[Senate Hearing 117-805]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                                                        S. Hrg. 117-805

  STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS FOR 
                            FISCAL YEAR 2023

=======================================================================

                                HEARINGS

                                before a

                          SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

            COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                                   on

                           H.R. 8282/S. 4662

   AN ACT MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FOREIGN 
 OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 
                    30, 2023, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

                               __________

                        U.S. Department of State
           United States Agency for International Development

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations


        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
                               __________
                              
                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                 
46-674 PDF               WASHINGTON : 2024 

                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               
                      COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                    PATRICK LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman

PATTY MURRAY, Washington             RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama, Vice 
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California             Chairman
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois          MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
JACK REED, Rhode Island              SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
JON TESTER, Montana                  LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire        LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 ROY BLUNT, Missouri
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii                 JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut      SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West 
JOE MANCHIN, III, West Virginia          Virginia
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico          CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
                                     MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
                                     BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
                                     MARCO RUBIO, Florida

                   Charles E. Kieffer, Staff Director

           Shannon Hutcherson Hines, Minority Staff Director

                                 ------                                

    Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs

                CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware, Chairman
PATRICK LEAHY, Vermont               LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina, 
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois              Ranking Member
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire        MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 ROY BLUNT, Missouri
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut      JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           JERRY MORAN, Kansas
                                     MARCO RUBIO, Florida
                                     BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee

                           Professional Staff

                               Tim Rieser
                             Kali Farahmand
                              Sarita Vanka

                         Paul Grove (Minority)
                      Katherine Jackson (Minority)
                        Adam Yezerski (Minority)

                         Administrative Support

                            Madeline Granda
                       LaShawnda Smith (Minority)    
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                       
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                                hearings

                       Wednesday, April 27, 2022

                                                                   Page

U.S. Department of State.........................................     1

                        Wednesday, May 25, 2022

United States Agency for International Development...............    39
                              ----------                              

                              back matter

List of Witnesses, Communications, and Prepared Statements.......    81

Subject Index:

    U.S. Department of State.....................................    83

    United States Agency for International Development...........    83
    
    
 
  STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS FOR 
                            FISCAL YEAR 2023

                              ----------                              


                       WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
           Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The subcommittee met at 2:35 p.m., in room SD-192, Dirksen 
Senate Office Building, Hon. Christopher A. Coons, (Chairman) 
presiding.
    Present: Senators Coons, Leahy, Durbin, Van Hollen, Graham, 
Moran, and Hagerty.

                        U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE


           opening statement of senator christopher a. coons


    Senator Coons. I call this hearing of the State and Foreign 
Operations Subcommittee, the Senate Appropriations Committee to 
order. We have one witness today, the Secretary of State, 
Anthony Blinken.
    It is great to have you here, Mr. Secretary. We have a lot 
to cover, so I will be relatively brief.
    We have, many of us, just come from a moving, and a 
powerful service in memory of a former Secretary Madeleine 
Albright. An extraordinary person who lived a remarkable life 
and career, and whose impact on the Department, on the Senate, 
on our Nation, on the world rooted in her commitment to 
democracy, to advancing the role of women was profound.
    I intend to propose naming a portion of the Fulbright 
Fellows for her, as we did for one of her predecessors for whom 
she also worked, former Senator and secretary, Edmund Muskie. 
The National Democratic Institute where she long served as 
Board Chair is naming their Annual Democracy Award for 
Secretary Albright.
    And Mr. Secretary, we very much look forward to suggestions 
from you as to how the State Department may want to also honor 
her service, especially as a defender of democratic principles, 
and someone who advanced the role of women leaders around the 
world.
    I have just returned from a number of Nations, including 
Georgia where the President, in particular, cited the 
mentorship and the example of Secretary Albright.
    No Secretary of State has an easy job, but yours, in 
particular at this moment in our modern history, is 
exceptionally demanding. And you have done exceptionally well 
at it. We are grateful both for the way in which you have 
represented us in the world, and for your recent trip to Kyiv 
which we look forward to hearing about, but also for your 
responsiveness to the committees of the Senate. You have 
testified frequently, at great length, and been very 
accessible.
    And so I wanted to thank you both for your service more 
broadly, leading the State Department, and representing us in 
the world, but also for your engagement with this Committee.
    We face a number of challenges, more than I need to take 
the time to recite in detail. Russia's unprovoked, unjustified, 
and brutal invasion of Ukraine, with regional and global 
security implications that we need to confront, and will be 
felt for decades.
    A global food security crisis greatly exacerbated by the 
war in Ukraine, now threatening hundreds of millions with food 
insecurity, a global pandemic that has infected half a billion, 
killed a million Americans, caused immense economic damage, and 
that continues to pose threats to all of us as new variants may 
emerge, climate change which continues to accelerate and 
threatens the entire world.
    Iran and North Korea, both, whose non-proliferation, whose 
efforts at nuclear proliferation threaten their regions; China 
which continues to be a peer competitor, and expands its 
influence around the world in ways we need to confront; and a 
growing clash between the forces of democracy and 
authoritarianism, to say nothing of a record refugee crisis, 
and ongoing conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, South Sudan, 
Libya.
    On the positive side, Mr. Secretary, you and the President 
have rallied a NATO in defense of Ukraine, its people, and its 
sovereignty. This administration is embracing our alliances and 
building coalitions, not embracing isolationism. You have shown 
the world that, as Secretary Albright so often said, we are the 
indispensable Nation, and the critical role that we can and 
must play.
    We have provided hundreds of millions of U.S.-manufactured 
COVID vaccine doses which, unlike those provided by Russia and 
China, are effective against all the variants. You have 
reaffirmed, and the role that the United States must play in 
advancing democracy and human rights around the world, and 
shown strong leadership on tackling climate through a variety 
of means, including the Development Finance Corporation.
    You are tackling global challenges, like economic 
instability, and violent conflict with new tools, like the 
Global Fragility Act, and you are addressing deeply rooted 
staffing and diversity challenges at the State Department with 
new resources provided by Congress.
    We here in this Committee have worked hard to find a 
bipartisan path forward and to support and promote our national 
security diplomacy interests.
    I am thankful for my Ranking Member, Senator Graham, who 
has been a good partner over a number of Congresses to myself, 
and to the former chairman of the subcommittee, and the 
chairman of the full Committee. Yet we have genuinely struggled 
to get either the allocation that this subcommittee deserves, 
or to fully meet the objectives that this subcommittee has 
taken on.
    We faced huge challenges last year with an allocation of $4 
billion below the budget request, and we were able to soften 
that impact, really, only by rescinding $2 billion from the 
Afghanistan account. An option we will not have again this 
year.
    We have done nothing to address our UN arrears, we have not 
done enough to face the growing food security, and refugee 
crisis, and we have a great deal of work to do together. So as 
our NATO partners have, we need to demonstrate that we can pull 
together and work together in the way this subcommittee 
traditionally has.
    We look forward to hearing from you, Mr. Secretary, how you 
see this year unfolding, what your highest appropriations' 
priorities are, and how we can work together to achieve our 
Nation's goals. Senator Graham.


              opening statement of senator lindsey graham


    Senator Graham. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, welcome. You are a very hard worker, and I 
enjoy working with you where we can, and we have our 
differences.
    This subcommittee has had a good track record of trying to 
put money into programs that produce value for the American 
people, and make the world a safer place. The World Food 
Program is under siege so there is a lot of talk in the 
building about another supplemental. Count me in. I am willing 
to look at Ukraine in terms of what their needs are.
    So you are just going to have to come to reality here, that 
as the world changes this subcommittee has a role to play when 
it comes to the State Department. I want to thank those under 
your command.
    Mr. Secretary, you know, I have spent a lot of time in the 
military, a lot of us go to war-torn regions, but it is the 
diplomat, the foreign service officer, the USAID worker, they 
are in harm's way just as much as anybody. And the work they do 
on behalf of stability can sometimes create a peaceful world, 
better than dropping a bomb. And I think the military agrees 
with that. So the military is a big fan of this account, 
because without developmental assistance in showing up you are 
going to lose ground.
    I just got back from Japan, Taiwan, and Australia. They 
want to do more. There is a backlash brewing against China's 
misadventures. One of my colleagues, I think, had a discussion 
with you yesterday about: What is the big deal about Ukraine, 
it used to be part of the Soviet Union?
    I think we can find common ground here that that Putin has 
no legitimate claim on Ukraine, it is a sovereign nation. Back 
in the '90s they did the Budapest Memo, where Russia, the 
United States, and Great Britain guaranteed the sovereignty of 
Ukraine if they would turn their nukes over to Russia. That 
agreement has been stepped upon.
    I think most of us here believe that Putin wants to 
recreate the Old Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, Ukraine is 
just a warm-up act, Moldova; he will go until somebody stops 
him.
    So this is not about a buffer zone between Russia and NATO, 
it is about a man with an ambition that I think is going to 
destroy his country, and has killed thousands of innocent 
people. And I appreciate the flow of weapons. It has been on 
the increase. I hope we can do more, and I think we should do 
more.
    But I want you to understand, Mr. Secretary, most 
Republicans do not see Putin's endeavors as any way legitimate, 
and that we all understand, if we don't stop him in Ukraine he 
will keep going.
    Now, when it comes to China, Japan is going to increase 
their military spending, the Solomon Islands, I haven't heard 
about that much since World War II, China is in play there. 
Appreciate you sending some diplomatic presence there. 
Developmental Finance Corporation is a brilliant idea, I think. 
It is now time to have a DFC component for Asia to compete with 
the Belt, Road Initiative by China. And I would like to work 
with the Chairman and the Secretary in beefing up our 
developmental aid presence in Asia to combat China.
    Afghanistan is heartbreaking. We will talk about all of 
that. It seems to be that the Iranians are making a demand on 
the administration to change the designation of the Iranian 
Revolutionary Guard Corps, no longer to be a foreign terrorist 
organization. I hope you resist that demand, and we will have a 
discussion about that.
    But Putin gave a speech today to the Duma. He said he vows 
to accomplish the goals of the invasion. He will not be 
deterred.
    So as we meet in Ramstein where Defense Ministers of NATO, 
and the ``coalition of the willing'' talk about providing more 
aid to Ukraine; Putin is basically telling his people, through 
the Duma that he is committed to see this through.
    My commitment is this will be the end of Putin one way or 
the other. That when this is over the Russian people will see 
they have no future under his leadership, that we keep the 
sanctions on, that we increase sanctions at every turn, we 
provide the brave Ukrainians the ability to fight back and 
that, over time, the world isolate Putin.
    I met with the International Criminal Court Prosecutor, Mr. 
Khan, yesterday, I think he has a good plan for those who are 
committing war crimes in Ukraine wearing Russian uniforms. So 
to Putin, you are committed to the invasion. We are committed 
to Ukraine's freedom. We are going to win, and you are going to 
lose. Thank you.
    Senator Coons. Thank you Senator Graham. Chairman Leahy.


               opening statement of senator patrick leahy


    Senator Leahy. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I am listening to 
the travel--I have been watching, and I have talked with 
Secretary Blinken again this morning about the amount of 
traveling he has done for us. And I must tell you, I worried 
greatly when you and Secretary Austin were going into Ukraine, 
because they announced it ahead of time.
    I suspect that was not the way you would like to have done 
it. But I am glad you went, and I am glad you got back safely. 
Senator Coons and Senator Graham have been traveling quite a 
bit lately. I went to Vermont, but I am going to be doing some 
of those trips later this year.
    I missed chairing this subcommittee, but I would note, Mr. 
Chairman, that over the years there are different chairs, 
myself, Senator Graham, Senator McConnell and I chaired this 
Committee. We got things done, always in a unified fashion, and 
I can think of no one more qualified, or better suited for the 
job than Senator Coons.
    And I am delighted that he is here. He cares passionately 
about it, not only in public, but in private he talks about 
these issues, and scurrying for diplomacy. I think the budget 
in this and the budget in the Department of State are extremely 
important in what we do in our non-military. I mean the 
military is obviously important, but we do in the non-military.
    I know that in some of our issues of foreign aid, I 
remember former Secretary Mattis said, if you want to cut these 
programs, foreign aid, and other things. And the State 
Department would say, if you want to cut those programs, buy 
more bullets because he is going to need them. And I agree.
    But the role you play with President Biden and Secretary 
Austin in marshalling the NATO countries, and all, to stand up 
united against Russia's unprovoked aggression, brutality in 
Ukraine, that is so important. And I know we spoke briefly, 
prior to leaving the funeral today, about how we have to stand 
up, and the fact that you were able to bring our NATO allies 
together. Sometimes they can be a disparate group, but they 
came together and this that is extremely important, and it 
shows a critical need for our country's leadership in NATO.
    I think if it was just a couple years ago, I don't think it 
would have happened that way, and here we are facing the 
greatest challenge to democracy since the '40s.
    Now, we are going to have another hearing on the global 
COVID and food security crisis. The pandemic continues to 
spread, it is mutating in scores of countries, the food 
security crisis has been greatly exacerbated by the 
skyrocketing commodity prices due to the war in Ukraine. COVID 
is important worldwide, because there is no place having a 
covert outbreak that is more than an airplane trip away from 
our shores.
    And we know that 161 million people are facing starvation, 
another 227 million are facing acute food insecurity. We are 
the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth; we have to step 
in on that. So I hope, Mr. Secretary, you can get the White 
House to ask for additional supplemental funds to address these 
global humanitarian emergencies. They have far-reaching 
economic security.
    I have got to step outside for a phone call, but I am going 
to be coming right back in to hear this.
    And Mr. Chairman I am so glad you are doing this.
    Senator Coons. Thank you very much, Chairman Leahy. And 
thank you for your very long, and very effective, and very 
engaged stewardship of this subcommittee over three decades. 
You have steered this subcommittee ably through some really 
hard budget times, political times, global environments, and I 
cannot possibly hope to succeed in living up to the record that 
you have established, of focus and excellence in delivering on 
our role in the world.
    Given the challenges we face, Mr. Secretary, if you can 
give us a broad overview, both of your insights from your trip 
to Kyiv, and the challenges facing the State Department, and 
your priorities for appropriations this year, we would be 
grateful.
STATEMENT OF HON. ANTHONY BLINKEN, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 
            STATE
    Secretary Blinken. Mr. Chairman, thank you very, very much, 
to you, to Chairman Leahy, Ranking Member Graham. I am grateful 
for this opportunity to talk about the administration's 
proposed budget for the State Department.
    Let me just start by saying that later today we will 
welcome back to the United States Trevor Reed, who was 
wrongfully detained in Russia. We are deeply grateful to our 
allies and partners who helped in this effort to bring him 
home. And I especially want to thank Special Presidential Envoy 
for Hostage Affairs, Ambassador Roger Carstens, known well to 
all of you; Ambassador John Sullivan in Moscow, and others in 
our Government, including in this Congress, who worked 
relentlessly to bring Trevor home, and who continue to press 
for the release of Paul Whelan, and other U.S. citizens 
wrongfully detained abroad.
    As you have noticed, several of us just came from the 
ceremony honoring Madeleine Albright. And just to take a moment 
to honor her extraordinary service.
    She was a friend to me, a mentor to me, someone I sought 
counsel in. She had, I think as you all know, an incredible 
clarity of voice, a voice that I think we can all still hear, 
and an ability to really get to the essence of things. Few 
diplomats have so clearly embodied the ideals for which our 
country stands, or done more to project them around the world.
    We mourn her passing, which is softened only by knowing 
that her example is going to continue to guide our Department 
and our foreign policy for years to come. I look forward to 
finding ways to honor her in the Department.
    And Chairman Leahy left the room but I did want to say to 
him that this may be the last time that I have the privilege of 
speaking on a budget request before a Committee that that he 
leads, and let me just simply join in the chorus of people 
thanking Chairman Leahy for his extraordinary service, not just 
for the service, but for the way that he has served and 
continues to serve.
    Always championing the vital importance of investing in 
diplomacy and development, always insisting that human rights 
be at the heart of our foreign policy including, of course, by 
authoring a law requiring our government to withhold support 
for foreign security forces that commit gross human rights 
violations. And always being a partner to Secretaries of State 
eight administrations. The Department will always appreciate 
Chairman Leahy's support for our people, and for the work they 
do around the world.
    I read about a surprise tribute that Chairman Leahy 
received last week in Vermont's General Assembly. I was struck 
by something that he said, and I quote, ``I think Vermont is a 
place where you can develop your conscience. I think of the 
Senate as a place that should be the conscience of the Nation, 
and sometimes is.''
    So I would say for a long time, Senator Leahy has, in fact, 
been the conscience of this institution, when I served here I 
certainly felt that very strongly. Our Nation and the world are 
better for it.
    Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Graham, I have a statement 
that goes to the budget proposal, it goes to our modernization 
agenda, but in the interest of time, I am happy to submit it 
for the record so that we can get to a conversation, and to 
questions.
    [The statements follow:]
               Prepared Statement of Hon. Antony Blinken
    Chairman Leahy, Chairman Coons, and Ranking Member Graham, I'm 
grateful for the opportunity to speak with you about the 
Administration's proposed budget for the State Department.
    I just returned from Kyiv, where Secretary of Defense Austin and I 
demonstrated the United States' stalwart commitment to the government 
and people of Ukraine.
    Moscow's brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has brought into 
sharp focus the power and purpose of American diplomacy, and why it's 
more crucial than ever to our national security and the interests of 
the American people. Our diplomacy is rallying allies and partners 
around the world to join us in supporting Ukraine with security, 
economic, and humanitarian assistance, imposing greater costs on the 
Kremlin, strengthening our collective security and defense, and 
addressing the war's mounting global consequences, including the 
refugee and food crises.
    President Putin's war of choice has achieved the exact opposite of 
his objectives. Uniting, rather than dividing, Ukrainians. 
Strengthening, rather than weakening, NATO and the U.S.-EU partnership. 
Undercutting, rather than asserting, the Kremlin's claims of military 
might. And that's not only because of Ukraine's bravery and resilience. 
It's also because of effective U.S. diplomacy.
    We must continue to drive that diplomacy forward to seize the 
strategic opportunities and address risks presented by Russia's 
overreach, as countries reconsider their policies, priorities, and 
relationships. The budget request before you predated this crisis, but 
fully funding it is critical to ensuring Russia's war in Ukraine is a 
strategic failure for the Kremlin and serves as a powerful lesson to 
those who might consider following its path.
    As we focus on this urgent crisis, the State Department continues 
to carry out the missions traditionally associated with diplomacy, like 
responsibly managing great power competition with China, facilitating a 
halt to fighting in Yemen and Ethiopia, and pushing back against the 
rising tide of authoritarianism and the threat it poses to human 
rights.
    We also face evolving challenges that require us to develop new 
capabilities, such as the emergence and reemergence of infectious 
diseases, an accelerating climate crisis, and a digital revolution that 
holds both enormous promise and peril.
    Last fall, I set out a modernization agenda for the State 
Department and U.S. diplomacy to respond to these complex demands, 
built on five pillars. Deepening our expertise in areas that are 
critical to the future of America's national security. Continuing to 
attract, retain, and develop the world's best diplomats. Fostering 
greater innovation and feedback. Modernizing our technology, 
communications, and analytical capabilities. And reinvigorating in-
person diplomacy and public engagement--to get our diplomats beyond 
Embassy walls and engage the people we need to reach most.
    In no small part thanks to the significant fiscal year 2022 budget 
approved by Congress, we've been able to make real progress on this 
agenda, though much remains to be done.
    To give just a few examples, we've strengthened our capacity to 
shape the ongoing technological revolution, so it protects our 
interests, boosts our competitiveness, and upholds our values. With 
bipartisan Congressional support and encouragement, we recently 
launched a new bureau for cyberspace and digital policy, with 60 team 
members to start.
    We're also making headway on ensuring our diplomats reflect 
America's remarkable diversity, which is one of our nation's greatest 
strengths. Our Department's first ever Chief Diversity and Inclusion 
Officer, Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, has spearheaded an 
effort to analyze the obstacles that prevent underrepresented groups 
from joining and advancing at State, and will soon release a four-year 
strategic plan to tackle these problems. We've expanded the Pickering 
and Rangel fellowship programs and paid internships at State--again 
with strong Congressional input and support.
    These efforts are showing results. We recently welcomed a new 
cohort of 179 exceptional Foreign Service professionals, putting the 
Department on track for its largest annual intake in a decade.
    My first 15 months in this job have only strengthened my conviction 
that these and other reforms are not just worthwhile, but essential to 
delivering for the American people.
    Today's meeting marks the 102nd time I've briefed Congress in 
meetings or calls, which is one of the ways I've worked to meet the 
commitment I made in my confirmation hearing to restore Congress's role 
as a partner both in our foreign policymaking and in revitalizing the 
State Department. These engagements have also helped further refine and 
strengthen our modernization agenda.
    Ensuring we can deliver on that agenda will require sustained 
funding, new authorities, and most importantly, partnership from 
Congress.
    If we want to deepen our capability in key areas like climate, 
public health, and multilateral diplomacy; expand on Secretary Powell's 
vision of a foreign service training float; strengthen global capacity 
to prevent, detect, and respond to future outbreaks; and equip our 
workforce with the training, tools, and technology that today's 
challenges demand--we need additional resources.
    If we want to be able to swiftly stand up new missions . . .  
deploy diplomats when and where they're needed . . .  and make those 
decisions based on risk management rather than risk aversion--we need 
to reform the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act and 
Accountability Review Board statute to enable greater flexibility, 
while meeting important security standards.
    If we want to rapidly scale up in response to crises like refugee 
surges and epidemics, while also avoiding costly overhead, we need more 
flexible domestic hiring authorities.
    This is not about advancing the goals of any one administration or 
party. It's about refocusing our mission and purpose on the forces that 
will affect Americans' lives, livelihoods, and security for decades to 
come.
    So I appreciate the opportunity to speak today about why this 
matters, and look forward to continuing to make this committee, and 
Congress as a whole, a partner in these efforts.
    Thank you.

