She did a GREAT job! The QDDR is the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review that she is initiating based on the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review she became familiar with as a member of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate.
Town Hall on the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review at the Department of State
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Dean Acheson Auditorium
Washington, DC
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY:
This is one of those occasions where a long introduction would be
entirely inappropriate. (Laughter.) Welcome to the State Department’s
Dean Acheson Auditorium, members of the State Department, the foreign
affairs community, and our colleagues in the press. And it is my
distinguished pleasure to introduce the Secretary of State, Secretary
Clinton.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you, Pat. Well, it is such a
joy to see all of you. I’m sorry there aren’t enough seats, but there
are a few empty ones for those of you who might still be looking. But
it’s a great personal pleasure for me to have this opportunity to meet
with you again and to report to you and to answer questions. And I want
to thank Pat Kennedy for that introduction and for the work that he
does, and sitting up on stage with Pat is Jack Lew, our Deputy for
Resources and Management, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, the head of our
planning program.
And I want to thank all of you for your efforts
over the past six months. We’re nearly at the six-month mark, and it has
been a high honor and privilege for me to work with the men and women
of the State Department and USAID. Day after day, you prove your
professionalism and your patriotism and your effectiveness. And I think
that our country, and certainly the Obama Administration, is very lucky
to have each and every one of you on the job. And I also appreciate the
dedication and sacrifices that your families and your partners and loved
ones make to serve our country by your side.
Now, together, we’ve
been on this job for almost half a year. We’ve been working hard, and
some of us have the scars to prove it. (Laughter.) And I have not been
throwing sharp elbows. In fact, it was one of those slips and falls, to
paraphrase President Lincoln. But we are seeing encouraging results from
all of our efforts, including my physical therapy. (Laughter.)
We
are repairing strained alliances. We’re cultivating new partnerships.
We’re working to engage and change the behavior of adversaries. And we
are prioritizing development along with diplomacy as part of our global
agenda. We’re working to build a world of economic stability and
prosperity, clean and affordable energy, healthcare, housing, and
education for our children, an expansion of fundamental rights, tackling
the threats of global extremism, terrorism, and the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction.
But I guess to sum it up, we are
working for a world in which more people in more places can live in
freedom, can enjoy the fruits of democracy and economic opportunity and
have a chance to live up to their own God-given potential. But having
said that, I think it’s only fair to add we face an unprecedented set of
challenges. And in the face of those challenges, the State Department
and USAID are frequently having to just work overtime to try to catch
up, because too often, our policy structures, our staffing patterns, our
standard operating procedures are insufficient to meet the
Administration’s and the country’s priorities and challenges.
We
don’t have the luxury of deciding which issues to deal with. We need a
framework and a vision that will allow us to address all of them; to, in
effect, multitask to get the results and outcomes that we’re seeking.
And we have to work simultaneously on the urgent, the important, and the
long term. Now I have been fighting for the resources that we need to
do our jobs. We cannot send diplomats and development experts into the
field underfunded and underequipped. But unless we make better use of
the talent and tools at our disposal, we’re not going to succeed. We
need to align our resources with strategic priorities to direct our
funds and to maximize our impact. As individuals, as an organization, we
need to work better, work smarter, and work together with more partners
in and beyond our government. And instead of simply trying to adjust to
the way things are, we need to get in the habit of looking to the
horizon and planning for how we want things to be.
To help us in
that effort and to enable the Department and USAID to get ahead of
emerging threats and opportunities and to make the case effectively for
OMB, the Congress, and the people of our country for the resources we
need, today, I’m announcing that we will, for the first time ever,
conduct a Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review,
a QDDR, if you will. I served for six years on the Armed Services
Committee in the Senate. And it became very clear to me that the QDR
process that the Defense Department ran was an important tool for the
Defense Department to not only exercise the discipline necessary to make
the hard decisions to set forth the priorities, but provided a
framework that was a very convincing one to those in the Congress, that
there was a plan, people knew where they were headed, and they had the
priorities requested aligned with the budget, and therefore, people were
often very convinced that it made good sense to do whatever the Defense
Department requested.
Well, I want to make the same case for
diplomacy and development. We will be doing this quadrennial review,
which will be, we hope, a tool to provide us with both short-term and
long-term blueprints for how to advance our foreign policy objectives
and our values and interests. This will provide us with a comprehensive
assessment for organizational reform and improvements to our policy,
strategy, and planning processes. And this will help make our diplomacy
and development work more agile, responsive, and complimentary. This is
what we mean when we talk about smart power.
