U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON OP-ED ON U.S.-INDIA RELATIONS

Photo Credit:  Wikimedia.
FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
India and the United States: A Focus on the Fundamentals
Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC
June 13, 2012
The following op-ed written by Secretary Clinton is appearing in print in India Abroad.
This week, leaders from India and the United States will gather in Washington to discuss our expanding cooperation on everything from trade to technology to terrorism. There also will be issues on which we don't see eye to eye, and some of those may dominate the media coverage. But if we look at the trend-lines as well as the headlines, a much more important story emerges: The strategic fundamentals of our relationship – shared democratic values, economic imperatives and diplomatic priorities – are pushing both countries' interests into closer convergence. The world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy are entering a new, more mature phase in our relationship.

The most important bond between our two nations continues to be our common democratic heritage. We are both big, diverse, noisy democracies, committed to pluralism, freedom, and opportunity. Yet, for many decades, our economic and strategic policies often diverged. Only after the end of the Cold War, with India's rapid economic development and growing regional leadership, did the trajectory of our relationship begin to change.

India's expanding GDP, thriving private sector, emerging consumer class, and increasing diplomatic clout have all combined to make it a global power with a big stake in maintaining international security and prosperity. As a result, we find ourselves sharing more than just common values and political systems -- we also increasingly share common interests in an open, free, fair, and transparent global economic system; peace and prosperity in South Asia and the Asia-Pacific; and a coordinated international response to violent extremism and other shared global challenges.

A bipartisan commitment across successive American and Indian administrations has driven a steady improvement in relations, marked by high-profile visits like the one my husband took to India in 2000 and achievements such as President Bush's landmark civilian nuclear cooperation agreement. Today, under President Obama and Prime Minister Singh's leadership, we are continuing those efforts. There is less need for dramatic breakthroughs and more need for steady, focused cooperation. So together, we are building a mature partnership defined by near-constant consultation aimed at working through our differences and advancing the interests and values we share. This kind of daily collaboration isn't always glamorous, but it is strategically significant -- and a long way from the old days of the Cold War.

Let's look at three examples of how this works.
First, on the economic front. Two decades after it began to open its economy, India's industries and innovators have gone global, investing and trading all over the world. Like American businesses, they have come to see that further growth depends on open markets, transparent regulations, and fair mechanisms to settle disputes. And while people in both India and America have important and sometimes conflicting concerns about market access and the effects of globalisation, the benefits of growing economic ties are clear: bilateral trade and investment has reached $100 billion a year, creating jobs and opportunities for Americans and Indians alike. There is much room for growth, and so we need to keep up the momentum, further reducing barriers to trade and investment in areas like multi-brand retail and creating hospitable environments for companies to do business. Because the world's two biggest democracies should have one of the world's most robust and consequential economic relationships.

Second, on Asia. For years, Pakistan and South Asia were a chief focus of India's strategic thinkers. Today, India is also looking east, and playing a larger role in the broader Asia-Pacific. Both India and the United States recognise the strategic and economic significance of the waterways that connect the Indian Ocean through to the Pacific, and the necessity of protecting freedom of navigation. So we are working together and through multilateral institutions such as the East Asia Summit to build a regional architecture that will boost economic growth, settle disputes peacefully, and uphold universal rights and norms. And we are exploring ways to ensure a constructive relationship among the United States, India, and China. Effective cooperation between all three countries will be essential to tackling many of the greatest challenges in the 21st century.

Third, on global challenges like terrorism, climate change, human rights, and nuclear proliferation. Both India and the United States have been targeted by violent extremists, and we understand that defeating terrorist networks takes international coordination and a comprehensive approach that goes after recruits, safe havens, and finances. We also both know that addressing cross-cutting challenges like climate change will require developed and developing countries alike to work together. Even on issues where we have at times disagreed, like human rights in Burma or sanctions on Iran, you can see our new habits of cooperation paying off. India understands the importance of denying Iran a nuclear weapon and supports efforts to ensure Iran's compliance with its international obligations. And India has taken steps to diversify its sources of imported crude by reducing purchases of Iranian oil. At the same time, the US recognises India's energy needs, and we're working together, along with other partners around the world, to ensure stable oil markets that can meet global demand. And that's what a good partnership is all about -- respecting each other's interests and needs and working to find mutually-acceptable approaches to common challenges.

These are just three of the most significant areas in which the strategic fundamentals of our relationship are redefining the US-India partnership. On issue after issue, we find that India's interests and America's interests are lining up.

The effectiveness of this partnership will hinge on our ability together to convert common interests into common action. It's not enough to talk about cooperating on civilian nuclear energy or attracting more US investment in India or defending human rights, we have to follow through so that our people can see the results. And we recognise that some Indians still fear that working closely with the United States will undermine their "strategic autonomy." But at the end of the day, a strategic partnership isn't about one country supporting the policies or priorities of the other. It's about working together on shared goals and preventing short-term disagreements from derailing long-term cooperation.
The United States is determined to keep this partnership going and growing. And that means working together -- including through mechanisms like this week's US-India Strategic Dialogue -- to build trust and deepen the habits of cooperation that will help break through areas of disagreement and bring benefits to the people of both countries.
Together, we can turn strategic fundamentals into strategic partnership.

Hillary Clinton

NATIONAL DAY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION REMARKS BY SEC. OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
National Day of the Russian Federation
Press Statement Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State Washington, DC
June 11, 2012

On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I am delighted to send best wishes to the people of Russia as you celebrate your National Day this June 12th. This is an occasion to honor your rich history and cultural diversity, and an opportunity to mark the progress we have made together.

Over the past three and a half years, our two countries have continued to broaden and deepen our cooperation to address shared challenges. Trade and investment are increasing. We were proud to support Russia’s effort to join the World Trade Organization this year. We continued successful implementation of the New START Treaty, including its comprehensive inspection and verification procedures. Russia and the United States are effective partners as we pursue peace and stability in Afghanistan and cooperate on issues like counterterrorism and counternarcotics.

Entrepreneurs, educators, artists, athletes, scientists, and bloggers have helped strengthen the bonds between our societies and our countries by participating in cultural, educational, and people-to-people exchanges. We look forward to even closer ties with the ratification of agreements to increase the duration of business and tourist visas and to strengthen protections and procedures for intercountry adoptions. Our people are connected in more ways than ever before thanks in part to the efforts of our Bilateral Presidential Commission.

As you celebrate your national day, I send all Russians my warmest wishes for a peaceful, productive and prosperous year to come.

SEC. OF STATE CLINTON'S SENATE TESTIMONY ON "THE LAW OF THE SEA" CONVENTION TREATY

Photo:  Offshore Oil Platform.  Credit:  Wikimedia
FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
The Law of the Sea Convention (Treaty Doc. 103-39): The U.S. National Security and Strategic Imperatives for Ratification
Testimony Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State Testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Washington, DC
May 23, 2012

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar. After both of your opening comments, I think you’ve made the case both eloquently and persuasively for anyone who is willing to look at the facts. I am well aware that this treaty does have determined opposition, limited but nevertheless quite vociferous. And it’s unfortunate because it’s opposition based in ideology and mythology, not in facts, evidence, or the consequences of our continuing failure to accede to the treaty. So I think you’ll hear, from both Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey as well as myself, further statements and information that really reinforces the very strong points that both of you have made.

We believe that it is imperative to act now. No country is better served by this convention than the United States. As the world’s foremost maritime power, we benefit from the convention’s favorable freedom of navigation provisions. As the country with the world’s second longest coastline, we benefit from its provisions on offshore natural resources. As a country with an exceptionally large area of seafloor, we benefit from the ability to extend our continental shelf, and the oil and gas rights on that shelf. As a global trading power, we benefit from the mobility that the convention accords to all commercial ships. And as the only country under this treaty that was given a permanent seat on the group that will make decisions about deep seabed mining, we will be in a unique position to promote our interests.

Now, the many benefits of this convention have attracted a wide-ranging coalition of supporters. Obviously, as we heard from both Senator Kerry and Senator Lugar, Republican and Democratic presidents have supported U.S. accession; military leaders who see the benefits for our national security; American businesses, including, strongly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, see the economic benefits. It has the support of every affected industry, including shipping, fisheries, telecommunications and energy, environmental groups as well. We have a coalition of environmental, conservation, business, industry, and security groups all in support of this convention.
And I would ask that my longer written statement along with the letters that I have received in support of the treaty be entered into the record.

CHAIRMAN KERRY: Without objection.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Now, one could argue, that 20 years ago, 10 years ago, maybe even five years ago, joining the convention was important but not urgent. That is no longer the case today. Four new developments make our participation a matter of utmost security and economic urgency.

First, for years, American oil and gas companies were not technologically ready to take advantage of the convention’s provisions regarding the extended U.S. continental shelf. Now they are. The convention allows countries to claim sovereignty over their continental shelf far out into the ocean, beyond 200 nautical miles from shore. The relevant area for the United States is probably more than 1.5 times the size of Texas. In fact, we believe it could be considerably larger.

U.S. oil and gas companies are now ready, willing, and able to explore this area. But they have made it clear to us that they need the maximum level of international legal certainty before they will or could make the substantial investments, and, we believe, create many jobs in doing so needed to extract these far-offshore resources. If we were a party to the convention, we would gain international recognition of our sovereign rights, including by using the convention’s procedures, and therefore be able to give our oil and gas companies this legal certainty. Staying outside the convention, we simply cannot.

The second development concerns deep seabed mining, which takes place in that part of the ocean floor that is beyond any country’s jurisdiction. Now for years, technological challenges meant that deep seabed mining was only theoretical; today’s advances make it very real. But it’s also very expensive, and before any company will explore a mine site, it will naturally insist on having a secure title to the site and the minerals that it will recover. The convention offers the only effective mechanism for gaining this title. But only a party to the convention can use this mechanism on behalf of its companies.

So as long as the United States is outside the convention, our companies are left with two bad choices – either take their deep sea mining business to another country or give up on the idea. Meanwhile, as you heard from Senator Kerry and Senator Lugar, China, Russia, and many other countries are already securing their licenses under the convention to begin mining for valuable metals and rare earth elements. And as you know, rare earth elements are essential for manufacturing high-tech products like cell phones and flat screen televisions. They are currently in tight supply and produced almost exclusively by China. So while we are challenging China’s export restrictions on these critical materials, we also need American companies to develop other sources. But as it stands today, they will only do that if they have the secure rights that can only be provided under this convention. If we expect to be able to manage our own energy future and our need for rare earth minerals, we must be a party to the Law of the Sea Convention.

The third development that is now urgent is the emerging opportunities in the Arctic. As the area gets warmer, it is opening up to new activities such as fishing, oil and gas exploration, shipping, and tourism. This convention provides the international framework to deal with these new opportunities. We are the only Arctic nation outside the convention. Russia and the other Arctic states are advancing their continental shelf claims in the Arctic while we are on the outside looking in. As a party to the convention, we would have a much stronger basis to assert our interests throughout the entire Arctic region.