   Prepared Statement of Office of Inspector General, United States 
                          Department of State
    Chairman Coons, Ranking Member Graham, and Members of the 
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today 
for this hearing on the U.S. Department of State's fiscal year 2023 
budget.
    The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of 
State (Department) inspects embassies and diplomatic posts throughout 
the world to determine whether policy goals are being achieved and 
whether the interests of the United States are being represented and 
advanced effectively. OIG performs specialized security inspections and 
audits in support of the Department's mission to provide effective 
protection to our personnel, facilities, and sensitive information. OIG 
also audits Department operations and activities to ensure that they 
are as effective, efficient, and economical as possible. Finally, OIG 
investigates instances of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that may 
constitute either criminal wrongdoing or violation of Department 
regulations. In short, OIG plays a crucial role in overseeing the funds 
Congress appropriates to the Department for its many programs and 
activities and we believe that our work can assist Subcommittee Members 
in making funding decisions.
    In this testimony, I will discuss the impact of our work and 
highlight some of our recent and ongoing projects, including our 
Afghanistan-related work. Finally, I will conclude by discussing some 
of the challenges we face in fulfilling our oversight mission in the 
current budget environment.
                          mission and results
    OIG's mandate requires us to oversee both Department and U.S. 
Agency for Global Media (USAGM) programs and operations, which include 
more than 80,000 employees and more than 270 overseas missions and 
domestic entities. We also provide oversight for the U.S. International 
Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico (USIBWC), a 
Federal agency that operates under the foreign policy guidance of the 
Department. In terms of dollars, we are responsible for the oversight 
of more than $81 billion in Department, USAGM, and foreign assistance 
resources.
    In pursuit of this mission, OIG provides valuable return on 
investment through its audits, evaluations, inspections, and 
investigations. In fiscal year 2021, OIG identified more than $700 
million in questioned costs and taxpayer funds that could be put to 
better use. Additionally, OIG's criminal, civil, and administrative 
investigations produced $17 million in monetary results (including 
fines, restitution, and recoveries) in the last fiscal year. Most 
recently, the contribution of our investigative efforts led to a nearly 
$1 million settlement in a false claims case involving a contractor 
that provided medical services at Department facilities in Iraq and 
Afghanistan.\1\
    Beyond the quantifiable, our work produces benefits that add 
enormous, if unmeasurable, value. First and foremost, our safety and 
security work is a source of immense pride. By helping the Department 
improve its security, OIG's work safeguards the lives of the thousands 
of people who work in or visit U.S. posts abroad and at home. For 
example, our recommendations frequently address inadequate compliance 
with emergency planning standards, facility safety and security 
deficiencies, and the lack of adherence to motor vehicle safety 
standards in the operation of official vehicles overseas.
    Finally, our investigative work consistently holds Department and 
USAGM employees, contractors, and grantees accountable. In fiscal year 
2021, OIG obtained 22 indictments or informations and 17 convictions. 
One conviction led to a former Department employee being sentenced to 1 
year in Federal prison for wire fraud. OIG special agents determined 
that, over the course of 3 years in his role as a budget analyst at 
Embassy Port-au-Prince, the employee embezzled more than $150,000.\2\ 
We also obtained nine debarments in fiscal year 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Department of Justice (DOJ), ``Medical Services Contractor Pays 
$930,000 to Settle False Claims Act Allegations Relating to Medical 
Services Contracts at State Department and Air Force Facilities in Iraq 
and Afghanistan,'' March 8, 2022.
    \2\ DOJ, ``Former State Department Employee Sentenced to Federal 
Prison for Embezzling more than $150,000 from Department of Defense,'' 
December 1, 2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                           oversight efforts
    Our oversight work has identified persistent challenges that can be 
sorted into three categories: safety and security, stewardship, and 
staffing. Key findings in these areas are described below.
Safety and Security
    Safeguarding people, facilities, property, and information is a 
continual challenge for the Department. While the Department's efforts 
to promote security are commendable, our work continues to find issues 
that pose health and safety risks, including physical security and 
safety deficiencies at residences. Many of our reports and findings on 
the topic of security are sensitive but unclassified or classified, but 
I will share some of our efforts that are appropriate for this setting.
    One example of our work exposing a health and safety risk comes 
from the inspection of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations' 
Office of Fire Protection, which oversees a fire safety program 
responsible for promoting safe living and working conditions for 
Department employees at overseas posts.\3\ Our inspectors found that 
the Department's annual process used to assess management controls 
within Department entities did not require chiefs of mission to attest 
or certify that their posts had an effective fire protection program. 
We concluded that the lack of assurances that missions are complying 
with requirements related to fire protection could increase the risk of 
fires and expose staff to unsafe facilities.
    Another example comes from a wire fraud case that led to a sentence 
of nearly 3 years in Federal prison and $200,000 in fines and 
restitution.\4\ In coordination with other law enforcement agencies, 
OIG special agents helped reveal that a Texas man had been selling 
substandard Chinese-made military helmets, body armor, and other 
products to the Department and other Federal agencies while falsely 
claiming that his company manufactured the goods in Texas. Some of the 
equipment had been used at Mission Iraq but was removed from service 
when concerns about its quality were exposed.
    In addition to the security of people and property, we often focus 
on information security, and our oversight of the Department's IT 
security program continues to identify numerous control weaknesses. The 
fiscal year 2021 Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) 
audit concluded again that the Department had not fully developed and 
implemented an effective organization-wide information security 
program.\5\ We reported that the Department is operating below an 
effective level in eight of the nine FISMA domains, making it 
vulnerable to cyberattacks and threats to its critical mission-related 
functions.
    Another issue of concern is the large number of outstanding 
recommendations addressed to the Bureau of Information Resource 
Management, the entity responsible for developing and administering the 
Department's computer and information security programs and policies. 
In a report issued in December 2021 that analyzed open OIG 
recommendations addressed to the bureau, we identified 90 
recommendations awaiting action, including some that have been open 
since 2014.\6\ As a result of the concerns described in the report,\7\ 
OIG recommended that the Under Secretary for Management verify that the 
bureau is developing plans of action and milestones to address each 
open recommendation.
    Information systems security officers are like frontline enforcers 
of Department information systems security policies that ensure the 
protection of the Department's computer infrastructure, networks, and 
data. Unfortunately, OIG has found widespread deficiencies in the 
performance of such duties. In a review of 51 OIG inspections issued 
from 2016 through 2019, we found nearly half identified repeated 
deficiencies related to reviews of user accounts, information systems 
audit logs, or proper configuration, operation, and system 
maintenance.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ OIG, Inspection of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations' 
Office of Fire Protection (ISP-I-21-22, May 2021).
    \4\ DOJ, ``Texas Man Sentenced for Selling Chinese-Made Military 
Helmets and Body Armor to Federal Agencies,'' March 23, 2022.
    \5\ OIG, (SBU) Audit of the Department of State fiscal year 2021 
Information Security Program (AUD-IT-22-06, October 2021).
    \6\ As of March 31, 2022, OIG identified approximately 90 open 
recommendations addressed to the Bureau of Information Resource 
Management.
    \7\ OIG, Management Assistance Report: Support From the Under 
Secretary for Management Is Needed To Facilitate the Closure of Office 
of Inspector General Recommendations Addressed to the Bureau of 
Information Resource Management (AUD-AOQC- 22-07, December 2021).
    \8\ OIG, Management Assistance Report: Department Can Take Further 
Steps to Improve Executive Direction of Overseas Missions (ISP-21-14, 
June 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stewardship
    Efficiently and effectively managing its significant resources is 
another longstanding challenge for the Department. OIG's work 
demonstrates that the Department could enhance its stewardship of 
taxpayer resources by improving its ability to identify and address 
weaknesses in financial and property management and contract and grant 
oversight. Additionally, identifying and addressing weaknesses in its 
internal controls is an element of the Department's stewardship 
challenge.
    During one audit, we reported that the Department did not 
consistently use a general budget object code in accordance with 
requirements when recording expenses.\9\ Recording expense data to the 
appropriate code is essential for management officials to have complete 
and accurate data for assessing spending patterns. Until deficiencies 
in the use of the budget object codes are addressed, the Department 
will not have a full understanding of the specific purpose of its 
expenses or a method to easily identify how billions of dollars of 
funds were used.
    Property management deficiencies are likewise common, as we 
frequently report in our inspections of overseas posts. We often note 
problems with managing the acquisition, storage, distribution, and 
monitoring of fuel. In a recent review of our own reports addressing 
fuel management from fiscal year 2016 to fiscal year 2020, OIG 
identified systemic weaknesses in the Department's management of its 
overseas fuel stock and we assessed the Department's progress toward 
addressing common deficiencies.\10\ The resulting information report 
serves as a reference for posts seeking to strengthen fuel management 
practices and the Department expressed its intention to use the report 
in applicable training. Additionally, a recent referral prompted us to 
review gift vault access controls at the Office of Chief of 
Protocol.\11\ We determined stronger inventory controls were needed in 
order to ensure accountability of office staff and protect items stored 
in the gift vault, many of which are of significant value.
    Turning to contracts, in a series of audits published last fiscal 
year, we examined myriad management and oversight shortfalls related to 
contracts in support of overseas contingency operations. Because of the 
Department's frequent use of noncompetitive contracts for securing 
support services for its operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, we took a 
closer look at compliance with Federal regulation and acquisition 
policies when awarding such contracts. Our audit found that none of the 
awards we reviewed had been publicly justified, as required.\12\ We 
also had concerns that the Department did not fully take the required 
steps to ensure that fair and reasonable prices were paid on 
noncompetitive contract awards, a risk inherent in foregoing 
competition when awarding contracts.
    Further, we issued a management assistance report calling on the 
Department to reduce its use of ``bridge contracts,'' which are sole-
source, short-term awards to the incumbent contractor to avoid a lapse 
in service when there is a delay in awarding a follow-on contract.\13\ 
We found these types of contracts were frequently used in Afghanistan 
and Iraq over multiple years to noncompetitively extend contract 
services. Such a practice limits the Department's ability to realize 
potential cost savings by maximizing full and open competition. Another 
audit related to this body of work concluded that the Department, as a 
result of poor acquisition planning, noncompetitively awarded two 
contracts for essential services at Mission Iraq.\14\ Because Federal 
law does not permit poor planning as justification for the use of 
noncompetitive awards, we questioned the full value of the two 
contracts at a combined cost of $663 million.
    Likewise, proper oversight and management of grants and cooperative 
agreements continues to be a challenge for the Department. In an audit 
to determine whether recipients of certain Department grants and 
cooperative agreements complied with the cost-sharing requirements of 
their award agreements, we concluded that internal controls meant to 
ensure proper oversight of such awards needed improvement.\15\ For 
example, we found that monitoring plans were not tailored to awards, 
monitoring controls were not adjusted when the pandemic prevented site 
visits, and training for oversight staff did not provide adequate 
instruction regarding oversight of cost-share requirements. Such 
deficiencies led to unsupported or unallowable cost-share transactions 
for the Department.
    During an ongoing audit related to grants and cooperative 
agreements awarded by the Department for countering Iranian influence, 
we issued a Management Assistance Report concerning internal control 
deficiencies at the Global Engagement Center (GEC).\16\ These lapses 
resulted in a situation where third-party contractors were performing 
inherently governmental functions on a large percentage of the awards 
reviewed. GEC did not ensure that grants officer representatives were 
properly assigned and designated throughout each award's period of 
performance, which posed risks for award management and oversight. 
Finally, in an inspection of the Office to Monitor and Combat 
Trafficking in Persons, we highlighted instances where monitoring and 
grant oversight activity was not properly documented in award files, an 
issue frequently noted in our inspections of other entities.\17\
    Our work also highlights the Department's numerous difficulties 
related to internal controls. In a review of our own previous 
inspection reports, we found that 51 of the 52 reviewed contained 
findings that involved vulnerabilities in internal controls, which 
placed programs, personnel, resources, or sensitive information at 
risk.\18\ OIG found that missions did not effectively use the 
Department's annual statement of assurance process to identify and 
address these deficiencies. In a more specific example, a recent audit 
concluded that internal controls involving the process to prepare 
residences for occupancy at Embassy Cairo were not fully effective in 
safeguarding expenditures related to this process.\19\ Internal control 
weaknesses contributed to questionable expenditures and a potential for 
over reliance on overtime.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ OIG, Audit of the Department of State's Use of ``Not Otherwise 
Classified'' Budget Object Codes (AUD-FM-22-21, February 2022).
    \10\ OIG, Information Report: Systemic Deficiencies Related to the 
Department of State's Fuel Management From fiscal year 2016 Through 
fiscal year 2020 (AUD-MERO-22-20, March 2022).
    \11\ OIG, Management Assistance Report: Office of the Chief of 
Protocol Gift Vault Access Controls (ESP-22-01, November 2021)
    \12\ OIG, Audit of Noncompetitive Contracts in Support of Overseas 
Contingency Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq (AUD-MERO- 22-03, 
October 2021).
    \13\ OIG, Management Assistance Report: Improved Guidance and 
Acquisition Planning is Needed to Reduce the Use of Bridge Contracts in 
Afghanistan and Iraq (AUD-MERO-21-37, July 2021).
    \14\ OIG, Audit of Acquisition Planning and Cost Controls While 
Transitioning Support Service Contracts in Iraq (AUD-MERO-21-43, 
September 2021).
    \15\ OIG, Audit of Compliance With Cost-Sharing Requirements for 
Selected Department of State Grants and Cooperative Agreements (AUD-
CGI-22-12, November 2021).
    \16\ OIG, Management Assistance Report: Internal Controls Are 
Needed To Safeguard Inherently Governmental Functions at the Global 
Engagement Center (AUD-MERO-22-19, February 2022).
    \17\ OIG, Inspection of the Office to Monitor and Combat 
Trafficking in Persons (ISP-I-22-01, October 2021).
    \18\ OIG, Management Assistance Report: Department Can Take Further 
Steps to Improve Executive Direction of Overseas Missions (ISP-21-14, 
June 2021).
    \19\ OIG, Audit of the Process To Prepare Residences for New 
Tenants at U.S. Embassy Cairo, Egypt (AUD-MERO-22-23, March 2022).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staffing
    Our work reveals that many of the critical challenges facing the 
Department are caused or compounded by staffing gaps, frequent turnover 
in key positions, and inexperienced or undertrained staff. Moreover, 
instances of poor leadership, lack of coordination between and within 
Department bureaus and offices, and conflicting lines of authority 
have, at times, undermined the Department's effectiveness and 
negatively impacted employee morale.
    We took a closer look at some of these human resources issues 
during an audit conducted in the Bureau of Global Talent Management, 
which has the critical responsibility of recruiting, developing, 
assigning, and supporting the Department's workforce.\20\ We audited 
certain human resources services provided to eight other Department 
bureaus and found that over 90 percent of competitive hiring 
recruitment actions were not completed within required timeframes. Some 
of the bureau's difficulties were a result of its own staffing 
challenges, which hampered its ability to help other bureaus recruit, 
classify, and fill mission-critical Department positions.
    Another example of challenges related to staffing comes from our 
inspection of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, a bureau 
encompassing a region with many crucial foreign policy priorities, 
including U.S.-China relations.\21\ There, we found that inefficient 
organizational structures, staffing constraints, large numbers of 
temporary staff that frequently turnover, and increasing workloads 
hindered operations in some offices.
    Our inspectors regularly measure senior officials' practices 
against the Department's leadership and management standards and note 
where leaders fall short. In one review, we noted numerous leadership 
failures in the Bureau of Consular Affairs contributed to a stunning 
lack of progress on a long running initiative to modernize and 
consolidate approximately 90 discrete consular legacy systems into a 
common technology framework.\22\ Even though the office responsible for 
the initiative has continually missed deployment dates, we found no 
evidence that leadership scrutinized the office or held staff 
accountable for missed deadlines. More worrisome, even though the 
modernization effort has cost millions of dollars and is critical to 
the bureau's ability to meet its mission in the future, leaders were 
unable to provide a clear, uniform definition of the initiative, what 
components it included, and which contracts supported it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \20\ OIG, Review of the Bureau of Global Talent Management, Office 
of the Executive Director, Office of Technology Services' Information 
System Processes (ISP-I-21-29, July 2021).
    \21\ OIG, Inspection of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (ISP-I-22-
06, December 2021).
    \22\ OIG, Review of the Bureau of Consular Affairs' Consular-One 
Modernization Program--Significant Deployment Delays Continue (ISP-I-
22-03, November 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        afghanistan-related work
    In the wake of the Department's suspension of operations in 
Afghanistan last year, OIG devoted substantial time and directed 
significant resources to planning and coordinating oversight activities 
that focus on key aspects of the situation and its aftermath. Our plans 
include reviews of the Special Immigrant Visa program, the resettlement 
of Afghan evacuees, and Embassy Kabul emergency planning and evacuation 
efforts. The latter work will focus on whether the Embassy followed 
established Department guidance in preparation for the evacuation of 
U.S. Government personnel, private U.S. citizens, Afghans at risk, and 
others from Afghanistan prior to and following the suspension of 
operations. These projects are in progress, and we continue to closely 
coordinate our ongoing and planned work with other relevant OIGs.
    In January, we completed a project that reviewed open 
recommendations specific to Embassy Kabul and analyzed whether, in 
consideration of the suspension of operations, they should be closed, 
redirected, or remain open.\23\ The review allowed us to identify 
issues that had been rendered moot by the events of last August. We 
have also attempted to add value in ways that do not require new work 
to be performed. For example, we published a report on lessons learned 
for establishing remote missions when events dictate that Department 
operations must cease in another country.\24\ Although not directly 
related to Kabul, after the suspension of operations, we provided a 
copy to the Embassy Kabul management team to use as a reference when 
establishing the Afghanistan Affairs Unit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \23\ OIG, Information Report: Office of Inspector General's 
Analysis of Open Recommendations Specific to U.S. Embassy Kabul, 
Afghanistan (AUD-MERO-22-18, January 2022).
    \24\ OIG, Audit of Department of State Protocols for Establishing 
and Operating Remote Diplomatic Missions (AUD-MERO-21-33, July 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               resources
    We appreciate this Subcommittee's ongoing support of our work. In 
particular, we are grateful for the inclusion of supplemental funding 
for Ukraine-related oversight work in the fiscal year 2022 omnibus 
appropriations bill. The Subcommittee's timely foresight in recognizing 
the draw on OIG resources created by Ukraine-related events means that 
OIG will be able to initiate important oversight work without 
compromising other mission-critical oversight projects as would be 
necessary without the additional funds. We are in the process of 
planning Ukraine- related oversight projects and will be in contact 
with you and your staff as we progress.
    However, OIG's budget has remained relatively flat in recent years, 
jeopardizing our ability to sustain high-quality oversight work across 
the wide spectrum of programs and activities at the Department and 
USAGM. Increased IT costs (including costs associated with 
cybersecurity), unforeseen pandemic-related expenses, mandated work, 
and large-scale oversight projects like our oversight work on 
Afghanistan-related events, have resulted in an increasing and alarming 
strain on our budget and required us to delay some previously 
prioritized work.
    OIG has been grappling with these funding challenges while facing 
perhaps its greatest challenge--advancing OIG's oversight mission in 
the midst of a global pandemic. On this front, I am particularly proud 
to highlight OIG's remarkable adaptability. Despite 2 years of 
restrictions that made traveling overseas to conduct inspections and 
audits of embassies and posts nearly impossible, we continue to meet 
our unique oversight requirements under the Foreign Service Act by 
performing audit work remotely and by developing and deploying remote 
and hybrid inspection models. However, with an anticipated increase in 
travel costs in fiscal year 2023, OIG will be forced to decrease the 
amount and scope of work we complete in order to support the resumption 
of travel unless additional funding is provided.
    OIG also has demonstrated remarkable ingenuity and resilience in 
the face of ever-evolving IT challenges. After years of operating 
within the Department's IT systems, OIG made the decision to migrate to 
an independent IT architecture in 2015, a congressionally supported 
initiative. We believed then, and continue to believe today, that an 
independent IT network is critical to OIG's independence, security, and 
ability to fulfill its mission. Since then, OIG has striven to be a 
model within the Federal government; in the annual FISMA report, we 
received one of the two highest ratings across all five risk 
categories, a major and rare accomplishment across the Federal 
Government, despite the significant IT challenges we faced related to 
the pandemic. Yet, with increasing IT and labor requirements, 
adequately providing the necessary maintenance, support, and 
cybersecurity for the network is a challenge in our current budget 
environment. Moreover, recent IT modernization and cybersecurity 
requirements, including Executive Order 14028, ``Improving the Nation's 
Cybersecurity,'' issued on May 12, 2021, place additional strain on 
existing labor resources and require adequate funding to accomplish.
    Beyond making the sustainment of current operations a challenge, a 
largely static budget also presents implications for our ability to 
take on important discretionary work, including work on big initiatives 
of congressional interest such as Afghanistan. OIG developed its 
Afghanistan- related oversight plans in close coordination with the 
broader IG community. OIG's Afghanistan-related projects will--when 
combined with the work being performed by other agencies' OIGs--provide 
a comprehensive, whole-of-government review of recent and ongoing 
developments related to Afghanistan. In order to fund the timely 
completion of this important work, OIG had to abandon or delay plans to 
conduct eight non-Afghanistan-related projects and shift an estimated 
$5.5 million in resources to the emerging Afghanistan priority.
    Unfortunately, without supplemental funding for this unexpected 
work, OIG does not have the means to undertake these Afghanistan-
related projects and complete the eight non- Afghanistan projects from 
which OIG diverted the required resources. Such work included Worldwide 
Protective Services (WPS) II Contracts, the Central America Regional 
Security Initiative, Counter-narcotics Assistance in East and Southeast 
Asia, Overseas Construction Contracts, the Department's COVID-19 
response, and Whistleblower Protection Notifications to Contractor and 
Grantee Employees. Due to increasing resource constraints, we are 
unfortunately having to delay or cancel projects that were designed to 
target high-risk areas and that could have led to significant 
improvements in the programs and activities we oversee. I want to take 
this opportunity to clearly communicate the nature of these difficult 
trade-off decisions so that Members may consider alternative approaches 
to funding OIG's operations going forward.
                               conclusion
    I am incredibly proud of the work done by my colleagues in OIG and 
the value we provide to the Department, USAGM, Congress, and U.S. 
taxpayers. We are a talented and committed team of professionals 
dedicated to helping the Department and USAGM successfully accomplish 
their respective missions through robust oversight and solution-
oriented recommendations. I want to thank my team for their resilience, 
ingenuity, integrity, and leadership.
    I also want to again thank Chairman Coons, Ranking Member Graham, 
and Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to submit 
testimony. I take my statutory requirement to keep Congress fully and 
currently informed seriously, and I appreciate your interest in our 
work.

