U.S. Embassy Bogotá
Bogotá, Colombia
July 18, 2018

ADMINISTRATOR GREEN: Thanks, Philip, thanks for the very kind words, and thanks for the hospitality. It's good to see all of you. So I had lots of prepared remarks, so I'll be very kind to you and not give you my prepared remarks. I'd like to save more time for questions, but just a few thoughts that I would like to deliver.

First off, my thanks to all of you for the hard work that you've put in, in hosting us. So, I've hosted, Codels, in official visits as an Ambassador, I've led them as a Member of Congress. I have seen firsthand how hard it is. I've also seen what a wheels-up party is like.

But you don't have those sort of things, or -- enjoy, enjoy. Very quickly. First off, the relationship, as I see it, between the U.S. and Colombia, as you just heard and the Chargé is absolutely right, there is no more important relationship in this hemisphere. I think the U.S.-Colombia relationship is historic. I think it is vitally important today, and I think it will be just as important in the years ahead. It will change and evolve, and that's good. I think that obviously there is work to be done here, but there is also work to be done here that we can do with Colombia elsewhere. I like to refer to it as "force projection in development." And I just got done speaking to a number of new members of Congress, and that's part of what I talked to them about, was to challenge them that we need to partner more closely for the work that needs to be done throughout the hemisphere. The U.S. and USAID can talk about things all we want to; Colombia is proof of model. They can show what can be done with tough reforms, tough choices, and the kinds of things that they have been doing.

Again, I don't want to overlook, obviously, the important work that we have to do here. There's a lot of it. A peace agreement is a piece of paper. We have to help make it come alive.

We also have to make sure it comes alive not just for people here in Bogota, or in Medellin, but throughout the country, including to communities that have been left behind, and forgotten at times. There will never be entirely peace and stability unless it reaches every corner of the land. That's what I've heard in my travels, and that is something that I have had the chance to speak with President Santos and President-Elect Duque about.

Very quickly, on some of the things that I've seen, and maybe that's a way of demonstrating how important I think this work is. So, as many of you know, I had a chance to take a look at the work that we are doing with Colombia in formalizing mining, particularly small-scale mining. And I was very impressed. First off, I was shocked as we flew over to see the remnants of the illegal mining, and the devastating consequences for the environment, but I was also very impressed when I had a chance to see firsthand the work that we are helping to support. It's important work, not only because it's environmentally sound and eventually leads to the restoration of resources, but also for the kinds of jobs that it creates, and the way that it brings money revenues into legal channels in a way that helps to support families and provides new revenues for the government.

And so, I was very impressed with that work, and it's something that Larry and I have talked about as being important to continue. I had the chance to see some of our alternative livelihood work projects, and also hear requests for more, as we visited communities. And that's something that's near and dear to my heart.

We obviously, you all know this, but taking on coca production is very important to us in the U.S. I argued this morning in my remarks, and I fully believe this, that to conquer the narcotics empire, it's all. It is the growers, it's also the users, and it's everything in between. It's an entire chain that needs to be taken on, but part of it must be full eradication here, and we have heard commitments from the new President on that. But we also know that it will not succeed if it is only eradication. We know that when the eyes are turned and the gaze is averted, it will come back. And so, the alternative livelihoods work, the work to support communities, is terrifically important, and it must be part of the answer.

I also had a chance to talk to some of Colombia's business leaders, those who are partnering with USAID, and I must tell you, that I could not be more pleased with what I heard. They talked about, over and over again, the value that USAID has brought to their efforts. And they've also talked about ways of taking what they have produced, and the revenues that they have, business operations that they have, and pushing it back in to help lift Colombia. And that's, of course, exactly what we all want to hear.

But probably the most uplifting part of my time here, other than my private time in Cartagena, which was pretty good -- was the time that I had the brief conversations with President Santos and President-Elect Duque. President Santos, I have to tell you, the first thing he said to me was, "thank you." The first words from his mouth. And much of the time that we spent together was his thanking us, which is you, for so many things that have been done for his Administration. And he made it very clear that he did not believe Colombia could have risen as it has without USAID. Heard it over, and over, and over again. Just as clearly, is what I heard from President-Elect Duque. I met him -- I had a brief conversation with him and then we had lunch. In the brief conversation, we shook hands and we said hello, and then he said, "I have big things to ask." And I said, "That's the way to begin a conversation. We like a conversation like that." But a very good sign, and we're already starting to think it through, and to see what we can do together.

Needless to say, this mission is one of USAID's highest priorities in this hemisphere, because there is important work to be done, and I think there is so much that will be done. And again, what -- when I look at this, to me the value is helping to finish the job here and to realize the promise of peace and reconciliation, and making sure that we touch communities that haven't been touched. But also is to take what we learn here, what we accomplish here, and to push it out across the hemisphere, so that Colombia can become a true partner on the hemispheric level, and I think that's very important.

Quickly, I want to turn to a topic that I know many of you are thinking about, and then questions -- any topic that you want. Many of you, I'm sure, have been thinking about our Redesign process, which we now call Transformation, because we're moving from, you know, the whiteboard, to beginning to implement. I describe it this way. It is true that Redesign, technically speaking, began with a presidential directive. But in all honesty, I would have asked us to do these things anyway.

