by Mark Silva
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, preparing for the swearing-in of the new U.S. Agency for International Development director, says development should become a pillar of American foreign policy alongside diplomatic and military efforts.
"Development was once the province of humanitarians, charities," Clinton says in excerpts of a speech that she plans to deliver today. "Today, it is a strategic, economic and moral imperative - as central to advancing American interests and solving global problems as diplomacy and defense."
The State Department is billing Clinton's address at the Peterson Institute for International Economics a major policy statement, Bloomberg News reports, with some advance words from that address.
The goal of a safer, more prosperous, democratic and equitable world remains out of reach as long as one third of the world's people live in poverty without better prospects, the secretary of state plans to say, emphasizing the importance of "accountability, transparency and measurable results'' in the financing and evaluation of U.S. aid.
Raj Shah, the new administrator of USAID, calls the approach "partnership, not patronage. Clinton will formally swear in Shah tomorrow. The physician serving as a deputy secretary at the Department of Agriculture won Senate confirmation last month.
"We have sometimes dictated solutions from afar, often missing our mark on the ground,'' Clinton will say today. "Our new approach is to work in partnership with the people in developing countries by investing in evidence- based strategies" designed by the countries themselves...
"We are focusing more of our investments on those most responsible for growing the world's food, caring for the world's sick and raising the world's children," Clinton plans to say. "The United States achieves the best results when we approach our foreign policy as an integrated whole, greater than the sum of its parts.''
Comments
"Growing the world's food, caring for the world's sick and raising the world's children."
Hillary...
Can we get the unemployment rate down to about 5% before we start on this liberal agenda.
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | January 6, 2010 3:09 PM
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Can we get the unemployment rate down to about 5% before we start on this liberal agenda.
Posted by: Paulo | January 6, 2010 3:09 PM
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Yeah, Pablo here is right. We should stick with the Wingnut agenda for "real Americans", which includes - tax cuts for billionaires, big oil and big corporations and wars of choice (Iraq) to enrichen their Military Industrial Complex cronies (Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater etc). Who cares about the little people who have no food or shelter.
Posted by: Gotti | January 6, 2010 3:36 PM
Since we don't have the money to pay for Clinton's plans, Obama will have to borrow the money from the Chinese and stick us taxpayers with the bill. And it will go as foreign aid has always gone--down the rathole, propping up the Swiss bank accounts of 3rd World dictators.
Posted by: Former Democrat | January 6, 2010 3:39 PM
C'mon Clinton!
We should only be borrowing from the Chinese when American Billionaires and Big Oil need more tax cuts!
Everyone knows this!
Posted by: I wanna be a Republican idiot | January 6, 2010 4:08 PM
I'd like to see Hillary give this socialist speech infront of all the unemployed steel and iron workers across, "this country."
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | January 6, 2010 4:21 PM
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I'd like to see Hillary give this socialist speech infront of all the unemployed steel and iron workers across, "this country."
Posted by: Paulo | January 6, 2010 4:21 PM
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So would I Pablo....especially since Iron and Steel workers vote Democratic and support what Clinton has to say about helping the middle-class and the poor. It would be great pr, in fact I'm going to contact some union heads I know and bring that up.
Thanks for the great idea, Pablo!
Posted by: Gotti | January 6, 2010 4:43 PM