    Senator Coons. Terrific. Thank you very much Mr. Secretary. 
I will begin what are 7-minute questions. We may get to a 
second round, but there is a vote scheduled for 3:30. So if 
Members intend to come back for a second round please make sure 
that my staff knows.
    Thank you for your tireless work on pulling together our 
allies in support of Ukraine. Ukraine faces a brutal invasion 
by Russia, and I would be interested, first, just in a few 
questions about a supplemental that we understand may be coming 
soon.
    Bridget Brink has been nominated to be the next U.S. 
Ambassador to Ukraine. Will you be resuming operations in Kyiv 
as well as in the rest of the country, and will the 
supplemental include funding to return U.S. Embassy personnel, 
and provide for their security; first? Second, in addition to 
military and humanitarian assistance do you think this 
supplemental will or should include funds for the global food 
security crisis, and the pandemic?
    And then last, I have just returned from Georgia, many of 
us have expressed concern about Moldova, and Georgia, which are 
also roughly in the position that Ukraine is, meaning not 
members of the EU, not members of NATO, countries that are 
receiving Ukrainian refugees, and where there is a real and 
present threat of Russian aggression against Moldova and 
Georgia.
    So if you would, Mr. Secretary; that is my opening set of 
questions.
    Secretary Blinken. Mr. Chairman thank you very, very much. 
So a few things; first of all with regard to the supplemental, 
that should be coming forward in the next couple of days, and 
it will include very robust assistance requests for Ukraine, 
for partners and allies, and as well as, of course, our ability 
to function in Ukraine.
    With regard to our diplomatic presence, we have diplomats 
going back to Ukraine this week, as we speak, to begin the 
process of looking to reopen the Embassy in Kyiv, and my 
anticipation is that they will start in Lviv, in western 
Ukraine, and look to reopen the Embassy as quickly, but also as 
safely as possible. And we look forward to working with you on 
that.
    A number of other countries that left with the onset of the 
Russian aggression are also coming back, reopening their 
missions, it was very important for Secretary Austin and I to 
go, to show the flag, but we want to be able to show the flag 
every day. But it is a process that we take very seriously in 
terms of making sure that we do it in a way that ensures the 
safety and security of our personnel, but I think this will 
play out over the next few weeks.
    We very much appreciate the Senate's prompt consideration 
of Bridget Brink to be Ambassador to Ukraine, she is 
extraordinarily qualified for this job. I think she is known to 
many Members of this Committee, and hopefully she will be 
confirmed quickly once she is sent formally to the Senate.
    I anticipate the supplemental will include a request for 
resources for food security, something that we can and should 
talk about. This is, as Chairman Leahy said, a very, very 
dramatic problem that already existed of course, and has been 
exacerbated by Russia's aggression, by the invasion.
    We have Ukrainian farmers, who, instead of being able to 
deal with their crops, they have been forced to fight or to 
flee for their--because of the Russian aggression. We have 
Russia blockading Black Sea ports, so that even though Ukraine 
is actually producing a lot of wheat, it can't get out of the 
country because of this blockade.
    And all of that is having an effect, not just in the 
immediate region, but literally around the world. And I know in 
all of your travels, you have heard this too, everywhere we go, 
everywhere I go I am hearing this. We have we have plans to 
address this, not just with the supplemental, we are trying to 
get countries to support the World food Program with additional 
funding, the Food and Agriculture Organization with more 
funding, they both have needs for resources.
    We are looking at countries that have large stockpiles of 
food to use those stockpiles, to not hold them back, to not put 
export restrictions on food. The President has incentivized the 
production of fertilizer here in the United States, and we are 
working in a variety of ways to try to address this.
    The last thing I will say on this, Mr. Chairman, is that we 
have the presidency of the UN Security Council in May. I intend 
to focus our month of the presidency on food security, and I 
will be spending some time there as well. And again, very much 
look forward to working with this Committee.
    Finally, on Moldova and Georgia, I share the concerns that 
you have expressed about the vulnerable position they are in. 
We are working very closely with both. I was in Moldova a few 
weeks ago, our Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and 
Migration, Secretary Noyes, was just there as well. We have 
contributed, through a German pledging conference, an 
additional $100 million to help support Moldova.
    The request that you have before you would fund programs to 
do a number of things, including bolstering cybersecurity, 
economic stabilization and resilience, to counter 
disinformation where they are on the receiving end, to try to 
integrate their energy system to Europe. There is, I think a 
significant development in the connection of Moldova, as well 
as Ukraine to the European security grid, but there is work to 
do to make that work.
    We also need to get the UN agencies to be prepared for a 
potential huge influx of additional refugees to Moldova. They 
have already taken in a lot of people. It is a small country.
    Anyway, in the interest of time, there is more on Georgia. 
I could speak to that as well. But the point that you make is 
exactly right, we need to be looking out for these countries 
that are at risk, and in between we see, again, in Moldova, 
some things happening in Transnistria that we are looking at 
very, very carefully as well.
    Senator Coons. Thank you Mr. Secretary. To the United 
Nations, if I might, just a few points and then I will lead to 
the Ranking Member.
    First, we did not succeed last year in paying anything in 
our UN arrears. We have arrears now totaling a billion dollars, 
and in my view failing to pay what we could, and should, 
weakens our credibility, and frankly strengthens some of our 
global competitors, who would take advantage of that 
opportunity.
    I was just in Paris, and had the chance to meet with 
Director General Azoulay of UNESCO. I would be interested in 
your thoughts, on whether in our absence, our competitors have 
used that absence to expand their role.
    And then last, on the UN Human Rights Council, on March 4th 
the UN Human Rights Commission adopted a resolution opening a 
Commission of Inquiry for the human rights violations, the war 
crimes being committed in Ukraine. I would be interested in 
whether the administration supports an ICC or other war crimes 
investigation into a prosecution of Russian soldiers and 
leaders, and what assistance we could provide there, and how 
significant you think it is that Russia has been suspended now 
from the UN Human Rights Council, the first permanent member of 
the UN Security Council to be so suspended? And whether you 
would make a case for our renewing our participation in that 
Council?
    And with that I will yield to the Ranking Member, if you 
would take a minute and answer those.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you very much. I very much share 
your view that it is to our detriment to not be making good on 
our commitments to the United Nations in terms of the budget, 
in terms of dealing with arrears. It puts us in a position of 
disadvantage in a place that we should be in a position of 
advantage.
    And to your point some of some other countries are able to 
make the rhetorical case because of this, that U.S. leadership, 
U.S. influence can't be counted on, and it also, of course, 
contributes to some operational challenges. So we think that 
paying our dues, paying into the budget is vital both for the 
functioning of the UN, but also for our standing and our 
ability to carry the day, and carry the debate at the UN.
    I think we have some proof positive of this, by the way, in 
what you just referenced, because we are back on the Human 
Rights Council we were able to actually lead in the creation of 
this Commission of Inquiry for Ukraine. So it is something we 
are going to very much support, looking at the atrocities and 
human rights abuses that were committed by Russia in Ukraine.
    Similarly, we support and welcome the fact that the ICC has 
opened an investigation, we found ways to support the ICC in a 
number of instances in the past, including most recently with 
the prosecution of Janjaweed from Darfur that prosecution 
resulted, in no small measure, from information and evidence we 
were able to bring forward.
    Our main focus when it comes to Ukraine is on helping the 
Prosecutor General and her team that is investigating these war 
crimes allegations. We have experts who are working very 
closely with that team to make sure that they can do their jobs 
effectively.
    And finally, on UNESCO; this is, I think, a perfect example 
of a situation where our absence is clearly to our detriment 
because, among other things, UNESCO is in the business of 
setting standards, norms around the world for education, for 
the way new, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence 
are used, to cite just two examples.
    So when we are not at the table shaping that conversation, 
and so actually helping to shape those norms and standards, 
well, someone else is, and that someone else is probably China. 
So it really does not make a lot of sense for us to be absent 
from that body.
    Now, there is a very understandable concern expressed in 
the past because of the Palestinians seeking ignition, and that 
going forward, that Congress chose to act to make it difficult 
for us to continue our participation. We believe that having 
waiver authority would be important, and necessary. And I can 
say with authority that our partners in Israel feel the same 
way. They would support our rejoining UNESCO, and I think it is 
in the national interest to do that precisely because these 
debates are so important, and we should be at the table making 
sure that we shape them, not someone else.
    Senator Coons. Thank you Mr. Secretary.
    I will yield to the Ranking Member, Senator Graham.
    Senator Graham. If it is okay, I will let Senator Moran go 
first. He has a hearing to chair in about 5 minutes.
    Senator Moran. Someday I hope to chair a Committee again, 
but at the moment I am only the Ranking Member. But I 
appreciate your willingness, not only to promote me, but to 
allow me to go ahead of you. So Senator Graham, thank you.
    Mr. Secretary, thank you. I would join in my commendation 
for the chair of the full Committee, and the chair of this 
subcommittee, and I always appreciate the opportunities I have 
to work with them.
    Mr. Secretary, yesterday you told the Foreign Relations 
Committee that you believe our allies and partners are prepared 
to sustain and build upon the sanctions imposed. And I am a 
member of the NATO Observer Group, so I am talking about NATO, 
and I am talking about the circumstances that we all face in 
regard to the invasion, the evil invasion of Ukraine.
    From your conversations with our allies, and particularly 
Germany, who have pledged to increase their defense budgets, 
what do you--what do you see as happening next? Will this last 
longer than this particular circumstance? And you indicated 
that they would build it----build upon sanctions imposed, what 
do you anticipate that building to include?
    Secretary Blinken. Senator, thank you very much. And thank 
you for your leadership at this critical time on this issue.
    A couple of things; first, I think what we have seen to 
date is extraordinary, in terms of allies coming together both 
in support of Ukraine, but also in exerting pressure on Russia. 
We said before this Russian aggression took place, as we saw it 
coming we tried to head it off, but Putin went ahead, we said 
back in December that there would be massive consequences 
imposed on Russia if it went ahead with the aggression.
    The reason we were able to say that with confidence is 
because for many months we have been working with allies and 
partners to build those massive consequences, including 
unprecedented sanctions. And I think that many of us would not 
have fully expected that we would actually be able to carry 
that through.
    Thus far we have, and we are seeing, as a result of the 
pressure imposed on Russia, an economy in free fall. Most 
predictions suggest it will contract by 15 percent this year. 
We are seeing capital flight from the country to the extent 
that Putin is not able to prevent that. We are seeing an exodus 
of companies, more than 600 businesses, international 
businesses, with brand names, leaving Russia, denying Russian 
consumers the ability to get those products.
    And the export controls that we have been able to impose 
working with other countries mean that Russia will not be able 
to effectively modernize critical parts of its economy, and a 
system, including the defense sector.
    But to your point, it is vitally important that we sustain 
this effort. And that means making sure that as we have done to 
date, allies and partners come along as we do this. We are in 
constant contact with them. We will continue to roll out 
sanctions in the weeks ahead. This is not stopping as long as 
Russia is not stopping. And the European Union itself is 
continuing to do that.
    I think the next step is one of the things that they are 
looking at is an oil embargo on Russia. They are working on 
that. We are looking to see what they do. We will continue to 
focus on additional sectors of the Russian economy to make sure 
that we continue to ratchet up the pressure.
    I anticipate that this is going to go on for some time, and 
all the more reason why we have to make sure that we sustain 
what we have been able to put in place.
    Senator Moran. Mr. Secretary, thank you. I was on the 
border of Ukraine a few weeks, just a couple weeks ago. My 
takeaway then, as it was previously, and continues to be, and 
what I am looking for is reassurance. I want to make sure the 
United States, in my view, it would be immoral for us just to 
provide enough assistance for the Ukrainians to survive, and 
not win.
    And I also think that our help should include more than 
defending Ukraine, the offensive capabilities of Ukraine to 
attack those areas that are attacking them. Can you assure me 
that that is policy; that is what we are doing? Or would you 
want to dissuade me from my views?
    Secretary Blinken. A couple of things; first, thanks to the 
tremendous support, generosity of the American people, through 
this Congress, we have been able to date to provide the 
Ukrainians with exceptional support. And this is something that 
started well before the Russian aggression.
    The initial presidential drawdown took place back in Labor 
Day of last year, $60 million, then there was another 
significant drawdown of about $200 million around 
Christmastime. All that was done relatively quietly, the 
Russians had not yet committed their aggression, but we wanted 
to make sure that Ukrainians had in hand what they needed if 
Putin carried this forward.
    And when he did, the main reason that the Ukrainians have 
been so successful thus far in repelling the Russians is, of 
course, because of their own courage, remarkable. But it is 
also because they had in hand the tools they needed to do that, 
and in particular the Javelins, the Stingers, systems of that 
nature were critical in winning the battle for Kyiv.
    I can tell you that, broadly speaking, when it comes to 
anti-armor systems, and anti-air systems, for every Russian 
plane, and every Russian tank in Ukraine, we, and allies, and 
partners have been able to provide the Ukrainians to date with 
about systems for every plane and every tank.
    But to your point, the nature of the battle has now 
shifted, and what is happening in the East and Southern Ukraine 
is very different than what was happening around Kyiv in terms 
of what the Ukrainians need to be able to repel the Russian 
aggression. And so heavier artillery has been critical, and we 
are working assiduously, and others are, to get them that.
    Shore-to-ship weapons, and to deal with the challenges in 
the Black Sea are also vital, heavier armor, tanks, et cetera, 
all of that is in train.
    Secretary Austin was in Germany yesterday, as you probably 
saw. A pretty remarkable scene, 40 Defense Ministers sitting 
around a huge table, all working on coordinating the effort to 
get to the Ukrainians what they need. We spent three hours with 
President Zelenskyy, his Minister of Defense, his Chief of the 
Armed Forces, the Foreign Minister, et cetera, and a chunk of 
that time was spent on going in detail through Ukraine's needs 
going forward.
    So the short answer is, we are determined to get them what 
they need to deal with this Russian aggression, and to push the 
Russians out of the country. It is another matter as to whether 
the Ukrainians should take actions that go beyond their 
borders.
    My own view is that it is vital that they do whatever is 
necessary to defend against Russian aggression. And the tactics 
of this are their decisions, but what we are doing with all of 
these systems is making sure the Ukrainians have the means to 
defend themselves, that is what this is about, and making sure 
that they can do whatever is necessary to push the Russians out 
of the country.
    Senator Moran. Mr. Chairman, I won't ask another question, 
but if I can complement, or at least support a decision that 
the Secretary has made. I encouraged you several weeks ago, a 
week or more ago, to return to Kyiv with our diplomatic 
Embassy, you are headed that direction, it sounds like it is 
going occur in stages, but I am supportive of the United States 
having its Embassy in Kyiv as quickly as it is safe for our 
personnel.
    And I want to thank you for a couple of folks, several of 
your folks, Nas, Courtney, Paul, Jeff, Consular Affairs folks 
who have been exceptionally helpful to us in our efforts to 
solve problems for Kansans-Americans around the globe. Thank 
you.
    Secretary Blinken. Senator, thank you for saying that. We 
very much appreciate it, and we look forward to continue to 
work with you.
    Senator Moran. Thank you.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Senator Coons. Chairman Leahy.
    Senator Leahy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And Secretary Blinken, I stepped out, but I heard your kind 
words outside. I didn't jump back in because I didn't want to 
interrupt you guys, enjoying it too much. But thank you, it was 
undeserved but greatly appreciated.
    And regarding Ukraine, that some have urged the U.S. to 
liquidate the Russian Central Bank's nearly--was it $100 
billion, I believe, in foreign exchange reserves that are 
frozen at the Federal Reserve, to use all those funds to help 
the people of Ukraine, does the Department have that capacity 
to identify the assets of Russia, and other oligarchs? And can 
they coordinate with the Treasury and Justice Departments in 
seizing and freezing such assets?
    Secretary Blinken. Mr. Chairman, we are working very 
closely with Treasury and Justice to look at both how we can 
effectively freeze, but also seize assets. And we have blocking 
sanctions, as you know, in place against a variety of 
individuals and institutions that effectively freezes their 
property in the United States.
    The question when it comes to the seizure piece, is do we 
have the relevant provisions in place, civil criminal 
forfeiture authorities, Justice is in the process of reviewing 
that. And I know that there are a number of ideas that I find 
compelling about finding ways to use these assets to support 
Ukraine. The short answer is, the Justice Department lawyers 
are looking at all of that.
    Senator Leahy. Of course it doesn't help that a lot of 
those assets are behind various walls, one after another, fake 
corporations, and things of that nature.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. And I think it goes to the 
importance of having transparency, beneficial ownership, rules, 
et cetera.
    Senator Leahy. And I can't think of anything I have seen 
more shocking than the scenes of what the Russian soldiers are 
doing, machine gunning families as they are trying to run away 
from something, the children, innocent civilians have been 
murdered. And can that be investigated by the International 
Criminal Court? Should it be? And can we help?
    Secretary Blinken. We welcome the fact that the ICC has 
opened an investigation, one of the critical things they are 
doing is making sure that potential evidence of atrocities is 
being compiled effectively. As I mentioned, I think when you 
are out of the room Mr. Chairman, besides the ICC work, I think 
the critical focus that we have is on supporting the work of 
the Ukrainian Prosecutor General. And we have experts who are 
working every single day with that team to make sure that they 
have what they need to document, compile the evidence. And 
actually look at potential prosecutions.
    But those two efforts, as well as the Commission of Inquiry 
established by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, 
with our leadership, are three of the critical vehicles we see, 
going forward, to get accountability to deal with this.
    And to your point, some of the things we are seeing are, I 
think, beyond almost our collective imaginations. For example, 
there are very credible reports that the Russians have been, in 
retreat, booby-trapping things like people's washing machines, 
and toys, so that when people are able to return home and go 
about their lives they are killed or injured as a result of one 
of these booby traps.
    Senator Leahy. I look at some of the land mines, and 
cluster mines used this Javelin type----
    Secretary Blinken. That is right.
    Senator Leahy [continuing]. Mine that you won't even have 
to touch it, if you come near it and it's off.
    Secretary Blinken. That is exactly right. And Mr. Chairman, 
part of our request, and I think this will be in the 
supplemental, will be for some additional funds for demining 
because, unfortunately, we have to deal with that now as a 
result of what Russia has been doing.
    Senator Leahy. Thank you for mentioning it, because I know 
your request is $18 million below what was requested last year. 
I have a feeling you are going to need a lot more for 
humanitarian demining. And as you know, I have long sought to 
rid the world of landmines, but I think also what the 
prosecutors are getting, it is going to be extremely important 
for historians. You know, those who don't understand the 
mistakes of history, it is almost a cliche, but they are 
condemned to repeat them.
    The world is going to see this, because there is no 
question that it is crimes against humanity. And we are going 
to need, I think, the World Food Program, projects the unmet 
need of $10 billion. I would hopefully have a request to beef 
that up. And the President's budget request is about $8 billion 
above the fiscal year 2022 enacted level, but the war in 
Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and so on, this 
is not the moment--we should be investing more in the State 
Department, and other agencies, and more. I know this is 
something Chairman Coons has talked about at length, putting 
more in Foreign Ops, not less.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes.
    Senator Leahy. And lastly, and my time is running out, the 
Leahy Law, would you and your staff please talk with us, how 
that--the one that prohibits assistance, are units of foreign 
security forces that are committing gross violations of human 
rights, I think you have some money in your budget for Leahy 
Law vetting, but are you confident that that is being carried 
out as much as it should be?
    Secretary Blinken. Mr. Chairman, in my judgment it is, I 
think it is being consistently and effectively applied. We have 
million dollars in the budget this year to conduct the vetting. 
It is a critical part of what we do, and I think we have the 
resources, as well as the focus necessary, to carry that out in 
the way it was intended.
    Senator Leahy. And I would just mentioned, Mr. Chairman, 
your plane was delayed, but we had a meeting, some extensive 
meeting. I know Senator Durbin and I were there yesterday with 
the President, and others, about Cuba. Nobody condones the 
crackdown on the people who are peacefully protesting in there, 
but I also don't--I don't condone the total rollback of the 
policy that we had under the Obama administration.
    I hope that attention is given to finding a way that we can 
start having normal relations with Cuba for the good of their 
own people, and for us.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward 
to catching up with the President. I haven't talked to him 
since your meeting, but I look forward to hearing from him on 
the meeting.
    Senator Coons. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Senator Graham.
    Senator Graham. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. I won't 
request a second round; we will try to make this as quick as 
possible, but there is a lot going on in the world, and let us 
start here at home.
    Mr. Secretary, do you believe if we repeal Title 42 
authority to deport illegal immigrants because of the threat of 
a COVID outbreak that we will have more illegal immigrants 
coming?
    Secretary Blinken. Senator, two things on that. First, as 
you know, Title 42 is a CDC authority.
    Senator Graham. Right.
    Secretary Blinken. Public health authority.
    Senator Graham. Right.
    Secretary Blinken. It is not an immigration policy----
    Senator Graham. Yes, that is right.
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. Authority. The question is 
what practical effect would its repeal have? I think we are 
likely to see more people seeking to enter the country, but if 
they cannot present a credible claim of asylum they will be 
returned. That is the policy. That doesn't change. The order is 
not opening with the repeal of Title 42, if that is what 
happens.
    Senator Graham. I am just saying the border is completely 
broken. We have 1.2 main illegal crossings since October of 
last year, and there will be a tsunami more coming if we repeal 
Title 42. Will there be COVID money in the supplemental?
    Secretary Blinken. I can't speak to that at this point 
because I think the White House is still looking at that.
    Senator Graham. Okay.
    Secretary Blinken. One way or another, Senator, in my 
judgment we need COVID money.
    Senator Graham. Okay.
    Secretary Blinken. Internationally, whether that is in this 
supplemental or in some other vehicle, I don't know, but we 
need it.
    Senator Graham. Yes. I think we do need money for COVID 
internationally, I will agree with that. And I think if you 
want to stop, as Senator Leahy said, one country away from an 
outbreak, you would revisit Title 42. I would encourage you to 
do that.
    Let us go to Afghanistan. What is the state of play in 
Afghanistan for women right now?
    Secretary Blinken. The state of play is extremely mixed to 
negative, and the----
    Senator Graham. What is the upside for women?
    Secretary Blinken. The only upside that we have seen at 
all, is that somewhat, ironically, you might say there is, in 
the country at large, greater stability, and relative peace 
than there has been. That is about the only upside I can think 
of.
    Senator Graham. Okay.
    Secretary Blinken. The downside of course is that we have 
seen, including most recently, the Taliban fall back on its 
commitment that it had made to ensure that girls can go to 
school above the sixth grade. This is, among many things, 
something that is a deep, a deep concern.
    Senator Graham. Is our homeland more at risk now than it 
was before the withdrawal in Afghanistan, from al-Qaeda, and 
ISIS presence in Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. If you look at the--if you look at the 
presence and the threat, I would say there are three things 
that are going on. First, there is al-Qaeda itself, and I can 
go into more detail in another setting----
    Senator Graham. We will do it. It is just a general 
question. Is al-Qaeda and ISIS more free to roam now that we 
are out of Afghanistan than they were before we left?
    Secretary Blinken. ISIS-K is, as you know, is of course an 
enemy of the Taliban. And the issue there is not the will of 
the Taliban to take them on.
    Senator Graham. Yes.
    Secretary Blinken. It is their capacity. That is, right.
    Senator Graham. Right.
    Secretary Blinken. When it comes to al-Qaeda, and the Arab 
al-Qaeda Corps, there are a very, very small number of people 
in Afghanistan.
    Senator Graham. How do we know?
    Secretary Blinken. Based on the--again, without going into 
detail in this setting----
    Senator Graham. Well, Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, 
if you are a Shiite in Afghanistan, it had been a good week for 
you. There is no upside to the Taliban in charge, for women 
anywhere in Afghanistan, and I think our homeland is far more 
at risk now that we have no presence on the ground, no ability 
to detect what al-Qaeda, and ISIS-K are up to. So to me, that 
is an easy question to ask.
    President Biden said he had no regrets about leaving 
Afghanistan. Do you have any regrets?
    Secretary Blinken. I don't Senator, in the sense that----
    Senator Graham. Okay.
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. This was America's longest 
war.
    Senator Graham. No. That is fair enough. Is the war over? 
Have we ended the war between us in radicalism by leaving 
Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. As much as we--we went to Afghanistan, 
as you know well, for one reason which is to deal with the 
folks who attacked us on 9/11. We decimated al-Qaeda in its 
ability to continue attacks beyond Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden 
was brought to justice more than a decade ago. It was time to 
end, end the longest war.
    Senator Graham. Have you heard the assessment by the 
Secretary of Defense, and others that: How long would it be 
before an attack against America originating from Afghanistan 
would mature? And they said 2 years. Is that a successful 
withdrawal? That is what they said. I asked them.
    Secretary Blinken. And I don't want to, myself, put words 
in their mouths, but the question----
    Senator Graham. Anyway I just think it is----
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. Goes to if the threat could 
potentially----
    Senator Graham. Yes. It is just ridiculous to say that we 
are safer by letting the Taliban take over Afghanistan, and 
that women have any upside.
    Let us go to the Ukraine. Are you pursuing Russia being a 
state sponsor of terrorism?
    Secretary Blinken. We are looking at that. And the question 
is----
    Senator Graham. What is hard about that?
    Secretary Blinken. The question is this, and this is 
something that the lawyers are looking at. There is no doubt in 
my mind, Senator----
    Senator Graham. Right.
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. That the Russians are 
terrorizing the Ukrainian people.
    Senator Graham. Well, what about Syria?
    Secretary Blinken. The question is this, and again, this is 
something that the lawyers are looking at, to make sure that we 
actually meet the statutory requirements of that designation.
    Senator Graham. Well, if you need to change the law so that 
Russia fits in, you will have 100 votes. I don't know what more 
you would have to do as a country to be at state-sponsored 
terrorism. They have decimated the Ukraine--Ukraine, and they 
are all over Syria dropping barrel bombs on people. So you 
mentioned that you are looking at it. I would encourage you to 
look at it, and act upon it.
    Putin vowed today in the Duma that he would stay committed, 
even though there have been heavy losses to accomplishing the 
goal of the invasion. What would you like to say to him?
    Secretary Blinken. Very simply, end this aggression. End it 
now.
    Senator Graham. Well, it seems not to be working. What are 
the consequences to him if he keeps this up?
    Secretary Blinken. I think we have already seen devastating 
consequences for Russia. And let me say this first, in terms of 
his actual objectives, as stated in his own words.
    Senator Graham. Uh-huh.
    Secretary Blinken. He has already failed, because those 
objectives were to eliminate Ukraine as an independent and 
sovereign country, to subsume it back, in some fashion into 
Russia, we know already, as a result of the extraordinary 
courage of the Ukrainians, that that is not going to happen.
    And as I have said, there is going to be an independent and 
sovereign Ukraine around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin will 
be on scene. So it is already a strategic----
    Senator Graham. From your lips to God's ears. And I want to 
help you where I can in that endeavor. When it comes to winning 
in Ukraine, describe very briefly what winning looks like for 
Ukraine and the United States?
    Secretary Blinken. Winning is going to be defined by the 
Ukrainians, and we will support whatever they decide is in 
their interest.
    Senator Graham. Have they told you what winning looks like?
    Secretary Blinken. Right now for them, and I don't want to 
put words in their mouths, but I think their focus is, of 
course, on repelling the Russian aggression, and getting the 
Russians out of their country.
    Senator Graham. As said by Senator Moran, that our goal was 
to get Russia out of Ukraine. Is that our goal?
    Secretary Blinken. That is Ukraine's goal, and as a result 
that that is our goal as well.
    Senator Graham. Okay, great. If Russia uses banned chemical 
weapons in Ukraine, what will our response be?
    Secretary Blinken. The President has been clear, that there 
would be severe consequences for any use of weapon of mass 
destruction by Russia. We have been working, not only within 
our government, but with allies and partners across.
    Senator Graham. Can we put a parameter on what severe 
consequences would look like?
    Secretary Blinken. I am not going to telegraph in public, 
what we would do. I can tell you that a lot of work has gone 
into planning against every possible scenario. And again, in a 
different setting I am happy to get into that.
    Senator Graham. Okay. We will take that up. If Russia 
explodes a tactical nuclear device in Ukraine would you 
consider that an attack on NATO because the radiation would go 
well beyond Ukraine?
    Secretary Blinken. All of this, including the potential use 
of a nuclear device, attack with a nuclear device is part of 
the planning we are doing. And again, we can get into that in 
more detail in a different setting.
    Senator Graham. Well, just a couple more minutes. Do you 
think our policy regarding Russia and Ukraine has been 
successful?
    Secretary Blinken. To date, in my judgment?
    Senator Graham. Yes.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. In the sense that we said this, 
Senator, before--when we saw the likelihood of a Russian 
aggression, many months ago----
    Senator Graham. So you think this is successful?
    Secretary Blinken. I would say two things. First, when we 
saw this as a possibility, we did two things, and we did both 
of them at the same time. We worked to see if we could head it 
off through diplomacy, and that----
    Senator Graham. And that didn't work.
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. And at the same--that did 
not work.
    Senator Graham. Right.
    Secretary Blinken. But we also said at the same time that 
we would make sure that we, and the Ukrainians, and the world, 
were prepared if Russia went through this aggression; and we 
have been. Ukraine has done an extraordinary job in pushing the 
Russians back from Kyiv, the world has come together to support 
the Ukrainians as a result of American leadership in American 
engagement. The world has come together to impose massive 
consequences on Russia for its aggression, again as a result of 
the Russia's invasion.
    Senator Graham. Well, with all due respects I don't----
    Secretary Blinken. So I think in terms of what we set out 
to do, so far, this has been successful, but it has to be 
sustained.
    Senator Graham. I just take issue with the fact that we are 
being successful in Ukraine, one, they invaded and we told them 
not to, they did. They are killing people right and left, and 
you know we are slow getting weapons in. I hope it turns out 
well.
    But do you think our withdrawal from Afghanistan affected 
Putin's decision to invade at all?
    Secretary Blinken. I do not. Senator I think he looks at 
these things on their own terms when----
    Senator Graham. Why did he pick this year?
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. When he went, well, he went 
into Georgia in 2008 we had more than 150,000 troops between 
Afghanistan and Iraq.
    Senator Graham. Yes.
    Secretary Blinken. That did not deter him. When he went 
into Ukraine in 2014----
    Senator Graham. But he hasn't dismembered the State of 
Georgia, he has occupied--you know, there is two provinces 
there, but why did he choose to invade Ukraine this year, you 
believe?
    Secretary Blinken. I think a number of factors came into 
play. I think he saw Ukraine moving inexorably to the west, to 
Europe, and he saw nothing that was going to interrupt that 
process, it was democratizing, it was strengthening its system. 
And having a successful democracy on Russia's borders was bad 
for Putin, and he had the ambition that he said in his own 
words----
    Senator Graham. Last year.
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. Ending its sovereignty and 
independence, and this was all that----
    Senator Graham. He doesn't recognize Ukraine as a separate 
nation.
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Senator Graham. Yes. So it is not really about them being--
they have been moving toward democracy for a long time. I think 
he invaded this year because I thought he----because he thinks 
he can get away with it.
    So very quickly, 1 minute here. China, I just got back from 
the region. The people in Taiwan are very concerned about what 
happens in Ukraine. Do you agree that the outcome in Ukraine 
can influence what China does regarding Taiwan?
    Secretary Blinken. I do. I think China is looking at this 
very carefully, and the fact that it is seen, as a result of 
our leadership, 40 countries or more, come together in a 
variety of ways to impose these massive costs on Russia for its 
aggression, that would have to factor into its calculus about 
Taiwan going forward.
    Senator Graham. Are you, as administration, committed to 
following Putin to the ends of the earth in supporting war 
crimes investigations and prosecution against him, 
individually? Do you believe that we could ever forgive and 
forget when it comes to Putin? Do you believe it is the right 
policy for the international community to pursue him as a war 
criminal in perpetuity?
    Secretary Blinken. Senator, we are committed to doing 
everything we possibly can for as long as it takes to ensure 
that there is accountability for the crimes that have been 
committed.
    Senator Graham. That includes Putin himself?
    Secretary Blinken. That includes--whoever committed the 
crimes, whoever ordered the crimes.
    Senator Graham. Thank you.
    Senator Coons. Thank you Mr. Secretary. We both went about 
10 minutes. We will endeavor to encourage others to stick to 
about seven, but I appreciate your forbearance.
    I am going to ask Senator Durbin, who is next, if he would 
both question, and then preside if I have to run to vote during 
the next few minutes. You may uniquely, among the cabinet, be 
familiar with exactly how this all works, so thank you for your 
forbearance.
    Senator Durbin.
    Senator Durbin. Thanks Mr. Chairman I want to make a point 
of being here today, Mr. Secretary, after I witnessed on 
television last night the exchange between you and the junior 
senator from Kentucky.
    I hope that no one left that hearing, or believes today 
that his questioning represents the feeling of America. If 
Putin, or the Russians, or anyone take comfort in his 
questioning they are making a mistake. I think it should be 
clear, and you tried to make it as clear as you could, that we 
are not conceding any sphere of influence to Vladimir Putin, we 
are not conceding an anxious effort to understand what he is 
doing in Ukraine.
    I understand what he is doing in Ukraine, it is very clear 
what he is doing, he has launched a vicious, barbaric, 
genocidal attack on this nation, unprovoked by them, and 
unsustained by international law as we know it. And I did not 
want any friends and allies of the United States to think that 
the junior senator from Kentucky expresses our point of view.
    I cannot imagine the reverberations of that comment in the 
Baltics, for example. The Baltics were part of the Soviet Union 
because of the aggression of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, it 
had nothing to do with the people of those countries, asking to 
be part of any Soviet Union. And they survived to this day, a 
small, vibrant democracy that is loyal to the United States, 
because they are part of NATO, and they share our values. And 
we are not giving that up to Vladimir Putin under any 
circumstances. I hope what I have just said you agree with.
    Secretary Blinken. I do.
    Senator Durbin. Good. Let me talk to you about a sentiment 
that has been expressed by Senator Moran, and also by Senator 
Graham, and I share. And the sentiment is this: The earliest 
analysis of what would occur when the Russians invaded Ukraine 
suggested, and this is before the invasion, that Kyiv would 
last a matter of days, the bulk of the country a matter of 
weeks, but the resistance that would be formed against any 
Russian occupation could go on for months or years.
    And Putin would have learned under those circumstances that 
he had won a pyrrhic victory, if he even wanted to call it 
that. The reality of the situation is much different. Kyiv has 
not fallen, you were able to visit that city with the Secretary 
of Defense, the bulk of Ukraine is at least stable, though 
there are terrible examples of fighting going on at this point, 
and my concern is this, we are trying to scramble in the last 
53 days; is that correct, 54 days, to readjust our thinking 
about the future of Ukraine.
    We underestimated the courage and resiliency of the 
Ukrainian people, the determination they have shown to defend 
their own country. We perhaps overestimated the power of the 
Russian Military, and as a consequence we have to readjust to 
the fact that Ukrainians have won significant victories.
    My concern, as expressed by my Republican colleagues, is 
this, are we throwing a 10-foot rope to someone drowning 20-
foot offshore? Are we falling short of what they need for 
something decisive to happen in our interest and their 
interest? Are we doing enough from a diplomatic or military 
viewpoint, from your point of view?
    I would hate to be able to--I would hate to see the 
situation where we are seeing how proud we are of NATO coming 
together with all its strength, and at the end of the day a 
devastated Ukraine with refugees by the millions, and people in 
unmarked graves is what is left behind by Putin. That is hardly 
a NATO victory. Would you comment on that?
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you, Senator. What Russia has done 
and continues to do to Ukraine every day, the brutalization of 
the country, and the parts where Russia is engaged, is a 
tragedy that in and of itself can't be undone; people have 
died, been killed in the most awful ways, that can't be undone. 
People have been displaced from their homes, 5 million 
refugees, 7 million displaced persons inside of Ukraine, 
including, by most estimates, three-quarters of the children of 
the country have been displaced at one point. Some are moving 
back; and even if they come--when they come home that is not 
going to fully erase the trauma that they have been through.
    So some of the--some of the damage that has been done is 
quite, literally, irreparable. Having said that, I believe that 
we are--the United States, many other countries coming together 
to make sure that--to the best of our ability--the Ukrainians 
have what is necessary to push back this Russian aggression.
    They have done that successfully in and around Kyiv. They 
are engaged now in a ferocious fight in Southern and Eastern 
Ukraine. And as I mentioned a few moments ago, Secretary Austin 
was just in Germany yesterday with 40 Ministers of Defense to 
make sure that we are all coming together to get the Ukrainians 
the kind of weaponry that they need in a battle that has 
changed in its nature, to continue to do what they need to do 
to push back this Russian aggression.
    We are focused like a laser on that, and on making sure 
that they have what they need. Some of that is coming from the 
United States, some of it is coming from many other countries 
that are engaged, and it is being done in an organized and 
coordinated fashion, and it is being done in full consultation 
with the Ukrainians. But as I said we have to continue to 
sustain that and follow through.
    Let me just cite one quick example though, of how this has 
evolved. It used to be that when you--the President made a 
drawdown order, it might take some weeks for--between the time 
the order was given, and the time the equipment in question got 
into the hands of those it was going to. This is now happening 
in many cases in as little as 72 hours. From the time the 
President did the drawdown to the time weapons are getting into 
the hands of Ukrainians to use them against the Russian 
aggression, 72 hours.
    We were just there as you noted, and talked with all of the 
folks on the ground who are helping to make sure and coordinate 
the security assistance getting in to the Ukrainians. It is a 
remarkable operation, and it is working in real time. We have 
to keep that going, and we have to make sure that they are 
getting what they need to deal with the actual threats that 
they face.
    Senator Durbin. The President has made it clear that a 
patch of Polish real estate is a tripwire. He said that over 
and over again. I assume there are other tripwires which you 
may not want to be as explicit with us in this Committee 
setting in describing. I hope that they will include the 
consideration of the genocide which is taking place there as 
well, if there is a point beyond which we cannot, with good 
moral conscience, justify or even look the other way, or wait 
for a day to resolve it.
    On the question of war criminals, I was surprised to learn 
that current American law does not give us any criminal 
authority to prosecute those who committed war crimes in other 
countries, nor does it give us any civil, anyone any civil 
authority over those same people. I have legislation to change 
that.
    We should make it clear to anyone that has been engaged in 
Putin's strategy, they will never find a comfortable, safe home 
in the United States. And I hope that I can bring that to your 
attention and that you will--your people will take a look it.
    Secretary Blinken. I look forward to looking at that, 
Senator. Thank you.
    Senator Durbin. If I could mention two or three other 
things, Senator Hagerty, I will wrap it up quickly, because I 
know you probably are waiting to vote as well.
    Afghanistan, Mark Frerichs, I wanted to make a point of 
making a record of our continuing concern about this Illinois 
resident, who is being held captive in Afghanistan; are you 
familiar with this situation?
    Secretary Blinken. I am more than familiar with it. It is 
something that I am intensely focused on.
    Senator Durbin. Thank you. We hope that we can bring him 
home.
    The Chinese bullying of Lithuania over their decision to 
recognize the Taiwanese office; are you aware of this 
situation?
    Secretary Blinken. Again, more than aware of it; extremely 
focused on it. We jumped in very quickly when that happened, to 
make sure that we could bolster Lithuania, including with 
economic assistance, creating greater opportunities for trade 
and investment. We have also rallied countries and partners in 
the European Union to do the same thing. The European Union has 
stood up against this kind of coercive action by China, to 
combat the bullying that it has tried to use. And Lithuania has 
been extraordinary in its resilience and fortitude against it. 
But yes, very focused on that as well.
    Senator Durbin. Is there a path forward in Haiti with the 
situation that we currently face?
    Secretary Blinken. It is a--it is long path forward, there 
are, as you know very well from the time you spent on this. 
There are two things that they rely on. First, we need to see 
the government, civil society, all actors come together to get 
us to elections, free and fair elections, that reestablish a 
fully legitimate Haitian Government and leadership. And that 
work is in progress. We are trying to facilitate that, and 
support that.
    But having said that, the problems are so deep-rooted, and 
so challenging that I think that the road is very long, the 
criminality, violence, the lack of basic law and order is a 
fundamental problem that we are working to address, including 
by supporting and strengthening the Haitian National Police, 
and getting other countries to do the same, that is very much a 
work in progress.
    The endemic poverty, and lack of economic opportunity, one 
of the challenges, Senator, is that, you know we have--we and 
other countries, over many years have devoted substantial 
resources to Haiti, but to date the honest truth is that it has 
not made a sustainable difference. We have to be, and we are, 
looking at: How can we do this more effectively, to help Haiti 
get to a place where it is sustainable.
    And of course, it has been on the receiving end of one 
horrific thing after another, including natural disasters that 
continue to set back what progress is made. So the short answer 
is: This is a long road, we are looking at and focused on 
trying to get the elections, and having a government that can 
fully represent the people.
    We are trying to work on basic security by bolstering the 
police, and dealing with the criminality, the gangs which are 
terrorizing parts of the country, but then there is a much 
longer project in helping Haiti to really stand on its feet in 
a self-sustaining way.
    Senator Durbin. Thank you I am going to send you a written 
question related to my efforts to secure the release of 
Philippine Senator Philippine Sen. Leila de Lima.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes.
    Senator Durbin. One of the critics of the Duterte Regime.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes.
    Senator Durbin. I would like to know your take on the 
current state of affairs there? I will save that because I see 
Senator Hagerty waiting, I know he has to vote. So Senator, 
please take it away.
    Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Senator Durbin.
    And Secretary Blinken, it is good to see you again. I 
appreciated our interaction yesterday at the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee, as we talked about the importance of the 
U.S.-Japan Alliance, the Quad, the Indo-Pacific, and I look 
forward to continue working with you on those issues.
    I would like to turn my discussion with you today, though, 
on something else that is related to the region but also it 
hits us right here at home. And that is China's refusal to stop 
the flow of fentanyl and its precursors into the Western 
Hemisphere.
    I have raised this issue with your assistant secretaries, 
with your deputy assistant secretaries, but I want to raise it 
with you today because it is that important. I feel like we 
need decisive action, and it is for the safety of Americans, it 
is for the safety of our children. We are both parents. I am 
sure you feel the same.
    Today in America, the number one cause of death for young 
people between the age of 18 and 45 is drug overdose, 100,000 
lives were lost last year to drug overdoses, and most of those 
drug overdoses were fentanyl-related. And the DEA continues to 
assess that fentanyl coming from China into Mexico is the major 
cause of this.
    It is it is something that I talked about with Mexican 
officials last May when I traveled to Mexico. They talked about 
the fact that Chinese entities are sending technicians, they 
are sending equipment, and setting up production in partnership 
with Mexican cartels there. And these cartels are multi-
billion-dollar industries that have basically taken control of 
the northern border of Mexico.
    I met with your counterpart, Foreign Minister Ebrard, and 
asked him what we could do to cooperate, what we could do to 
help. And he told me that they would greatly appreciate help 
with things in the nature of scanning technologies, anything 
that would help them determine whether fentanyl, or its 
precursors, or the machinery to produce it was coming into his 
country.
    I appreciated his concern there, and I think it is 
something that we ought to continue to focus on. You know, I 
was on the phone with White House Staff during the Buenos Aires 
G20, when President Trump directly asked President Xi to stop 
sending fentanyl to the United States.
    My sense is that we need to really double down on our 
pressure with China on this. If President Xi and the Chinese 
Communist Party can shut down a city the size of Shanghai, one 
of the three largest cities in the world, I think they could 
certainly shut down the flow of fentanyl and its precursors 
into our hemisphere.
    And I know you have many difficult conversations with your 
Chinese counterparts, but I would like to hear your thoughts on 
what our strategy might be, and encourage you to take on this 
difficult challenge too?
    Secretary Blinken. Senator, thank you for raising that. I 
very much share your concern I appreciate your focus on it, and 
the efforts you have been making. And I agree with you, this is 
a problem that needs intense focus and solutions. We have been 
working on this in a number of ways. We have been working to 
add some of the precursors to a prohibited list to make clear 
that you can't get fentanyl or variants in through the back 
door by using precursors that are, for one reason or another, 
not on a prohibited list.
    We have made some progress there. We are working with the 
Mexicans on exactly this question, to reestablished the 
security dialogue with them last year, and part of this is 
looking at the--of course the flow of drugs of any kind into 
the country. And what assistance do they need to more 
effectively police it.
    I am going to follow up on the specific suggestion that you 
referenced, to make sure that we are, if we haven't already 
done it, actually looking at that, and doubling up back with 
them on what it is they need to effectively police fentanyl. I 
can tell you this has come up in engagements between President 
Biden and President Xi. So it has been raised to that level as 
well,
    But I would also welcome working with you and your team on 
ways that we can effectively address this problem.
    Senator Hagerty. I appreciate that very much. And again in 
my conversations with Foreign Minister Ebrard that may have 
predated what you have been talking about. But he sincerely 
believed that there were technology solutions that we could 
help provide that would help them. I have seen some of those 
technology solutions deployed at our southern border.
    I went to our southern border earlier this month to see 
what is happening there, it is a travesty in terms of the flow 
of narcotics coming across the border. But again, I saw the 
technology that we are putting in place now that sense, in a 
very sophisticated manner, the illegal substances that, at 
least where they may be hidden. So I appreciate any efforts 
that you might make to work on that.
    I also wanted to take on, for just a moment longer, the 
topic of India, and our U.S.-India relations. The world's 
oldest democracy, of course, is the United States, but India is 
the world's biggest democracy. And I think they have you know--
I think what I see before us is something I am certain that is 
very frustrating in the short term, when we have our 
differences, and you deal with that every day.
    But in the long term, this strategic partnership that we 
have with India I think poses the opportunity to do more good 
in the 21st century, and have more consequence, more impact 
than anything that the CCP could do, coming from their 
perspective. And I believe that there is great, untapped 
potential there in terms of developing that partnership for the 
good of all.
    And I would look forward to hearing your views in terms of 
what concrete steps the United States and India could take 
together to deepen our strategic alliance.
    Secretary Blinken. Senator, I very much share your 
perspective. I think this partnership has the potential to be 
one of the most important and foundational partnerships that we 
have going forward, over the next decades. This has actually 
been, I think, a success story over multiple administrations, 
going back to the end of the Clinton administration, through 
the Bush administration, particularly with the Peaceful Nuclear 
Cooperation Agreement that, by the way, now President then 
Senator Biden helped shepherd through this institution; through 
the Trump administration as well, and prior to that, the Obama 
administration; and now through ours.
    President Biden spent a lot of time directly engaged with 
Prime Minister Modi and India's leadership. Of course, as you 
know very well, we have energized the Quad that brings India 
together with Australia, and Japan, and us. This has been a 
very important vehicle for strengthening our collaboration 
across a whole variety of fronts with India, I have spent a lot 
of time with my Indian counterpart, and very much agree with 
you.
    What is interesting, and we talked about this a little bit 
yesterday at the Foreign Relations Committee is, this is a 
moment of, I think, strategic inflection, by which I mean this: 
A number of countries are now re-looking at some of their 
relationships, and some of their interests, particularly when 
it comes to their relationships with Russia.
    And of course in the case of India, there is a relationship 
that goes back decades, and Russia for India was out of 
necessity, a partner of choice when we were not in a position 
to be a partner. Now, we are. And we are investing in that 
effort. I think there is a growing strategic convergence 
between the United States and India, and of course China is a 
big part of that.
    Senator Hagerty. Yes.
    Secretary Blinken. But I very much share your perspective, 
and this is a major area of focus for the administration, and 
for me, to make sure that we are doing everything we can to 
strengthen and to build on that partnership going forward.
    Senator Hagerty. I appreciate that very much, Mr. 
Secretary. And I would just add one more point of 
encouragement. On my recent trip to Japan I spoke with Prime 
Minister Abe, who developed a very good relationship with Prime 
Minister Modi, and I know you know Prime Minister Abe as well. 
And I would encourage you, as you talk with your Japanese 
counterparts, to engage them in finding good ways to work 
together with India, because they seem to be on the same track 
and the same mindset as we are. Thank you very much for your 
comments today.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Senator Hagerty. Appreciate your testimony.
    Senator Coons. Senator Van Hollen.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me 
start by congratulating you on assuming the chairmanship of the 
subcommittee first hearing. And look forward to working with 
you, and the Ranking Member.
    And I also want to commend the Chairman of the Full 
Committee, Senator Leahy, as others have done, for his 
incredible service.
    Mr. Secretary, good to see you. We had a chance to talk 
yesterday in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, so I am 
not going to retread that ground. But I do want to circle back 
on the sanctions issue now, because I think you, and the 
President, and the Secretary of Defense, the whole team have 
done a really good job in accelerating now the deployment of 
weapons. And also isolating Russia to the extent we can, at the 
UN and other places, and moving forward on sanctions.
    But as the sanctions go on, sustaining them is going to be 
key, and expanding them is going to be key. And leakage in the 
sanctions only helps Putin. And there are countries that right 
now, and other entities, that are violating the sanctions. As 
you indicated yesterday when I asked, we have not applied any 
secondary sanctions, so far. I think we have got to use the 
secondary sanctions authority the administration has, including 
against countries, and entities and countries that are not 
simply maintaining their current or pre-war imports of Russian 
oil and gas, and other commodities, but have increased them.
    And I would just urge you to do it, because I think you are 
going to see growing movement for mandatory sanctions in the 
Senate and the House if you don't use the existing authorities 
that you have got within the administration. I just want to 
make that really clear.
    Let me say something about the Czech Republic, and you and 
I, and others, just came from a beautiful memorial service for 
Secretary Albright. Of course she and her family came the 
United States from then Czechoslovakia when I think she was 
about 11 years old.
    I had a meeting with the Czech Foreign Minister yesterday 
and, yes, he indicated that they were willing and wanting to 
provide some of their Soviet-era helicopters Mi-24s to Ukraine, 
but wanted sort of a swift agreement for us to replace those 
with Vipers, and if not new Vipers, with some of the Vipers out 
of our inventory now. So I just want to encourage you to move 
forward on that as fast as possible.
    Secretary Blinken. And Senator, just on that.
    Senator Van Hollen. Yes.
    Secretary Blinken. The Defense Department is looking at 
that right now.
    Senator Van Hollen. Yes.
    Secretary Blinken. This is something that I think is very 
important across the board, which is a number of allies and 
partners have provided weapons from their stocks to the 
Ukrainians, in some cases that leaves a void that 
understandably they want to fill. One of the things that we 
will be coming forward with in the supplemental, are funds to 
help provide additional foreign military financing to partners, 
and allies. That is one vehicle by which they can make up any 
of the systems that they have shared with the Ukrainians that 
leave a void with them.
    At the same time, of course, we are looking at what we have 
on hand. The Pentagon is focused on this particular case, as 
well as a number of others.
    Senator Van Hollen. Great. No, I appreciate that. No, I 
know you are trying to overturn every stone, but anything we 
can do to accelerate that effort.
    Of course something else Secretary Albright was very 
involved in was trying to stop the bloodshed and atrocities in 
the Balkans at the time, and I also had a chance to meet with 
the Foreign Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina yesterday, and I 
think Senator Shaheen raised this issue, and I just want to 
underscore it. I think we are worried about what will happen in 
November when, as I understand the process, the UN Security 
Council has to continue to authorize the presence of 
international forces, and if Putin exercises that sanction--
that veto it is a real problem.
    I know it is on your radar screen I think. I am pleased to 
see the actions the United States has taken with respect to a 
DODIC in the IRS, I hope we will encourage our European allies 
to work in that direction. As you said yesterday to try to 
accelerate the integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the 
European family.
    A couple other issues; Senator Menendez raised yesterday, 
the fact that Turkey had now, essentially, convicted Osman 
Kavala to a life sentence; you know, clearly a political 
prosecution, no legitimate basis for it, the administration did 
make a sort of a tepid statement, you know, showing 
unhappiness. But this combined with the fact that Turkey is 
continuing to move forward in their effort to ban the main 
Kurdish Party in Turkey from participating in the elections, 
seems to me something that the administration really needs to 
press hard on.
    In the case of the HDP you have got, just last Tuesday, 
April 19th, you know, they were challenging it in the court, 
this effort to ban them, but Turkey's top court accepted an 
indictment filed by the prosecutor seeking closure of the HDP. 
I mean this is just a blatant disregard for any standards of 
democracy. And so I just hope we will be very strong on it, and 
obviously we have a complicated relationship with Turkey, there 
are lots of pieces. But this, something you have been involved 
in for years trying to support our allies, the Syrian Kurds 
that, you know, Turkey continues to try to take them out 
whenever they can, so I think we have a lot of work to do on 
that front.
    Let me just close by asking you about the President's 
pledge during the campaign. And I think you reemphasized again 
when you were asked last October, about the Consulate in 
Jerusalem, to establish, you know, greater--reestablish that 
Consulate for our relations with the Palestinians. Can you give 
us an update on where that stands?
    Secretary Blinken. We are committed to reopening the 
consulate in Jerusalem for the Palestinians. It is something 
that we are working on with the Israeli Government. I was in 
Ramallah just a few weeks ago, and saw President Abbas. We 
talked about that, among other things.
    As you know, we reestablished support for the Palestinians 
a year ago, January, including significant humanitarian and 
economic assistance that had been previously held back. We have 
reengaged them across the board, and the consulate is a piece 
of that.
    It does, of course, require coordination with and support 
from Israel including, for example, providing privileges and 
immunities for the staff of the Consulate to be. So it is a 
work in progress, but it is something that we continue to work 
on.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you. I appreciate your efforts. 
And thank you for going through a whole lot of issues very 
quickly.
    Secretary Blinken. All right.
    Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have got to 
go vote I think.
    Senator Coons. Thank you. And Mr. Secretary, it is my 
understanding we have no other members seeking recognition.
    If I might; I just have two or three quick questions on 
some very specific programs that Senator Graham and I have 
worked together on over a number of years, both to get them 
authorized in law, and then to fund them. I have a lot of other 
questions I would be happy to ask, but we both have other 
things we need to get to.
    The Global Fragility Act, as you know, one of the things 
that Secretary Albright contributed to was the development of 
Plan Colombia. And the whole concept of a coordinated plan 
between diplomacy, development, and security came out of Plan 
Colombia. Senator Graham and I worked over several Congresses 
to, ultimately to get the Global Fragility Act signed into law. 
And I would welcome a chance to talk in more detail about the 
selection process, the path forward, the strategy to prevent 
conflict, and promote stability.
    I would be interested just in hearing briefly now from you, 
a timeline for the development of implementation plans, and the 
requests for funding were very modest relative to the scale of 
the problems. We have many other areas where we have requests 
that outstrip the budget of this Committee, I would just be 
interested in your view on the timeline for implementing these 
strategies, and what we might be able to do together to improve 
the focus, and investment in this area?
    Secretary Blinken. Mr. Chairman, the timeline for 
implementation of that is now, because just a few weeks ago the 
President signed off on our proposed focus, including the 
countries in question that we would focus on, and so this is 
something we are moving out on, and very much welcome working 
with you on, as we move forward in actually implementing it. 
But it is right on the--right on the front burner.
    Senator Coons. Thank you. The Development Finance 
Corporation, I am planning to have a hearing with Scott Nathan, 
the CEO, to discuss their fiscal request. But I just wanted 
your view of their performance to date, and their role in 
supporting the administration's priorities.
    Senator Graham asked about China, there are a number of 
other members that see its significant potential, whether it is 
in climate resiliency, and combating climate change, whether it 
is in the West Bank, or in developing better opportunities for 
economic development that might promote stability in other 
areas. What is your view of how they have performed?
    Secretary Blinken. And I am sorry could you just repeat 
that the last part of that?
    Senator Coons. Well, the Development Finance Corporation--
--
    Secretary Blinken. Yes.
    Senator Coons [continuing]. Has a, potentially, very broad 
range of areas of activity, each senator has their own view as 
to whether it should be principally countering China, or 
dealing with climate, or working in the Middle East, in the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict or elsewhere. I would just be 
interested in your overall view as to whether they have 
achieved the potential that the Act that created the 
Development Finance Corporation imagined for.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you. First, I am a very strong 
supporter of the DFC. I think it is a very important and 
powerful tool, one that that I appreciate. And it gives us the 
ability to do a number of things. One of the things it gives us 
the ability to do is to more effectively offer an affirmative, 
positive alternative to China's development programs, including 
Belt and Road.
    We can make this a race to the top, not a race to the 
bottom, including by using DFC, not only of course with its own 
resources, but the fact that it has the ability to leverage 
significant private-sector resources.
    And so that is one area of focus for me, is making sure 
that we use this effectively as a way of actually advancing 
concrete projects that are, again, attractive and affirmative, 
and don't bring with them, for example, many of the burdens 
that we see countries take on when they are, for example, 
working with China. Debt, workers brought into--from China to 
actually build the projects instead of using local workers, no 
respect for the environment, for worker rights, corruption, et 
cetera. But we needed the tools to do that, the DFC is one of 
them.
    We also have to make sure, and this is an area of real 
focus, that we have, and the DFC can be engaged in viable 
projects. So the money may be there, we have got to make sure 
that the projects are there, and in a way that really brings 
the private sector in, so we are very focused on that.
    It also joins up with a couple of things. It joins up with 
Build Back Better World, which I think is a very important 
initiative that the President has undertaken. Again, to make 
sure that in critical areas, including energy, and climate, 
health, and technology we are investing in, engaged in projects 
that will be a race to the top for the countries that are--that 
we are doing them with.
    And DFC is one of the tools that we can bring to bear on 
making Build Back Better World effective. We have been 
identifying projects in different parts of the world that makes 
sense. I think we will be moving out on a number of them 
shortly.
    Now, having said that, I think we need to look at ways to 
maximize the potential of DFC. I am not convinced that we have 
gotten to that point yet. So we have a lot of focus on it. I 
actually, by statute, chair of the Board. The Deputy Secretary 
of State for Management and Resources, Brian McKeon, is 
intimately involved with DFC, and working on that on a regular 
basis.
    I would welcome, actually, sharing ideas with you about how 
we can use it even more effectively going forward.
    Senator Coons. Thank you. As of right now, the way that the 
equity provisions of it are scored, is causing me some--I 
respect and understand the concerns of long-standing staff on 
the Appropriations Committee about the secondary or follow-on 
consequences it might have if we were to change the treatment 
of the DFC Equity Authority.
    But I think we are under utilizing a very powerful tool, 
and I would welcome interacting with you, and with my other 
colleagues on this Committee, and the administration, on how we 
can make sure that the DFC and Build Back Better World fund 
together, are allowing us to really combat China's pernicious 
influence.
    In my first 6 years here as Chair of the Africa 
subcommittee, I saw it in country after country, all over the 
Continent. I was with former President Sirleaf of Liberia last 
night, and was reminded of my very first conversation with her 
a dozen years ago now, where she was asking for U.S. help 
rebuilding the Mount Coffee dam that had been destroyed in 
their civil war.
    And after several meetings she basically said, well, I 
guess the United States doesn't do this anymore, we will have 
to take Chinese funding. Ultimately our partners in Europe were 
able to provide funding for the restoration of that critical 
source of clean energy, and stability for Liberia. But there 
are dozens of countries around the world that would rather work 
with the United States than work with China, if we can just 
provide them with the source of funding. And I think DFC could 
be a critical part of the answer, to that, Secretary.
    Secretary Blinken. I couldn't agree with you more. And I 
think one of the things that we really have to work on with DFC 
and other vehicles is the speed with which we are able to 
engage on things, because what exactly what you described, I 
have heard again and again, that the process across different 
agencies, I am not--I am not just talking about DFC, is slow, 
laborious.
    Now, we have to do the right due diligence. That is vital. 
But I think there are ways to make what we do more efficient, 
quicker, more responsive to needs. And I agree with you the DFC 
is a major--can be a major part of that so we should work on 
making it work even more effectively.
    Senator Coons. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, thank you for your 
testimony before the subcommittee today. I think the conflict 
in Ukraine, Russia's completely unjustified and unacceptable 
brutality against the civilians of Ukraine, its attempt to 
rebuild the Russian Empire, and the ways in which it is shaking 
the very foundations of peace in Europe, the rules-based 
international order, is the most pressing issue of the day.
    I am grateful that you and Secretary Austin have taken the 
initiative to engage with our allies, to deploy resources, to 
travel to Kyiv, personally, and to testify before this 
Committee today when you have just returned, at a moment when 
it is so critical. That we continue to work in close 
partnership to show the impact of American diplomacy, and to 
show the impact of the resources that we can and should provide 
to support our critical NATO allies, to support the Ukrainian 
people and their resistance, and to meet the pressing 
humanitarian needs of all impacted by this conflict.