I came to this position, USAID, having worked in development one way or the other for over 30 years. I began as a teacher in Kenya with World Teach -- I discovered that Larry is also a World Teach alumnus. But I had the chance to live in a place that had tough challenges and I saw it with my own eyes.

The question I ask myself all the time, is we have the best development agency in the world. We are the best at what we do. People turn to us all the time, our partners around the world. So, the question that I wanted asked through Redesign is what do we need to do to remain the best in the world? What do we need to do to remain that agency that everyone looks to for ideas and breaking new ground on development and lifting lives and building communities? The principle that is guided the work that we are doing is the principle that you've probably heard me say one way or the other, you're probably sick of hearing me say it, but I believe with all of my heart that the purpose of foreign assistance must be ending its need to exist.

And I mean that because from what I saw living in Africa twice, every human being wants to be able to lead him or herself, lead their families, lead their communities; countries want to be able to guide their own future -- that's the journey to self-reliance. And so, I believe that our responsibility, if countries are willing to go on that journey which involves tough choices, difficult reforms, if they're willing to do it, then it's our obligation as Americans, because it's in our heart to help them along the way. And that means being honest with them; that means telling them not what they want to hear, but things that they need to hear; it means taking on reforms and it means making sure that we build capacity in our partners so that they can lead themselves. I think this country illustrates those principles better than any other where we're working.

A second principle that guides our work and Redesign is in the area of humanitarian assistance. We are also known for our humanitarian assistance - in fact, we are the largest humanitarian donor in the world. Forty-nine percent of all the humanitarian assistance in the world comes from the United States of America. It is part of who we are. It is in our hearts; it is in our soul; it is in our DNA. We will always stand with people when crisis strikes, because that's who we are. But we will go further, and we will try to help them strengthen their resilience against future shocks. And we've seen that work so well in places like Ethiopia.

When we began this process, it started off with a listening survey in which we had participation by thousands and thousands of USAID team members from all around the world. We took those ideas and asked for more. My instructions to the Agency around the world was give me your best ideas -- some are new, many are not new, but how do we pull them together? How do we hopefully perfect them in ways that can guide our mission? And so, the work streams that were put together and the feedback that we took was all led by career staff, and my instructions were not to use consultants, but instead to do it internally with our career staff. It's the only way that it's sustainable and it's the only way that we tap into the best ideas from people who live this -- from all of you who see this every single day. And that's how we've tried to put this together.

We've also had consultations with external stakeholders in Washington, including our brothers and sisters on the Hill. We've had dozens and dozens, and dozens of meetings on the Hill. I think it took a little while but they began to realize that everything that we're trying to do is to build upon all the great work that's been done. Everything that we're trying to do is to take this Agency forward.

So, we are submitting our congressional notifications to Congress and that's a milestone moment for this Agency, because these congressional notifications get at the structure of the Agency. And all of you know and you can still see it online, the org chart that we're talking about. That org chart was not something that I came up with, I promise. Instead, it was the result of input from 700 of you and lots of consultations. The idea is to make sure that we are structured to be nimble; structured to help countries as they go along and structured to really poise ourselves for what I think will be challenging, but important times that are ahead.

Finally, structure is what everyone thinks about. And the moment we unveiled the structure, I think everybody quickly turned to see. First off, I don't know about you, but when I come to work in the morning, I don't think about structure. I don't look and see oh yeah, it's right there. I just do my job as all of you do, but structure is only about 20 percent of all that we're doing in Redesign. It's the hardware of Redesign, but the software is looking at how we do things.

How do we make ourselves better partners to the business community? How do we make ourselves better partners to other countries? And all of this is the key work that we're doing. We've pulled together new metrics and the metrics are designed to measure in each country capacity and commitment. Capacity because we wanted to know what it is that countries really do need most of all to be able to take on, eventually, their own journey to self-reliance. Commitment, because we know that if other countries are partners, if they don't have skin in the game, all the money in the world from the U.S. will not make a difference. And so, those are the principles that we have tried to do.

And then, just a final thought, and hopefully it's important to all of you: the end result of the Redesign will be to make USAID more field-driven and more field-responsive. And I think that was, in some ways, the biggest adjustment in thinking that many of the team members had to adjust to.

I love where I work; I love the people I work with in Washington. Development isn't done in Washington, right? It's done here; it's done out in the field. That's where the best development comes from. And so, the structure that we're working on, sure, it is so much of it shaped in Washington, but all of it is really about being customer service to all of you. You are the ones on the front lines. Our job is to help you succeed. With resources, with ideas, the best ideas that we can find, the feedback, the connectivity.

So, the adjustment that you will see in USAID in the years ahead will be a much more field-driven agency. That is what I think keeps us the best agency in the world, and that's what I think builds the USAID of tomorrow. So, with that, thanks for all that you're doing. I'm deeply appreciative.

Again, so it's just fun for me when I come here and everybody keep coming up to me and saying, "Oh, USAID, you've done this; you've done that. Boy, you're really important to what we do." And I keep saying, "I didn't do anything, but sure, thank you, appreciate it." But really, filled with pride for the great work that you're doing. So, with that, I've had enough speaking from me. I'll take questions from any and all of you.