I think we need this
type of bottom-up strategic review to coordinate our work and to
accelerate transitions from old ideas and outmoded programs. A State
Department QDDR protocol will give us the strategic guidance we need to
help us allocate our resources more efficiently and deploy people where
they will have the most impact. I think it’s a new way of doing business
that will give us the dynamism that we should have and better equip us
to deal with the accelerating rate of change that we confront.
This
effort is also central to effective coordination between the State
Department and USAID, and on Monday, I will be going to USAID to make
the same announcement and talk with them about the implications as well
as answer questions. Our development and diplomatic goals are best
achieved when we’re coordinated and we’re integrated. And we need a
planning process that helps ensure this happens. I’m happy to answer
questions about how this QDDR will work in practice, but we’re starting
this afresh. We are looking for your ideas and your guidance about how
best to implement this.
The QDDR will be chaired by Deputy Secretary
Lew and co-chaired by the USAID Acting Administrator and the Director
of Policy and Planning. We want to learn from the processes that not
only DOD, but the intelligence community, and recently, the Department
of Homeland Security have employed. I think this will enhance our
capacity to make our case, and that’s what I’m interested in, to make
sure that development and diplomacy are right there at the table on any
national security decision. It’s designed to tell us where we are, we
want to be in the future, and how to bridge the gap between the two.
Now, we’re going to coordinate with the interagency process, because
obviously other agencies play a role in diplomatic and development. But
we’re going to lead this and we’re going to look for ways to better
coordinate, whether it’s with Treasury or USDA, or DOD or the White
House.
I’ve been very pleased at the response that we’ve had since
we’ve began the Secretary’s Sounding Board, the online forum that I
established to solicit your ideas on how to improve the Department and
USAID. You’ve submitted over 300 ideas. And a lot of them, in fact, I
would say a significant number – I’m not sure a majority, but pretty
close – discussed ways about how to get greater access to mobile
computing technology. Now, this isn’t rocket science – many
organizations have been making use of these tools for years. We just
haven’t kept pace.
But thanks to your input, IRM is now increasing
investment in our mobile computing program and purchasing an additional
2,500 remote access FOBs that will allow more Department personnel to
use computers when you’re away from the office. This will make our team
more productive. It will unchain people from their desks. It will also
enable some of you to actually go home – (laughter) – instead of staying
in the office waiting for that communication from a time zone many
miles away. This could not have happened without your input. You came up
with the idea. We then worked it. We actually used stimulus dollars for
it – (laughter) – because we thought it would stimulate you.
(Laughter). And we’re making other changes as well that are in reaction
to the ideas posted on the Sounding Board. But we need to apply this
spirit of evaluation, reform, and improvement to the entire
organization.
Now, in looking at how we’re going to do this, of
course, we expect that there’ll be some missteps along the way. We’ve
never done it before. But we need your immediate and constructive
feedback, because whether its fobs for computer access or new equipment
for agricultural development, we’re going to continue to work as hard as
we can, and I’m going to continue to make the case, as effectively as I
can, for the resources that you need to do your jobs.
Now, in
exchange, I need three things from you: First, I need your patience. I
know there are problems and we want to fix them. The changes may not
come overnight, but they will come. And we’re working very hard on this.
Second, we do need your ideas. The QDDR process won’t work if it sits
apart from the expertise within this building and at USAID. So this
whole effort needs to be powered by your ideas and your experience.
And we’re going to need your support. Just speaking very bluntly for a
second here. Any one of us who’s been in or around government for more
than at least a year, knows that the halls and shelves of government
agencies are littered with stale volumes of well-intentioned reform
efforts. Too often, the reason these efforts fail is because
bureaucracies have a hard time changing. People get, sort of, in a
groove. I learned the other day that I’m the first Secretary of State
ever to ask the art collection to actually put some modern art –
(laughter) – in my offices. And apparently, that was like a big break
with tradition. (Laughter.)
But I think we have the capacity for
change. Everyone in this hall has had to change. Because when I think
about the changes I’ve seen in my lifetime and how the pace of change
accelerated even more for my daughter and for young people, I mean, it’s
just breathtaking. So we change. And the organization we’re part of,
that we lead, that we work in, has to change, too. It’s a living
organism. And we have to make sure it is prepared to give us the best
that it possibly can.