                     ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

    Senator Coons. Questions for the record will remain open--
they need to be submitted--excuse me--by 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, 
May 3. So the hearing record will remain open until that point.
    [The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but 
were submitted to the Department for response subsequent to the 
hearing:]
    No questions were submitted for the record.

                          SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS

    Senator Coons. And again, Mr. Secretary, thank you for your 
testimony.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., Wednesday, April 27, the 
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of 
the Chair.]



  STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS FOR 
                            FISCAL YEAR 2023

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
           Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The subcommittee met at 2:35 p.m., in room S-124, Dirksen 
Senate Office Building, Hon. Christopher A. Coons (Chairman) 
presiding.
    Present: Senators Coons, Leahy, Durbin, Shaheen, and 
Graham.

           UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

           OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHRISTOPHER A. COONS

    Senator Coons. I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on 
State and Foreign Operations and Related Programs to order.
    Good afternoon. The subcommittee is meeting today to review 
the fiscal year 2023 budget request for the United States 
Agency for International Development, and it is our honor to 
have Administrator Samantha Power before us. She is a champion 
for global development and democracy. She's engaged in critical 
efforts for America's leadership and our role in the world and 
is today, along with thousands of people who serve as part of 
USAID around the world, making big headway against a whole wide 
panoply of critical changes.
    So I am going to wait for a few minutes for the arrival of 
the Full Committee Chairman before making broader remarks, but 
I've just returned from Europe on a codel led by Chairman Leahy 
and was reminded of just how much of an impact he's had in his 
service as Chairman of this subcommittee and of now the Full 
Committee.
    Let me just briefly review the scope of challenges that we 
face. An unprovoked and unjustified Russian invasion of Ukraine 
which is creating not only a vast refugee crisis into Central 
and Eastern Europe but also a hunger crisis, a humanitarian 
crisis across more than a dozen other countries, an ongoing 
global pandemic which, although many of us would like to be 
done with it, it is not done with us, and we continue to see 
variants emerge around the world and greater risk to our 
country and to many others, a warming climate and an increasing 
number and severity of climate shocks that affect vulnerable 
communities here and around the world, and a whole series of 
humanitarian crises that predate the pandemic and the Russian 
invasion of Ukraine.
    So countries from Ethiopia to Yemen, Afghanistan to Syria 
to Venezuela have domestic and regional challenges. We've seen 
democratic backsliding, the challenges of corruption and 
development, human rights, Rule of Law, all around the world, 
and as a backdrop to much of this, competition to the United 
States and our role in the world and our way of life from China 
and other authoritarian actors.
    But I'll say just by way of opening framing that I see 
these challenges as also being opportunities, opportunities to 
demonstrate American leadership, to recommit to advancing 
democracy and human rights in the world, to diversify our 
partnerships with other development partners in other 
countries, to increase locally-led development, and to work to 
make our aid more effective and responsive.
    I commend President Biden for proposing strong investments 
to address the challenges I just laid out and to seize 
opportunities this coming fiscal year for us to demonstrate our 
role in the world.
    I am concerned that our needs are far outweighing our 
ability to respond, given what has been the allocation to this 
subcommittee over the last couple of years.
    The President's budget request is 14 percent above the 
previous year-enacted level. That increase, just by way of 
comparison, in absolute terms would be just 1 percent of our 
total Defense budget, and I think it would be an important head 
start on meeting our actual needs to address these crises.
    The budget requests increase for humanitarian assistance, 
pandemic preparedness, climate adaptation and mitigation, 
democracy programs, and locally-led development.
    I look forward to discussing these and other elements of 
this budget request with you, Administrator.
    We also have to recognize the challenge of getting to a 
fiscal year 2023 SFOPS bill. If we are to fail and instead have 
a full year continuing resolution, U.S. foreign assistance 
would be on autopilot. We would fail in our challenge of making 
strategic updates and would not be delivering on good foreign 
policy and responsible budgeting.
    So I also think it's urgent we pass the COVID-19 
Supplemental for both domestic and foreign needs that was 
debated, considered, but not ultimately enacted. We continue to 
face the challenge of billions of unvaccinated people and in 
countries where the vaccination rate is below 10 percent and 
where we face the risk of possible new variants developing 
there.
    So the pandemic, climate change, the war in Ukraine, Madam 
Administrator, I very much look forward to your testimony 
today, and I'll hand this over to Senator Graham.