The fourth development is that the convention’s bodies are now up and running. The body that makes recommendations regarding countries’ continental shelves beyond 200 nautical miles is actively considering submissions from over 40 countries without the participation of a U.S. commissioner. The body addressing deep seabed mining is now drawing up the rules to govern the extraction of minerals of great interest to the United States and American industry. It simply should not be acceptable to us that the United States will be absent from either of those discussions.

Our negotiators obtained a permanent U.S. seat on the key decision-making body for deep seabed mining. I know of no other international body that accords one country and one country alone – us – a permanent seat on its decision making body. But until we join, that reserved seat remains empty.

So those are the stakes for our economy. And you will hear from Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey that our security interests are intrinsically linked to freedom of navigation. We have much more to gain from legal certainty and public order in the world’s oceans than any other country. U.S. Armed Forces rely on the navigational rights and freedoms reflected in the convention for worldwide access to get to combat areas, sustain our forces during conflict, and return home safely all without permission from other countries.

Now as a non-party to the convention, we rely – we have to rely – on what is called customary international law as a legal basis for invoking and enforcing these norms. But in no other situation at which – in which our security interests are at stake do we consider customary international law good enough to protect rights that are vital to the operation of the United States military. So far we’ve been fortunate, but our navigational rights and our ability to challenge other countries’ behavior should stand on the firmest and most persuasive legal footing available, including in critical areas such as the South China Sea.

I’m sure you have followed the claims countries are making in the South China Sea. Although we do not have territory there, we have vital interests, particularly freedom of navigation. And I can report from the diplomatic trenches that as a party to the convention, we would have greater credibility in invoking the convention’s rules and a greater ability to enforce them.

Now, I know a number of you have heard arguments opposing the convention. And let me just address those head-on. Critics claim we would surrender U.S. sovereignty under this treaty. But in fact, it’s exactly the opposite. We would secure sovereign rights over vast new areas and resources, including our 200-mile exclusive economic zone and vast continental shelf areas extending off our coasts and at least 600 miles off Alaska. I know that some are concerned that the treaty’s provisions for binding dispute settlement would impinge on our sovereignty. We are no stranger to similar provisions, including in the World Trade Organization which has allowed us to bring trade cases; many of them currently pending against abusers around the world. As with the WTO, the U.S. has much more to gain than lose from this proposition by being able to hold others accountable under clear and transparent rules.

Some critics invoke the concern we would be submitting to mandatory technology transfer and cite President Reagan’s other initial objections to the treaty. Those concerns might have been relevant decades ago, but today they are not. In 1994, negotiators made modifications specifically to address each of President Reagan’s objections, including mandatory technology transfer, which is why President Reagan’s own Secretary of State, George Shultz, has since written we should join the convention in light of those modifications having been made.

Now some continue to assert we do not need to join the convention for U.S. companies to drill beyond 200 miles or to engage in deep seabed mining. That’s not what the companies say. So I find it quite ironic, in fact somewhat bewildering that a group, an organization, an individual would make a claim that is refuted by every major company in every major sector of the economy who stands to benefit from this treaty. Under current circumstances, they are very clear. They will not take on the cost and risk these activities under uncertain legal frameworks. They need the indisputable, internationally recognized rights available under the treaty. So please, listen to these companies, not to those who have other reasons or claims that are not based on the facts. These companies are refuting the critics who say, “Go ahead, you’ll be fine.” But they’re not the ones – the critics – being asked to invest tens of millions of dollars without the legal certainty that comes with joining the convention.

Now some mischaracterize the payments for the benefit of resource rights beyond 200 miles as quote “a UN tax” – and this is my personal favorite of the arguments against the treaty – that will be used to support state sponsors of terrorism. Honestly, I don’t know where these people make these things up, but anyway the convention does not contain or authorize any such taxes. Any royalty fee does not go to the United Nations; it goes into a fund for distribution to parties of the convention. And we, were we actually in the convention, would have a permanent veto power over how the funds are distributed. And we could prevent them from going anywhere we did not want them to go. I just want to underscore – this is simple arithmetic. If we don’t join the convention, our companies will miss out on opportunities to explore vast areas of continental shelf and deep seabed. If we do join the convention, we unlock economic opportunities worth potentially hundreds of billions of dollars, for a small percentage royalty a few years down the line.

I’ve also heard we should not join this convention because quote “it’s a UN treaty.” And of course that means the black helicopters are on their way. Well, the fact that a treaty was negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations, which is after all a convenient gathering place for the countries of the world, has not stopped us from joining agreements that are in our interests. We are a party to dozens of agreements negotiated under the UN auspices on everything from counter-terrorism and law enforcement to health, commerce, and aviation. And we often pay fees under those treaties recognizing the benefits we get dwarf those minimal fees.

And on the national security front, some argue we would be handing power over the U.S. Navy to an international body. Patently untrue, obviously absolutely contrary to any history or law governing our navy. None of us would be sitting here if there were even a chance that you could make the most absurd argument that could possibly lead to that conclusion. Disputes concerning U.S. military activities are clearly excluded from dispute settlement under the convention.

And neither is it true that the convention would prohibit intelligence activities. The intelligence community has once again in 2012, as it did in 2007, as it did in 2003, confirmed that is absolutely not true.
So whatever arguments may have existed for delaying U.S. accession no longer exist and truly cannot be even taken with a straight face. The benefits of joining have always been significant, but today the costs of not joining are increasing. So much is at stake, and I therefore urge the Committee to listen to the experts, listen to our businesses, listen to the Chamber of Commerce, listen to our military, and please give advice and consent to this treaty before the end of this year.

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEC. OF STATE CLINTON'S REMARKS AT STRATEGIC DIALOGUE WITH CIVIL SOCIETY 2012 SUMMIT

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society 2012 Summit
Remarks Hillary Rodham Clinton
   Secretary of State Tomicah S. Tillemann
   Senior Advisor for Civil Society and Emerging Democracies Tara Sonenshine
   Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Ben Franklin Room
Washington, DC
May 16, 2012
MR. TILLEMANN: Good morning. I’m Tomicah Tillemann, and I serve as the State Department’s Senior Advisor for Civil Society in Emerging Democracies. Today, it is my privilege to welcome you to the 2012 Summit of our Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society. This event brings together civil society representatives from more than 40 countries who have gathered here in Washington and thousands more who are participating via the internet and at embassy viewing parties around the world.

This summit is taking place at a moment of profound change. The world is witnessing a fundamental renegotiation of the relationships that have historically defined interactions between citizens and governments. Civil society has been at the forefront of that change, and this dialogue represents our recognition of the rapidly expanding role that you and your organizations play in shaping our world. This dialogue now involves more than 50 bureaus and offices at the State Department and USAID. We’ll hear more about that in a moment, but it is providing a platform for translating your ideas into foreign policy. And our work on this initiative is a concrete manifestation of our commitment to elevating civil society as a full partner in our diplomacy alongside other governments.

Now, we know that the work of civil society is never easy. And in too many places it is truly dangerous. But amid this multitude of challenges and opportunities, we are fortunate to have women and men leading the State Department who understand the value and the potential of civil society as a force for progress in our country and around the world. And we are particularly fortunate that two of those women are with us today for this global town hall.

We are glad to welcome our Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been working with and for civil society since her first job out of law school, and our Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Tara Sonenshine, who recently joined our State Department family after serving with great success in many civil society organizations and who will moderate this town hall.

Our sole speaker this morning will be Secretary Clinton, and her vision is the catalyst that brings us together today. Six months before a Tunisian vegetable seller remade the political landscape of an entire region, she spelled out the centrality of civil society in our foreign policy at a keynote address to the community of democracies. During the cold autumn that preceded the Arab Spring, she created an office on her staff that was dedicated to engaging civil society. And long before TIME magazine named the protester as the person of the year, she understood what you could accomplish.

She has been supporting civil society since before it was hip. She has been fearless, focused, and farsighted in her efforts. And frankly, as the most admired woman in the world, she needs no introduction. (Laughter.) Our Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Applause.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very, very much, and thank you, Tomicah. Tomicah has done an absolutely superb job in taking this idea of a strategic dialogue with civil society and putting real flesh on the bones. And this second summit is certainly evidence of that.

So it is a pleasure to welcome you here to the State Department. A lot has happened since we launched this initiative with the summit last year. When we met for the first time in last February, the revolutions that Tomicah referenced had begun to unfold across the Middle East and North Africa. Citizens were demanding their rights and their voices which, for too long, had been denied. And amid the tumult, civil society groups everywhere sprang up to push for democracy and change. Now some emerged from those quiet places where they had been operating for years. Others formed overnight as a great result of social media connections.

But in any event, it was brave men and women, including many of you in this room, who came together to plan for a new future, and you spoke eloquently about the need for civil society. Well, your work and the work of millions of others around the world has never been more important. We are seeing people stepping up to fill the space between government and the economy.

In 1998, I gave a speech at Davos about a firm foundation for any society being like a three-legged stool where you had to have a responsive, effective, accountable government, and you had to have a dynamic, job-creating, free market economic sector. And then you had to have a strong civil society. If one of the legs got too long or too short, the balance would be thrown off. And to make the case for civil society, it’s really quite simple, because government cannot and should not control any individual’s life, tell you what to do, what not to do. The economy has to be in the hands of those who are the entrepreneurs and the creative innovators. But it’s in civil society where we live our lives. That’s where our families are formed; that’s where our faith is practiced; that’s where we become who we are, through voluntary activities, through standing up for our common humanity.

And so as we see the explosion of civil society groups around the world, we want to support you. I think that in the United States, civil society does the work that touches on every part of our life. It really reflects what Alexis de Tocqueville called the habits of the heart that America has been forming and practicing from our very founding, because we early on understood that there had to be a role for government and a role for the economy, but everything else was a role for us – individuals charting our own course, making our own contributions.

And we turn to you to help us support civil society around the world. Now this initiative is a striking example of how government and civil society, often supported by the private sector, can work together. And under Tomicah’s leadership, we’ve spent the past year consulting with civil society groups through the Strategic Dialogue and our working groups, asking you for ideas about what we in government can do more effectively, looking for more opportunities to collaborate.

Now I don’t want to give the impression – because it would be a false one – that cooperation between civil society and government is always easy, even if this dialogue sometimes makes it look that way. Most of you will not be shocked to hear that civil society and government, even in my own country, do not always agree. We have found ways to disagree without being disagreeable. But I started my career working in civil society. I did a lot to take on my own government starting in the 1970s. The first issue I worked on was to try to help change the laws about how we treated people with disabilities. And I worked for a group that went door to door in certain parts of America asking families, “Do you have a child who’s not in school, and if so, why?” And we found blind children and deaf children and children in wheelchairs and children who had been kicked out of school with no alternative. And I was a very small part of a really large effort to require that American public schools find a place for every one of our children.