The stakes are too high. We’ve seen in the
last six months that the United States, and particularly our new
President, is really expected to deliver a lot. It may not be fair, but
that’s kind of the way it is. In some of the meetings that I’ve had in
my travels around the world, foreign governments and foreign leaders
have made very aggressive demands on our country. And on at least one
occasion, I said, you know, you didn’t make those demands the last eight
years. They said, “Well, we knew we would never get a response.”
(Laughter.)
So a lot is expected of us. Our arms control team did an
excellent job in teeing up the START framework, and we’re going to be
working hard on that huge priority. But everywhere you look around the
world, we don’t have the luxury of being bystanders. We’ve got to be as
prepared and capable as we can be. I think that’s exciting. So reform
needs to be part of our regular business plan, not just a slogan that we
invoke on special occasions. And this QDDR process is likely to be put
into legislation.
So it’s not going to be a one-off experience. It’s
going to be expected of secretaries and departments long after I’m
gone. And I want that to be an institutional part of how we do our
business and how we expect so much of ourselves because we want to
deliver at such a high level of professionalism.
So I’m looking
forward to hearing your ideas and your questions and working with you to
build a State Department and a United States Agency for International
Development that are the envy of not only our government, but of
governments everywhere, because of what we will prove we are fully
capable of producing – real change that furthers our interests and our
values, protects our security, and again, inspires millions and millions
of people around the world.
Thank you all very much. (Applause.) Thank you.
Now, I think we have two microphones, right, Pat? And we have – go ahead, will you explain?
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY:
We have three microphones. There are two microphones in the center
aisles for questions from the audience. And we also are electronically
connected to the field, and one of our colleagues will, in turn, present
you a question from the field. And so I would suggest we go stage left
to stage right.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Excellent. Well, people
can line up behind the microphones. And you are in line. And please
identify yourself and where you work.
QUESTION: Hi, my name’s
Tim DeVoogd. I’m a Jefferson Science Fellow in Western Hemisphere and a
professor at Cornell University. And I want to make a plug for science
diplomacy in particular. And more than saying nice words about it, of
course, for the words to mean anything, it has to come with funding,
which, in turn, means coordination between State and USAID to promote
programs. And I was wondering if you could say anything about how the
organization of USAID will develop to support new initiatives like this
one.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I agree with you. And I thank
you for taking time out and I love Cornell, so it’s wonderful you’re
here working in the State Department.
I think science diplomacy and
science and technology cooperation between the United States and other
countries is one of our most effective ways of influencing and assisting
other nations and creating real bridges between the United States and
counterparts.
We do want to put some resources behind that.
Certainly, as we’re negotiating some of the strategic partnership
compacts that we’re involved in, we’ll be working with a number of
countries. Science and technology is one of the highest priorities for
the countries with whom we are dealing. And we just have to be more
creative and more focused, and we need more partners. Nina Fedoroff went
to Russia and helped to create a very positive partnership between our
Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences. I mean, we
helped to broker that, but we really look to see other partners as well
as the United States Government as stepping up.
So I can assure you
that this is a priority for us, and we’re going to look for more
resources and more means of trying to implement it. And if you have
ideas, let us know.
Yes.
QUESTION: Hi, I’m Doris
Southern. I’m in Overseas Buildings Operations, and I’m the china and
silver lady. But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m also an AFGE
steward, and that’s the American Federation of Government Employees. And
as you know, personnel, or human resources, is a huge issue, in any
organization. And in particular, I think we have kind of a broken
system. We’re supposed to have – the Civil Service is supposed to be for
– was supposed to end nepotism and patronage and all that. And it seems
to me from my observations that we’re going back more and more to
nepotism and patronage. And people who are on the lower-level GS levels
are getting picked on or bullied or mistreated, and the higher-level
people are retiring and then coming back with personal services
contracts. And I hope that you will be looking into that when you are
doing your studies.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. We will. Thank you for raising that.
Yes.
MS. GREENBERG: Okay, our first online question comes from Tyler Sparks:
Has the Department considered moving more language training to foreign
training centers? Establishing foreign language training centers in
Mexico City for Spanish, or Moscow for Russian, for example, would bring
about many benefits. It would increase the effectiveness of language
training by allowing more practical hands-on training, greatly enhance
the cultural studies aspect of training, and potentially save the
Department money due to the lower cost of operations.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
It’s a very interesting idea. I don’t have an opinion on it, but I will
make sure we evaluate it, and I will raise it with our management. So
thank you very much for that idea.