                  STATEMENT OF SENATOR LINDSAY GRAHAM

    Senator Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Number 1, the increase in funding is something all of us 
should consider given the problems that we have in the world. 
USAID is a very valuable part of our national security 
strategy. I see it as part of our national security in another 
form.
    Your agency is present in some of the most dangerous places 
in the world. People working for you directly and USAID 
contractors put their lives at risk working overseas, and that 
is very much appreciated.
    We have some differences on family planning, climate 
change, mandatory spending, and the global pandemic but, 
generally speaking, the subcommittee with Senator Coons and 
Senator Leahy has been able to pound out, I think, a good 
budget and I hope we do so this time.
    The supplemental appropriations bill had $18.9 billion for 
assistance for Ukraine, $5.458 billion went to food and 
humanitarian assistance, and I'm very interested in hearing 
about how this money gets out the door and on the ground to 
people who need it as soon as possible, so that we can head off 
a lot of problems.
    One of the things I think is missing and not a particularly 
Republican-Democrat problem is: what is the strategy concerning 
the international affairs part of our budget and what is the 
role of the United States in the world? What do we get out of 
Ukraine? Why are we helping Ukraine but get out of Afghanistan? 
I'd like to help both.
    From the national security perspective, the international 
affairs budget is 1 percent of spending. Is it being 
coordinated in a fashion to get the best results when it comes 
to our national security?
    China, we all see China as a rising threat to democracy. 
What should we do in Asia? The U.S. International Development 
Finance Corporation (DFC), how does it interact with the USAID? 
Half of our problem in Asia is not showing up. The Solomon 
Islands is a good example of where China has filled a vacuum.
    So, you can count me in for spending more in this space if 
it's part of an overall plan and part of showing up in Africa 
and Asia and not through military uniforms as much as through 
economic assistance and entrepreneurial opportunities.
    The DFC is a good concept. The Millennium Challenge 
Corporation is a good concept. USAID. How do all these agencies 
work together to get an outcome?
    So, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to trying to not only do a 
fiscal year 2023 budget, but to make sure that if we do another 
supplemental, the money's well spent. To the American people, 
the combination of wars and famine and climate change, you name 
it, has led to a historic number of people without food who are 
going to move to a place where there is food if somebody 
doesn't come in and find a way to keep them where they live. 
This $5 billion in supplemental funding is a generous 
allocation by the American people.
    I just want to let my colleagues on this Committee on both 
sides of the aisle know it's not enough. We'll be doing this 
again because I don't see anything getting better any time 
soon.
    So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I enjoy the Committee. I love 
the work we do, and it's one area in the Congress where I think 
we tend to come together, and I want to keep it that way.
    Senator Coons. Thank you.
    Madam Administrator.
    Ms. Power. Thank you so much, Chairman Coons, Ranking 
Member Graham, Senator Durbin, good to see you, incoming 
Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee.
    I am grateful above all for your leadership as Chair and 
Ranking, that of your teams. You know, you have an oversight 
role but honestly you have a brainstorming, a collaboration, a 
how do we stare at the puzzle and the predicament of a 
confluence of crises together and come up with tools that are 
fit for purpose in the here and now. I really feel like we are 
one team.
    I'm grateful for the chance to discuss the fiscal year 2023 
President's budget request for USAID, and I look forward to 
having the chance to wade into some of the issues that you've 
touched upon in your opening statements, but I think echoing a 
couple of the points that have been made, I'd like to just step 
back and try to frame the discussion ahead by starting with the 
idea that I think it is no overstatement that right now right 
here we are gathering at a juncture in our history at an 
inflection point.
    For 16 straight years we've seen the number of people 
living under democratic rule decline. The world is now less 
free and less peaceful than at any point since the end of the 
Cold War, and for several years, as we have seen vividly, 
graphically, horrifically in recent days in Ukraine, 
autocracies have grown increasingly brazen, claiming that they 
can get done for their people things with a speed and an 
efficiency that they claim democracies lack, taking advantage 
of our open systems also to meddle and that's true of countries 
with democratic environments all around the world.
    We see with what Putin is doing in Ukraine just how empty 
that rhetoric is, just how dark the road to and from autocracy 
is, Putin's brutal war on a peaceful neighbor in Ukraine, the 
People's Republic of China's campaign of genocide and crimes 
against humanity in Xinsheng.
    Now with autocracies on their back heel, now is the moment 
for the world's democracies to unite and to take a big step 
forward after so many years of losing ground.
    If the world's free nations with the United States in the 
lead are able to unite and catalyze the efforts of our allies, 
the private sector and our multilateral institutions, if we can 
marshal the resources necessary to help partner nations and 
freedom-loving, freedom-coveting populations, we have a chance 
to extend the reach of peace, prosperity, and human dignity to 
billions more people.
    This has been USAID's mission since its inception more than 
six decades ago and to reiterate, I am so truly grateful to you 
for your continued bipartisan support of our efforts to save 
lives, to strengthen economies, to prevent fragility and 
conflict, and to promote resilience to all of the shocks that 
we have been discussing already here today, as well as your 
support in helping bolster freedom and the cause of freedom 
around the world.
    USAID's work is a testament to the fact that America and 
the American people care about the plight of others, that we 
can competently accomplish mammoth goals that no other country 
can, and that the work we do abroad also matters to the 
American people here at home. It makes us safer. It makes us 
more prosperous. It engenders goodwill that strengthens 
alliances and global cooperation.
    Thanks to your past support, the U.S. has helped get more 
than a half a billion COVID-19 vaccines to people in a 115 
countries. We've led life-saving humanitarian and disaster 
responses in 68 countries, including Haiti, Ethiopia, and 
Ukraine, of course. We've helped enhance pathways for legal 
migration to the U.S. while working to strengthen worker 
protections, and we've assisted the relocation and resettlement 
of Afghan colleagues and refugees under the most dire of 
circumstances while pivoting our programming in Afghanistan to 
address ongoing food insecurity and public health needs and 
continuing to push to keep women and girls in school.
    We're also making strides to become a much more nimble 
agency at a time of immense demands that you've alluded to, 
shoring up a depleted workforce by welcoming new recruits and 
operating with greater flexibility, including some that you 
have afforded us in the recent appropriations cycle.
    The Biden-Harris Administration's fiscal year 2023 
discretionary request of $29.4 billion will build on these 
steps forward, giving us the ability to invest in the people 
and the systems to meet the world's most significant challenges 
so that the United States can seize this moment.
    Last week with bipartisan support you passed a nearly $40 
billion package for Ukraine that will provide vital assistance 
to our support of displaced peoples, to the country's recovery, 
and to the secondary effects on food, fuel, and fertilizer that 
we're witnessing as a result of the Russian Federation's 
belligerence.
    Your bipartisan support for a robust fiscal year 2023 top 
line for the State, Foreign Operations Senate bill will help us 
meet this moment and advance American interests and the 
critical foreign policy and development priorities before us.
    The challenges, of course, in Ukraine and beyond are 
significant. Putin's war has displaced more than 14 million 
people, including two-thirds of Ukraine's children. It has led 
to serious disruptions to global food, fuel, and fertilizer 
supplies around the world, further taxing an already 
overwhelmed international system.
    Up to 40 million additional people could be pushed into 
poverty and food insecurity in 2022 due to Putin's war.
    Two difficult years of the COVID-19 pandemic have set back 
development gains and despite the U.S. leadership in 
vaccinating the world, leadership which has accrued such 
benefit to the health of citizens in the countries in which we 
work but also indirect benefit to the American people, that job 
remains unfinished.
    Multibillion dollar climate shocks appear each year with 
more frequency and these challenges only compound suffering in 
places where there are already humanitarian crises, like 
Ethiopia, Syria, and Yemen. Yet as grave as these challenges 
are, I sincerely believe that this opportunity, this moment, 
this point of inflection provides us a huge opportunity to meet 
the moment and meet the needs to advance U.S. foreign policy 
objectives.
    By providing the resources necessary to seize this moment, 
the United States can galvanize commitments from our allies and 
our private sector partners. We can help reserve years of 
democratic decline and we can demonstrate to the world that 
democracies can deliver in a way that autocracies certainly 
cannot. With your support USAID will move aggressively to seize 
this opportunity.
    Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
    [The statement follows:]
           Prepared Statement of Administrator Samantha Power
    Thank you Chairman Coons, Ranking Member Graham, distinguished 
Members of the Subcommittee. I am grateful for the opportunity to 
discuss the fiscal year 2023 President's Budget Request for the U.S. 
Agency for International Development (USAID).
    It is no overstatement to say we gather at a profound juncture in 
history.
    For 16 straight years, we've seen the number of people living under 
democratic rule decline--the world is now less free and less peaceful 
than at any point since the Cold War. And for several years, 
autocracies have grown increasingly brazen on the world stage, claiming 
that they can get things done for the people with a speed and 
effectiveness that democracies cannot match.
    Today, we see just how empty that rhetoric is, and just how dark 
the road to autocracy can be. Vladimir Putin's brutal war on a peaceful 
neighbor in Ukraine has shown a callous disregard for human life, 
global stability, and the very idea of truth itself. The courage of the 
people of Ukraine and the stalwart support of the United States and our 
allies and partners has unified and inspired people around the world 
striving for peace, democracy, human rights and freedom. Meanwhile, the 
People's Republic of China continues its campaign of genocide and 
crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, forcibly detaining more than one 
million Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority 
groups.
    If the world's free nations, with the United States in the lead, 
are able to unite the efforts of our allies, the private sector, and 
our multilateral institutions, and marshal the resources necessary to 
help partner nations stand up to autocracies, manage the aftershocks of 
Putin's war against Ukraine, end the pandemic, fight climate change, 
prevent conflict and promote stability, and safeguard democratic 
reforms, we have a chance extend the reach of peace, prosperity, and 
human dignity to billions.
    This has been USAID's mission since its inception six decades ago, 
and I am immensely grateful to you for your continued bipartisan 
support of our efforts to save lives, strengthen economies, prevent 
fragility, promote resilience, and bolster freedom around the world. 
USAID's work is a demonstration to the world that America cares about 
the plight of others, and that we can competently accomplish mammoth 
goals that no other country can. But the work we do abroad also matters 
to Americans here at home--it makes us safer, more prosperous, 
engenders goodwill that strengthens alliances and global cooperation, 
and creates a better future for the generations to come. Your 
bipartisan support for a robust fiscal year 23 topline for the State 
Foreign Operations Senate bill will help us meet this moment and 
advance American interests and the critical foreign policy and 
development priorities before us.
    The Biden-Harris Administration's fiscal year 2023 request of $29.4 
billion fully funding foreign assistance that is partially implemented 
by USAID is a reflection of the critical importance of development and 
humanitarian assistance in advancing U.S. interests around the world. 
The fiscal year 2023 request also includes vital assistance to respond 
to the growing number of development priorities and global humanitarian 
crises. The request additionally includes $6.5 billion in mandatory 
funding for the State Department and USAID to make transformative 
investments in pandemic and other biological threat preparedness 
globally, including financing for the new pandemic preparedness and 
global health security fund being established this summer, with 
leadership by the Indonesian G20 presidency and other partners around 
the world.
    We know, though, that the mammoth needs around the world--from the 
COVID-19 pandemic's continued effects to multi-billion dollar climate 
shocks to a spike in global food, energy, and fertilizer prices due to 
the Russian Federation's belligerence--are far larger than any single 
nation's ability to meet them. The request will allow the United States 
to lead, and in leading, allow us to mobilize allies, organizations, 
and private sector partners to contribute more to the causes critical 
to our nation's interests.
    Thanks to your past support, the United States has helped get more 
than half a billion COVID-19 vaccines to people in 115 countries; led 
life-saving humanitarian and disaster responses in 68 countries, 
including Haiti, Ethiopia, and Ukraine; helped enhance pathways for 
legal migration to the U.S. while working to strengthen worker 
protections; and assisted the relocation and resettlement of Afghan 
colleagues and refugees under the most dire of circumstances, while 
pivoting our programming in Afghanistan to address ongoing food 
insecurity and public health needs, and continuing to push to keep 
women and girls in school.
    We are also making strides to become a much more nimble Agency at a 
time of immense demands, shoring up a depleted Agency by welcoming new 
recruits, and operating with greater flexibility. The fiscal year 2023 
Request will build on these steps forward, giving us the ability to 
invest in the people and systems to meet the world's most significant 
challenges so the United States can seize this moment in history.
Supporting the people of Ukraine and managing the global food crisis 
        stemming from the Kremlin's war of aggression
    As we enter the third month of the Russian Federation's full-scale 
war of aggression against Ukraine, the humanitarian situation has grown 
dire, especially in the country's east, even as Ukraine continues to 
put up stiff resistance on the battlefield. We are actively programming 
resources passed in the March 15th Ukraine Supplemental Act and seeking 
additional supplemental resources to continue supporting the people of 
Ukraine and address rising global food insecurity as they continue to 
defend their sovereignty and their country. These resources are 
critical to making sure that Russia's war against Ukraine is a 
strategic failure for the Kremlin, while easing the global suffering 
their actions have caused.
    Since the war began, more than 13 million people have been 
displaced--over a quarter of Ukraine's population including two-thirds 
of the country's children. That includes 5.7 million refugees, 90 
percent of whom are women and children. An estimated 7.7 million more 
people are internally displaced inside Ukraine. An estimated 15.7 
million people inside Ukraine will need humanitarian assistance over 
the next 4 months.
    These supplemental resources that Congress provided have been 
instrumental in surging critically-needed assistance to those in need 
in the country, and to mobilizing the humanitarian systems required to 
coordinate a significant response. To date, our implementing partner, 
the World Food Program--which was not present on the ground in Ukraine 
when the conflict broke out--has scaled up its presence, and has now 
provided nearly 3.5 million people with rapid response rations, bread 
distributions, and cash-based transfers, with plans to increase 
distribution to reach 6 million people by June. With support from the 
United States and other donors, UNICEF and its local partners have 
provided critical health supplies to support access to primary 
healthcare for over 1.5 million children and women and ensured access 
to safe water for nearly 1.3 million people in affected areas as of May 
3. While much has been accomplished, we recognize that more must be 
done, particularly in securing humanitarian access to reach those in 
active conflict zones with the assistance they urgently need.
    To support the Ukrainian government's ability to administer 
services and manage its budgetary needs, USAID has contributed $500 
million to the World Bank's Multi-Donor Trust Fund for Ukraine (MDTF), 
and as President Biden announced recently, we plan to transfer an 
additional $500 million from the fiscal year 2022 Ukraine Supplemental 
Appropriations Act, for a total of $1 billion. The supplemental funding 
will also enable us to provide assistance to Ukraine and neighboring 
frontline states like Moldova. This plan focuses on economic 
stabilization, countering disinformation, and promoting energy 
independence.
    Of course, Putin's war has effects beyond Ukraine's borders. The 
Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine has led to serious disruptions to global 
food, fuel, and fertilizer supplies, while also denting crop production 
and household incomes, and causing already high food prices to rise 
further, thereby taxing the international humanitarian system. USAID is 
coordinating with other U.S. Departments and Agencies to respond to 
immediate, medium-, and long-term impacts on global food security and 
nutrition. Estimates suggest that up to 40 million additional people 
could be pushed into poverty and food insecurity over the coming year--
in addition to the over 800 million people around the world who already 
face hunger. These populations are mostly focused in the Middle East, 
and West and East Africa, where higher fertilizer prices today threaten 
crop yields and harvests tomorrow. With the main planting season about 
to begin, countries like Ethiopia and South Sudan face the possibility 
of significant reductions to projected crop yields, food accessibility, 
and household incomes.
    Putin's attack and its devastating effects on global food security 
comes on top of 2 years of record food insecurity as a result of the 
COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. In fiscal year 2022, nearly two 
thirds of our Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance's programming was to 
address food insecurity and prevent famine through emergency food 
assistance and related programming. This year, a similar proportion of 
funding will go to address growing food insecurity, however, due to the 
skyrocketing costs of food and fuel, the same amount of funding will 
reach 10 million fewer people.
    In light of the food crisis, USAID, together with our partners at 
USDA, have made the exceptional decision to draw down the full balance 
of the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust--$282 million--which will be 
used to procure U.S. food commodities to bolster existing emergency 
food operations in six countries facing severe food insecurity: 
Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Yemen. We are 
immensely grateful to USDA, which will provide $388 million in 
additional funding through the Commodity Credit Corporation to cover 
transportation and other associated costs so that food can get to 
places around the globe where it is needed most.
    Yet even as we meet short-term food assistance needs, we must 
continue to invest in long-term food security and build resilient food 
systems so that countries have the ability to feed themselves, lower 
their dependence on Russian wheat and agriculture, and manage future 
food shocks.
    The United States Government has long been a global leader in 
addressing global food insecurity. In the first 7 years since the 
launch of the U.S. Feed the Future Initiative, the program is estimated 
to have lifted 23.4 million people out of poverty, 5.2 million 
households out of hunger, and 3.4 million children from risk of 
stunting. That's in addition to the program's measurable benefits for 
farmers and agribusinesses here in the U.S. and around the world, due 
to increased agricultural productivity, trade, jobs and income, and 
U.S. exports.
    And yet, new disruptions to food security around the world indicate 
that our need for funding will continue to be significant. That's why 
the fiscal year 2023 request includes over $1 billion in State and 
USAID economic and development funding for global food security. This 
money will go towards bolstering Feed the Future initiatives around the 
world, strengthening food systems, supporting farmers, and building 
community resilience.
    controlling covid-19 and strengthening global health leadership
    Much has changed from the haunting early days in March 2020. Thanks 
to funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and additional 
supplemental appropriations, the United States has been the clear 
leader in the international response to COVID-19, and our Agency has 
already invested over 95 percent of the funding Congress has generously 
provided to us, and we expect to obligate virtually all of the 
remaining funds by July.
    We have expanded testing, treatment, and surveillance in countries 
around the world. In hotspots in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and 
the Caribbean, we have provided rapid responses for urgent healthcare 
needs, critical commodities, and technical assistance. And we have 
helped support developing countries in mitigating the transmission and 
morbidity of COVID-19, while also helping those countries prevent and 
mitigate food insecurity, gender-based violence, and other secondary 
effects of COVID-19.
    Our Agency has also helped lead the effort to vaccinate the world. 
In partnership with the Department of Defense, we have procured 1 
billion Pfizer vaccine doses for up to 100 countries around the world, 
free of charge and with no strings attached. We are addressing the most 
urgent vaccine delivery and country readiness needs in more than 100 
countries, including surge support to 11 countries in sub-Saharan 
Africa, under the U.S. government's Global VAX initiative. We are 
leading Global VAX as a whole-of-government effort in close partnership 
with the Centers for Disease Control--and we are already seeing 
significant vaccination progress in these countries such as Uganda, 
where vaccination coverage increased fivefold between January and May, 
and Nigeria, where vaccination rates increased nearly threefold during 
that same time period.
    And yet, our job remains unfinished. Many countries are still off 
track to hit their vaccination coverage targets this year. Global 
testing, treatment, and health services still lag. Without additional 
resources, many of our programs will begin wrapping up activities and 
closing down this fall. And we risk a significant loss of progress in 
our other global health programs if we cannot secure needed emergency 
funds. That's why President Biden requested $22.5 billion in 
supplemental funding to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, $5 billion of 
which would be dedicated to global efforts.
    Additional supplemental funding would enable a significant 
expansion of our international vaccination drive, provide surge support 
to an additional 20-to-25 undervaccinated countries in significant 
need, countries like Liberia, where 24 percent of the population is 
vaccinated, and Haiti, where less than 2 percent of the population is 
fully vaccinated. It would also support other international COVID-19 
response priorities like providing boosters and pediatric vaccinations, 
testing, treatments--including the newest, high-impact antivirals--as 
well as additional health services that would reach an additional 100 
million people.
    Such funding is essential if we are ever to turn COVID-19 from a 
damaging global pandemic into a manageable respiratory disease.
    Barring additional funding, the United States will have to turn its 
back on the countries that need urgent help to boost their vaccination 
rates and access lifesaving treatments. Failing to help these countries 
get shots into arms and reduce severe disease means we will leave their 
populations unprotected and allow the virus to continue mutating into 
new, potentially more dangerous variants. Scientific research has 
established that new variants are more likely to emerge from a long-
term infection in immuno-compromised individuals who lack access to 
vaccination or treatment. These variants will inevitably make their way 
onto American soil, close down American cities, and infect and cost 
American lives.
    On May 12,the United States, Belize, Germany, Indonesia, and 
Senegal co-hosted the second Global COVID-19 Summit. Summit 
participants made major new policy and financial commitments to make 
vaccines available to those at highest risk, to expand access to tests 
and treatments, and to prevent future health crises. Specifically, 
leaders from governments and other key partners, non-governmental 
organizations, the private sector, and philanthropies committed to 
provide $3.2 billion in new funding, in addition to previous 2022 
pledges. This includes nearly $2.5 billion for COVID-19 and related 
response activities and $712 million in new commitments toward a new 
pandemic preparedness and global health security fund at the World 
Bank. This funding will be complemented by significant policy 
commitments from lower-income countries to accelerate their domestic 
responses to COVID-19 and enhance their global health security 
capabilities. These commitments are critical, and show that others have 
been inspired to step up to fund this response and future pandemic 
preparedness. However, significant financing gaps remain, and they are 
no substitute for sustained leadership and significant investment from 
the United States to control what continues to be a deadly pandemic and 
prevent the emergence of new variants.
    As we race to end the pandemic, USAID continues to push ahead on 
our broader global health efforts. The fiscal year 2023 Request for 
USAID includes $3.96 billion to advance American leadership in Global 
Health and Global Health Security. These funds will help to prevent 
child and maternal deaths, bolster nutrition, control the HIV/AIDS 
epidemic, expand the global health workforce, and combat infectious 
diseases. Funding in USAID-managed assistance will respond to the 
ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on global health programs 
including tuberculosis and malaria, as well as strengthening health 
systems and global health security to better prevent, detect, and 
respond to future infectious disease outbreaks.
    In addition, the fiscal year 2023 request includes $6.5 billion in 
mandatory funding for the Department of State and USAID for critical 
pandemic preparedness activities. These funds will make transformative 
investments in pandemic and other biological threat preparedness 
globally by strengthening the global health workforce, advancing 
pandemic vaccine development, replenishing emergency response capacity, 
and providing health security financing to prevent, detect, and respond 
to future infectious disease outbreaks.
    bolstering democracy, human rights, and governance and fighting 
                               corruption
    As the pandemic stretched into a second year, pro-democracy 
movements in many countries faltered, while governments, under guise of 
ending the pandemic, enacted new restrictions on human rights and 
fundamental freedoms. Disinformation ran rampant and sowed division 
within and between free nations. And the Chinese and Russian 
governments have worsened these trends by supporting authoritarian 
actors all over the world.
    At the same time, corruption has increased in scale and scope. 
Today's corrupt actors are highly networked, agile, and resourced--and 
for the most part, they outmatch those who stand against them. USAID's 
Anti-Corruption Task Force found that USAID Missions have extremely 
limited--and in some cases, no--resources to defend against corruption. 
While this is incredibly concerning, it's also a historic window of 
opportunity for reform.
    This opportunity, combined with the increased threats of corruption 
and democratic backsliding, is why the fiscal year 2023 Request 
includes over $2.94 billion to revitalize global democracy. These funds 
will empower local partners, provide transparency in political systems, 
and address authoritarianism and disinformation. Of this foreign 
assistance request for democracy, roughly $2.6 billion is in accounts 
that USAID will fully or partially manage. The request will advance the 
Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal introduced at the Summit 
for Democracy, a landmark set of policy and foreign assistance 
initiatives that support free and independent media, empower 
historically marginalized groups and democratic reformers, and help 
develop open, secure, and inclusive digital ecosystems.
    Traditionally, our democracy assistance has emphasized media 
training, election monitoring, and human rights advocacy. But as we've 
seen, countries in the midst of a civilian transition or with a newly 
elected leader who rose to power on the back of a campaign to fight 
corruption or expand the rule of law, need not only traditional 
democracy assistance and investments in civil society to hold 
governments accountable, but resources that can immediately deliver a 
democratic dividend that demonstrate the value of good governance and 
strong institutions and services for citizens. That might include 
support to acquire vaccines, establish a social safety net, or invest 
in a power utility to keep the lights on. This funding will give us the 
flexibility to support countries in the event of a democratic opening--
so-called democratic ``bright spots''-- with the resources they need to 
demonstrate that democracies can deliver for their people. This amount 
also includes $100 million to fight transnational corruption by 
empowering anti- corruption champions, strengthening partner countries' 
ability to detect and prevent corruption, and exposing and disrupting 
the flow of illicit money, goods, and natural resources.
    The President's fiscal year 2023 request includes $2.6 billion for 
USAID and the Department of State to promote gender equality and the 
political, economic, and social empowerment of women and girls; prevent 
and respond to gender-based violence; expand access to child, elder, 
and home care services and address gender discrimination and systemic 
inequities blocking the full participation of women and girls, men and 
boys, and individuals of other gender identities-- all by integrating 
gender equality across a range of development, humanitarian and 
security assistance. This historic request would more than double our 
commitment to women's empowerment and gender equality.
    Advancing gender equality reduces poverty, promotes economic 
growth, increases access to education, improves health outcomes, 
advances political stability, and fosters democracy. The full 
participation of all people is essential to economic well-being, 
health, and security.
                   restoring u.s. climate leadership
    Recently, USAID launched a new Climate Strategy that will guide our 
efforts to tackle the existential threat of climate change over this 
decade in a way that is truly transformational.
    Our Climate Strategy lays out six ambitious targets to be achieved 
between 2022-2030, which together would represent a dramatic increase 
in our Agency's efforts to stem the climate crisis. These targets 
include preventing six billion metric tons of global greenhouse gas 
emissions--the equivalent of taking 100 million cars off the road for a 
decade--and conserving 100 million hectares of critical landscapes, an 
area more than twice the size of California. We would also support 500 
million people to better prepare for and adapt to the impacts of 
climate change that are already wreaking havoc on marginalized 
communities.
    The President's fiscal year 2023 request includes $2.3 billion in 
international climate financing, and given the substantial gap in 
climate financing globally, USAID's Climate Strategy places a special 
emphasis on catalyzing substantial new private investment for climate 
mitigation and adaptation; our goal is to kickstart $150 billion in new 
public and private climate finance by 2030. We are also focused on the 
conservation, restoration and management of 100 million hectares of 
carbon critical landscapes by 2039--land that captures and stores 
carbon while preserving biodiversity and helping to prevent zoonotic 
transfer of diseases driven by habitat destruction.
    We also continue to work closely with the Government of India 
through the support of their global climate initiative, the Coalition 
for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure. The United States is a founding 
member of the coalition, and we have invested in supporting its 
technical leadership and formalization, with a goal of creating a 
global body that will advocate for the creation of infrastructure that 
can withstand climate and disaster risks and disseminate best 
practices. Since its founding in 2019, the Coalition now has 35 global 
members and over 400 companies, all working to share expertise and 
strengthen resilient infrastructure development across the globe.
          addressing irregular migration from central america
    In the past 6 months alone, USAID programming in Central America 
has created more than 40,000 jobs, provided life-saving humanitarian 
assistance to 1.8 million people, supported distribution of more than 
10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, and helped mobilize $1.2 billion in 
private investment. Because one of the most effective ways to counter 
irregular migration is to provide legal means for securing seasonal or 
temporary migration, we have helped expand labor migration pathways 
from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras through the H-2B seasonal 
visa program. And we have used policy, development, and diplomatic 
tools to pressure leaders in the region to govern democratically and 
transparently.
    But as demonstrated by the continued arrival of migrants at 
American borders, much more work is needed. Individual migration 
decisions are complex, but they are rarely made on a whim, and we use 
data from multiple sources to understand their root causes and target 
our programs accordingly. As documented by the Government 
Accountability Office, the decision to suspend most assistance to 
Northern Central America in 2019 adversely impacted over 80 percent of 
USAID projects, and we continue to work aggressively to restart, 
optimize and scale our programs. For fiscal year 2023, USAID and the 
Department of State are requesting $986.8 million to support the second 
year of implementation of the U.S. Strategy to Address the Root Causes 
of Migration in Central America.
    Using this money, we will continue working with partners in civil 
society, government, and the private sector to address the drivers of 
migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras-- drivers like lack 
of economic opportunity, corruption, violence, human rights abuses, 
absence of quality public services, and declining trust in government. 
We will continue building and implementing a robust monitoring, 
evaluation, and learning plan designed to track progress under the 
Strategy. And we will defend democracy, human rights, and civic space 
throughout Central America so that citizens believe they have a voice 
and a future in their countries of origin. Nicaragua is a case in 
point. The Ortega regime's gravely concerning wide-scale crackdown on 
civil society and rejection of democratic norms and processes in 
Nicaragua has coincided with a major rise in out migration of 
Nicaraguans fleeing political repression and economic stagnation under 
Ortega.
     responding to humanitarian crises in places like ethiopia and 
                              afghanistan
    Stopping the threat of famine and addressing atrocities in Ethiopia 
is a top priority for the Biden Administration and for USAID. Fighting 
has left as many as 9 million people in northern Ethiopia in desperate 
need of food and forced more than 2 million people to flee their homes. 
Food insecurity projections from February 2022 to May 2022 show that up 
to a million people will face famine-like conditions in northern 
Ethiopia by June--700,000 of those in the Tigray Region. In the Tigray 
Region alone, more than 90 percent of people depend on assistance.
    At the same time, there have been multiple, credible reports of 
gross violations of human rights related to the conflict in northern 
Ethiopia Since last appearing before this committee, I visited the Um 
Rakuba refugee camp in Sudan, where I met with victims of the conflict 
in Tigray and heard their heartbreaking stories of abuse and violence.
    Recently, the Government of Ethiopia and Tigray regional 
authorities reached a truce in their fighting--the source of so much of 
this human misery. And since the truce on March 24, over 200 trucks 
have arrived in Tigray in April alone, with the number of trucks slowly 
increasing. But to meet the immense humanitarian needs in Tigray, more 
than 500 trucks carrying tons of food and life-saving supplies need to 
arrive each week. The current flow is woefully insufficient.
    We will continue to push for significant, sustained, unconditional, 
and unhindered delivery of much-needed aid to all those in need. We 
will also continue working with interagency partners to address and 
mitigate ongoing human rights violations and credible reports of 
atrocities by countering hate speech and mis- and disinformation, 
strengthening protection of freedom of expression and peaceful protest, 
supporting independent media outlets and watchdog organizations, 
strengthening local conflict mitigation, supporting the rule of law, 
building an enabling environment for national dialogue, and monitoring 
and documenting human rights abuses.
    In Afghanistan, an estimated 22.8 million Afghans face food 
insecurity following the Taliban's seized power in August 2021. 
Currently, the United Nations estimates that 95 percent of the Afghan 
population is in need of assistance. And to truly end the humanitarian 
crisis, we must also address the roots of Afghanistan's economic and 
development crises as well as advocate for the promotion of human 
rights for all Afghans. On March 23, the Taliban abruptly reversed its 
decision to allow girls to attend school past the sixth grade. On May 
7, the Taliban imposed additional restrictions on Afghan women and 
girls freedom of movement, employment, and access to society, all of 
which jeopardize the human rights and agency of Afghan women The 
Taliban have also threatened civil society organizations through media 
crackdowns, intimidation, unjust detentions, and assaults of 
journalists.
    While we continue to work through diplomatic channels and 
likeminded donors to press the Taliban to reverse course and allow all 
girls to go to school, women to work and participate in the economy and 
protect the rights of minorities and civil society; we remain committed 
to supporting the people of Afghanistan. The United States has been the 
single largest donor of humanitarian assistance since the fall of Kabul 
in August 2021. Since then, the U.S. Government has contributed $719 
million. Alongside us, the humanitarian community provided another 
$1.82 billion towards the humanitarian response in 2021. And we are 
working with our partners to support basic needs like health, 
livelihoods, agriculture, and education.
    We will continue programs to enable the direct delivery of 
humanitarian assistance. Our aid helps support rural livelihoods, 
improve food security and develop resistance in food systems in 
Afghanistan, enable women and girls to access quality healthcare, 
education, support for gender- based violence, civil society 
organizations, and training and livelihood programs. And we support 
journalists and media organizations, while also working to counter 
human trafficking.
                  supporting community-led development
    Across all our efforts, it is crucial that we engage more 
frequently and more intensely and sustainably with a broader range of 
partners. That's especially true of the community-led organizations and 
companies based in the countries in which we work. When we partner with 
these local NGOs and businesses, we have an opportunity to double our 
impact--to not just manage a project and deliver results, but to grow 
the local capacity of that business or organization so its impact will 
be sustained long after its relationship with USAID ends.
    Our current approach to community-led development draws upon more 
than a decade of the Agency's prior experience. It aims to devolve more 
power and leadership to local actors, elevate diversity and equity in 
our partnerships, and address some of the systemic and operational 
constraints at USAID. We have to approach localization as a shift in 
not just with whom we work, but also in how we work: creating 
intentional shifts in the way we design and implement our programs so 
that we are putting local communities and stakeholders in the lead. 
This is about deeper, more systemic change.
    Our efforts to advance community-led development have been warmly 
embraced by more than 1,000 local development organizations, as well as 
by many of our implementing partners and some of the largest 
international non-governmental organizations. Thanks to your support, 
the fiscal year 2022 appropriations bill provided an initial $100 
million in the fiscal year 2022 appropriations bill to support our 
Centroamerica Local initiative, along with the authority, flexibility, 
and staff resources to prioritize working with local organizations in 
Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
    With more support from Congress, we can deepen this approach across 
our Agency and our Missions. The fiscal year 2023 request includes 
$47.6 million for the Centroamerica Local initiative--$40 million for 
direct awards to local organizations and $7.6 million to help staff 
this effort.
        investing in our people and building a stronger culture
    Of course, none of what we set out to achieve would be possible 
without USAID's dedicated team of development professionals serving our 
nation throughout the world. Many of our staff are still reeling from 
the COVID-19 pandemic, having lost loved ones even as they sought to 
protect others in their community from the virus.
    With your support, we are also increasing the size and agility of 
the career workforce to better advance U.S. national security 
priorities. Since last year, we have hired approximately 500 career 
employees and are working to reach our target levels of 1,850 Foreign 
Service and 1,600 Civil Service employees this year.
    The fiscal year 2023 request includes $1.7 billion to continue 
these efforts to invest in our people and build our institutional 
capacity, increasing the number of U.S. direct-hire positions that 
advance our most critical and effective foreign assistance program. 
This funding covers salaries and benefits of our direct hire Foreign 
Service and Civil Service workforce, overseas and Washington 
operations, and central support, including human capital initiatives, 
security, and information technology. The fiscal year 2023 Request also 
includes resources for the launch of the Global Development Partnership 
initiative, a workforce expansion program, that will focus on democracy 
and anti-corruption, global health security, national security, climate 
change, operational management, and a more permanent humanitarian 
assistance workforce.
    But in reconstituting our workforce, we want to recruit and retain 
talent differently than we have before, with an emphasis on hiring and 
nurturing a workforce that truly represents America. Thanks to the 
sustained leadership of our staff, we've taken several steps toward 
these aims. Their work and advocacy over many years enabled one of my 
first acts as Administrator, which was signing the USAID Diversity, 
Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Strategic Plan--a framework 
document to guide the Agency's efforts to integrate DEIA into every 
aspect of our work.
    Since signing this document, we've taken concrete steps to advance 
our DEIA goals. We have conducted assessments that provided us with 
data and employee experiences to help us decide how to prioritize our 
efforts and resources. We onboarded five DEIA Advisors in Washington 
operating units and are actively recruiting more. And we have 
established the Office of the Chief DEIA Officer and welcomed our 
Agency's first-ever Chief Diversity Officer. We also launched our first 
recruitment conferences for students at both Historically Black 
Colleges and Universities and Hispanic-Serving Institutions, with 
another planned for Arab American students later this year.
    Since appearing before you last year, I have had the chance to 
travel to three HBCUs--Delaware State, Tuskegee University, and Alcorn 
State--as well as Florida International University, the largest 
Hispanic-Serving Institution in the U.S., to sign new agreements that 
will help expand our recruitment and research partnerships.
    Additionally, we are addressing current DEIA data gaps by making 
our data collection process more inclusive. We're expanding our talent 
recruitment pipelines and lowering barriers to entry for development 
partnership opportunities by collaborating with minority-serving 
institutions, increasing engagement and career development 
opportunities for underrepresented students, and establishing hiring 
goals to increase the number of employees who are persons with 
disabilities.
    However, it is not enough just to recruit talent, we must nurture 
and develop it. We will expand access to professional development and 
learning opportunities and equip our managers with the tools to lead 
talented and diverse teams. We are also developing commitments to our 
locally- employed colleagues to codify entitlements, benefits, and 
career advancement and professional development opportunities for our 
Foreign Service Nationals, who constitute 70 percent of our overseas 
workforce.
                               conclusion
    The challenges we have encountered in the past year are grave and 
loom large, but I sincerely believe the opportunity before us is even 
larger. By providing the resources necessary to seize this moment, the 
United States can galvanize commitments from our allies and our private 
sector partners; support the people of Ukraine in their moment of need 
and help manage the impact the Kremlin's war is having on the world's 
food supply; control the COVID-19 pandemic while laying the groundwork 
to detect and prevent future pandemics, strengthen health systems, and 
quickly rollout future vaccines; help countries adapt to the worst 
effects of climate change while embracing new renewable technologies 
and green jobs; and demonstrate to the world that democracies can 
deliver in a way no autocracy can.
    With your support, USAID will move aggressively to grasp this 
opportunity. Thank you.

