[APPLAUSE] SPEAKER: Good afternoon. Good afternoon!
[LAUGHTER] All right, it's a celebration. Thank you,
Harry, so much for that introduction, and I want to join him in welcoming all of you
here to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources.
I am very happy to be in a room full of people who celebrate fiscal new year, and I especially
want to welcome our former F directors, Rich Greene and Rob Goldberg. And while they've
left the Department, I'm confident that they still pop the corks at midnight on October
1. So we're delighted to have you here. I also
deeply appreciate that we're joined by USAID Assistant Administrator Eric Postel. Without
USAID, there would be no F, and we are partners in this endeavor, and the American taxpayers
are better off for our continued and constructive partnership.
Right now, somewhere in this building, there is a team of State and USAID employees coming
up with a thoughtful, creative and well-constructed policy plan that is likely missing one little
small detail-- resources. But today, the people in that room can move forward, because F is
in the room, too. And 10 years ago, the resource question that would have popped up would have
stopped that team right in its tracks. And there's always been budget analysts at the
Department and USAID, but alignment of resources and priorities had been lacking.
I'm sure everyone in this room has heard the story of that moment in 2006 when Secretary
Rice asked how much State and USAID were spending on democracy programs. But she couldn't get
an answer, at least not right away. And that's when it became clear that we needed something
new. And the Office of Foreign Assistance Resources affectionately known as F, was born.
Since those early days, F has emerged as a leading voice in the Department's strategic
planning processes, enabling our decisions to be informed and driven by good data and
providing the transparency necessary to keep Congress and the American people supportive
of our work. [LAUGHS]
F was created to coordinate foreign policy budgets and priorities, and I am really proud
to be one of the main beneficiaries of their efforts. And I feel very lucky for that. And
while your work at times can be relentless, and we've seen that on many occasions, we
are always grateful for it. Budgets are the most tangible concrete statement
of an organization's priorities. And State and USAID are responsible for making the most
of every foreign assistance dollar to address an incredibly complex alphabet of challenges,
from Afghanistan, Boko Haram, climate change, Daesh, all the way to yellow fever and Zika.
And I'm very confident we could have done the entire alphabet.
And the complexities of these challenges are rivaled only by the complexity of complexities
of our budget process. And that's why Harry and I meet each week, and Rob and I did before
that. In a single conversation, we'll touch on FY 16 appropriations, the FY 2018 request,
the FY 2017 bills on the Hill, not to mention prior year funds. Add all that up, and the
U.S. government is the biggest donor country in the world. And we are proud to receive
this support from Congress and the American people, but it will only be sustained if we're
good stewards of America's taxpayer dollars. So the incredible F staff comprised of people
from both State and USAID have extremely difficult jobs. I commend all of you here today, former
F, current F, future F, for all of the work that you do. There are long hours spent with
Excel spreadsheets and fax info, there are dozens of meetings and countless long nights
that go into the creation of the budget and talking points and all the assorted assignments.
And most people outside this room will never fully appreciate all of the work that you
do. But it is invaluable, because it's critical to explaining our resource requests to Congress
and to the American people, and because it gives us the ability to respond quickly to
the most pressing national security challenges. And in so doing, it's making millions of people's
lives better. That's a pretty big responsibility. So, Secretary Kerry and I greatly appreciate
your analysis, insight, and the ability that this gives us to defend our budget request.
With F's leadership, we've better aligned our foreign assistance programs with U.S.
national interests and global priorities. And we've reduced waste and duplication along
the way. Knowing what we've spent, what we have on
hand, and what tradeoffs we can make has been essential to our nimble and effective responses
to crises and opportunities. Just in the last couple of years, we've provided not one, but
two Ukraine loan guarantees; supported recoveries from disasters like the Nepal earthquakes
and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines; enabled President Obama and Secretary Kerry to launch
far-sighted initiatives at the U.S. African Leaders Summit that promote energy development,
commerce, security, and peacekeeping; and we've been able to support the remarkable
transformations of Burma and Sri Lanka. The list goes on, but these are the daily challenges
that F deals with. Beyond fighting those fires of the moment,
F helps strengthen the use of data in foreign assistance through improved strategic planning,
performance management, and evaluation. F promotes aid transparency through its diligent
work and hard work to publish foreign assistance data and evaluations from across the government
on foreignassistance.gov. A decade ago, foreignassistance.gov didn't exist.
The leadership of F and the strong partnership between State and USAID
have created this tool and made our data public,
an important success in the Obama Administration's open government agenda.
Through the progression of foreignassistance.gov, the American public, our host country government
partners, the media, civil society, have access to half a million detailed records including
expanded data from the planning cycle, obligations, disbursements, and performance information.
These are achievements worth celebrating, but we know that there is more work to do.
And we'll continue to improve the quality and completeness of the information that's
available to support even better data-driven decision-making.
Looking ahead, the new global goals adopted last year by 192 countries at the UN renew
our hope and our resolve to make progress on ending extreme poverty by 2030. And what
endears these goals to me, and I bet lots of people in this room, is that they're measurable.
And progress toward them will be measured by every country in the world, including our
own. Robust data on each SDG, whether it's health
or oceans or climate or gender, governance, will help sharpen our resource decisions and
make our programs more effective. Because we're all passionate about the goals, but
the people in this room are equally passionate about linking policy pronouncements to data,
to resource, and results. We are deeply committed to doing our part to fulfill the goals, and
that requires making the best use of every single dollar. And F will be a critically
important part of that effort. So the variety of organizations and voices,
nonprofit organizations, corporate other government agencies that are here in this room today,
they speak to the importance in the farsightedness and the convening power of F. So I just want
to conclude where I began, thanking you for being here, congratulating F at 10 and committing
and pledging to continuing to work together in the next 10 years to make even greater
progress. Thank you. [APPLAUSE]