Yes.
QUESTION: Thank
you for holding this town hall, Secretary Clinton. My name is Emily Gow.
I’m from the Office of International Religious Freedom. But my question
is not about religious freedom. It’s about biking and running to work –
(laughter) – and whether you would support an initiative to get us
access to showers. (Laughter and applause.) First of all, it would save
the government a lot of money because we wouldn’t have to get our
transit subsidies. I’d much rather bike to work than take the metro. It
would be green, and it would promote morale.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
I love that idea. (Laughter.) Again, we will look into it. I think it’s
got great – it does have a lot of positives about it. And I will see
whether there’s anything we can do. I mean, look, most people would say,
“Well, what does that have to do with running the State Department or
USAID?” But I think that there is a real desire on the part of many
people – and I’ll show my age and say particularly many young people
like yourselves – to lead not only a healthier lifestyle but a greener
lifestyle. And the more we can demonstrate our commitment to that, the
better.
So I can’t promise anything, but we’re going to look. And
maybe we can – I don’t know what portable showers look like or what the –
(laughter). I don’t have any idea. But we’re going to look and see what
we can find out about that, okay?
QUESTION: Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much for raising it. (Applause.)
QUESTION:
Good morning, Madame Secretary. I’m Mira Piplani, and I work in the
Executive Office of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. And I
think that I can safely speak on behalf of the entire Foreign Service
for thanking you for all of your efforts to help close the overseas pay
gap. We very much appreciate it. Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Thank you. (Applause.) We made real progress on that in the
supplemental, and we’re continuing our efforts so that it is a permanent
change. It’s just unacceptable that there would be such discrimination
on the basis of the locality of your assignment. So thank you.
Yes.
MS. GREENBERG: Our next online question comes from Clark Frye:
Good morning, Madame Secretary. I recall several weeks ago a message on
the Sounding Board regarding your Main Street concept at embassies. As
several embassies and I have discussed a similar idea previously, I
believe that it would be a great addition to certain foreign posts where
a little slice of America would be welcomed.
Could you please
expand more on this concept and your intentions on pursuing its
implementation? How widespread would this concept be applied? Are there
any planning stages to implement it? Thank you for your strong
leadership over the last few months.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well,
thank you. We are trying to evaluate how we could bring what’s
colloquially called Main Street America into some of our embassies and
our other facilities around the world, there used to be a lot more
outreach by American missions. Some of you may remember we had a lot
more libraries; we had centers before the security concerns became so
intense. And we do want to try to create more contact between people,
and one of the biggest complaints that I’ve heard from many of you is
that a lot of our new embassies, which are beautiful and very secure,
really cut you off from feeling like you’re part of the community which
you then get out into, but make it difficult to serve as a convening
forum for people in the coast country.
So I don’t yet have anything
to announce, but we are looking at that. And the questioner sounds like
he or she may have some real ideas, and so I hope that whoever it is and
who they’re talking to, they will convey their specific ideas to us,
because we’re very interested in trying to come up with some ways of
getting the linkage back between our representatives in countries and
the people that we’re working with.
Yes.
QUESTION:
Secretary Clinton, thank you for your remarks. I was hoping you might
be able to share your thoughts on North Korea; in particular, the
situation with the journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who are still
being held there.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, the two
journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this
incident. And I think everyone is very sorry that it happened. What we
hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty
through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their
families as soon as possible.
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION:
Hello. My name is Joan Margraff, and I am in the Bureau of
Administration. And I volunteered on our Human Rights Report section on
persons with disabilities. My question is: What is the Department doing,
in light of the fact that the EEOC ranks the Department of State among
cabinet agencies in last place for persons with targeted disabilities,
to improve the experience of people with disabilities in the Department,
and retention rates for people such as myself who feel we might have to
leave due to our experiences as a person with disability? I just give
this to you as – for your consideration, and thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, thank you. And I recently met with our advisory council on
disabilities, and they had some very good recommendations. And we are
trying to improve our treatment of and support for people with
disabilities. Thank you.
Yes.