                                 ______
                                 
 Prepared Statement of Acting Inspector, General Thomas J. Ullom, U.S. 
                  Agency for International Development
    Chairman Coons, Ranking Member Graham, and Members of the 
Subcommittee:

    Thank you for the opportunity to provide a written statement for 
the subcommittee's hearing on the U.S. Agency for International 
Development's (USAID's) fiscal year 2023 budget request. The USAID 
Office of Inspector General (OIG) provides independent, objective 
oversight to safeguard and strengthen U.S. foreign assistance. We 
appreciate your continued support of our office as we work across USAID 
as well as the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the U.S. African 
Development Foundation, and the Inter-American Foundation to promote 
effectiveness and efficiency in foreign assistance programs and 
identify and deter the fraud, waste, and abuse that can jeopardize 
those programs' success.
    USAID's mission is to advance a peaceful and prosperous world 
through its development and humanitarian assistance activities, and in 
doing so advance U.S. national security and economic priorities. The 
Agency's budget request speaks to ongoing and planned development and 
humanitarian work around the globe with ambitious aims--from saving 
lives to fighting transnational corruption to tackling root causes of 
irregular migration. It also includes elements intended to provide for 
a secure and skilled workforce to enable USAID's success. As in prior 
years, supplemental funding to address new crises may augment USAID's 
responsibility on the world stage and increase demands on the Agency's 
capability to act.
    USAID must overcome complex challenges while executing its mission 
across over 100 countries. It often works in close coordination with 
other U.S. government agencies and international donors while 
overseeing an array of contractors, grantees, and other recipients of 
U.S. funds worldwide. Our work highlights the importance of 
implementing controls and building partnerships in even the most 
difficult settings to manage, monitor, and sustain results. The U.S. 
government's response to the conflict in Ukraine illustrates the 
multifaceted risks. There, USAID is called to overcome supply chain 
constraints to support the Ukrainian people's most critical needs, 
coordinate with domestic and international partners to advance 
objectives, and support the safety of its own staff.
    This statement draws upon our annual report on the top management 
challenges facing USAID and aligns with our five priority oversight 
areas:\1\

  --Advancing global health outcomes
  --Managing aid in emerging and protracted crises
  --Leveraging local strengths for sustainable development
  --Advancing foreign assistance priorities through coordinated efforts
  --Strengthening core management functions

    As discussed below, our work points to key lessons for USAID and 
other stakeholders to both amplify strengths and address potential 
risks in U.S. humanitarian and development programs. This is especially 
critical with respect to managing urgent and ongoing crises and 
addressing emerging priorities of the administration. Overall, amid 
long-standing development challenges and an ever-changing geopolitical 
landscape, our work underscores the constant need for responsible 
stewardship among agencies and implementers alike.
                    advancing global health outcomes
    The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose an unprecedented global 
public health crisis with more than 500 million confirmed cases and 6.2 
million deaths as of April 2022. USAID contributed to the U.S. 
government's international pandemic response to combat the virus and 
prevent decades of development gains from being lost due to the 
resulting economic, democratic, and social backsliding effects. In 
addition, USAID has committed to reinforcing U.S. global health 
leadership in pandemic preparedness and decades-long advances in 
responses to HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, and infectious 
diseases like malaria.
    Our oversight of USAID's COVID-19 response and broader global 
health portfolio identifies specific challenges planning, implementing, 
and monitoring activities:

  --USAID had limited control over some key decisions. Starting in 
        April 2020, the National Security Council (NSC) made key 
        decisions for USAID's COVID-19 ventilator donation program of 
        over $200 million, including which ventilator models to send 
        and where to send them.\2\ This marked a significant departure 
        from USAID's customary practice for responding to public health 
        emergencies, and the NSC's decisions did not align with USAID's 
        planned pandemic response. For example, most of the countries 
        that USAID had proposed to support were categorized as low- or 
        lower-middle income by the World Bank, but well over half of 
        all ventilator donations were made to upper-middle- or high-
        income countries, as directed by the NSC. The Government 
        Accountability Office further reported that USAID had limited 
        information on the location or use of the ventilators once 
        delivered.
  --Procurement and delivery challenges could affect COVID-19 vaccine 
        donation effectiveness. We reported that USAID may need to 
        adapt oversight to mitigate the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse 
        for USAID's $4 billion contribution to Gavi, the Vaccine 
        Alliance.\3\ We also reported that USAID, in finalizing its 
        vaccine strategy, was working through constraints with human 
        resources, supply chains, and public trust in countries 
        receiving donated vaccines. By March 2022, USAID had delivered 
        half a billion vaccines to more than 110 countries but noted 
        that in-country constraints as well as funding shortfalls could 
        keep vaccines from reaching those who need them.
  --Stronger planning and evaluation processes are needed for global 
        health supply chain awards. Weaknesses hindered USAID's ability 
        to support key design and award decisions for its $9.5 billion 
        global health supply chain contract issued to Chemonics 
        International in 2015.\4\ In addition, while Chemonics 
        International generally delivered health commodities in the 
        right quantities, more oversight was needed to improve 
        timeliness and performance. USAID still has work to do to 
        address open recommendations on procurement, oversight, and 
        risk mitigation, including improving guidance for evaluating a 
        bidder's management information systems--a critical component 
        of a global health supply chain--prior to making a future 
        award. These improvements are key for USAID to make as it 
        prepares to award its $17 billion NextGen global health supply 
        chain contracts.

    USAID continues to make progress addressing challenges and 
strengthening its global health approach. For example, in April 2022, 
the Agency revised its Framework for USAID's Response to Infectious 
Disease Outbreaks, which it first developed in July 2018 in response to 
our oversight work on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. However, 
continued diligence is imperative as global conditions evolve. We will 
keep strategic focus on USAID's global health portfolio, including the 
COVID-19 response and programming for the President's Emergency Plan 
for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In the coming year, our planned oversight 
activities include a series of COVID-19 audits covering topics to 
include USAID's coordination of related efforts, rapid response, and 
vaccine readiness activities.
             managing aid in emerging and protracted crises
    USAID responded to over 80 crises worldwide in fiscal year 2021 to 
provide life-saving support in dire situations, whether brought on by 
conflict, natural disaster, or a combination of factors. Over the past 
5 years, assistance for humanitarian needs as a portion of USAID's 
budget has doubled, reaching nearly 40 percent of USAID's net costs in 
fiscal year 2021. As needs grow and crises expand due to worsening 
weather events and prolonged pandemic effects, rigorous planning, 
monitoring, and risk mitigation are critical to safeguard U.S. 
assistance.
    Our work highlights some of the difficulties conducting sound 
planning, monitoring, and risk mitigation in humanitarian settings:

  --Fraud risk mitigation strategies must include the right actors and 
        level of detail for accountability. Otherwise, USAID faces 
        increased risks of fraud and diversion, as we found in our 
        oversight of USAID's humanitarian responses in Syria\5\ and the 
        Venezuela regional crisis.\6\ USAID recently developed a new 
        framework for managing fraud risk in response to our oversight 
        that includes defined roles and responsibilities and 
        requirements for risk assessments, control activities, and 
        monitoring. Assessing, mitigating, and monitoring fraud risks 
        remains critical for USAID in the coming year as crises unfold. 
        We have received dozens of reports of diversion and loss of 
        assistance intended for beneficiaries in Northern Ethiopia and 
        alerted USAID to instances when intimidation and demands from 
        the Taliban compromised humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan.
  --While USAID aims to bolster oversight with third-party monitoring, 
        doing so effectively has been a challenge. The extreme poverty 
        and chronic food insecurity of Africa's Sahel region draw 
        reoccurring emergency interventions, but the monitoring efforts 
        USAID relied on to track progress and make course corrections 
        fell short, which we found could affect its follow-on 
        programming.\7\ In Afghanistan, USAID reported that while the 
        end of armed conflict has improved humanitarian access, USAID-
        funded organizations continue to face access restrictions 
        affecting their female aid workers.\8\
  --With lives and livelihoods at stake, looking beyond immediate need 
        is daunting but essential for a more stable future. This was 
        the case with the Venezuela regional crisis, where we found 
        USAID had not prepared strategies to guide in-country 
        development efforts or programs to manage Venezuelan migration 
        in neighboring countries. In Iraq, we found that USAID's 
        guidance and practices did not encourage transitioning from 
        more immediate humanitarian assistance to longer term 
        solutions.\9\ While USAID has taken steps to address related 
        recommendations, the importance of deliberate planning remains 
        paramount for protracted and evolving scenarios, like in Syria 
        and Iraq, where drought now threatens food insecurity and 
        destabilizes the transition from humanitarian assistance.\10\

    We continue to examine humanitarian oversight and fraud risks in 
priority areas, including the Northern Triangle, Burma, and Yemen, and 
are planning new work on USAID's response to the circumstances in 
Ukraine and Afghanistan. We are also engaging directly with USAID's 
teams, program implementers, and our oversight partners on the ground 
to enhance awareness for preventing fraud, diversions, and losses that 
threaten the integrity of U.S. foreign assistance.
         leveraging local strengths for sustainable development
    USAID has long encouraged locally led development to achieve 
enduring results. In its fiscal year 2023 budget request, USAID 
reiterated its commitment to local investments by partnering with new, 
nontraditional, and diverse actors; empowering local organizations; and 
promoting transparent investments. Under this strategy, broad goals for 
sustained economic growth, gender equity, climate change, and more 
depend on leveraging the skills and interests of local partners, 
governments, and private sector entities.
    Yet, locally led development brings certain risks that USAID must 
accept or work to mitigate:

  --The quantity and capability of local partners may be insufficient 
        to lead some development efforts. When we looked at PEPFAR 
        programs in Africa, we found USAID was not on track to meet the 
        goal of channeling 70 percent of PEPFAR budgets through local 
        partners by September 2020 due to low baselines and challenges 
        identifying and developing capable local organizations.\11\ 
        Thus, some missions focused on programmatic rather than 
        budgetary goals. USAID faced similar issues with supply chains 
        in some countries and balanced risks by doing work on behalf of 
        local officials or by operating parallel supply chains.\12\
  --Local internal control and compliance systems may be weak. In the 
        past 10 years, we have made over 3,500 recommendations to USAID 
        citing internal control and compliance issues and questioned 
        over $1.1 billion through our reviews of local partner 
        financial audits. In the last 2 years, these financial audits 
        found over 20 instances in Africa where USAID's local partners 
        did not perform required due diligence checks, including 
        verifying whether potential employees and suppliers were 
        restricted from receiving U.S. government funds.
  --To optimize private sector engagement, USAID needs more guidance, 
        data, and dedicated staff.\13\ Otherwise, USAID risks falling 
        short of its private sector goals. We also found USAID needs 
        more guidance for monitoring cost-share contributions for 
        building local commitment.\14\
  --Weaknesses in controls and oversight can have undercutting effects. 
        One example is evidence suggesting corruption at a Kenyan 
        state-run corporation and recipient of a $650 million award 
        with USAID to store and distribute donated medical commodities. 
        The situation compromised the provision of goods to vulnerable 
        Kenyans and complicated USAID's ability to manage its 
        investment. Other examples from recent investigations include 
        the theft and resale of equipment intended for Jordanian 
        project beneficiaries and substandard construction of USAID-
        funded projects in West Bank.

    Whereas USAID looks to local organizations to bring both tailored 
solutions and have the capacity to implement them, our oversight 
examines how USAID executes its role to ensure that its local partners 
are equipped to responsibly implement and account for U.S. foreign 
assistance. In addition to investigations and financial audits, our 
ongoing work includes a performance audit of USAID's New Partnerships 
Initiative, a performance audit of USAID's approach to reviewing and 
vetting Northern Triangle program implementers, and a performance audit 
of USAID's $845 million cash transfer to the Jordanian government.
  advancing foreign assistance priorities through coordinated efforts
    Achievement of U.S. foreign assistance aims often depends on 
effective coordination between USAID, other Federal agencies, bilateral 
donors and host nations, private and public sector organizations, and 
multilateral institutions. This coordination takes place at both 
strategic and operational levels and in a wide variety of forums as 
USAID delivers aid and assistance alongside other donors working in the 
same areas. USAID must also balance executive and legislative branch 
mandates and priorities, align efforts to counteract malign actors, and 
deconflict activities to avoid internal and external duplication.
    Our work highlights some of the challenges USAID faces when 
coordinating on key decisions and strategic priorities with other 
stakeholders:

  --Funding decisions by other actors can take USAID's programs in a 
        different direction than planned, as occurred with donated 
        ventilators early in the COVID-19 response.\15\ Similarly, the 
        Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2014 directed 
        USAID to prioritize countries based on needs-based criteria and 
        opportunity indicators.\16\ However, we found USAID lacked 
        final authority for funding decisions and, at the State 
        Department's direction, ended up providing funds to some 
        countries that had low demonstrated needs.
  --To increase resilience against Russian aggression, USAID produced 
        the Countering Malign Kremlin Influence (CMKI) Development 
        Framework. However, in developing the framework, USAID did not 
        engage all internal and external stakeholders, including other 
        regional bureaus within the Agency and external donors such as 
        the European Union's Eastern Partnership Program.\17\
  --In response to statutory requirements over concerns that resources 
        were not reaching persecuted communities in Iraq, USAID took 
        efforts to channel more funds through religious and ethnic 
        minority groups. Due to a State Department-led staffing 
        reduction in Iraq, USAID faced obstacles managing the 
        increasingly complex Iraq award portfolio. While the Agency 
        sought to increase staffing levels in Iraq, these attempts were 
        unsuccessful.\18\
  --A concern affecting global development and humanitarian assistance 
        is sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), a topic we have worked 
        ardently with USAID and oversight partners to address since 
        2019. In August 2021, we alerted USAID to concerns about the 
        World Health Organization's lack of cooperation with our 
        investigative inquiry into SEA allegations against its aid 
        workers. USAID is also still working to close our audit 
        recommendations to strengthen guidance and controls and improve 
        incident reporting and tracking in an effort to prevent and 
        respond to SEA against beneficiaries.\19\

    We continue to examine opportunities to enhance coordination with 
existing and potential stakeholders through our oversight and other 
outreach efforts. This includes leveraging information-sharing 
relationships through collaboration with 12 international oversight 
counterparts, including Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the World Health 
Organization; and other U.N. agency oversight counterparts enabling us 
to cast a wide net to confront corruption allegations affecting 
programs across the aid sector.
                strengthening core management functions
    In executing its annual budget, USAID relies on support functions 
for managing finances, awards, information, and human capital. The 
fiscal year 2023 budget request ties these core management functions to 
a revitalized workforce that advances critical foreign assistance 
programs and ensures prudent accountability of taxpayer dollars.
    USAID shows continued diligence in strengthening related controls. 
For example, just over 7 years ago, a material weakness with USAID's 
reconciliations with the U.S. Treasury kept us from providing an 
opinion on the Agency's financial statements.\20\ Since then, USAID has 
worked to fix the gap, so that its financial statements are presented 
fairly and in conformance with applicable principles. However, as USAID 
adapts its development and humanitarian assistance programs for 
emerging priorities, attention to core management functions remains 
critical:

  --Challenges in the areas of award design and monitoring can lead to 
        opportunities for fraud, waste, and abuse. For example, after 
        confirming a Jordanian firm engaged in a pass-through scheme to 
        obtain an award for which it was ineligible, we issued a fraud 
        alert flagging that USAID small business set-aside awards were 
        susceptible to being awarded to pass-through or shell companies 
        with no actual presence in the United States, contrary to the 
        Small Business Act.
  --The increasing threat and number of cyberattacks on government 
        agencies demands effective protection of personally 
        identifiable information. We determined that USAID needs 
        additional controls to protect personally identifiable 
        information.\21\ Moreover, our annual audit mandated by the 
        Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) 
        identified weaknesses in four of nine FISMA reporting metric 
        domains--including identity and access management and supply 
        chain management--for USAID's information security program in 
        fiscal year 2021.\22\
  --Nearly one-third of our performance audits issued in the last 
        decade identified staffing or training gaps as the root cause 
        of programmatic shortfalls. We are concluding an audit 
        examining the extent to which USAID met congressionally 
        mandated staffing goals, identified skills gaps, and measured 
        progress toward assessing those gaps. We are also concluding an 
        evaluation of USAID's prolific use of personal services 
        contractors in humanitarian settings and an evaluation of the 
        Africa Bureau's human capital management practices.

    We will maintain focus on core management functions through 
mandated and discretionary oversight activities. We will also continue 
to raise awareness for strengthening controls and accountability, 
including identifying loopholes that hinder the government's ability to 
enforce civil fraud remedies against USAID-funded organizations based 
outside of the United States.
           concluding observations about continued oversight
    We appreciate the subcommittee's enduring support for our office's 
independent oversight mandate and the resources to meet current and 
emerging requirements. The fiscal year 2023 request seeks $80.5 million 
for USAID OIG. These funds will support audit, evaluation, inspection, 
investigative, and other oversight work to promote positive change in 
the delivery of U.S. foreign assistance and help ensure that USAID 
prudently uses every dollar it receives.
    Our fiscal year 2021 audit and investigative returns amounted to 
$1.75 for each dollar we received to support our operations. In 
addition, our recommendations have triggered foundational changes in 
policy and programming around global health and humanitarian 
assistance, Agency procurements, and accountability related to the 
prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse. We will build on these 
accomplishments, utilizing recent funding for oversight of programs 
responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine, and 
continue to provide timely, relevant, and impactful oversight of U.S. 
foreign assistance.
    We stand ready to execute our priorities and plans for ensuring 
effective oversight of U.S. foreign assistance in fiscal year 2023. 
This includes a special focus on addressing pressing oversight 
requirements related to COVID-19 as well as programming in the Northern 
Triangle, the West Bank, and Gaza; expanding our inspections and 
evaluation capability; and advancing adaptations to a hybrid work 
environment. We will continue to maximize our impact by taking a 
strategic approach to oversight; leveraging key partnerships within the 
oversight community and with the agencies we oversee; and keeping 
agency leaders, Congress, and other stakeholders informed of the 
results of our work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ As required by statute, we annually identify and report the top 
challenges facing the agencies we oversee and the progress made in 
managing them.
    \2\ USAID OIG, USAID Had Limited Control Over COVID-19 Ventilator 
Donations, Differing From Its Customary Response to Public Health 
Emergencies (4-936-21-002-P), February 24, 2021.
    \3\ USAID OIG, U.S. COVID-19 Vaccine Contributions: USAID Should 
Consider Enhancing Oversight to Mitigate Risk of Fraud, Waste, and 
Abuse (E-000-21-002-M), September 1, 2021.
    \4\ USAID OIG, Award Planning and Oversight Weaknesses Impeded 
Performance of USAID's Largest Global Health Supply Chain Project (9-
000-21-004-P), March 25, 2021.
    \5\ USAID OIG, Weaknesses in Oversight of USAID's Syria Response 
Point To the Need for Enhanced Management of Fraud Risks in 
Humanitarian Assistance (8-000-21-001-P), March 4, 2021.
    \6\ USAID OIG, Enhanced Processes and Implementer Requirements Are 
Needed To Address Challenges and Fraud Risks in USAID's Venezuela 
Response (9-000-21-005-P), April 16, 2021.
    \7\ USAID OIG, USAID's RISE Program in the Sahel Aligned With 
Resilience Policies but Lacked Robust Monitoring (4-000- 21-003-P), 
September 25, 2021.
    \8\ USAID OIG, Operation Freedom's Sentinel Lead Inspector General 
Quarterly Report to Congress October 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, 
February 11, 2022.
    \9\ USAID OIG, Enhanced Guidance and Practices Would Improve 
USAID's Transition Planning and Third-Party Monitoring in Iraq (9-266-
21-003-P), February 19, 2021.
    \10\ USAID OIG, Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent 
Resolve Quarterly Report to the United States Congress | October 1, 
2021--December 31, 2021, February 7, 2022.
    \11\ USAID OIG, PEPFAR in Africa: USAID Expanded the Use of Local 
Partners but Should Reassess Local Partner Capacity to Meet Funding 
Goals (4-936-22-001-P), December 13, 2021.
    \12\ USAID OIG, USAID's Global Health Supply Chain Would Benefit 
From More Rigorous Risk Management and Actions To Enhance Local 
Ownership (4-936-20-002-P), July 10, 2020.
    \13\ USAID OIG, Improved Guidance, Data, and Metrics Would Help 
Optimize USAID's Private Sector Engagement (5-000- 21-001-P), December 
9, 2020.
    \14\ USAID OIG, Cost Sharing: USAID's Asia Bureau Should Enhance 
Guidance and Training to Ensure Missions Verify Awardees' Contributions 
(5-000-22-002-P), November 26, 2021.
    \15\ USAID OIG, USAID Had Limited Control Over COVID-19 Ventilator 
Donations, Differing From Its Customary Response to Public Health 
Emergencies (4-936-21-002-P), February 24, 2021.
    \16\ USAID OIG, Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Programming: 
USAID Faced Challenges Providing Assistance to Countries with Greatest 
Need (8-000-22-001-P), January 3, 2022.
    \17\ USAID OIG, Countering Malign Kremlin Influence: USAID Can Do 
More to Strengthen Its CMKI Development Framework (8-199-22-002-P), 
January 26, 2022.
    \18\ USAID OIG, Significant Events Surrounding USAID's Iraq 
Religious and Ethnic Minority Portfolio and Award Management Challenges 
(E-000-22-001-M), November 1, 2021.
    \19\ USAID OIG, USAID Should Implement Additional Controls To 
Prevent and Respond To Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Beneficiaries 
(9-000-21-006-P), May 12, 2021.
    \20\ USAID OIG, Audit of USAID's Financial Statements for fiscal 
years 2014 and 2013 (0-000-15-001-C), November 17, 2014.
    \21\ USAID OIG, USAID Needs to Improve Its Privacy Program to 
Better Ensure Protection of Personally Identifiable Information (A-000-
21-001-P), August 11, 2021.
    \22\ USAID OIG, USAID Implemented an Effective Information Security 
Program for fiscal year 2021 in Support of FISMA (A-000-22-005-C), 
December 7, 2021.