And so I know that you have to sometimes stand up to your own governments. You have to sometimes help your government do things that, in the absence of the pressure you are bringing, they either could not or would not do themselves. So we understand that the space that civil society operates in, in many places around the world, is dangerous; that many of you in this room and those who are following this on the internet really do put yourselves on the line. And we want to be your partners.

Now we know too that in the face of an upsurging civil society, some governments have responded by cracking down harder than ever. Recent headlines from too many countries paint a picture of civil society under threat. But each time a reporter is silenced, or an activist is threatened, it doesn’t strengthen a government, it weakens a nation. A stool cannot balance on one leg or even two. The system will not be sustainable.

So the United States is pushing back against this trend. We’ve provided political and financial support for embattled civil society groups around the world. Just two weeks ago, our Democracy and Human Rights Working Group met with bloggers and reporters from across the region in Tunis to hear about challenges to freedom of expression. And we are trying to lead by example. We hope that by holding meetings like this one, we can demonstrate that civil society should be viewed not a threat, but an asset.
I’m very proud to announce today that the State Department is acting on every one of the eight policy recommendations that have been generated by civil society through this dialogue so far. Now, I won’t go through all of them for you – I hope that you’ll have a briefing on all of those; we’re putting the details online for everyone to see – but let me just make a few highlight comments.

First, we are expanding the reach and deepening our commitment to this dialogue by setting up embassy working groups. Our posts will help us tap the ideas and opinions of local civil society groups, and then we will channel their input back to Washington to inform our policies. We’ve already received commitments from 10 posts stretching from Brazil to Bangladesh, from the Czech Republic to Cameroon. I know many of these posts are watching live via the internet right now, and I want to extend a special word of thanks to them.

Second, our Working Group on Religion and Foreign Policy has focused on how we can strengthen our engagement with the large section of civil society comprised of faith-based organizations. Our posts in every region of the globe work with faith-based organizations and religious communities to bolster democracies, protect human rights, and respond to the humanitarian need of citizens. So these groups are our natural allies on a multitude of issues, including advancing religious freedom, and we want to work with them wherever possible. These recommendations will support our officers in the field who are engaging with religious communities to make sure they have the appropriate training to carry out their efforts.

Third, our Labor Working Group has examined opportunities to facilitate discussions among governments, businesses, and labor groups to make sure all points of view are represented at the international level and in multilateral institutions. Labor groups are another well-organized and important category of civil society, and we want to help them connect with one another and pursue shared approaches as we defend and advance workers’ rights.

And finally, bringing us back to the great changes throughout the Middle East and North Africa, our Women’s Empowerment Working Group is building awareness for women’s rights in countries undergoing political transition. And we will work closely with civil society groups and governments in the region to help make women’s rights part of new constitutions, protected and practiced, and understood as critical to the development of democratic, successful societies.

Now, our new policy recommendations do not end here. Later this afternoon, the dialogue will hear new ideas developed by our Working Groups on Governance and Accountability to improve transparency and combat corruption. And we will continue engaging with you to identify new ideas and opportunities. This summer, we will also be adding a new Global Philanthropy Working Group to our dialogue, chaired by Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine. This group will expand our cooperation with leading foundations and develop partnerships to support civil society.
Now, conversations and actions like these have ripple effects, and we have had some positive responses from governments over the last year who are reaching out and developing their own mechanisms for engaging with their own civil society. Some of the representatives from those governments are here today, and we greatly appreciate your presence, and we also stand ready to offer any assistance we can.

So thank you for being here. Thank you for what you do. Please know that are enthusiastic about the future of civil society and we want to use this dialogue, as we have for the past year, to be a vehicle for the exchange of ideas, for the promotion of new approaches, and for an accounting, because we want to do what works and quit doing what doesn’t work. So we want to be very clear that we’re going to be holding ourselves accountable and going to be looking to civil society to be held accountable as well.
So I’m looking forward to taking some questions about our dialogue and having this exchange with you and then hearing more about the work that each and every one of you are doing. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Well, thank you, Madam Secretary, for the opportunity to moderate this very inspiring and loud program. I do want to welcome all of you, and particularly those who are here on ECA-funded civil society programs, the IVLP folks, the Humphrey fellows, if you’re out there somewhere. We particularly welcome you here today.

In just a few moments, we’ll be taking some questions from the audience, so as you do have a question, if you would signal us and we will get a microphone to you. But in the meantime, I’m going to begin, Madam Secretary, by picking up on this very inspired and moving thought: Each time a reporter is silenced or an activist is threatened, it doesn’t strengthen a government, it weakens a nation. So how do we explain this rise of challenges and crackdowns on civil society? And are these isolated events, or is there a trend here that we’re going to see in the years outward?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think – this is loud. (Laughter.) I hope it can be turned down. I think that the world is going through an extraordinary historic change. More people are living under governments of their own choosing and more people have the opportunity to do so than ever before in human history. But it’s also true that old habits die hard. There are all kinds of cultural, political, economic, even religious, ethnic, racial – all kinds of mindsets that are difficult to change in a short period of time.
I am very optimistic about the future, but I am also very realistic that the pathway to that future of greater democracy, freedom, human rights, human dignity is going to be a hard road for many millions and millions of people around the world. And therefore, we have to continue making the case for respect and tolerance and openness that is at the root of any true sustainable democracy while recognizing that many leaders, both old and new, are going to find such a transition very personally threatening, threatening to their group, threatening to their assumptions about power and order. And we have to continue to make the case.

So I am humbled by the courage of so many people around the world right now – dissidents, activists, political actors – who are contributing to this historic tide that is building. But I also realize that it’s not going to happen overnight, and therefore, we have to be smart about how we help you move forward on this agenda for civil society, democracy, and human rights.

So I really think, Tara, that we have to, also in the United States, remind ourselves of our own long journey. We’re living in a time of instant communication and 24-hour news, but we did not recognize every American’s human rights, we did not have fully representative one-person, one-vote democracy, when we started out. We had to fight a civil war. We had to amend our Constitution. So we have to be, I think, always advancing what we believe are universal human values, best realized within the context of representative democracy but with enough humility to understand that different peoples, different countries have different histories, different cultures, different mindsets.

So what we want to do is support real change, not just score political points or get on the evening news. At the end of the day, we want our help and support for civil society and political change to actually have advanced the cause of freedom and human dignity and human rights and democracy, and not to be used as an excuse or a rationale for clamping down even more. So navigating through all of that is especially difficult if you’re in such a country, but it’s also difficult for us who are trying to help those of you who are on the frontlines.

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Let me go to the audience here first, and then we’ll go overseas. I notice the first hand is in the second row, three seats in. And if you would not mind identifying yourself and also asking folks to keep questions relatively short so that we can work our way around the room. Please.

QUESTION: Hello, I am Shatha Al-Harazi, a political human rights journalist from Yemen. I am so honored to be here today with you and so inspired by your speech. I have only one question. You just spoke about universal human values. When it comes to that, that just reminds me that – of a friend of mine who just told me to tell you face-to-face that Yemenis are not less important than American, and if you want to work hand to hand and counter terrorism, you have to work with the civil society. You have to strengthen the civil society. And we thank you here for the great work that NDI and the USAID are doing, but still the drone strikes are disrupting everything and it’s getting our civilian killed. So I’m just asking you here, is there any consideration or any plans on working with civil society on counterterrorism? Thank you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we certainly intend to and are working with civil society on counterterrorism, because one of the long-term solutions to terrorism is building up civil society, giving people the feeling of empowerment: their voices are heard; they don’t need to turn to violence because they can participate fully and equally in a political process.

We also are committed to working with civil society to counter violent extremism; to counter the messages of extremists who promote violence; who are not respectful of human rights or even human life, but instead are intent upon undermining the political order and, in effect, capturing it to promote a certain ideological or religious point of view.

So we do have to do more with civil society. There is absolutely total agreement on that. And in a conflict situation, as we see in many places around the country, we do try to do both. We try to support the government or the political system against the threat from violent extremism while trying to work to enhance civil society as a way of diminishing either the attractiveness or the reach of extremism.

So it’s not either/or in our view. It’s primarily on the political-civil society front, but I’m not going to sit here and mislead you. There are also people who are trying to kill Americans, kill Europeans, and kill Yemenis; who are not going to listen to reason; who don’t want to participate in a political process; who have no interest in sitting around a table and hearing your view because, with all due respect, you’re a woman. And so they cannot be given the opportunity to kill their way to power, so we will support governments who are trying to prevent that from happening while we also try to build up civil society, help move a country like Yemen on a path to true democracy with representative government.

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: We’re going to go from Yemen to Morocco. I believe we have a video –

PARTICIPANT: (Off-mike.) (Laughter.)

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Okay, I think we’re first going to go to the real Morocco, which is a video question we have via YouTube. And if we could queue up the first overseas question for the Secretary and play our first video.

QUESTION: My name is Manelle Ilitir and I’m from Morocco. Unemployment is the most pressing issue in our MENA region. Expectations are high, and youth are demanding action now. The complexity of the (inaudible) of this urgency only creates more tension. So my question to you, Secretary Clinton, is: How can civil society drive a social dialogue among the concerned stakeholders where there is public, private, academia, NGO; a social dialogue that is result-oriented, that reinforces their collaboration, amplifies what already exists, and delivers the jobs needed in the immediate future? Thank you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you very much. And I think that young woman’s question is one of the most common I’m asked around the world, because 60 percent of the world’s population is under 30; the highest percentage of the unemployed are under 30. Young people are very worried about what kind of futures they will have across the world. But in particular, when those worries collide with the rising expectations produced by political reform and even revolution, it’s a volatile mix.

So I think there are several things. First of all, governments have to have good policies. That is obvious. And it is more difficult in the 21st century for a lot of reasons which you say are complicated. I agree. But civil society can be a great catalyst and partner with government and with the private sector on job creation. What do I mean by that? Civil society can help with the acquisition of job skills and training for certain kinds of jobs that are available in the marketplace. Now, we have this problem in our own country. We have lots of jobs available in lots of industries without enough people either willing or able to take those jobs. So doing job training, doing outreach, helping prepare young people for the jobs that are there.

Secondly, we have formed a partnership called the Partnership for a New Beginning that is in North Africa and the Middle East. And when I was just in Morocco, I met with the leaders of this effort who are leaders of corporations, small businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators and we are working with them to try to increase their economic reach so that they can offer more jobs. What can they do to improve their exports? What can they do with our help to break down barriers so that they can get into new markets? Now one of the things that would particularly help in the Maghreb, if you look at from Morocco through Egypt, those countries trade less with each other than any contiguous countries in the world. You have the border between Morocco and Algeria closed. You have continuing difficulties with other countries in terms of trade agreements, open borders – the kind of free flow of commerce that does create jobs. And so the more that can be done to integrate the economies of the Maghreb, the more I believe you will have greater opportunities for young people.

