[Senate Hearing 117-]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS FOR
FISCAL YEAR 2023
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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 hearing.
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.]
[all]