    Senator Coons. Thank you, Administrator, and if I might, 
before I proceed to my questions, since this is likely to be 
the last of the budget hearings for this subcommittee, I just 
wanted to recognize my friend and colleague and our Full 
Committee Chairman who for decades has served as either the 
Chair or Ranking of this subcommittee.
    I've just returned from a wonderful trip to NATO 
Headquarters in Brussels and to Davos, to the World Economic 
Forum conference, and was just reminded of the dramatic and 
lasting impact that Chairman Leahy has had in his role over 
decades, the high regard in which he's held by our leaders 
around Europe and around the world and wanted to thank him for 
his leadership of this subcommittee.
    He has been inseparable from Tim Rieser for 33, I think, 
years on this subcommittee, as well, and Tim, from the very 
first trip I got to take with both of you to Colombia and Haiti 
and Cuba, I have been moved and impressed by the impact that 
you've had.
    So please know how grateful all of us are to your 
dedication of a lifetime of service to making a difference in 
the world.
    Senator Graham. May I add a few comments?
    Senator Coons. Please add a few comments, if you will.
    Senator Graham. And I compliment you. Well, I hope not to 
ruin your reputation in Vermont, but I consider you a friend. 
That probably went down 20 points there.
    So what Chris said is true. I've gone all over the world 
and Senator Leahy's a known figure in terms of the United 
States Senate. When he speaks people listen. Tim Rieser and 
Senator Leahy have done a heck of a job affecting people's 
lives through this subcommittee.
    Compared to our budget, a small amount of money, but I 
daresay I've never seen a better bang for the buck in terms of 
improving people's lives and making the world more stable than 
this subcommittee, and it's been our harbinger of 
bipartisanship. I know Senator McConnell worked with Senator 
Leahy a very long time.
    I've had that pleasure and I just want to echo what Senator 
Coons said. This has been a delight to be part of this 
subcommittee. Senator Leahy, you have much to be proud of. Tim, 
you've worked hard for a long period of time and I'm sad to see 
it end. We still got months to go here, but this will probably 
be the last budget cycle.
    As Senator Coons said, it's an appropriate time to say 
thank you in a bipartisan fashion for decades of service to 
your community and the world, and the same goes for Tim.
    Senator Leahy. Mr. Chair, if I might just take a moment, I 
appreciate the comments from both of you. I've worked with both 
of you. We have traveled around the world I think a number of 
times.
    Senator Graham and I, whether I was Chair or he was Chair, 
the same with Senator McConnell, whether he was Chair or I was 
Chair, we passed the Foreign Ops bill virtually unanimously.
    Senator Coons, who was greeted by more heads of State than 
I could keep track of when we were at Davos and I sat quietly 
holding his briefcase for him, but we'll do the same thing.
    I think we're most effective in what we do if we do show 
the rest of the world that two parties can work together, and I 
especially wanted to be here, of course, with Administrator 
Power. I've known the Ambassador, the Administrator Power for 
years and years, and she forgives me for only being half Irish, 
but I applaud her for what she's done.
    So thank you both.
    Senator Coons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Administrator, as we talked about beforehand, unfortunately 
we are in a series of votes. So you will see members come and 
go.
    Let me, if I might, just start by thanking you for your 
dedication over decades as a journalist, as a diplomat, as an 
administrator to upholding the very best of American values.
    As I think was the case with my dear friend, the late 
Secretary Madeline Albright, it is so often those who come to 
America from other places in the world initially who believe in 
us even more than we believe in ourselves and who help the 
United States to live up to its greatest aspirations and 
standards.
    As you mentioned in your comments, your opening remarks, we 
have an opportunity here to demonstrate to dozens of countries 
around the world that we're a reliable partner, but in both 
COVID and in hunger relief we are missing that moment as of 
right now.
    We just delivered a $40 billion supplemental, most of which 
is dedicated to Ukraine directly or indirectly.
    If you would just speak for a moment to how much of that is 
being delivered through partnerships with local organizations 
in Ukraine, how much are you constrained and how much are you 
able to deliver sort of flexible, adaptable responses, 
particularly in an environment like Ukraine where there's lots 
of potential partners on the ground, and what mechanisms are in 
place in terms of auditing and tracking to ensure that aid to 
Ukraine is being spent effectively?
    Ms. Power. Thank you. Well, you'll forgive me if I add my 
voice to the voices paying tribute to Senator Leahy and Senator 
Rieser. The two of you are just synonymous with this Committee, 
with the securing of resources for things that matter out in 
the world for vulnerable people, just the ethic behind your 
respective dedication is just--it's the stuff of legend, both 
of you, and it's been really, really even moving to watch you 
over the years--sorry--because I won't get to see them again in 
this setting, but you just both, you care so much, you care so 
much.
    Senator Coons. As so clearly you do.
    Ms. Power. Well, I do, but I also care about these guys.
    To be very specific, and I will come and speak in my normal 
mile-a-minute way when it comes to the substance of what you've 
asked, Senator, but the legacy of the Leahy law, Senator, the 
people will be vetting military units in a way they never would 
have for the rest of time because of that law. It matters so 
much.
    People around the world, the ability to get assistance if 
they have been injured because of unexploded ordnance or 
landmines specifically, it's because you all cared, because you 
invested the time, because you built the laws and the 
structures and those are going to be here forevermore.
    I think less, you know, sort of easy to conquertize the 
number of NGOs that have received support, whether it's a 
crack, you know, anti-corruption NGO or, you know, some local 
media or people who are tracking civilian casualties, there's 
so many non-governmental actors around the world who got 
support because you all embedded support for those programs and 
mobilized bipartisan support for it, and I really again credit 
Senator Graham and other Republicans on the Committee for 
supporting that over the years.
    But what's so amazing is the lasting effect of that, its' 
just the ripple effects because so many of the people who work 
for and with or are trained by those NGOs go on to serve in 
Parliament or to become heads of state and that legacy is going 
to be something again that is felt for generations to come.
    So sorry to get a little extra Irish on you there, Senator, 
but it's extremely moving and there's no tribute that can 
really do justice, I think, to your impact as Chairman, your 
impact as a Senator, and that of Tim, who I don't know what I'm 
going to do when I have no one to call at 3 in the morning, you 
know, still working in his office, you know, other staff. Paul, 
I'm going to have to be able to find you. We've got to keep 
Rieser hours. But, anyway, very grateful to you.
    Senator Leahy. Thank you.
    Ms. Power. Thank you. Okay. On the substance, you put your 
fingers, Mr. Chairman, on a challenge and we've got to get the 
right balance here and the balance is between wanting to move 
quickly, wanting to move with proper safeguards in place, 
wanting to be able to scale, and so that leads you very quickly 
to, for example, the very large contributions we've made to the 
World Food Program, UNICEF, the International Organization of 
Migration that's working a lot of the protection issues and 
inside Ukraine and beyond, but we do also want to make sure 
that the assistance we provide puts the country in a stronger 
position in the medium and long term.
    And so what we are seeking to do in the humanitarian domain 
is diversify our partner base and that is likely to include 
several consortia where we work through an international non-
governmental organization and the first of these consortia have 
already been agreed upon with Mercy Corps and where they then 
provide sub-grants to local organizations, Ukrainian 
organizations that are going to be there for the test of time.
    The first of those is about a $120 billion, so again not 
comparable to what we're at the present funneling through World 
Food Program, but even World Food Program and other UN 
organizations are themselves working with local organizations 
much more than they have traditionally in the theaters in which 
they operate.
    So that's on humanitarian. I think, though, to distinguish 
the other significant assistance that has been provided, there 
is a large sum for direct budget support, as you well know, and 
that is because Ukrainian authorities own burn rate in terms of 
keeping their State going, keeping their country going is about 
$5 billion a month.
    So we've already provided $500 million through the World 
Bank, the World Bank Trust Fund. There will be an additional 
$500 million passing through there and then with the 
supplemental $7.5 billion on top of that. It's unclear exactly 
what the vehicle is going to be for the second supplemental 
direct budget support sum which is significant but likely the 
World Bank or a mechanism like it and there you have the 
progress reports, I think it's written into law that every 90 
days the Secretary or I need to be reporting on how the 
Ukrainians are spending that money.
    The capacity to audit is, of course, there and will need to 
be done vigilantly. The World Bank is used to operating in 
environments like this, and then we have our developing 
programming which is also going to be in part to strengthen 
Ukrainian actors to do anti-corruption work so that they can 
monitor our assistance.
    So again I think across the board we have to be thinking in 
the short term how do we meet the needs in the here and now, 
but how do we leave Ukrainian civil society, the Ukrainian 
Government, and the country stronger by virtue of the 
assistance that's flowing in, not something that vacates when, 
for example, an international organization departs which we 
hope Ukraine is in a position to have that happen sooner rather 
than later with the onset of eventual peace.
    Senator Coons. It does seem, to your last comment there, it 
does seem premature now to be talking about reconstruction, but 
at the conference the Chairman and I were just at, there was 
repeated talk by Swiss leaders about their hosting of a 
conference later this summer, I think in Lugano, if I'm not 
mistaken, to begin planning for rebuilding and reconstruction. 
Virtually every European leader, head of state that we talked 
to made some reference to the Marshall Plan which is, you know, 
a generation where even two generations later still remember it 
as a landmark investment by the United States in stability and 
security.
    What sort of planning is underway for reconstruction 
hopefully after this war concludes successfully with victory, 
and what role would USAID play in planning or executing that 
reconstruction, and what kind of budget planning should we be 
doing around the scale of the need for reconstruction?
    Ms. Power. Thank you. First, let me say that USAID just in 
the last week has been able to deploy our Mission Director back 
in Kyiv at the newly-opened Embassy and why do I mention that 
in the context of your question? Because it's going to be 
incredibly important as the Ukrainians transition from 
humanitarian emergency to development, which will include 
reconstruction but also reconstruction will happen alongside 
development, that we have a presence there to be working hand-
in-glove with the Ukrainians and so we have our local staff, of 
course, our Ukrainian staff, many of whom never left Ukraine, 
but those who left Kyiv, many have returned, but that presence 
is going to be a very important piece of thinking through what 
the appropriate structure for the U.S. Government is going to 
be as it relates to the massive reconstruction task ahead.
    Second, this is going to be Ukrainian-led, Ukrainian-
scoped, and right now USAID's role both in presence and 
virtually has been to support the Ukrainian Prime Minister's 
Office and the variety of Ministries that have themselves been 
tasked to develop reconstruction plans alongside their current 
programming plans.
    So, for example, I spoke a couple weeks ago to the Health 
Minister who is simultaneously dealing with the fact that 
hundreds of health facilities have either been destroyed or 
damaged and how do you provide medical care in such 
circumstances. How do you now train your physicians in trauma 
and your psychologists and psychiatrists in, you know, PTSD 
associated with conflict, and so the real-time medical and 
psychological, psychosocial needs and then also developing a 
plan to be able to present to donors about what the 
reconstruction of those medical facilities and how do you, to 
coin a phrase, build back better, you know, how can the medical 
facilities brought back online, you know, take advantage of 
advances in medicine and in energy efficiency and everything.
    So each of the Ministries is itself embarked upon that 
process and our mission right now is to support them and to 
scope.
    I think the third point I'd make is just the centrality of 
the international financial institutions because, you know, I 
don't think USAID would be budgeted, you know, to manage what 
could be eventually a trillion dollar reconstruction task, but 
what you'll have are the European Bank for Reconstruction 
Development has already announced its intention, I think, to 
lead on this and the World Bank and other international 
financial institutions, of course,----
    Senator Coons. I'm almost out of time. Before I yield to 
the Full Committee Chairman, if I might, and, by the way, on 
that last point, the IMF, the Head of the IMF and I spoke 
repeatedly about SDRs and their potential as a way to help 
rebuild the financial capabilities of the Ukrainian state.
    Senator Graham and I are continuing to work to get through 
the Foreign Relations Committee an authorizing bill, the 
Democracy in the 21st Century Act, that creates a framework and 
authorizes new resources to counter authoritarian tactics, 
particularly disinformation, election interference, digital 
authoritarianism.
    Have you had any chance to review that? Do you have any 
input for me on that and its potential constructive role in 
modernizing the democracy toolkit for AID?
    Ms. Power. Thank you. First of all, I think that the 
President's Democracy Summit and the initiatives that President 
Biden rolled out in December, the summit that is to be followed 
a year hence with a second summit so we can drive action in 
between, I think a lot of the ideas that you saw rolled out 
there again grew out of the collaboration that I referred to 
earlier where our teams were in touch trying to take a fresh 
look at the Democracy Promotion Portfolio that, you know, had 
adapted over time here and there but maybe wasn't as fit for 
purpose as IO think we need right now and so I think that's 
reflected both in your bill, in the emphasis on everything from 
election security and the fight against disinformation and the 
importance of having open digital infrastructure to the 
emphasis on corruption programming, anti-corruption 
programming, which is the Achilles heel of the undemocratic 
forces for sure globally.
    You will see reflected in our budget sort of in parallel I 
think to your bill requests for stand-alone resources for anti-
corruption programming which I think again is a central pillar 
of this effort.
    But, you know, again, the democracy promotion community, 
you know, the efforts that we have made, I think, definitely 
need to pivot and recognize the gravity and the modern nature 
of the threats to democracy, and I think that's what your bill 
attempts to do. That's what the President's Democratic Renewal 
Initiative does, as well.
    Senator Coons. Thank you. I look forward to working with 
you more closely on that.
    My understanding is I'm going to depart to vote. The 
Ranking Member will return. Staff tells me that Senator Durbin 
will act as the Chair in my brief absence and is going to 
question next. Is that our understanding?
    Senator Durbin. Sure. Why not?
    Senator Coons. Thank you.
    Senator Durbin. Welcome. I'm concerned about Haiti. We've 
spoken about it before. I don't know if you've had time to read 
that lengthy series in the New York Times about the legacy of 
death and ransom and the treatment of the West in Haiti, but 
it's a heartbreaking history of the country which tried to 
emerge out of slavery and still is burdened by it.
    It appears that developing a functioning government in that 
country is a challenge. How do you see it?
    Ms. Power. Thank you, Senator, and thanks for always caring 
about Haiti, and it does feel like the world's attention kind 
of flows in when there's some big event, like an earthquake or 
the recent case of the assassination of the President.
    USAID is there day-in/day-out, but I have to say that the 
political stalemate coupled with the spiraling violence, 
kidnappings, the gains that the gangs have made has made it 
increasingly difficult for us to do our work. I think we still 
have partners who are out and about who are willing every day 
to brave those risks, whether in the health space, in 
education, or in, you know, attempting to do youth programming, 
to attract people so that they aren't drawn to gangs, but it is 
increasingly challenging.
    I think with an emphasis on security as foundational for 
development with our State Department colleagues increasing 
their support for the Haitian National Police, we are trying to 
help young people with new citizen security programming. You'll 
see that reflected I think in our--I think it's a $245 million 
budget request for USAID-managed resources in Haiti, and trying 
to apply lessons in the violence reduction space from Central 
American countries and elsewhere in the Caribbean to Haiti.
    I think the biggest challenge, as you know, on the 
political front is how can a broad and inclusive dialogue 
actually give rise to elections that are deemed broadly free 
and fair and there again the political process does not seem to 
be advancing in the way that we seek.
    Senator Durbin. I say it in the most complimentary terms, 
but NGO assistance in that country seems like a free-for-all. 
There doesn't seem to be any governmental coordination, 
country-wide coordination. Tell me I'm wrong.
    Ms. Power. Well, I think the development gains in Haiti are 
significant, for example, in the health space. So, you know, 
think of Paul Farmer and Partners in Health, right. That's an 
NGO. That is an incredibly effective investment in resources 
for just every individual who is touched by being provided with 
quality health care but also the investments made in training, 
you know, of Haitian medical students and physicians so they go 
on to provide support elsewhere.
    So, you know, I think that the challenge is that whether 
it's an NGO or an international organization, like a UN partner 
and they're, of course, very active in Haiti, as well, having 
drawn down the large peacekeeping presence that you and I know 
well from a decade ago, if you don't have political leadership 
willing to come together to forge compromise, to get the 
country back in a cycle in which people get to hold their 
leaders accountable at the ballot box and can't get a grip on 
the security situation in part because of rivalries among 
politicians, you know, it's very, very challenging, but again I 
think we're not asking for resources that are going to be, you 
know, thrown into the wind. I think sector by sector, we are 
showing a return on the investment in the socioeconomic realm 
but meanwhile again these broader structural dynamics have to 
be addressed by the leadership.
    Senator Durbin. Are you familiar with Philippine Senator 
Leila de Lima?
    Ms. Power. I am. I wrote something about her in Time 
Magazine. She was one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential 
People a few years ago.
    Senator Durbin. Been in prison 5 years. Duarte's' vengeance 
against her politically, now a new regime on the way. Is there 
anything more we can be doing to help her?
    Ms. Power. Well, I hesitate to give you advice on political 
prisoners, Senator, since you and your team have gotten, you 
know, innumerable people out of jail just by your 
relentlessness.
    I think with the new government that itself, you know, 
isn't/wasn't invested in the prior decision to arrest Madam de 
Lima. You know, it seems like a very good occasion to make a 
diplomatic push and I think the ones that are the most 
effective are Executive and Legislative Branches together 
operating in unison. So we can follow up on that.
    Senator Durbin. Can I close by telling you that I succeeded 
a man you knew, Paul Simon, and he made it clear throughout his 
life and his political life he didn't want anything named after 
him. He thought that was just an exercise in vanity and so the 
only thing I could think to do in his name was Water for the 
World, Water for the Poor, and we have, we think, through USAID 
and the leadership under many Presidents since he's been gone 
really established not only water but sanitation in some of the 
areas of the world that desperately needed it the most.
    USAID has been a fabulous partner in that effort. I thank 
you for that.
    I also say there's a little project that is emanating from 
a town that I'm honored to present called Chicago providing 
bicycles to Africa, mobility opportunities that change, 
transform lives, and sometimes the little things are the big 
things, water, sanitation, basic mobility. It just gives people 
a chance.
    USAID is the agency I look to when I think of those ideas. 
So thank you for your cooperation in that.
    Ms. Power. Thank you, Senator, and just know that the Water 
for the World Act and our Water Strategy, all of that has to be 
tapped now in light of the food crisis gripping much of Africa, 
many parts of the world, and Feed the Future and the next 
incarnation of that, you know, integrates water policy, water 
management into USAID programming.
    So there's dedicated water and sanitation programming and 
then there's the integration, I think, of the spirit of Paul 
Simon and that piece of law into a lot of our other 
programming.
    Senator Durbin. Thanks.
    Ms. Power. Thank you.
    Senator Durbin. Pat.
    Senator Leahy. Thank you very much, and again, 
Administrator, I thank you for the kind words and also the kind 
words for my boss, Tim Rieser.
    As you've probably often heard me say, we Senators are 
merely constitutional impediments to the staff. They do all the 
work.
    Senator Durbin mentioned the Haiti article. I know as I 
read that article I was just taken with one--I mean, you know 
this as somebody who's written such definitive things that the 
amount of work that went into going back through these almost 
indecipherable paper records of banks and others that didn't 
exist and yet they did and they found them. It's amazing the 
complicity of the French Government and the U.S. Government.
    I've been there to Haiti a number of times. Even my wife 
Marcelle's a medical-surgical nurse, she's gone into surgeries 
and other hospitals and talked with the people and in French, I 
might say, but I also looked at the last earthquake and went 
down there. We used the Leahy War Victims Fund because of the 
number of amputations that had to happen so that you could then 
give an artificial limb to a young boy who looked so much like 
one of our grandchildren so he could walk again.
    I saw what our people did and tried to help, but, you know, 
the others came from around the world to help. I'll never 
forget the orthopedic surgeon came at his own expense from 
Brussels and he was going to come there for a month, it had 
been now several months, and he'd been helping and I was 
speaking with him and I told him in French how much I 
appreciated what he did. I'll never forget, he turned to me and 
just grabbed my arms, he says, ``Senator, for the children, for 
the children, for the children.''
    I mean, that's the whole thing. I know people like Sean 
Penn who came down there as a volunteer and getting people 
together and cleaning up things. I did see others in the 
country, aid groups concerned about what kind of an issue being 
there, they have to get around it. I was more concerned of what 
they were doing to help.
    But since then I've seen with all the work that AID and 
everybody else that I just see this getting worse and worse, 
the assassination of the last president obviously and now the 
bribes and everything else to help people. It just is so awful 
to see that, but you also see others around the world and now 
we look at COVID. It wasn't very long ago, nobody knew what 
COVID was. Now it's killed more than a million Americans, 15 
million more around the world, going to infect another 700,000 
Americans.
    A few months ago almost no one believed that Russia would 
seek to re-establish control over the country of Ukraine, 44 
million people. They've decimated whole cities, bombed 
hospitals and schools, markets, machine-gunned families walking 
down the street.
    Then you have drought and other conflicts in Africa and 
none of these articles talk about the fact that USAID has to 
respond to almost every one of these because they do have 
direct consequences on not only the people there but the 
Americans there.
    The President has asked for a 6 percent increase. That's 
billions of dollars short of what Senators of both parties are 
going to request from this subcommittee. I mention that because 
I've been urging all the subcommittee Chairs and I know Senator 
Coons works as hard as anybody to try to get the bills 
together.
    I'm hoping people will move quickly to pass all our 
appropriations bills. You're not helped by a continuing 
resolution. No other part of government is.
    So let me just mention a couple things that you have to do 
here and there where you're working, prevent famine, stop COVID 
from spreading, prepare for the next pandemic, create 
opportunities for Central Americans so they don't become 
migrants, help countries cope with climate change.So, you know, 
you've got a full day's work there on those, but do you have 
enough resources? Do you need more resources? Do you have the 
kind of partners you need in foreign governments? I mean, how 
do you deal with this?
    Ms. Power. Thank you. There's a lot there. The only thing 
worse than having to deal with that set of converging crises is 
to imagine doing so without you, Senator, and without Tim 
Rieser here to partner with. So I will say that's an additional 
compounding factor here in this perfect storm.
    I guess I'd just say one thing. First, your point at the 
end about partners, do you have partners, I think that is 
critical. You know, we view development, we have to view it as 
three legs on the stool. This is the security piece, this is 
the security of citizens. We were just talking about Haiti and 
the impossibility for so many Haitians even to get from one 
side of town to the next or even to get to school for fear of 
kidnapping, even our own staff at the Embassy, you know, just 
gripped with this physical anxiety, and so baseline countries 
need to have security.
    The Ukrainian people lack it because Putin's decided to 
wreak havoc on them and their lives.
    Then there's the economic development piece which, you 
know, is where that's USAID's wheelhouse. You know, how do we 
spur economic growth? How do we provide loan guarantees to 
small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs? How do we provide micro 
finance to women, you know, which can completely transform 
communities and families?
    But the economic and the security piece and then the third 
piece is governance and the Rule of Law and respect for human 
rights and accountability and honestly the lapse over these 
last years in so many places in this third domain, as well, you 
know, the economics hit by COVID, hit by climate disasters and 
so forth, security, we see more and more State weakness, more 
and more State fragility.
    Thanks to you all for the Global Fragility Act and the 
resources around conflict prevention, but this is why the 
emphasis on democracy and governance is so important, too, 
because we need to have partners with whom we can work, and 
we've seen unfortunately in countries like El Salvador and 
Guatemala where we're doing really important programming in the 
communities to reduce violence, to provide support for people 
who suffer gender-based violence, to try to spur economic 
growth even against the backdrop of a pandemic, but it's really 
challenging when we go to the private sector and want to draw 
investment to those countries and are reminded about, you know, 
how the government has, you know, appointed an attorney general 
that herself has shut down investigation, prosecution of 
corruption cases, taken away the security details of judges 
that are investigating really sensitive cases.
    I mean, that makes it very challenging and so I just think 
for you as a Committee and for us as an agency to somehow be 
getting the right balance between our investments in economics, 
our investments in crime reduction and physical security, and 
other agencies do that in great measure, and then governance 
and the Rule of Law and to note that it's no coincidence that a 
less democratic world is a less stable world and that's what 
we're dealing with now.
    Senator Leahy. Let me give one example of a conundrum and I 
don't know what the answer is. After the Vietnam War, we kept 
basically a trade embargo against Vietnam for 20 years. Two of 
our good friends, John Kerry and John McCain, urged us to move 
forward and I applaud President George H.W. Bush who worked 
with them and we brought the Leahy War Victims Fund there and a 
lot of other parts of government fully opened up and, as you 
know, Vietnam today is a lot different than it was a generation 
ago.
    Go to the Fulbright School and ask a sophomore, a young 
woman who, when she was 10 years old, did not speak English and 
was learning it through our educational programs. I asked her a 
question. She said, well, when you stop to think about it, that 
would be indicative of, and off we went.
    You know, but now we've frozen billions of dollars for many 
good reasons in Afghanistan but the economy is collapsing 
there. Famine's a possibility. Contrary to what the Taliban 
says, girls aren't allowed to go to school I think past the 
fifth or sixth grade, I believe.
    I mean, what can we do with some of that frozen money to 
help stop famine and help improve the situation for women and 
girls and not just have it go in the hands of the Taliban or is 
there any way?
    Ms. Power. Thank you, Senator. I think our emphasis so far 
has been very much on flood the zone with humanitarian 
assistance and, you know, could really still be and certainly 
starting about 6 months ago looked as though it really may well 
become the biggest humanitarian crisis of our time.
    The UN Appeal for Afghanistan was the largest for any 
country in the entire history of UN appeals which speaks to the 
level of need. So we have contributed half a billion dollars 
since the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. I was heartened 
because we really need other donors to step up and for us to be 
able to leverage our funding to get other donors to step up. 
There was a March Donors Conference where there were pledges of 
2.4 billion and that'll go to organizations, like the World 
Food Program and others, who are meeting immediate acute food 
needs.
    But at the same time, we are managing to do some 
development work. Again, the work that we do cannot benefit the 
Taliban. So we've needed to come up with work-arounds. I think 
we've been in close consultation with you and your teams about 
them and so, you know, our budget request is coming to you now 
requesting, I think, $71 million in agricultural funding that 
we think we can distribute to farmers, including getting seeds 
and inputs to them to deal with this particularly challenging 
time accessing fertilizer and so forth, $81 million in economic 
growth where it's again those entrepreneurs who are out and 
about, and then something we call have an interest in $61 
million in health and continuing vaccination drives and other 
health programming, you know, inside Afghanistan.
    But my bigger sort of response beyond what we as a 
government are doing, what we can get other donors to do, given 
the core point that the Taliban, you know, tragically is in 
charge of the country, is that the economy is in free-fall, you 
know. It is people in charge who don't know how to manage the 
economy and the reserves, some portion of them, as you know, 
have been set aside for the people of Afghanistan. The State 
Department and Treasury Department are in discussions about how 
the Central Bank of Afghanistan can be strengthened but also 
how it can be ensured that it is independent of the Taliban 
because fundamentally what the country needs is markets. It 
needs liquidity. It needs those reserves to be accessed but it 
just needs a functioning economy or we will be in whack-a-mole, 
you know, the sort of stopgap humanitarian business and there's 
no amount of humanitarian assistance that is going to be able 
to meet the needs indefinitely of a people who are that 
vulnerable and an economy that is that broken.
    Senator Leahy. And needs to allow all their young people to 
have an education, men and women.
    I have a vote. I'm going to leave and submit other 
questions for the record, if I might, but again I appreciate 
your kind comments and the very kind comments of Senator Coons 
and Senator Graham.
    Senator Coons. Well deserved. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Graham.
    Senator Graham. Thank you very much.
    So let's just take a quick trip around the world. There are 
27 nations in the European Union. There are 30 countries in 
NATO. I'm not asking for this today, but on my side, I want to 
make sure that the Republican Party is out there leading, 
working with other nations to build up systems to keep all of 
us safe, keep people fed that need to be fed and with better 
health care so that countries don't collapse and we wind up 
having to pay the price of that collapse.
    You have counterparts in virtually every one of those 
nations, is that correct?
    Ms. Power. The substantial donors specifically.
    Senator Graham. Yes.
    Ms. Power. Foreign ministers often take the task.
    Senator Graham. Can you do me a favor? You don't have to do 
it today, but give me some indication of what other countries 
are doing in comparison to us because when David Beasley from 
the World Food Program was here, he said that Saudi Arabia had 
given them like $11 million and the UAE was zero. So that stood 
out to me.
    I try to tell the taxpayers back home that you pay now, you 
pay later in these areas. Let's get in on the ground, shape 
events, rather than being overwhelmed by them, but there's also 
a legitimate concern by all Americans that are we doing this by 
ourselves. So we've got to make the case that other nations are 
helping and when they're not, we got to make them help. Does 
that make sense to you?
    Ms. Power. It does.
    Senator Graham. Okay. All right. So we'll go to work on 
that, Mr. Chairman, and see if we can come up with some dynamic 
of how parts of the developed democracy world is doing compared 
to us.
    We did a push for a global fund for food security. Does 
that make sense to you?
    Ms. Power. I think more resources for food security make 
sense. We should talk about the modalities, just particularly 
given some, I think, important positive developments that align 
with your first question/comment, like the World Bank setting 
up a $30 billion Resilience and Solidarity Fund, the modalities 
in which we're still digging into to understand how that's 
going to be used.
    So something that coordinates bilateral donor assistance, 
the multilateral development banks, both regional and global, 
like the World Bank, could be very important.
    Thank you.
    Senator Graham. Okay. Well, I want to be helpful there. I 
want to let the taxpayer know that we're pushing other 
countries to do more when they can do more and should do more, 
and we'll say thank you to those who are doing their part and 
then some.
    We sent a letter to you 4 months ago, myself and Senator 
Risch, regarding USAID's efforts to hunt for and research novel 
viruses, including in China. We haven't gotten a response. Can 
you please answer our letter?
    Ms. Power. Yes.
    Senator Graham. Okay. Good. Now the bottom line for me 
about Afghanistan is can you think of a scenario of where we 
help the Central Bank of Afghanistan without the Taliban being 
benefitted?
    Ms. Power. Senator, right now I certainly see grounds for 
skepticism, given that the Central Bank of Afghanistan is run 
by a Taliban Minister,----
    Senator Graham. Right.
    Ms. Power [continuing]. But at the same time with the 
country's economy unraveling, with the Central Bank for nay 
country----
    Senator Graham. Was that a predictable consequence of our 
withdrawal?
    Ms. Power. Was what a predictable consequence?
    Senator Graham. That the country would fall apart under 
Taliban control.
    Ms. Power. Well, I think that there were views that have 
been talked about up here that the Afghan forces would be able 
to withstand----
    Senator Graham. We have a list of the pluses and minuses. 
One of the minuses had to be that the Taliban get in charge and 
the country would go to hell in a handcart.
    Ms. Power. I think I can't speak for the President here 
today, but I think,----
    Senator Graham. I mean,----
    Ms. Power [continuing]. You know,----
    Senator Graham [continuing]. From your lane, were you 
worried about that if we----
    Ms. Power. I think all of us who care about the Afghan 
people, of course, were worried about the consequences that 
would ensue, you know, with any----
    Senator Graham. Are you surprised the Taliban are not 
letting girls go to school in a robust way?
    Ms. Power. Well, let me just say that am I surprised 
compared to what I thought of the Taliban before they took 
power? Of course not. That's their world view. That's their 
ideology. They made no secret of that. Am I surprised? I'm not 
at all surprised when they break their word, but they had in 
fact committed to work with UNICEF and other international 
actors to allow donors to bypass the Education Ministry to be 
able to support girls to be able to be in school and so, as you 
know, they went back on a commitment that they had made and 
that we thought we were going to be able to actually continue--
--
    Senator Graham. So here's the question.
    Ms. Power [continuing]. To support girls in school.
    Senator Graham. Given their history, I'm not surprised and 
I share your concern about the Afghan people. They're living in 
hell. So if you can find a way to convince me of how we can get 
outside organizations effectively working in Afghanistan to 
keep people from starving, I'd be willing to help.
    Finally, when we look at what's on the horizon through the 
end of this year going into the next, I hate to be a Debby 
downer here, but 40 countries rely upon to 50 percent of the 
grain supply that comes from Ukraine and most of them are in 
developing world. I don't see the war in Ukraine ending any 
time soon. Famines have hit Africa in unprecedented levels. Are 
we ready for this?
    We've had a supplemental, but how do we deal with this? 
What's your advice to this Committee because everybody doesn't 
want to spend any more money than we have to, but I just don't 
see a way out of dealing with this, Mr. Chairman, without 
putting some resources in the pipeline.
    I would end with this. America's national security 
interests are well served when there's a certain amount of 
stability in the world, but we can't do it by ourselves. Will 
you pledge to this Committee not only to give us sound advice 
about how we can do more efficiently, save some money in other 
places, but also how we can push the world to do their part? 
What do you see for the next year?
    Ms. Power. Well, let me say this, Senator. First, just 
underscoring the premise of your question which is according to 
the World Bank, 10 million people are thrust into poverty for 
every 1 percent increase in food prices and food prices are 
already up 34 percent but, you know, given Putin's blockade of 
the grains and sunflower oil and other oils coming out of 
Ukraine, you know, there's no guarantee that that has capped.
    So I'm a former UN ambassador. I very much share the 
predicate for your whole kind of line of inquiry which is we 
need to leverage what we do to get other countries to do more.
    I do think that the Europeans have stepped up both in terms 
of, you know, opening their doors and hearts and homes and 
resources to Ukrainians who've crossed into Europe. 
Unfortunately, though, and I'm not sure how closely everybody 
is tracking this, in many European budgetary processes the 
resources to help Ukrainian refugees are coming out of overseas 
development assistance, and so if you combine that with the 
cuts that we've seen from the United Kingdom over the last year 
and what we know are going to be the demands inside Ukraine 
around reconstruction but also just around tending to the acute 
needs of people who are still under siege and who've been 
displaced, I worry about a shrinking pie and it places a 
premium on getting new donors or donors or who have 
contributed.
    Saudi Arabia was contributing, was increasing steadily its 
contributions every year to humanitarian assistance and then 
that tapered off and now has dropped. They have made 
substantial new announcements for Yemen which is very useful 
because there's so many needs in so many places, and so, you 
know, particular countries are going to help particular parts 
of the world that they maybe feel a closer attachment to, but 
what everyone needs to do is to do what you have done which is 
to recognize that we're in an extra budgetary moment.
    You know, if we're just, you know, taking money out of our 
Food Security Program in order to, you know, support energy 
diversification so that people can wean themselves off 
dependence on Putin's energy, that's not going to work.
    You know, if we are not supporting journalists who are 
uncovering the crimes and corruption of their leaders, that's a 
big loss because this is a moment in which when people feel the 
needs that they are feeling, they have a right to democratic 
accountability and we should be supporting that aspiration that 
they have.
    So, you know, everything is connected to everything else 
and we can't--I know you alluded to this in your opening 
comment, Senator. I wasn't sure exactly what you meant, but it 
would be a huge missed opportunity for the United States to 
give up also on the incredibly effective COVID-19 work that we 
have been doing.
    I mean, from your travels you must see the gratitude, the 
fact that our vaccines and our PPE and our therapeutics and 
tests don't come with strings attached. You know, they're not 
in exchange for, you know, some country doing this back or 
taking on some debt to us. You know, these are donations. These 
come out of generosity and compassion and self-interests of the 
American people. People understand that connection.
    But, you know, to emphasize food security and give up on 
COVID, that can't be an option, right, given that the food 
security crisis predated Russia's invasion of Ukraine in part 
because of what COVID has done to supply chains around the 
world.
    Senator Graham. Just one quick question. I got to go. 
What's the vaccination rate in Africa? Do you know?
    Ms. Power. Excuse me. It's around 17 percent.
    Senator Graham. Yes. So we all agree that it's low, but I 
don't see it changing much for a variety of factors.
    One thing that people on our side of the aisle think about, 
Mr. Chairman, is therapeutics, is to keep people out of 
hospital, get them well as quick as possible. I hope that this 
combination that we're talking about for COVID would look at 
therapeutics.
    Senator Coons. If I could follow up on that, Madam 
Administrator, before my colleague leaves, in terms of the 
timing of additional funding around COVID, both for 
therapeutics and for finishing the delivery of vaccines we've 
already produced, already been delivered, what's the difference 
if there's an additional several billion dollars for COVID 
relief for therapeutics and for vaccines? What's the difference 
between that happening in June versus September versus 
December?
    Ms. Power. Well, Senator Graham, I know you have to go, but 
I hear you on the low vaccination rates, but I don't agree that 
we can afford to embrace a fatalism around the ability to 
dramatically lower infection, hospitalization, and death rates, 
and I actually think we started this initiative called Global 
VAX with your support in December which was aiming to put shots 
in arms, not just, you know, COVAX was delivering the vaccines 
that the American people donated generously.
    You know, we've committed 1.2 billion vaccines in total and 
gotten 500 million out there, but it turned out that once the 
vaccines began flowing the best-laid plans that many countries 
had for vaccine delivery were overcome by Russian 
disinformation, by cold chain challenges, by the absence of 
accessibility for pop-up clinics, and so we have met those gaps 
in the infrastructure in the countries that we've been able to 
afford to provide delivery support to and that was the Global 
VAX Initiative.
    To your question, Senator Coons, I think right now we are 
continuing the work in the 11 surge countries and we are seeing 
the results. I mean, you're seeing vaccine rates of eligible 
adults that were 18 percent in December in a country like Cote 
d'Ivoire up to now 38 percent of eligible adults. So I could go 
country by country where we are surging resources. It is 
working.
    To your question, we will not be able to expand that to 
some of the countries that are in Africa that are under 10 
percent and where we have begun to plan with those countries to 
receive new resources to train health workers or to get them to 
be able to work overtime or to have the pop-up clinics but nor 
will we have the resources for what Senator Graham was talking 
about which is therapeutics and an ability to try to wrestle to 
tame COVID when you have an outbreak and we know there will be 
more outbreaks going forward.
    I think if we were to -- in a sense what you would see is 
our vaccination drive ground to a halt----
    Senator Coons. Right.
    Ms. Power [continuing]. In around August of this year if 
that $5 billion supplemental is not appropriated, you know, in 
the next month or two.
    Senator Coons. If we could, I'm expecting one more Senator 
and then I have a 4:15 event at the White House I'm trying to 
get to, just a few quick back and forth here if we could.
    The DFC's role in supporting regional vaccine 
manufacturing, do you see that as holding promise and being 
something that we can possibly stand up and make more 
effective?
    You've got a request for 6.5 billion in 5 years in 
mandatory spending for global pandemic preparedness. What are 
the key elements of that?
    And then to what extent do you think we can work together 
to craft more flexible and sustainable public/private 
partnerships around hunger, pandemics, and conservation?
    I'm happy to repeat those. Let's go one at a time.
    Ms. Power. Okay.
    Senator Coons. The DFC has taken on a role in helping 
finance regional vaccine manufacturing. So, for example, in 
South Africa, there's another site there possibly developing in 
Kenya. Are you supporting those efforts and do you think in the 
long term boosting regional vaccine manufacturing is an 
important investment?
    Ms. Power. So in brief, we are working very closely with 
the DFC on this. I think that we would like to see more 
promising initiatives in the pipeline than we currently have. I 
think the next investment--USAID provided a grant funding for 
the Louis Pasteur Institute in Senegal which I think is 
probably next up where the African Development Bank, the World 
Bank, and now the DFC are also looking to come in.
    So, you know, I think it's important, particularly just as 
here attention has receded a little bit from COVID, that we 
think of vaccine manufacturing structurally, not just about 
this vaccine at this time but about the fact that 99 percent of 
Africa's vaccines even prior to the pandemic came from outside 
Africa and so there's a structural need.
    Senator Coons. Any input you can briefly give me on the 6.5 
billion 5 year mandatory? Like what would that accomplish? If I 
think about the things that you could do with more funding and 
that you won't be able to do if we don't get you full funding, 
providing predictable global pandemic surveillance and 
preparedness both for the public health workforce and for 
sustained resources would strike me as near the top of that 
list.
    Ms. Power. Indeed. What it boils down to is do we want to 
be in a position to detect viruses before they have become 
pandemics. You know, every country has some form of health 
infrastructure. Do we want it to be stronger or do we want it 
to be more fragile? We want it to be stronger. We want lab 
turnaround times to be shorter. We want communities to be 
educated on animal-to-human transitions, zoonotic diseases and 
the like.
    We want the ability to take samples and move them into some 
of our global health infrastructure at CDC or at NIH more 
quickly so that countermeasures can be developed sooner.
    So your question, it's a matter of taking the global health 
security foundation that we have in I think 10 countries and 
expanding it to an additional 25 and so we can show the good 
that we have done in the countries we are operating in the 
global health security space at this point and now we need to 
spread it and scale it because viruses aren't looking to see 
where we have a global health security program and where we 
don't. Viruses are doing what viruses do and we have to prevent 
them before they spread.
    Senator Coons. I look forward to a more detailed briefing 
as we go ahead with this year's process.
    Public/private partnerships, something that a number of 
colleagues have asked about, and I think you're getting a 
bipartisan letter led by Senator Warner. They're looking for 
flexibility in Ukraine in terms of delivering hunger relief.
    World Central Kitchens has been brought up to me a number 
of times as an example of the kind of partner that can flexibly 
respond to a rapidly-evolving humanitarian disaster, one of the 
things Senator Graham and I have talked about, and there was 
some funding in the fiscal year 2022 bill for this, supporting 
public/private partnerships for long-term conservation 
management in Africa.
    I wondered if you had any thoughts on the fiscal year 2023 
request for sustainable landscapes and for planning around 
wildlife conservation, wildlife trafficking, sustainable 
landscapes, and conservation on the continent.
    Ms. Power. Well, I can't resist saying something about 
World Central Kitchen with whom even though USAID is not a 
funder of World Central Kitchen and they have been wonderfully 
and appropriately successful in fundraising from private 
citizens and from companies and foundations, we work hand-in-
glove with them, but their ability to get to places, you know, 
where even, you know, the UN hasn't been able to get is really, 
really admirable and a tribute to their staff.
    They also procure locally and so we are partnering with 
them in terms of we have agricultural programs in Ukraine where 
we're trying to get seeds to farmers so they don't miss the 
planting season. Jose Andres is involved in discussions about 
granaries and how those granaries can get emptied so that more 
supplies can go in, and we've done just in brief a wonderful 
partnership with them whereby Moldova's apples, because we all 
want Moldova to succeed, tremendous leadership there in 
fighting corruption and building the Rule of Law, but Moldova's 
apples used to all go to Russia and Herzegovina now that's not 
happening and so what did World Central Kitchen do? They agreed 
to procure apples from Moldova, thereby helping the Moldova 
apple industry in order to feed people in Ukraine.
    So those kinds of--you know, it's not always about, you 
know, what kind of money does USAID contribute, you know, or 
leverage with the private sector, but sometimes it's just about 
knowing what a private sector actor's comparative advantage is 
in meeting a development or humanitarian challenge.
    On conservation, I believe there's already a public/private 
partnership of sorts underway between us, NASA, Unilever, and 
Google as it relates to land use forecasting, you know, and 
actually going to farmers with the data about how they can in 
the long run be advantaged by alternative uses of farmland, but 
I think there's much more we can do.
    Senator Coons. There is. Give me 2 minutes on workforce and 
the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. This bill increases your 
personnel. Something I've been concerned about is making sure 
that both the State Department and USAID have the resources to 
recruit, train, diversify, retain highly-qualified workforce.
    How important is it that you get the additional 260 million 
you're requesting for that purpose and what are the key 
challenges around your workforce?
    Ms. Power. It's critical. I mean, first of all, we have to 
move faster as an agency given the swirl of events and the 
urgency of all of these crises, and if you take a USAID 
contracting officer, they are contracting roughly three or four 
times the amount as a comparable DOD contracting officer 
because of the paucity of contracting officers and the 
attrition over time.
    We have the largest Foreign Service class in sometime that 
has just entered. It's also the most diverse class. So we're 
building out those numbers, but you also, Senator, have 
prioritized rightly, and one of your questions today spoke to 
this, the importance of working with local organizations so 
that our investments can be more sustainable over time.
    The increases that we've requested in operating expenses, a 
portion of which you granted in the 2022 Appropriations bill 
but we need more of, are also used to be in a position to in a 
sense mentor and help build capacity in local organizations so 
that they can be partners to USAID.
    So it's a front-end investment that will pay lasting 
dividends over time.
    Senator Coons. Thank you.
    While Senator Shaheen comes forward, my last question to 
you was about the African Leaders Summit. I had the chance to 
meet with a number of African heads of state who had 
participated in the one previous such summit we held now quite 
a few years ago and to be blunt, they're somewhat skeptical.
    I'd welcome any input you've got about what sorts of plans 
are being made and what kind of role USAID might take and then, 
frankly, I'm going to hand the gavel and the closing questions 
to my friend and colleague from New Hampshire while I run to 
the White House for an event.
    Thank you for everything you do and for your leadership.
    Senator Shaheen, when she answers this question, I'm going 
to hand you the gavel and the closing statement to make about 
keeping the record open so that I can flee to an event at the 
White House.
    Ms. Power. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
    So I think what I will say is that food and fertilizer are 
foremost on the minds of many, many African ministers right now 
and certainly many African heads of state and so in the 
supplemental, in addition to the $4.3 billion in emergency 
humanitarian assistance, which, of course, some of which will 
reach African acute and vulnerable communities in Africa, I 
think looking also at the food security assistance and the 
knock-on effects of the war in Ukraine and how we can utilize 
some of that food security ESF money in order to help farmers, 
you know, better target the fertilizer they have in order to 
help them supplement the fertilizer that they have with, you 
know, composts and manures they have, the Ethiopian Government 
is now encouraging.
    So the sort of how do we get through the crisis piece of 
this but also how to diversify imports and exports, how to 
build more resilience. We've been talking about resilience for 
a long time in the climate space and we in the United States 
are talking constantly about supply chain resilience and what 
the pandemic has revealed about some of the downsides of 
globalization, the vulnerabilities of globalization.
    Well, this is another example of that in Africa and I think 
what I hear from the leaders that I engage with is a desire for 
more USAID and more DFC and other support in helping them 
thicken their ability to withstand what we know are just going 
to be a growing number of shocks that come at them and so I 
think that's a huge challenge but a major opportunity and I 
hear the skepticism for sure but there's also a lot of buyer's 
remorse about the huge debt incurred by virtue of----
    Senator Coons. China refuses to be transparent, refuses to 
be partner with anything like the same--you know, a generation 
ago dozens of African countries had significant debt burdens 
relieved in no small part through the leadership of Bono and 
the One Campaign and the Chinese are doing nothing like that 
now, and I am convinced that many African countries would still 
prefer to be close partners with the United States but they 
view us as unreliable and I have heard some significant 
pushback.
    I think the vote at the UN about condemning Russia's 
invasion of Ukraine in which a significant number of our 
otherwise close partners on the continent either abstained or 
voted the other way was meant as a wake-up call for us about 
our lack of delivery on vaccines, on humanitarian relief.
    This is no way to be critical of you or your agency but 
just something I say to my colleagues quite a bit, that we have 
a moment where we could make that right and where we could 
deliver and where we could engage and I agree with you that 
meeting human needs and agricultural development challenges is 
a big part of it, but showing up, showing up robustly through 
AID, DFC, MCC, and through other partners and, frankly, re-
engaging in UN entities in a way that contests that space are 
absolutely critical.
    Thank you for your testimony. Thank you to my colleague 
from New Hampshire. I look forward to continuing to work with 
you in the year ahead.
    Ms. Power. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
    Senator Shaheen. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding 
the hearing open so I could get here. I was at another hearing 
and thank you very much, Administrator Power, for being here 
today and for the great work that you're doing and so many at 
USAID are doing.
    I really wanted to be here to talk with you a little bit 
about the Western Balkans, a part of the world I know you know 
very well, and I had a chance to visit the end of April with 
Senators Murphy and Tillis. We were in Serbia, Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, and Kosovo, and I think it's fair to say that, 
first of all, with respect to USAID, we saw particularly in 
Bosnia some--heard about some really exciting and interesting 
work that you're doing there that was very positive.
    But I, for one, came away feeling like each of those 
countries had gone backward in terms of their road towards 
democracy and European immigration since the time I first 
visited each of them, and I think we were all very concerned 
about what was happening in Bosnia and the fact that I think 
after the Dayton Accords, after U4 set up the mission in Bosnia 
and Europe seemed to take some responsibility that there has 
not been as much attention to the region as we really need.
    Corruption is rampant. Their political structures are not 
working in the way that at least the people we talked to in the 
country felt were in the best interests of residents.
    So talk, if you will, a little bit about what more we can 
be doing there, what more can USAID do to address particularly 
young people who are moving out of Bosnia and the out-migration 
rate is significant there, and how do we help address the 
challenges that they're facing?
    Ms. Power. Thank you, Senator.
    Obviously there's no silver bullet because certainly when 
it comes to Bosnia, like you, President Biden, you know, has 
been a champion of Bosnia's sovereignty, its territorial 
integrity, its democracy for such a long time. I think, you 
know, we have engaged, you know, intensively because of the 
risk that really feels quite acute and, you know, I have been 
traveling back to Bosnia every few years since I left in 1996 
and, you know, every time I traveled back in the past I would 
hear Dayton's broken, it's not working. You know, there was 
always a sense of some kind of political paralysis, but on my 
more recent trip which was a few months before yours, you know, 
it was the first time that I encountered people who actually 
had packed their bags in the event of a more dire scenario and 
that is attributable, I think, to particularly the leader 
Milorad Dodik but other political leaders putting their own 
kind of power grab and their own economic ill-gotten gains 
above the interests of not only young people but all of the 
people of a country that has been through so much and has so 
much to offer but the politicians are definitely getting in the 
way.
    And so I am sure you saw some of the same unbelievable 
anti-corruption and environmental kind of crusaders and the 
independent media that USAID has invested in so much over the 
years and it's still, you know, speaking truth to power but 
just power isn't listening in the way that it needs to be and 
the idea that Dodik, you know, Republica Srpska could see fit 
to secede from, you know, some of these very technical but very 
important, you know, joint institutions at the time of a 
pandemic, at the time of spiraling food and fuel prices, at the 
time of even more severe out-migration from Republica Srpska 
than any place else in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it's just missing 
the point, right. It's about meeting the needs of the people 
and giving them reason to stay and I'll get to what we're going 
to do about it in a second, but, you know, I met with one. I 
went and played or pretended to play volley ball. They played 
and I pretended to play volley ball with a group of young 
Serbian women and I said how many of you see a future for 
yourselves here in the country and not one raised their hand 
and these women, oh, my gosh, you know, they could do anything.
    I mean, you could just tell their potential and their 
dynamism and all they wanted to do is go take it elsewhere 
because they just feel like again political leaders will never 
do what is required to create the kind of economic 
opportunities we need.
    So we're, you know, still chugging away there and 
continuing to try to invest. You and I talked about this a 
little bit on the phone once, I think, but trying to support 
more local government where, you know, just as in this country 
we see sometimes partisanship and polarization give way at the 
mayor or city council level.
    So, too, some of that is happening in places like Tuzla and 
so migrating our programming in a more decentralized way. I 
think the tourism industry, you know, who knew that Bosnia and 
Herzegovina was the mountain bike capital of the world, I 
certainly didn't, but supporting actors on the ground to build 
those mountain biking trails and again create jobs and looking 
for tourist opportunities that cross lines.
    I did a joint event with the Minister of Tourism from the 
Federation and the Minister of Tourism from so-called Republica 
of Srpska and, you know, it was amazing to imagine how many 
more tourists would come to take advantage of all Bosnia has to 
offer if there weren't the political gridlock, if people didn't 
always have a sense that things might unravel. So that's there.
    I will say that I thought you all showed great foresight in 
both supplemental in taking also note of how vulnerable these 
countries are to the current crisis, both because Putin is very 
active----
    Senator Shaheen. Right.
    Ms. Power [continuing]. In the Western Balkans and we're 
seeing a spike in disinformation and so we need to be in a 
position to come back and, you know, again support independent 
media for telling the truth or, you know, name the 
disinformation as it's coming out as we're doing more and more 
here in the United States.
    So I think the nearly $31 million in the first supplemental 
will go to programming across the Western Balkans. You know, 
there are some encouraging developments in Bulgaria and in 
Kosovo. You have leaders who are pushing an anti-corruption 
agenda and looking for resources to help on procurement laws 
and sort of structural reforms that could make also the 
business climate more attractive which in turn could have 
knock-on effects in stemming migration, but again the 
psychological insecurity around unsettled grievances and 
disputes, you know, fundamentally, the political leadership 
across the region just has to act, you know, especially at a 
time of crisis like this, with society and the people first in 
mind, and again I think there are pockets where that is 
happening and nothing like a crisis to focus the mind and 
certainly you see in public opinion polling, you know, the 
moment of opportunity now in light of Russia's aggression 
because that has broken through, notwithstanding all of the 
disinformation, but being there with these new resources to 
help small- and medium-size enterprises, to help anti-
corruption reforms, to help STEM education as they seek to 
build out their IT sectors, and I will say Kosovo's one 
example, last point I make is there's also an opportunity as so 
many private sector actors leave the Russian Federation where 
they might have been able to set up shop.
    We see every day, you know, the names of new companies who 
are leaving. We at USAID are thinking through, okay, how do we 
work, for example, with the leadership in Kosovo to try to 
attract, you know, some of those investments. There just may be 
opportunities now out of this otherwise horrific crisis that we 
need to be in a position to move on.
    So that's why the additional resources in the second 
supplemental, as well, would be very helpful in that regard.
    Senator Shaheen. Well, thank you. I really appreciate that.
    I think it's also important to point out that when I first 
visited the region in 2010, there was a real sense among the 
countries that I visited at the time and that included the 
three we just visited that there was a regional opportunity, 
that the opportunity was to look to the EU, to NATO, to the 
West, and to work together and Serbia and Croatia at the time 
had a real opportunity to play a very positive role in what was 
happening in Bosnia. That is still the case. The question is 
will they take advantage of it? Will they recognize that it's 
in all of their interests to look at what's important 
regionally because it's important to their own countries, and, 
you know, I think it's important and incumbent on us to do 
everything we can to try and encourage that.
    Ms. Power. Well, let me just say, Senator, last thing, that 
I'm just so grateful because I do think that the attention 
generally across our government to this region, you know, of 
course, the crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina was drawing 
attention, the dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, you know, 
always generating episodic engagement, but, you know, if I look 
at Eastern Europe as a whole, you know, USAID did shut down our 
programming, you know, and shut down missions, you know, in 
countries like Slovakia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe outside 
the Western Balkans and I think this provides us all with an 
occasion to sort of reset and to say okay, you know, there are 
real vulnerabilities here. There are also real opportunities to 
enlist, you know, more congressional delegations to travel to 
the Western Balkans.
    You know, again, USAID's role to try to broker with the 
DASPR communities, as well, more interest in getting 
engagement. I came back from Bosnia, I did a big DASPR call and 
did the same with the Moldovan President looking at Eastern 
Europe and again the shocks that predated the war in Ukraine 
and now that are stemming from that.
    So maybe, you know, as people's attention kind of drifted 
from that period when this was such a centerpiece of American 
foreign policy, maybe now is an occasion where we can really 
concentrate the mind, concentrate resources, and I think you 
alluded to European attention also, you know, flagging. I think 
the risk of Ukraine is that everything is focused on Ukraine 
and a very, very fragile situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina 
could be neglected, but I think at the highest levels we've 
been engaging our European counterparts.
    So that any push we make is a joint push which always makes 
it more effective.
    Senator Shaheen. Good. Well, thank you. Thank you very much 
for your testimony this afternoon.