Then I think civil society can take a strong stand against corruption, because corruption is a job killer. Corruption is a cancer that eats away at economic opportunity. So civil society needs to be loudly and clearly speaking out against, acting against corruption, and using social media – posting anonymous pictures of people taking bribes, posting anonymous stories of officials who stand in the way of the creation of your small business. So take that stand against corruption. We will work with you. We will help you on that.
And then look at the ways that technology can create more jobs and do an examination of what are the barriers within your government to the creation of businesses and jobs. Because there is a ranking that is done by an independent organization that ranks every country in the world in the ease of doing business. How easy is it if I show up tomorrow in Morocco or Tunisia or Jordan or Yemen and I say, “I want to start a business, and I think if I’m successful I could employ 10, 20, 30 people. How long does it take?” Sometimes it takes more than a year. How discouraging is that to people who want to get started and want to get going with their own energy to create something? Sometimes you have to pay many bribes. Sometimes you have to get all kinds of licenses that have nothing to do with actually starting your business, but it’s just to keep somebody in the government employed. If the government employment takes up too much of the sector of employment in a society, it squeezes out the opportunity for business to flourish to create jobs in the market.

So these are some of the things that civil society can do in cooperation with both government and business, and we’re working on all of those through this Department to be of support to you.

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: I know there was a gentleman had his hand up first, right on the edge there. And we will, again, try to move as quickly as we can here and overseas.

QUESTION: Secretary Clinton, thank you very much. It’s an honor to be here. I just want to ask you a question. We have teams – my name is Marc Gopin. I’m from CRDC George Mason University, and I have teams that work in some countries that are adversaries of the United States like Syria and others that are allies. And I want to ask your advice about how we can do what we do better in terms of civil society, conflict management, and social transition that will help you balance the challenge of working with allies that you need to keep as allies, but at the same time are hurting our people. So how can we do what we do more effectively in a way that will help American policy provide positive pressure that’s constructive and that what we do is constructive and helpful to what you’re trying to do?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think you’re putting your finger on a difficult issue because, if I heard you right, you do conflict mediation, resolution, in countries with which we have both good and not so good relations. And even sometimes in the ones we have good relations, very often they don’t have the best track records in how they support civil society and treat their own people, which we are well aware of.
Look, I think there are a couple of things. Why do countries change? Why do leaders change? Why do they decide one day that they are going to go in a different direction? There’s a certain level of mystery to this, but a large part of the answer is because they become convinced they’re on the wrong track. We’re watching with great interest the opening in Burma over the last months. And there’s been a lot written about why did these former generals who had been part of a very oppressive regime for a very long time – the prisons were filled with political prisoners; Aung San Suu Kyi was a prisoner in her own home – why did they decide this is the wrong direction? I don’t know that there’s any specific answer, but I’ll tell you some of the answers that have been suggested, which I think are more general.

First, there were leaders in other countries who had gone through the process who reached out and began in a very respectful way to talk about what democracy could mean to the future of Burma. It’s been in the public record, but one was the president of Indonesia, a former general during a very difficult time of dictatorship, who took off his uniform, ran for office. Now Indonesia, the largest Muslim population in the world, is a thriving democracy where women and men are equal participants. And so President Yudhoyono began to reach out the generals in Burma through ASEAN, through other organizations, to say, “Let me tell you about my experience. Not like, ‘you must go do this’ but let me tell you what we did in Indonesia.” The generals began to travel, and they began to see that their country was not as developed. It didn’t have as much prosperity. It didn’t have jobs for young people like other countries nearby. Thailand had been under military rule; now it was booming. It was next door.
So these personal experiences and the outreach of other leaders or people who can relate to those in power in oppressive countries, coming from similar backgrounds, having similar experiences – never underestimate the power of personal relationships and personal experiences. We talk about geopolitical strategy, and sometimes it seems way up in the sky, but I’ve often found it’s the personal connection.

I remember going to Nelson Mandela’s inauguration, and there were many, many very important people there. And after he was inaugurated, we went back to the president’s home for an inaugural lunch, and he stood up and he said, “I want you to meet three – the three most important people to me who are here today.” They were three former jailers of his on Robben Island; three hard-bitten white men who had overseen his imprisonment, but who had treated him with dignity and respect. And I remember asking him in one of the conversations I was privileged to have with him, “How did you come out not embittered, wanting revenge, wanting to do to them what they had done to you?” And he said, “Well, I knew if I walked out embittered, I’d still be in prison.” He said, “But I also knew from those years in prison there were people who saw me as a human being, and I, therefore, had to see them as human beings.”

Now I tell you those stories because a lot of time conflict mediation or resolution is very formalistic. People are engaged in dialogue. But what happens that’s most important is, I think, outside the dialogue, where they talk about their families, their interests, when they decide that that person of another religion, of another race, of another tribe is also a human being. So I think you’ve got to try to engage leaders and countries that are oppressive in those kinds of personal ways. It doesn’t always work. There are some really hard cases in the world. We know that. But it might help in the person who comes after, or it might help in the guy standing on the sidelines who said, “We can do this better.” And – but just persist. You never know what’s going to make an impression.

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Let’s go quickly to another part of the world, Brazil, and let’s hear from our Brazilian civil society leader and include them in the conversation here. So we’ll queue up Brazil, we’ll come back here, and keep moving along as quickly as we can.

QUESTION: My name is Marlon Reis. I am a state judge in Brazil. I take part on the Brazilian movement against electoral corruption. My movement was responsible for conquest of the (in Portuguese), the law of clean slate. I would like to ask: How could we improve our relationship, the partnership between U.S. Government and social movements on fighting against corruption? Thank you.

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Let me suggest we’re going to run a couple of these, just to give you a chance to wrap them together. If we could go to Afghanistan very quickly, because I know some of these civil society leaders worked very hard to be heard here, and I’d like to have a few of them and we’ll wrap them together.

QUESTION: (In foreign language.)

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: So I happen to have a translation of the question for those who couldn’t follow it, but it does address the gender issues in Afghanistan, and I think the rule of law questions on the Brazil. So if you want to take on both of those, and then we’ll probably have time for one more here and one more there.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, with respect to the Brazilian question on corruption, I just want to reiterate what I said. The more civil society can be a force against corruption, the more likely the reforms you’re seeking, whether it’s in the economy, in the environment, in any area of human rights or dignity, are more likely to have a chance to succeed. And taking on corruption should be the job of governments, but very often governments need civil society to push them and pull them into doing even more.
Regarding the question about women in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of NATO-ISAF troops over the next two years, this is a great concern to the United States. It is to me personally. There has been an enormous amount of great progress made in Afghanistan. This young woman is an example of that, running a radio station, something that would’ve been absolutely unheard of, punishable under the Taliban. And we have made it our priority to do everything we can to help support civil society, the rule of law, women’s empowerment, and the enforcement of the laws and constitution of Afghanistan, which clearly lay out the rights of men and women to be treated equally under the laws. I mean, that is not too much to ask for. And that is what every person, man and woman, is entitled to.

So we will continue working with civil society and the government, making it clear that that has to be a redline, and do all we can to support the brave women of Afghanistan who are out there every single day saying, “I have a right to go to school,” “I have a right to be a practicing doctor,” “I have a right to be a teacher,” “I have a right to open my business.” And we just think that that goes with being a democracy. And women have the same right to make the choices that are right for them and their families, as any man does. So we have to keep making that absolutely clear. (Applause.)

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: So we’re in the last few moments. The Secretary has to leave. What I’m going to suggest is a very quick question here, a very short question from Kazakhstan, and we will wrap up. The Secretary has to leave. I will stay behind and help answer some of the questions or pass them along to her.
So very quickly here, Kazakhstan, and we will close.

QUESTION: Thank you. I’m Hamid from Morocco, the first country that recognized the United States. And I know that you love it. (Laughter.)
So I’m talking about civil society in Morocco, but I think it’s the same in the Maghreb. There is an increasing role in the last 10 years of the role of civil society, yes, but there is some threats, lack of transparency. We know one number saved by the minister of – in Morocco that 90 percent of public aid for civil – for NGOs in Morocco goes to only 10 percent of NGOs. It means that the states control the funding of civil society.
And also the foreign aid for civil society don’t goes to the real NGOs in the ground, which they work close to people. And they don’t know what are the mechanism that you use to help NGOs in the grounds to work with people. And I think it’s something very interesting. You can give a lot of money, but if it don’t goes to the goal that you want to do, it’s a waste of your money. Thank you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you for that. Let me quickly say that we need your help – that’s why you’re here – to advise us about how to be more effective with the aid that we give to NGOs. Because you’re right, sometimes we are told by governments that we cannot give aid to any NGOs that they don’t approve of, and that puts us in a very difficult position because we don’t want to accept that, but we also don’t want to fail to support even the NGOs that are approved of.

So we have to make a tough decision. Sometimes, governments make it so difficult for us to help, as you say, grassroots NGOs that it becomes impossible. So we can’t find them; we can’t interact with them; we can’t convey support to them. So we need your feedback. What can we do better? And we’ve got a lot of our top officials from the State Department and USAID here, and we need to hear from you about what will work.

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: So we’re going to close on a subject we didn’t spend much time on, the internet and technology. We’re going to run a short question on that from Kazakhstan. And then the Secretary, I want to thank in advance for being here, and all of these senior government officials and civil society leaders and promise to stay and collect your questions. So we will do our final video and then we will end the session.

QUESTION: Dear Madam Secretary, my name is Alina Khamatdinova and I am from Kazakhstan. I once participated in your meeting with NGO in 2010 in Astana. With internet development, many possibilities for civic engagement have emerged. Many group of civic activities online are very popular now and their impact is very visible. What do you think about this trend? Is it good or bad? And especially for traditional NGOs who focused on human species, what kind of plans does State Department have for this tendency? Thank you very much.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much from Kazakhstan. Well, we think it’s so important to help civil society utilize technology that we have a whole program to do just that. We have been running tech camps around the world where we invite civil society activists to come. In fact, there’ll be one in a few months in Kyrgyzstan, right? So --
PARTICIPANT: Kazakhstan.

SECRETARY CLINTON: When is it?

PARTICIPANT: Kazakhstan.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Kazakhstan. It’s going to be in Kazakhstan. So we will have a tech camp where civil society can – representatives can come together to learn everything we can share with you about how to use technology – how to use it to promote the ideas and programs of the NGO you’re part of; how to use it to reach out and enlist more people to support you; how to use it to convey information to the people you serve. We’re doing a lot of work – if you take women’s health, something I’m very interested in, how do you get information to women about how to take better care of their health? If you are interested in small farmers, how do you get more information to them about how to help them be more productive? So we think technology, on balance, is a great gift and opportunity for civil society.

Now, there’s always a downside. That’s human nature. The good often comes with the not-so-good. And so there will be people on the internet who could attack you, who could try to interfere with you, could try to shut you down, both independent, government-sponsored – we’re aware of that. But, on balance, we want you to be as equipped as you can to use technology to promote and protect civil society across the world.
Thank you all very much.

UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Thank you, Madam Secretary. (Applause.)

