the past: agricultural development--the Green Revolution.

health care: the reduction of infant mortality by one-half

education: the growth of literacy that has done more to fuel economic expansion than any other factor

family planning that has significantly slowed global population growth;

technical assistance for economic reform; --the development of democracy from civil society to the rule of law to government itself.

Almost six years ago, I delivered my first major speech as AID Administrator. It was to the Society for International Development. The date was June 9, 1993.

I discussed the problems facing our community--our multiple mandates, our operating style, our institutional culture. The Ferris Commission and the Bush Administration were highly critical of USAID's management.

I told you that night that we would survive--that we would revitalize. In fact, I promised you that the United States would not "abandon the mission for which AID was created."

Little did I know then that the 1994 election would hit Washington like a tidal wave.

Frankly, we came very close to abandoning the development mission during those dark days. Key members of Congress wanted to shut AID's doors. Some even believed that the government could somehow balance its budget by eliminating foreign aid and welfare.

We weathered the tidal wave by refusing to budge.

Now USAID is on its way back. Our regular budgets are growing incrementally, but the supplementals are getting larger and larger.

Let us hope that one day it will dawn on our leaders that more money now for development will mean less money later for disasters.

In my remaining time at USAID, the President has given me another opportunity to serve, this time coordinating our government's efforts to provide aid and comfort to the Kosovo refugees.

As many of you know, to visit the refugee camps in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro is to be reminded why you entered this work in the first place. You talk to people who saw their neighbors tied up, doused with gasoline and set afire, or saw their loved ones shot before their eyes. You hear a hundred stories like that.

Here in Washington, we often feel we're surrounded by shades of gray, choosing between greater and lesser evils, but to go to the camps is to be reminded that sometimes the world is black and white, that pure evil does exist, and sometimes we must take a stand against it.

I believe we'll meet the challenge of the Balkans. I don't like the violence there, the so-called collateral damage, any more than you do. But I agree, with Vice President Gore when he said: "Can we really allow the 21st century to be shaped by men in black ski masks with weapons in their hands and hatred in their hearts?"

I deeply resent it when Mr. Milosevic and others manipulate history to justify their aggression. People in many parts of the world, including the United States, have worked out their differences without "ethnic cleansing, " which is a rather sterile way to describe cold-blooded murder on a grand scale.

Academics write books about the differences between this group and that group, but someone should write a book about how much alike we all are. This is how John F. Kennedy put it in his speech at American University in June of 1963:

"In the last analysis, our most common basic link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

The real division is not between this or that religion or race or ethnic group, but between those people who embrace our common humanity and those who care only for themselves. And when the latter group is armed, and committing crimes against humanity, the civilized world has no choice but to stop them.

I want to thank the Society for the honor you have bestowed upon me. Your timing could not have been better!

More importantly, I thank you for what you do with your lives. Whatever your individual field, you serve people who are less fortunate. You make the American Aid program the most effective in the world.

I will have more to say about the American development program before I leave my current job. But tonight is a night for less serious matters. Tonight I am just grateful for your support and friendship.

Thank you and God Bless you.

This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.

Last Updated on: July 12, 2001