MS. GREENBERG: Okay. Our next question comes from Jim Finkle:
Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called
Firefox? I just – (applause) – I just moved to the State Department from
the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that
State doesn’t use this browser. It was approved for the entire
intelligence community, so I don’t understand why State can’t use it.
It’s a much safer program. Thank you. (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, apparently, there’s a lot of support for this suggestion.
(Laughter.) I don’t know the answer. Pat, do you know the answer?
(Laughter.)
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: The answer is at the moment, it’s an expense question. We can --
QUESTION: It’s free. (Laughter.)
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY:
Nothing is free. (Laughter.) It’s a question of the resources to manage
multiple systems. It is something we’re looking at. And thanks to the
Secretary, there is a significant increase in the 2010 budget request
that’s pending for what is called the Capital Investment Fund, by which
we fund our information technology operations. With the Secretary’s
continuing pushing, we’re hoping to get that increase in the Capital
Investment Fund. And with those additional resources, we will be able to
add multiple programs to it.
Yes, you’re correct; it’s free, but it
has to be administered, the patches have to be loaded. It may seem
small, but when you’re running a worldwide operation and trying to push,
as the Secretary rightly said, out FOBs and other devices, you’re
caught in the terrible bind of triage of trying to get the most out that
you can, but knowing you can’t do everything at once.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
So we will try to move toward that. When the White House was putting
together the stimulus package, we were able to get money that would be
spent in the United States, which was the priority, for IT and upgrading
our system and expanding its reach. And this is a very high priority
for me, and we will continue to push the envelope on it. I mean, Pat is
right that everything does come with some cost, but we will be looking
to try to see if we can extend it as quickly as possible.
It raises
another issue with me. If we’re spending money on things that are not
productive and useful, let us know, because there are tens of thousands
of people who are using systems and office supplies and all the rest of
it. The more money we can save on stuff that is not cutting edge, the
more resources we’ll have to shift to do things that will give us more
tools. I mean, it sounds simplistic, but one of the most common
suggestions on the sounding board was having better systems to utilize
supplies, paper supplies – I mean, office supplies – and be more
conscious of their purchasing and their using.
And it reminded me of
what I occasionally sometimes do, which I call shopping in my closet,
which means opening doors and seeing what I actually already have, which
I really suggest to everybody, because it’s quite enlightening.
(Laughter.) And so when you go to the store and you buy, let’s say,
peanut butter and you don’t realize you’ve got two jars already at the
back of the shelf – I mean, that sounds simplistic, but help us save
money on stuff that we shouldn’t be wasting money on, and give us the
chance to manage our resources to do more things like Firefox, okay?
Yeah.
QUESTION:
Good morning, Madame Secretary. I’m Shirley Miles from the Overseas
Building Operation, and I’m Director of Internal Review and Operation
Research. I asked you a question during Women’s History Month
celebration concerning workplace bullying, and since then, you have
mandated a policy be developed for addressing this systemic issue with
bullying. And I want to thank you so much for being the first Secretary
of State to take a stand against workplace bullying. And because of
this, a committee is being formed by the Human Resource Department to
develop this policy.
I have a couple of requests. Our request is
that this committee also include some of the folks that have been
bullied to look after the best interests of those that have been abused.
Otherwise, it would be like letting a fox in the henhouse. You’ve heard
that. Secondly, I request that this committee address the retaliation
against those that have filed complaints, because that has been done as
well. Because when they’re standing up for themselves, they are
prevented from being promoted, rewarded for their work, and then being
marginalized, like stuck in the corner, and then from advancing in their
career.
The third thing is that it has been stated by some senior
management that if you work for a bad manager or if you don’t like what
you’re – how your manager is treating you, then you should look for
another job. Madame Secretary, I’m certain that this would not be your
statement, because bad managers make the Department dysfunctional. And
as you mentioned, you need the support to move forward on your programs.
And so our request would be that the bad manager be turned into good
ones via training, and if they don’t change, then they have to be
removed. Because when good people are still being placed under bad
managers, those people are – be moved out, and then, you know, the other
people who come in would be abused as well.
So I want to just thank you so much for all the good work that you’re doing in setting up this committee.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. And thank you for those excellent suggestions, too. (Applause.)
Yes.
QUESTION:
Thank you, Madame Secretary. My name is Brian Fabbi. I’m with the
Office of International Religious Freedom. With President Obama’s Cairo
speech last month and his outlining of several foreign policy goals
specifically dealing with democracy, religious freedom, and human
rights, what are some things that – what are some ways in which we can
do more outreach and support for religious minorities, especially, say,
the Copts, the religious minorities in Iraq and other places?