SEC. OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON SPEAKS AT GLOBAL IMPACT ECONOMY FORUM

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks at the Global Impact Economy Forum
Remarks Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State Loy Henderson Auditorium
Washington, DC
April 26, 2012
Thank you. Oh, thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you, all. Thank you. That was perfect timing, bottoms up. I loved hearing that as I walked in. Thanks to Kris Balderston, his staff in our office of the Global Partnership Initiatives, and everyone here who has helped to plan this forum providing us a lot of great advice and counsel.

I’m also delighted to welcome Sir Richard Branson. Thank you so much for being here. I love the fact that he is such a strong proponent for business as unusual. And I’m excited he’s here because many, many, many years ago, I wanted to be an astronaut, and I think he may be my last chance to live out – (laughter) – that particular dream.

You’re here because you know that we have an opportunity with the convergence of the recognition on the part of government, the private sector, civil society, that we can be so much more effective working together than working at cross-purposes. And for me, this is a great moment to look at where we stand in the world in the pursuit of economic growth and prosperity that is broadly inclusive and sustainable. You know the statistics as well as anyone: One out of three people in the world today living on less than $2 a day; the challenges we face from finite resources, climate change, and other environmental degradation; looking at how people themselves are being empowered from the bottom up in large measure because of the phenomenon of social media. And it’s not only happening somewhere out there, it’s happening everywhere.

And the fact is, these trend lines, apart from the headlines that we all spend most of our time looking at, are profoundly important to foreign policy and national security of all of our countries, because governments everywhere, including most particularly our own, are grappling with what challenges like these mean for our citizens. We believe expanding economic opportunity is fundamental to achieving our own national interest. We want more prosperous societies. We want to see people moving into the middle class. We want to see that creativity and entrepreneurial spirit fostering growth. And we have been working within the Obama Administration to bring our various institutions together to try to put forth that as a focus for us.

So the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of Commerce, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, many other of our own institutions working together with international and multilateral institutions are trying to crack the code on removing the obstacles that limit growth. But we have to be more intentional about it. And that’s part of what this forum is meant to both represent, but far more importantly, help us achieve.

And we recognize that so called official development assistance is no longer the leading edge indicator or tool that it used to be. In the 1960s, official development assistance represented about 70 percent of capital flows into developing nations. Today that number is about 13 percent. Where does the rest come from? Well, you know it comes from the private sector, comes from increased trade revenues, it comes from the flow of remittances, and any number of other non-governmental sources. So we’ve made it a goal of this Administration to do more to engage with and coordinate with the private sector, non-profits, philanthropists, diasporas, and anyone else who has value to add.

We know we need partnerships and innovative alliances, which is why one of the first things I did at the State Department was to set up this Office of Global Partnerships. We needed to tear down the silos that prevented us from working creatively and smartly together. We needed to facilitate and scale up the impact economy. And we needed to make it clear that we were over the separation mentality that for too long has guided our efforts.

What do I mean by that? Well, in the past, we looked at corporate revenue and corporate responsibility as separate concerns. We looked at government activity and everything else as separate concerns. Now we know that there’s so much out there that is happening but may not be shared broadly enough so that it both inspires and catalyzes others to do the same. There is a market waiting to be filled in every corner of this world.

So if we can open the doors to new markets and new investments, we can tap as many as 1.4 billion new mid-market customers with growing incomes in developing countries. Taken together, they represent more than $12 trillion in spending power. That’s a huge potential customer base, not only for American companies, which is my primary concern, but also for others. So when we make investments from the three stools of this strategy, official development assistance, not-for-profit philanthropic assistance, private sector investments, we are not only helping to grow and strengthen middle classes in developing nations, we are also supporting the businesses that create jobs here at home. We know that working with the private sector can bolster both our foreign policy interests and our development efforts. But we hope the private sector knows that working with government and civil society also offers value. And increasingly our goals, I would argue, overlap.

Consider just a few examples: Each year, India’s farmers produce nearly 200 million metric tons of rice and wheat, but they lose nearly one-tenth of it after harvest. Just the portion of grain that farmers lose because they don’t have a good way to dry and store their crops would feed about 4 million additional people. And I believe that Sachpreet Chandhoke is here today. Is Sachpreet here? Yes, yes. Well, last year, she led a team of students from Kellogg School of Management to take on this challenge. They designed and pitched the Grain Depot Fund as part of the International Impact Investing Challenge. They proposed building village-level warehouses where local farmers can access the proper equipment to dry their crops and store them, protected from insects, humidity, and theft. Investors in these warehouses will see returns of almost 20 percent while also helping prevent the needless loss of grain, increasing the farmers’ incomes by as much as 15 percent, and creating dozens of local jobs around the storage centers. So with numbers like that, it’s easy to see why Sachpreet and her colleagues won the competition. (Applause.)

Or look at northern Haiti. With its proximity to the U.S. market, the area has great potential to be a regional manufacturing hub. But for decades, despite interest, there was a lack of industrial facilities, limited electric supply, inadequate ports, which all held back private investment. Today, the north of Haiti ranks as one of Haiti’s poorest regions, and of course, Haiti is the poorest country in our hemisphere.

So last year, working with the Government of Haiti and the Inter-American Development Bank, the State Department facilitated a $500 million public-private partnership with the leading Korean garment manufacturer Sae-A. This partnership will develop a globally competitive industrial park in northern Haiti, one of the largest in the Caribbean. It will include an onsite power plant, a waste water treatment facility, and executive residences. Sae-A has projected that it will create 20,000 jobs by 2016 and they will be investing more than $70 million in northern Haiti. The region will continue to benefit from ongoing investments in housing and health clinics, a new container port, and electrification projects for the towns surrounding the industrial park. Sae-A began moving into the first two new 100,000 square feet factory buildings this week, and we expect other tenants to follow later in the year.

At a larger level, our Overseas Private Investment Corporation offers institutional proof that impact investing works. Throughout its 40-year history – and is Elizabeth Littlefield here, our current head of OPIC? – they have been making investments with positive social and environmental returns at the same time as OPIC has generated a profit for American taxpayers. Last year, OPIC issued a call for proposals to catalyze a greater commitment to impact investing. And so far, it has approved $285 million in financing for six new funds that will invest in projects improving job creation, healthcare, combating climate change, and the like.

These are just a few of the examples I could give you of what we are really focused on making happen. And that’s why we are sponsoring and hosting this Global Impact Economy Forum. You’re here because you understand creating shared value is actually in all of our interest. We need all the potential partners, not only here, but who are not in the room, to understand that as well. Our goal is to create an inclusive economic ecosystem that fosters this kind of investing.

So today, I’m proud to announce two exciting new partnerships. USAID – I don’t know if Raj Shah – is Raj here? Ah, oh good, you’re here. USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures, or DIV, invests in breakthrough development solutions that truly have the potential to change millions of lives at a fraction of the usual cost. And now, through a new Global Development Alliance between USAID and the Skoll Foundation – I don’t know if Jeffrey Skoll is here as well – we are dedicating more than $40 million to focus on scaling up game-changing innovations that are cost-effective and sustainable.

This was one of Raj’s and my principal goals when we both came into our positions. It is obviously important to provide humanitarian relief when people are starving because of bad government policies that undermine agricultural development or because of drought or other acts of nature. But it’s better to get ahead of the curve and to invest in new, more effective agricultural production. It’s fine to set up clinics, to take care of people when they’re sick or they’re suffering from disease, but it’s better to get ahead of it and to find interventions like bed nets that will actually prevent disease in the first place. So we’re investing a lot of money in Development Innovation Ventures because we think it will save money, but we need private sector support and ideas as well.

Secondly, we are committed to doing development and diplomacy differently. That’s why I commissioned the first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review to take a hard look at ourselves and make sure we knew what we were doing that worked and do more of it and stop what we were doing that didn’t work. So our second program is part of our ongoing investing with impact initiative. It’s called Accelerating Market-Driven Partnerships, or AMP. It’s very important in Washington you get a good acronym – (laughter) – so people spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the initials will sound like. AMP will bring a business eye to taking on social and environmental problems in developing markets. We will launch it in Brazil, focused first on building sustainable cities, from providing low-cost housing, to offering skills training that builds capacity of local workers, to improving urban waste management systems. AMP will draw on the resources of the private sector, civil society, and multilateral partners in both Brazil and the United States, including Arent Fox, Machado Associados, Grupo ABC, HP, the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Bank Group, and Mercy Corps.

So we’re bringing a whole-of-government approach and a broad base of partners to this, creating an innovation toolkit looking at the critical elements necessary to strengthen science and technology to support entrepreneurship and innovation. We’ll be sending our first innovation delegation to Brazil. We’re collaborating with Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas to advance this initiative. If it proves successful in Brazil, we’ll obviously want to expand it and invite you to join us.

Now, I’m not the only one who will be announcing new commitments today. Many of you are here to do the same. This forum fundamentally is built on the idea we don’t have to choose between doing well and doing good. The only choice we have to make is to do better – do better in government, do better in business, do better in civil society. And one thing is clear: We cannot solve our problems or address our challenges without working together. That goes for countries working together and all of us as well. So I have high hopes for this forum. I thank everybody who has been contributing to it to bring it to reality, and I look forward to working with you on the partnerships and opportunities that it helps to midwife for all of us. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

NEW PROGRAM TO PROVIDE FUNDS FOR INNOVATIONS TO IMPROVE GLOBAL LIVING STANDARDS AND CONDITIONS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Secretary Clinton Announces Launch of New Partnership to Drive Investment in Innovation
Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC
April 27, 2012
Yesterday, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton launched a new partnership to promote investment in innovation at the inaugural Global Impact Economy Forum in Washington, DC.
The Accelerating Market-Driven Partnerships (AMP) initiative is a public-private partnership that seeks to mobilize innovation and investment around critical global challenges such as poverty, climate change, sustainable cities and waste, and addressing agricultural value chain waste in key growth markets. The pilot initiative will initially focus on promoting sustainable cities and related issues in Brazil.

During the launch of AMP, Secretary Clinton said: “AMP will bring a business eye to taking on social and environmental problems in developing markets. We will launch it in Brazil, focused first on building sustainable cities, from providing low-cost housing, to offering skills training that builds capacity of local workers, to improving urban waste management systems. AMP will draw on the resources of the private sector, civil society, and multilateral partners in both Brazil and the United States.”

AMP will provide a platform for businesses, private investors, social entrepreneurs, government, multilateral institutions and philanthropic organizations to identify and tackle key environmental, social and economic challenges in countries that are transitioning from development assistance. The partnership supports the U.S. Department of State’s efforts to promote sustainable, inclusive economic growth and development that strengthens diplomatic efforts and bolsters U.S. business opportunities and investments abroad.
The pilot initiative in Brazil will build on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s work on the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas to advance sustainable and inclusive cities and housing. In collaboration with the U.S. Department of State, AMP will also develop an “Innovation Toolkit” that identifies critical elements necessary to strengthen science and technology, and to foster the development of entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems. AMP will partner with the World Bank Group’s EVOKE online educational gaming platform.

