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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Statement by USAID Acting Administrator Donald Pressley
at the opening of the Global Partnerships Exhibition
April 9, 2001
Thank you, Chairman Wilson, for your kind remarks. And a special thank you to United Negro College Fund President William Gray III for the opportunity to speak before this distinguished group.
In walking through the exhibit, I was struck by the breadth and depth of these higher education partnerships, including significant collaboration with USAID in South Africa. These partnerships are truly addressing the everyday problems of people at all levels and UNCF plays an important role in helping develop these.
Many of you have heard of the phrase "the digital divide," the term used to describe the inequality of access to the benefits of information technology. However, the issue is broader: the underlying problem in today's global economy is a knowledge divide: those who have the knowledge and the skills to make their own lives and those of their children better and those who don't. To bridge the knowledge divide, we know that the most powerful tool is education. We know that investments in education have greater impact on economic development than any other single investment. Finally, we know that girls' education has the highest economic return of all.
Bridging the knowledge divide is not a static process. Similar to the increasing power of computers, knowledge is expanding at an accelerated pace. Recent estimates say stock of world knowledge is doubling every 14 months to 5 years. And who creates the knowledge that makes the world better? Clearly, it is the science, research and information disseminating capacity of you and your higher education institutions that play a critical role.
In the United States, our Higher Education Community is a national treasure whose positive impacts are seen daily in every corner of America. Globalization brings a new set of challenges and the U.S. Higher Education Community has committed itself to look outward and apply its vast range of people, skills and knowledge to issues and challenges beyond our shores.
That is good news for USAID, which works in 114 countries around the world, because for every collective success - and there have been many in health, education, democracy and economic growth -- we are confronted with new and more complex problems, such as HIV/AIDS, civil and ethnic strife, and global stewardship of resources such as water, air and forests. We in USAID depend on the talents and skills of all U.S. colleges, universities and community colleges in our overseas programs. However, within the U.S. Higher Education Community, it is the contributions of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities or HBCUs to higher education partnerships which I would like to highlight.
In many ways, Historically Black Colleges and Universities have helped transform our U.S. social and economic landscape. Over the years, HBCUs have positively addressed challenges such as limited resources and discrimination -- they have created strong institutions and collaborated effectively with a diversity of groups.
However, as important as HBCUs have been for the United States, it is their interaction with their developing country counterparts that we recognize and celebrate tonight. What you see here in this room is the fruit of the collective efforts of 33 higher education partnerships. These partnerships bring institutions, people and communities together to create and apply knowledge to local problems and challenges. This is bridging the "knowledge divide" in action.
The capacity of developing country institutions and organizations has been greatly strengthened by the training of over 4,300 USAID participants at 66 HBCUs in the last 10 years.
You have seen the outstanding results around this room of the higher education partnerships. What I would like to touch on are some common characteristics that are their strengths:
HBCU partnerships are global in nature and stretch from Armenia to Cambodia, Jamaica, Brazil, Bangladesh, Romania, Guyana, Egypt, Ethiopia and Ivory Coast.
Global Education Partnerships with the participation of host country institutions such as those represented here focus on the compelling needs of developing countries and their people: from food security, HIV/AIDS, and democracy to renewable energy, health care and quality education.
The partnerships make broad use of information technology: Information technology is a tool, transforms the people that use it, brings institutions together, and accelerates grassroots results.
Finally, the partnerships are two-way. They are people-to-people at their core. They bring the diversity of the United States into contact with diverse cultures and peoples overseas on a common agenda. The U.S. institutions, their faculty, their students and their communities are enriched beyond measure by the experience and the interaction.
It is with the highest pleasure that USAID and the other foreign affairs and domestic agencies of the United States salute the HBCUs and their counterpart institutions on the international higher education partnership programs. I ask the Ambassadors here present to send the U.S. Government's collective goodwill and congratulations on a job well done to their respective countries.
We now understand that education and the search for knowledge are lifetime processes, not a one-time injection of learning during one's youth. Thus, more and more, all the world's countries will be turning to their higher education institutions to take on challenges that, at first glance, look impossible, intractable and insolvable.
The truth of the matter is that diverse peoples working together, creating and sharing knowledge, can make a difference as your own activities demonstrate. Knowledge cannot be hoarded; it must be shared and used. Partnerships make that happen. If the future is uncertain, there is certainty that the U.S. Higher Education Community, as evidenced tonight by the magnificent work of its HBCU members and their overseas partners, can and must play a dominant role in bridging the widening knowledge divide and in creating a better world for current and future generations.
Thank you and best wishes for continued success to all.
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Last Updated on: January 02, 2009 |