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Excellent question. We began the follow-up efforts to the President’s
historic speech in Cairo. The Policy Planning Office, under Dr.
Slaughter, is coordinating that, and we’re looking for your suggestions.
We have already passed on to the White House a number of very specific
ways to follow up. We don’t want the speech to be given with nothing
happening and nothing changing.
So I would welcome your ideas and
the ideas of the people working with you about how we could perhaps
address these. I mean, you mentioned two particular concerns of mine:
the treatment of the Copts, which I have raised with the Egyptian
Government; and of course, you know that as part of the reaction to
swine flu, all of their pigs were slaughtered, which is a real economic
hardship that they are trying to recovery from.
And in Iraq, we’ve
seen some glimmers of hope in the way that the Iraqi Government is
treating and protecting minority religions, but there has to be a lot
more to do, and that’s one of the issues that we’re discussing with the
Iraqis on our agenda.
But specific ideas are very much solicited.
QUESTION: Thank you, Madame Secretary.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes.
MS. GREENBERG: Our next online question comes from Peter Kranstover:
Could you please tell us what your plans are for restructuring the
foreign assistance responsibilities of USAID and State? Will USAID have
an administrator before the end of the fiscal year? Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
I hope so. (Laughter.) We are working very hard to get to the point
where we can announce a nominee for the USAID Director, which we think
of as an administrator, which we think of as a very critical leader in
our efforts. And I hope that that will come very soon.
But part of
the reason of doing this QDDR process is, rather than running separate
processes, which is what we do now for budget and planning purposes, is
to start from the beginning with an integrated process that USAID will
be a complete partner in with State. Because I think there is so much
synergy when you look at the work that we do here on population and
refugees, or on democracy promotion, or some of our science outreach,
our health and economic work, there is so much synergy that can be
created if we’re better able to work together and integrate
appropriately between State and USAID.
Now, clearly, getting a
leader on board is a very high priority for me, and I’m working very
hard to make that happen and I hope it certainly will be in the very
near future.
QUESTION: Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes.
QUESTION: Good morning, Madame Secretary.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Good morning.
QUESTION:
My name is Monica Aguirre. I’m an intern in Diplomatic Security
International Programs African Division. And I’m actually very honored
to be here. I attend the University of Miami and I applied online and
I’m here today.
I just wanted to know what, as interns, we could do
to help with the changes happening in the State Department, and also
ways that they can maybe, in turn, in the future, help interns who come
to D.C. and just sometimes are not paid and have to find housing and
just kind of live here for two months in order to help the State
Department. So if there’s any way that we can help you with these
changes happening in the State Department.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you so much. Are you University of Miami in Miami, Florida?
QUESTION: Yes.
SECRETARY CLINTON: So Donna Shalala is your president?
QUESTION: Yes.
QUESTION:
A dear friend. That’s a great university. I think that’s a really good
point, because we – how many interns are here? (Show of hands.) See, we
have a lot of interns. (Laughter.) I know, I know. (Applause.) And, see,
I think that is a great tribute to the State Department, and I know
there are interns over at USAID that we are looking for and wanting to
utilize the talents and hard work, often free, of interns like
yourselves.
So part of what I hope – and I know we run a very good
intern program here, and by the hands that went up, it’s a very – it has
a lot of good outreach. (Laughter.) But any of your ideas about how we
could improve it, how we could utilize you more, whether there’s a way
to solicit opinions from young people like yourselves about your
experience and your desire and interest to work full-time for our
government, particularly at State or USAID, I’m very interested in what
you might have to offer us. So I think it would be useful to have an
organized way to solicit the opinions and ideas of the interns who are
here.
I find it also is very telling that sometimes – I mean,
technology is changing so quickly that you may have some new ideas that
we haven’t even thought of. And we have a very vigorous effort underway
to make us more techno-friendly and to be involved in all the new
technology, but we’re very much looking for ideas all the time.
So
may I suggest to the interns that you can use the Sounding Board. You
can make sure that the people with whom you work know any ideas or
suggestions that you have. Because we generally are looking for people
to make a commitment to public service, and we hope that many of you
will decide you want to go into the Foreign Service or the Civil Service
and be part of your country’s foreign policy.