Brazil is South America’s largest economy and the world’s sixth largest economy in terms of gross domestic product. Since 2003, more than 30 million people in Brazil have been lifted out of poverty and are now active participants in the country’s vibrant economy. AMP will promote catalytic investments, such as investments in women, that create opportunities for sustainable social and economic growth and development in sectors identified as priorities by businesses, investors, government and multilateral institutions. Later this year, a delegation of U.S. officials will travel to Brazil to discuss U.S. support for Brazil's thriving innovation ecosystem as part of this initiative.

The AMP initiative is being launched in partnership with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the World Bank Group, the Law Offices of Arent Fox and Machado Associates, Grupo ABC, HP, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Mercy Corps.

Other commitments announced at the Secretary’s Global Impact Economy Forum include:
· Investing with Impact Platform: Morgan Stanley Smith Barney announced the launch of the Investing with Impact Platform which will provide the tools and products necessary for clients to combine financial, social and environmental returns.

· $1.25 billion Impact Investment fund: TriLinc Global Impact Fund, LLC announced today its intention to file a registration statement with the SEC for an initial public offering of approximately $1.25 billion, with the purpose of providing an impact investment vehicle for the general public. The Fund intends to use net proceeds it receives to provide growth capital to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) around the world, particularly in developing economies.

U.S. SENDS BEST WISHES TO AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND ON ANZAC DAY

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
ANZAC Day
Press Statement Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State Washington, DC
April 24, 2012
On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I am delighted to send best wishes to the people of Australia and New Zealand on ANZAC Day this April 25th.
Today we pay tribute to all the men and women in the armed forces of Australia and New Zealand who have served with dedication, courage, and sacrifice. We remember those who have given their lives and the families and friends who mourn them -- they are the heroes who we honor every day by working to make our world safer and more secure.

This year, as we commemorate ANZAC Day, we also remember those brave soldiers who were working for peace seventy years ago. At that time, the Pacific faced an uncertain future, but American, Australian, and New Zealand troops joined together and stood up for the tenets of democracy. Because of their sacrifices and dedication, today we enjoy countless freedoms. As we commemorate ANZAC Day, we must recommit ourselves to their mission: the pursuit of freedom, prosperity, and democracy throughout the world.

REMARKS OF U.S. SEC. OF STATE CLINTON AND SALVADORAN FOREIGN MINISTER MARTINEZ

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks With Salvadoran Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez Before Their Meeting
Remarks Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State Treaty Room
Washington, DC
April 24, 2012
SECRETARY CLINTON: I’m very pleased to welcome Minister Martinez here. We have developed a very good working relationship, and we’re very honored to have this chance to continue our ongoing consultations. We are very impressed by the progress that El Salvador is making under the leadership of President Funes and his government, and the United States stands ready to be a good partner going forward.
Welcome, Minister.

FOREIGN MINISTER MARTINEZ: (Via interpreter) It’s always an honor to be able to visit Secretary Clinton and to be able to express our friendship to her on behalf of the people and the Government of El Salvador. It is such a solid relationship that El Salvador and the United States enjoy that allows us to have these kinds of exchanges, these kinds of talks and visits as often as we possibly can in order to promote and develop the projects that we work on as partners in order to benefit our communities.
The United States has been decisive in its vision of this partnership for growth that we enjoy together. And as a result, we have had a better perspective in the work that we carry out together to be able to benefit the development and growth and welfare of our people.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you again, Minister.

FOREIGN MINISTER MARTINEZ: (Via interpreter) Thank you again, Madam Secretary, on behalf of the people and the Government of El Salvador.

SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON'S SPEECH ON AMERICA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
"America and the World"
Remarks Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State Maxwell School of Syracuse University Dean James Steinberg
Maxwell School of Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY
April 23, 2012
MR. STEINBERG: Well, Madam Secretary, welcome to Syracuse and Syracuse University. When we worked together, you told me often how much you appreciated the affection you had for people here and for this community. And I wanted to assure you, as you could tell from the reception here, the feeling is entirely mutual. (Applause.) On behalf of the chancellor and all of us, welcome. It’s a great chance to have you here, and you can tell how much excitement there is.

I know you get a lot of questions and lot of opportunities to discuss the hotspots of the day, but I’m hoping today, in the time that we have, that we have a chance to reflect a little bit more broadly on some of the challenges and opportunities that you’ve faced as Secretary of State working with President Obama. And I’ve had a chance to get a lot of questions and thoughts from our students and faculty coming into this, and some of the questions that I want to ask you come from them as well.

I want to begin though by asking you a bit about your first challenges on coming into the office. You are probably as well qualified as anybody to be Secretary of State. You’ve been the first lady. You’ve been a senator. You’ve seen a lot of these issues. But what surprised you? What were the biggest challenges you first faced coming into office?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, Jim, let me tell you how delighted I am to be back here in Syracuse at the university in upstate New York and have a chance to see a lot of old friends but also to come to this extraordinary university. I want to thank the chancellor, with whom I worked so closely when I was senator. And I also want to forgive her for stealing you. (Laughter.)

You were my deputy and we were facing a lot of tough issues together, but certainly I could only say multitudinous positive things about coming to Syracuse and living here with such an extraordinary quality of life. And you and Shere, who is now so ably also serving the university, are deeply missed at the State Department and in Washington. But I certainly have every reassurance and reason to believe that you are in the right place. And I had a chance to meet with your class before coming here, and I greatly enjoyed that.
I think that trying to go back in time to January of 2009, if you remember the challenges that we were confronting, particularly the economic crisis, which had such severe impacts here at home but also around the world and had certainly affected the view that people around the world had of American leadership.

So coming into the office along with President Obama and the Administration, I was surprised at how much work we needed to do to reestablish American leadership, to reassure people that the United States would get through the economic crisis, that we would continue to provide leadership on the full range of issues that affect us as well as the rest of the world.

I hadn’t fully grasped how nervous people were until I began traveling in February of ’09 about what they could expect from us. Because even when leaders and societies criticize the United States, there’s always, in my experience, a thread of concern about where we are and what we will do and whether we can continue to represent the values that we’ve stood for, and serve as an inspiration as well as a very strong presence.

So what surprised me most, Jim, was how much work we had to do in those early months to reestablish American leadership around the world. And I think we’ve done that. That doesn’t mean everybody agrees with us, and it doesn’t mean that we don’t have a lot of work to do, primarily here at home. Because any leadership that we try to convey elsewhere has to be rooted in strength at home – economic strength, political strength. But I think we’ve made the case in the last three-plus years that there may be difficult times ahead for the world, but the world will be well-served if American leadership remains as essential today as it has in the past.

MR. STEINBERG: When you were at the nomination hearing, your first appearance before the Senate, you said to fulfill our responsibility to our children, to protect and defend our nation while honoring our values, we have to establish priorities. You’ve been in it for over three years. What do you see as the priorities? And as Brittany Vira (ph), who’s one of my students, asked: How would you like historians to look back in 50 years and say what were the priority challenges?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I must say that I believe in priorities and trying to set them and follow them. What we found was that we needed a broader list of priorities than perhaps made sense in other times. Because given the economic crisis – and I go back to that because it overhung everything we did – we could not really go forth and argue for American positions and American values if people thought that we were not going to remain a strong economy that could support that leadership.
So when we look back, I think reestablishing American leadership, having it once again be respected, appreciated, wanted, and having a list of priorities on our agenda that were both specific, like what we’re going to do in dealing with some of the crisis areas from Iran to North Korea and more general about the overarching global problem, like global climate change or nuclear proliferation and other weapons of mass destruction, we didn’t really have the luxury of being able to put some of those priorities to one side. We had to try to deal simultaneously with a number of pressing issues, some very specific, some more general.

We often talk in the State Department about how we’re constantly having to juggle the urgent crisis, the immediate threat, and the long-term challenge all at the same time. Because you can pick up a newspaper any day, you can see what’s in the headlines, but then you can go through the paper and find things that aren’t yet in the headlines that you know will be unless action is taken to prevent, and then you can also discern the trend lines – not the headlines, but the trend lines – of both threats and opportunities that you have to keep an eye on. So we tried to create a sensible approach toward dealing with all of those in a prioritizing way. But it was sometimes a rolling list of priorities.

MR. STEINBERG: And as you tried to tackle that multiple challenge, you spent a lot of time thinking about the role of the State Department, the role of diplomacy. You’ve initiated an attempt to kind of do the kind of planning that the Pentagon does to deal with the long term. What do you think are the most important results that have come out of that process? And how do you think the State Department’s going to change to meet these new challenges?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, what Jim is referring to is that historically the Pentagon does a four-year planning process called the Quadrennial Defense Review, and it’s an excellent organizing tool, both for internal and external purposes. So they run a process where the different services, the different elements of the Defense Department come together to try to hammer out what are our goals and objectives going to be for the next four years.

The State Department and USAID had never done anything like that. We were a much more reactive agency. If there was a crisis, then get the diplomats out the door. If there’s a humanitarian disaster, then get the development experts out the door. But in a time of constrained resources, which certainly this must be because of the budgetary pressures we face, I thought we were at a great disadvantage because we were not engaging in a planning process internally to set our own goals and objectives, and therefore we couldn’t explain it to the Congress or the public what is it we were trying to accomplish.

So I instituted the first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the QDDR. It was a quite intense and revealing process. Why did we do things? Well, because we’d always done those things. But should we continue to do them, or should we be much tougher about how we define what we began calling smart power in this Administration at the State Department? How do we take stock of where we are and what we’re doing? Do we have the right skill sets for the diplomats and the development experts that we send into the field? How do we understand the role of diplomacy in a multilateral world? It’s no longer just enough to tend to your own embassies. How do we have some interconnectivity in region so that we had a better idea of what we were all working toward? How do we have development that furthers America’s interests while also meeting the humanitarian needs of people?

So we asked all the hard questions. We came up with some, I think, important conclusions. I’ll give you just one example. Energy diplomacy is key to our national security, not only in terms of securing the energy supplies that the United States needs at an affordable cost, but understanding the role that energy plays in nearly every other relationship we have in every region of the world. It makes a difference if the Europeans are totally dependent upon Russian natural gas. That’s makes a difference, because then they are going to be much less likely to feel comfortable cooperating with us or with fellow Europeans on certain actions that might undermine Russia’s lock on their energy. It makes a difference if you’re trying to promote development in Afghanistan whether there’s a pipeline that could come from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and into India, which we are currently trying to negotiate.

So anyway, we looked and said one of our big gaps is we don’t have enough energy diplomacy expertise. So we created a new focus for that and a new bureau in the State Department. We took people who already had some expertise but then recruited others. We just finished negotiating an agreement that had taken many years to negotiate with Mexico to determine the trans-boundary responsibilities when you drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. And we all remember the terrible disaster of BP. So there are just an enormous set of issues that are energy-related that have to go to our national security.
And then on the development side, if we can help countries that are discovering oil, and many African countries right now are – Ghana is going to start drilling offshore, Kenya has discovered oil and gas in the Savannas, Uganda is drilling near Lake Victoria. You go down the list. The natural resource curse is likely to mean that they will get rich and get more unstable and less equal in the distribution of the revenues from those resources, unless we and other likeminded nations can try to help them understand what it would mean for their future if they had a trust fund like Norway had, or a royalty scheme like Botswana had for their diamonds. So we’re looking at ways of getting ahead of problems instead of just always playing catch-up.