                     ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS

    [The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but 
were submitted to the Agency for response subsequent to the 
hearing:]
    No questions were submitted for the record.

                          SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS

    Senator Shaheen.The hearing record will remain open until 5 
o'clock on Wednesday, June 1, for any written questions and the 
hearing is now concluded. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 4:14 p.m., Wednesday, May 25, the 
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of 
the Chair.]
















       LIST OF WITNESSES, COMMUNICATIONS, AND PREPARED STATEMENTS

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Blinken, Hon. Anthony, U.S. Department of State:
    Prepared Statement of........................................     7
    Statement of.................................................     6

Coons, Senator Christopher A., U.S. Senator From Delaware, 
  Opening Statement of 




Graham, Senator Lindsey, U.S. Senator From South Carolina:
    Opening Statement of.........................................     3
    Statement of.................................................    40

Leahy, Senator Patrick, U.S. Senator from Vermont, Opening 
  Statement of...................................................     4

Power, Samantha, Administrator, United States Agency for 
  International Development, Prepared Statement of...............    44

Ullom, General Thomas J., Acting Inspector, U.S. Agency for 
  International Development, Prepared Statement of...............    51










                             SUBJECT INDEX

                              ----------                              

                                                                   Page

                        U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Additional Committee Questions...................................    38
Afghanistan-Related Work.........................................    12
Mission and Results..............................................     8
Oversight Efforts................................................     9
Resources........................................................    13
                               __________

           UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Additional Committee Questions...................................    79
Addressing Irregular Migration from Central America..............    49
Advancing:
    Foreign Assistance Priorities Through Coordinated Efforts....    55
    Advancing Global Health Outcomes.............................    52
Bolstering Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance and Fighting 
  Corruption.....................................................    47
Concluding Observations About Continued Oversight................    56
Controlling COVID-19 and Strengthening Global Health Leadership..    46
Investing in our People and Building a Stronger Culture..........    50
Leveraging Local Strengths for Sustainable Development...........    54
Managing Aid in Emerging and Protracted Crises...................    53
Responding to Humanitarian Crises in Places Like Ethiopia and 
  Afghanistan....................................................    49
Restoring U.S. Climate Leadership................................    48
Strengthening Core Management Functions..........................    56
Supporting Community-Led Development.............................    50

                                   [all]