Thank you.
QUESTION: Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes.
QUESTION: Good morning, Madame Secretary.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Good morning.
QUESTION:
My name is Grant Morrill. I work in the Office of the Chief Operating
Officer at USAID. This is my personal question, however. I think global –
Americans are more and more conscious of global problems as they come
home. Your strategy represents an unprecedented opportunity to make a
clear story of how our work addresses those problems. You’ve also
mentioned that this would likely be institutionalized in legislation.
Our legislation does not present a clear explanation to Americans of how
we take on these problems and what we do for U.S. citizens.
And I
was wondering – many thinkers point to the need for a grand compromise
between the Executive and the Legislature, how Congress can feel
comfortable with the supervision it has, but the Administration can have
more flexibility in what it does. I’d like your ideas on your plan to
move forward with that.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think that
you make some very important points. We need a narrative. Especially in
difficult economic times, we need to be able to explain to the American
people who are losing their jobs, feeling more and more insecure, why
spending money to send diplomats or development experts around the world
to deal with problems that , in the view of a lot of the folks that I
know out in our country, people should just take care of for themselves.
And we need to make the linkage between not just our humanitarian and
moral values, but our interests, our strategic interests in the world,
and tell a story that is convincing to our fellow citizens.
So one
of the reasons why I want to do this QDDR process is I think we need to
update and refresh our story. I think we need to listen to each other
and we need to cut down the bureaucratic barriers that sometimes get in
the way of common effort in our own government and with the private
sector and with NGOs, and set forth a clear sense of mission backed up
by defensible requests for resources.
So we are just beginning this
process. I have ideas. It sounds like you have ideas. I bet everybody
here has their own ideas. And that’s why we want this to be a bottom-up
process. We want to hear what you think we should be doing. But I want
people to think about it in terms of telling your family members, people
you go to see at a high school reunion, hard-working Americans, why
what you do is in their interest and the interest of their children. If
we can’t make that case, we can’t sustain the increased resources that
we are obtaining. I’ve worked very hard over the last six months to make
the case for greater resources, and we’ve done well. But part of the
reason we did well is because I kept saying over and over again the
United States cannot be a bystander; it will come back to hurt us; it
will endanger the future of our children. And therefore, what we’re
doing is most profoundly and fundamentally in the interest of the
American people.
And we’ve got to make that case. I think we can
make it without any question at all, but we need to make it. And so
that’s what this process is for. So I don’t want to prejudge it and say
what I believe we should do, X, Y, and Z. I want to hear from all of
you, and I want to make sure that we come up with a very convincing
story about who we are and what we do for the American people and for
peace, progress, and prosperity around the world.
QUESTION: Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes.
MS. GREENBERG: Our next online question comes from Tommye Grant:
Border security is a top priority, yet I am not sure how State fits
into the overall plan to combat illegal trafficking in drugs, humans,
and the travel of terrorists. What are we doing now, and what are our
plans in the future?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we’re doing a
lot, and I would hope that – was it Tommye? I hope that Tommye would get
a copy of our TIPs report, the Trafficking in Persons Report that has
just come out, which is the definitive analysis of what’s happening with
the trafficking of persons around the world. I think that report is a
very critical part of our role in trying to raise standards and protect
human rights. But I have said that next year we’re going to include
ourselves. I want us to start looking at the United States for every
report we do, because I happen to think we’ll end up being a Tier 1
country, but I don’t think – I think we will have more credibility if we
start looking at the United States while we criticize other countries
as well. (Applause.)
So on the TIPs report, there is a lot of work
that the State Department does in conjunction with Homeland Security,
with ICE, with the Department of Justice. We also, through INL, have a
very active role in drug interdiction, counter-narcotics trafficking
work. I think that many of our missions around the world house DEA
agents and others who are part of the overall American presence. So the
State Department and USAID are very active in our border security
efforts. We don’t have the lead. That is not our mission, but we are
very active participants and supporters in our country’s policy.
Yes.
QUESTION:
Good morning, Madame Secretary. My name is Lauren Nesbitt. I work in
the Messaging Office of IRM. And I’m also a Stay in School student and
I’m very excited to be in the program. But I was wondering if you had
interest in promoting the co-op program. It’s a little bit broader and
it, I think, brings in more students, especially from the area. I go to
the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, and I know
that a lot of students would look for an internship or something that
would bring them in and be able to keep them in the federal government.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
I very much support those programs. And I wanted to add to the young
woman who spoke earlier about the internship program. I know that it’s a
financial hardship on many students who cannot afford to do unpaid
work. I don’t know what the legal constraints are, but it might be
possible to provide some minimal subsidy for people who have financial
needs. We’ll look at that.