MR. STEINBERG: Staying on development for a second, obviously there’s a strong American humanitarian impulse, cares about the welfare of others, and yet lots of skepticism about how effective development assistance can be, the track record not as compelling as maybe one would like it to be. And even more, people look around, they look at our problems at home, deficits at home, our students worried about their future jobs. How do you make the case that this is obviously good to do, but necessary to do, given all the other demands for our resources?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think that you will never get an argument from me that we have to pay a lot of attention to what we need to do here in our own country in order to get our economy producing good jobs again, giving people upward mobility, returning a sense of economic security. That is obviously priority one.
The amount of money we spend on development is such a tiny, tiny piece of our federal budget, and it helps us in so many ways. When there is a humanitarian disaster, whether it’s an earthquake in Haiti or a terrible mudslide and flood in the Philippines, and so many others in between, the American people have historically been very generous in trying to help people respond to the humanitarian disasters around the world. And I think we will continue to do that. And it’s a public-private partnership. It’s public tax dollars and it’s private contributions.

And it really sets a high standard for everyone else, because remember, much of the rest of the world has no history of philanthropy, they have no history of the kind of humanitarian response that we have been known for. It’s beginning to change. I want to see it change. I want to see the rising powers also contributing on humanitarian disaster relief. And we’re beginning to see some of that.

In other areas of development, we do a lot of work because it furthers American security interests. We fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic or drug-resistant tuberculosis or the spread of malaria, both because we care about the people who are impacted but also because it’s a public health challenge for us. And so it’s the kind of thinking that is both rooted in our moral obligation to help people in need, but also in a very hardheaded, clear-eyed analysis of what we need to do to get ahead of problems that may end up on our own doorstep. We fight battles for electoral fairness because we believe that people elected in a fair, free, transparent election are more likely to be allies of ours in many of the difficult challenges we face.

So I think we do have to be smarter and more efficient to ensure that any dollar we spend that comes from us, the taxpayers of America, is well spent, is efficient, produces a result. And when it doesn’t, stop doing what we have been doing and either don’t do that or make it something you can justify here in the chapel or on Capitol Hill. But I think if you look – and you can go now – we’ve put all of our foreign aid on the website of USAID. You can go and look at every penny of foreign aid.
And contrary to what a lot of people believe, we do not spend 10 or 15 percent of the federal budget on foreign aid. I remember when I would campaign and people would say, “Balance the budget by cutting foreign aid.” And I’d say, “Well, how much do you think we’re spending?” And they’d say, “I don't know, 20 percent.” And I’d say, “Well, how much do you think we should spend of the federal budget?” “Well, no more than 10.” I’d say, “Okay.” (Laughter.) So I think that we have to disabuse people of some of the myths about foreign aid, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a responsibility to ensure that every dollar we do spend is spent well and furthers our security, our interests, and/or our values.

MR. STEINBERG: So the other D in the QDDR is democracy. And also going back to your first testimony to Congress, you quoted your first predecessor, Thomas Jefferson, who said, “The interests of a nation when well understood will be found to coincide with their moral duties.” There’s obviously been a lot of debate about the role of democracy in human rights. There are some critics who say that we haven’t been as zealous as we need to be about those. There are some who worry that even in our own conduct of activities, including dealing with the problem of terrorism, that we’re not being consistent with our moral duties.

We’ve had a lot of chance in the Arab Spring and elsewhere to try to deal and grapple with this challenge. How do you see it, both the importance of these values and how we implement them in our foreign policy?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think that they’re absolutely paramount. I think democracy and human rights is who we are as Americans and also what we have stood for historically. But it’s quite challenging to take what are heartfelt values that we care deeply about and implement them everywhere, every time that we possibly can, because there is a lot of challenges with explaining democracy to people. If you’ve never lived it, you have no idea how it affects you. You don’t have the sort of years and years of perfecting our union that we’ve gone through. Democracy can mean different things to different people. And there are different forms of electoral systems, different forms of parliamentary systems that claim to be democracy. Iran claims to be a democracy.

And we have to be always consistent in supporting what we think of as the underpinnings of democracy, and it’s not just elections. Some people have one election one time and claim that’s a democracy. So we have to constantly be urging more openness, more respect for minorities, independent judiciary, protection of the free press, the kinds of pillars of democracy that over many, many years we have learned are essential for the institutionalization of a democratic system.

And when it comes to the protection of human rights, I mean, we issue an annual Human Rights Report that tries to shine a bright light on the problems that exist around the world. And for the first time, when I became Secretary, I said, look, if we’re going to be judging the rest of the world, we need to judge ourselves because otherwise, people are not going to pay attention. They’ll say, well, there go the Americans again, criticizing everybody else, but what about Guantanamo and what about this and what about that?
So we have to be honest with ourselves that despite, I believe, having the greatest commitment to democracy and human rights of any nation, of any society, of any time in history, we make mistakes, we fall short of our own standards, and we have to constantly be asking ourselves what we can do better and how we should behave. And that’s important for us, first and foremost, but it’s also important if we’re going to have credibility when we speak to the Arab Spring or other countries that are trying to formulate democracies.

And sometimes, publicly criticizing a government over human rights abuses is not the best way to achieve the results you’re seeking. So we have to modulate how we say what we say and when we say it and who we speak to, because, again, otherwise you won’t be able to protect the people you’re trying to protect in many instances, and you may not be listened to if it just becomes a mantra, a public rhetorical mantra. It’s very challenging to have those values front and center, to promote them, to implement them, to praise and criticize appropriately, but we try to do it. I think we end up in a pretty good place. There’s always a lot of room for improvement. But it is very challenging.

The other aspect to this is when you have human rights standards that are so foreign to other cultures. I’ll give you three quick examples. If you’re someone, as I am, who believes strongly in the empowerment of women and talk about the rights of women everywhere I go – I’ve done this now internationally for 17 years. Honestly, a lot of – in a lot of places, it’s just not understood. “Of course, we take good care of our women. We don’t let them out of the house, so that they never get into trouble.” (Laughter.) “We don’t let them drive cars, so that they can never be taken advantage of. So we are protecting the human rights of our women.” You can imagine the conversations that I have. (Laughter.)

Or we believe that you should not be discriminating against or permitting violence against the LGBT community in your country. And in many places, in particularly Africa and Asia, that is just a totally foreign concept. I mean, the first response is, “We don’t have any of those here.” (Laughter.) Second response is, “If we did, we would not want to have them and would want to get rid of them as quickly as possible. And it’s your problem, United States of America, that you have so many of those people. So don’t come here and tell us to protect the rights of people we don’t have or that we don’t want.” (Laughter.)
And so, I mean, I call leaders and I say, “You’ve got a legislator who’s just introduced a bill that calls for the death penalty against LGBT people. That’s really a terrible idea.” “Well, we don’t have any of them. They’ve been imported from the West” – (laughter) – “and we don’t need them.” I said, “Well, all right. Let’s start at something very basic. Why do you have to kill them?” (Laughter.) “Well, maybe you’re right about that. We won’t impose the death penalty, but they may have to go to prison.”

Okay. Let’s – I mean, that’s the kind of discussions that you have when you’re talking about human rights. And it’s not that people get up in the morning and say, “I’m against human rights.” It’s that from where they come, on women or LGBT or minority groups, you say, “You don’t treat that minority group very well.” If you’re talking in the Middle East sometimes, “Take better – be nicer to your Shia or your Sunni.” Or, “Please don’t discriminate against your Christians.” It’s a very difficult conversation because it’s just not been one that people have had up until now. I think it’s very important we do that, but I give you this sort of flavor so that you understand we can either have a conversation and try to convince people to move in a certain direction, to provide greater protection for human rights, or we can lecture at them, we can call them names, we can preach, and the lives of the people who are being discriminated against will not change.
So sometimes I feel that we get criticized because we’re not being as vocal or strident as some in the advocacy community would like on some of these issues, but I’m trying to save lives and I’m trying to change attitudes. So trying to do that simultaneously is sometimes quite challenging.

QUESTION: So, Madam Secretary, yesterday was Earth Day and one of my graduate students, Todd Dannon (ph), wanted to pose you a question. I promise you that this is from him and not from my wife, Shere. But the question was: Given that we’ve just marked the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day, do you see any real opportunities for significant environmental progress on the international front? And what role can the United States play in catalyzing that?

SECRETARY CLINTON: I am a perennial optimist on even the most difficult issue, and I do think that we can see some progress. I think, number one, the problem of climate change, of environmental degradation, of pollution and contamination, is not going away. It’s not been magically disappeared because people don’t want to have a political discussion about it. It still is affecting people’s lives, and it’s affecting the lives of Americans here at home as well as countless millions around the world.
So because it’s not going away, we have to continue to work toward making progress. And we weren’t able to get a big climate deal through our own Congress in the first part of the Obama Administration, in part because it was in the midst of an economic crisis and so many people said we can’t take on any more cost, even though I would argue that over time this would be an efficient cost-savings commitment. Nevertheless, from the front end, there were some initial investments that would have to be made, so people were rightly anxious about the economy and about making those kinds of commitments.

But we did make slow, steady progress towards some international commitment starting in Copenhagen, then in Cancun, then at Durban, and certainly there’s hope for continuing that at the Rio+20. I was saying to Jim’s class that it is always challenging when you see a problem that you believe must be addressed and you can’t get the political process to respond. Now you can either become very discouraged and very bitter, with good cause because you think this problem is so pressing, or you can regroup, re-strategize, and keep going. So that’s what we’re doing.

And I’ll give you just a few quick examples. Coming out of Copenhagen, for the first time, we got developing countries to agree to anything about climate change. If you’re in India, China, Brazil, South Africa, your attitude is: We didn’t make this problem. The developed world made it. We’re trying to develop. Now all of a sudden along comes the developed world and says to us, “You have to pay for your development.” Well, that’s just not fair. We get to get to the same point of development you all did, and then we’ll worry about something like climate change.

So they weren’t part of Kyoto, they have resisted being part of any international accord under that argument. For the first time in Copenhagen, the President and I hammered out a deal where they would be agreeing to reporting certain things, which they’d never reported before, and making certain internal commitments. At Cancun, that was further refined and similarly at Durban. Because the developed world in Europe, combined with the developing world, wanted very much for there to be a binding agreement on the follow-on to Kyoto that would bind the United States and others.
Well, the United States Congress didn’t accept Kyoto the first time because there was no binding agreement on the developing world. And now all these years later, the developing world is now leading in greenhouse gas emissions and still has not taken on responsibility, except in a kind of an internal level of accountability. So our goal was to get, for the first time, everybody realizing we all had to pay something for this problem. Granted the United States and the West in particular have contributed more over the last century because of our development trajectories to the problem that we face. So yes, we do have to take responsibility. But so do they, because what good will it do us if we take responsibility and they don’t. We won’t make any progress.

Now, the Obama Administration has done a number of things by executive order, particularly increasing mileage for vehicles, going after the pollution from plants – particularly utilities – and other steps that I think the Administration doesn’t get enough credit for, and which I always say to my international interlocutors, “Look, yeah, you’re right. We didn’t pass some great big climate deal in the Congress, but we’ve been slowly cleaning up our own house, and we’re making progress on that.”

Secondly, with this enormous growth in natural gas, the United States for the first time in many years is actually exporting energy. And we may find ourselves in a different energy mix. Assuming we can deal with the environmental issues surrounding hydraulic fracking and other forms of fossil fuel extraction that are part of this calculus, we may find us in a better position to be able to go after some of the major polluters and some of the major oil producers.

And then I started a group of six nations – it’s now grown, I think, to 10 – we’re just frustrated with the slow process of trying to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, in particular carbon dioxide. So we formed a group – the Clean Air and Climate Coalition – to deal with non-carbon dioxide contributors, of which there is a lot – methane, black soot, et cetera. So we’re trying to follow that model to come up with some specific proposals that we can implement.

So we are moving. It’s not as fast. And in the face of just the cascade of natural disasters, it seems like we’re not keeping pace. But we are continuing to move forward. And at some point, the world will recognize that we do have to have international agreements that we will enforce in order to deal with what are significant climate changes that are going to impact us. It’s not like we can build a wall around our country and say we’ll keep out the effects of climate change. And just because we’re not some small island nation in the Pacific that is going the sink in the next decade, we don’t have to worry about it. We’re already seeing those results.

I said this morning, we’ve already moved villages on the Alaskan coast that used to be protected in the winter from a thick bed of ice that would freeze the water in front of these villages so that the storms would not hammer the villages and erode the land. And now the ice is neither there nor as thick, and so we’re already doing things that mitigate against the effects of climate change. So it still is a piece – a big piece of global unfinished business that we’re trying to make slow but steady progress on.

MR. STEINBERG: So on issues like climate and democracy, these obviously have a big impact on global public opinion towards the United States. And when you and President Obama took office, one of your priorities was to try to influence global public opinion and try to restore America’s reputation.
How far do you think we’ve come? What are the challenges ahead? And in particular, how do you see the new media, and how are you using the new media to try to influence the great debate about the perceptions of the United States?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think we’ve made progress, but it’s a daily struggle to make sure that we are conveying accurate information about what we’re doing. Now if somebody disagrees with what we’re doing, that’s fair. But if they disagree with something we’re not doing and we’re not even thinking, that’s a problem. So we try to get ahead of the information flow, which is much harder today than it was five years, 10 years, 20 years ago.

When I got to the State Department, we did no social media to speak of. We had very little even language-appropriate outreach on the media. I think there had been an attitude up until then that there were certain set feelings in certain places, there were certain elements of the press that were going to be anti-American no matter what, so it really wasn’t something we should worry about too much and not try to take on. But in the 24/7 media world that we’re now in, with billions of information sites – because everybody with a cell phone or a computer can be a commentator, can be a contributor, can be an activist – we had to get more on parity with that, and we’ve worked very hard to do it.

But it’s tough, and I’ll give you an example coming out of the Arab Spring. I thought we were not being quick enough in reacting to Arab public opinion – both pro and con, but particularly con – about us and the role we were or were not playing, a lot of conspiracy theories about what the United States was kind of doing behind the curtain, which were not true. So I said, “Well, I want more of our Arabic speakers out there.”

And one of the responses was, “Well, a lot of our best Arabic speakers are young. They’re young Foreign Service officers, they’re just getting started. If they make a mistake on the media it could ruin their career.” I said, “Well, I’ve made more mistakes than I can count.” (Laughter.) And at some point, we have to be more willing to take some risks, because we can’t sit around and take 48 hours to respond to a story that is breaking on a blog or Twitter somewhere. We have to get into the mix. Will we make mistakes? Will young people in their 20s and 30s? Yeah, just like people in their 50s and 60s will make mistakes. But we have to be in the flow of the moment.

So we began to change that. I mean, the resistance or reluctance was totally understandable, because if somebody gets out and says something that has an unfortunate effect or they stumble when they’re talking or whatever, that’s a problem. But the alternative, which is to be so worried about saying anything, is absolutely unacceptable in today’s world. So we are out there every day. We are – we do a lot of both formal and informal media work. I’ve done internet chats with Egyptians and Iranians that would be simultaneously translated into Arabic or Farsi.

We’ve really tried to get out there to make the case that – we’re not asking people around the world to agree with everything we do. We don’t agree with any other nation. We have our own interests. We are pursuing those. Let’s not kid ourselves or anybody else about it. But the United States is standing ready to assist those who want a true democratic transformation. We believe in that. So I think we’re improving dramatically. We still have a ways to go, which is why I hope some of you will think about the Foreign Service for a career, because we need you.

MR. STEINBERG: You led right into my next question, which is – as you know well, you can spend time on a campus – there’s a tremendous commitment to public service among young people. But there’s also, I think, a reluctance, especially about federal government and politics, a sense that it’s hard to get ahead, you don’t get a lot of respect. What can be done and what would you say to young people who are thinking about that, seeing other choices in their life as to why they should take on the slings and arrows that go with the kind of career that you pursue?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first of all, I know how publicly service-minded young people are today. I see it, I hear it, and I am very pleased about that. And I also recognize what Jim is talking about, which is a certain level of skepticism about government and politics. I think skepticism is part of the American DNA, so I’m not sure that’s all new. I came of age during the Vietnam War, and there was a lot of skepticism, so you’re in a good tradition of American skeptics.

But at the end of the day, we have an enormous obligation to participate in and to invest in our country. I mean, it is such an honor for me to travel around the world as your representative and speak on behalf of the United States of America. And government service can be so rewarding and can make a great contribution. Obviously, over the course of many years, I’ve known people who have made that commitment, and I work with some of the best and smartest people I’ve ever worked with at the State Department and USAID, who really make a difference in the lives of Americans and in the lives of people around the world.

So our government’s not perfect. Human beings aren’t perfect. There is no such thing. But certainly, it is a worthy and an incredibly rewarding enterprise to be part of government service. So be skeptical, but don’t be cynical. And if you have any interest in pursuing that, whether it’s at the local, county, state, national level, I hope you will. You may take to it and find your life’s passion and career. You may decide it’s not for you.
Politics, especially if we’re talking about electoral politics, is very challenging. There’s no doubt about that. But I often tell people that politics is part of everything you do. There’s academic politics – I was on the faculty of a law school. There’s church politics. There’s family politics. There’s corporate politics. Everything you do, to some extent, is “small p” politics, where you have to get along with people, you have to express opinions, you have to marshal others to your side of an argument if you’re making a presentation in a corporate boardroom or in an academic faculty meeting. So it’s, I think, short-sighted to say you don’t want anything to do with politics, because you will, in some way or another, be involved in the, quote, “small p” political process.

Electoral politics is very, very hard but exciting. It’s exciting to have ideas that you would like to work toward. It’s exciting to convince people to work with you towards implementing those ideas. And again, politicians are human beings, so you get what you expect with any group of human beings. Some are incredibly admirable, and some are less so. But the fact is that the reason democracy is so worth defending is that we don’t give any group of people a monopoly on the truth. One of the challenges that some of these new democracies are going to face is if they are a religiously based political party, you get into arguments where it’s not just politics; it’s also faith and religion. And so how do you argue against that? How do you compromise over that? So I think politics in our democracy is especially important today to continue to make decisions that will benefit our country. And I make an urgent plea for evidence-based decisions, and in the budgetary arena, decisions based on arithmetic and not ideology.

So we need people who are willing to get into politics, knowing how hard it is, willing to keep going at it, understanding you have to compromise, but sometimes getting a little bit is better than getting nothing at all. And so I would urge that people who are interested in politics, working in a campaign, working for a political leader – a county executive, a mayor, a member of Congress, whomever – see it up close and personal. Decide whether it’s for you. It may not be, but I certainly never thought I would ever run for office or hold office. I certainly never envisioned being someone running for president of the United States. But I believe in the political process, and I don’t think we have an alternative. I mean, we can cede decision making to people you may not agree with, but you’re not willing to get out there and argue against them because, you know what, they may attack you. They may say terrible things about you. And it may not just be that one person; it may be legions of people across the cyberspace world.

So you have to be willing to enter into the political fray, but I think we need you more than ever. So I commend public service, whether it’s in a not-for-profit NGO, the faith community, government service, politics, because we really need to keep replenishing the energy and the ideas and the idealism of the next generation involved in our politics. And we also need more citizens who take politics seriously. I mean, we can disagree on what we should do on climate change, and that’s totally fair game. We may not want to make the investment because we have other priorities, but let’s not disagree about the science. We can disagree about what to do about the deficit or the debt, but let’s not pretend you can keep cutting taxes and end our deficit and debt.

I mean, so let’s have an evidence-based discussion. That doesn’t mean you have to agree with the solutions that are proposed, but we do great damage to our political system when we act like ideology in the American political process is more important than facts. We are a fact-based people. One of the reasons people from all over the world could come here and get along and work and succeed is because they didn’t have to be captured by ideology or by religion that tried to dictate how they lived. That could be part of their private life, their private belief, but our politics were wide-open debates about who we were as Americans, where we were going, what we wanted to achieve. And we need to get back to that, and we need to be very honest about what the facts are.

And then we can argue about the politics. After you look at the arithmetic and you realize, you know what; cutting taxes is not going to produce huge amounts of revenue. We tried that in the 80’s. It didn’t work so well. My husband had a different idea. He kind of understood arithmetic, and so he said, okay, we’ve got to do a little of this and a little of that. And we got to a balanced budget and a surplus. And then we get a chance to actually eliminate our deficit and our debt, and we decide no, we’re going to cut taxes again, because that’s going to create more revenues, which of course it didn’t. And then we have two wars that we refused to pay for, for the first time in American history. And guess what? We’ve got a huge deficit and a just unbelievable debt.

And if we’re really concerned about it, then let’s have a reality-based conversation about it. And we don’t have to fix it. We can take the consequences if the political system can’t bear the hard decisions. But let’s not pretend there are easy decision that can resolve climate change or debt and deficit and all the rest of it. Because what I see happening in other countries is a refusal to face hard decisions, and I don’t want that to be us. That’s not who we are. We’ve always been a pretty realistic people. We have a lot of disagreements, but we not only need to set the standard for democracy, we need to set the standard for the kind of reasoning that should underlie any kind of democratic enterprise.

MR. STEINBERG: Madam Secretary, there’s a lot we can talk about, but as the dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, I can’t think of a better note to end on. So let me thank you for coming here and spending time with us, and really great to have you here. Thanks so much.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you all. (Applause.)