But anything which expands our pool of
potential interns and fellows and others who are coming into the
Department is something I’m in favor of.
Yes.
QUESTION:
Good morning, Madame Secretary. My name’s Brittany Boudens. I’m actually
another intern. I work for Western European Affairs. Just not to make
this into an intern central town hall thing, but I’ve really enjoyed my
time here working at State, and I’d like to encourage everybody here to
stay in touch with interns even after the internship is over. I think
that is a particularly important time where we could find out
information about possible job opportunities, or just staying in touch
with each other, you know, building on future career paths. So I would
encourage everybody here to keep in touch with your interns.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Do we have any kind of website for interns? Do we? We do. What’s it called?
PARTICIPANT: Intern Connect.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Intern Connect.
PARTICIPANT: Yes, if you go to careers.state.gov website and you search for Intern Connect (inaudible).
SECRETARY CLINTON: That’s great.
PARTICIPANT: And it’s a great place for you all (inaudible.)
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, I’d like – I think that’s great to have the interns themselves
connecting, but then I think that the people who have worked with and
mentored interns should stay in touch because there’s a lot of evidence
that interns become the best pool of recruits. If people have a good
intern experience, they are much more likely to want to come to work.
And so I think the more we can nurture those career ambitions, the
better. So thank you.
QUESTION: Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Okay.
QUESTION: Good morning, Madame Secretary. My name is Nina Behrens and I serve on the Arabic Diplomatic Interpreting and Translating Team.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Good.
QUESTION:
We are very proud and very happy to see you. For us who serve under you
and who served under former Secretary Rice, to see women in leadership.
You are a source of inspiration for us.
Now, quick two points. The
first one, we definitely are very thankful for our leaders at the
Department when they encourage things like work-life balance. For the
lady who spoke about, you know, showers and things like that, this makes
a big difference, because if you have a healthy mind, you can have a
healthy, very productive workforce, if they feel at ease with – you
know, with themselves, families, and everything. So we are thankful for
that.
One more point about a location of assets – human assets. If
you think about the cooperation, for instance, in the private sector,
they can see an asset and how they can tap into it for different
multi-purposes, if you will. Is it possible to have at our Department a
database where, for instance, you have particular – a contingent that is
serving in particular project or, you know, positions? But then if you
need them, for instance, to go and help or assist or be on temporary
women’s issues or engagement with the Muslim world and things like that,
perhaps they can bring something to the team, to the overall team and
you can call on them on particular project. And then just email or
particular initiatives and stuff like that.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Right.
QUESTION: They can have an input, if you will.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Right.
QUESTION: So thank you so much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you for that. That’s an interesting idea.
Yes.
UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: Madame Secretary, this will have to be the last one.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Okay.
QUESTION:
Madame Secretary, good morning. My name is Alexander Edelman. I’m a
contracted employee under IRM at the moment. As a former soldier, I
noted during my time in the Army, that many of our field commanders have
extensive diplomatic relations with their local counterparts. I was
wondering if it was possible that there’s initiative to actually draw on
that experience from the State Department point of view. And then also,
possibly, to exchange it by sending Foreign Service subject matter
experts and regional experts to deployment units or to pre-deployment
units and to help brief them and get them ready for the challenges of
non-kinetic warfare and their operations.
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Excellent. Thank you for your service. I think – we are trying to do
more of that. You will not be surprised that a lot of military officers
have been increasingly responsible for what we would consider diplomacy
and development in conflict zones. And we’re working closely with the
Defense Department and the Congress to try to get some more balance into
that, so that we can have more of our diplomats and development experts
working with the military, and that we can learn from the military
experience.
One of the things that the military did, which made
diplomatic and development work possible for them, was to create
something called the Commander Emergency Response funds, the CERP funds,
starting back in 2002 and ‘03.
When I went to Iraq and Afghanistan
several times, and particularly in Iraq, I met young captains and
majors, and lieutenant colonels who had a sum of money that they were
able to disburse without any real accountability. It was what they
thought was best. And it was an important tool. Now, we don’t have that
on the diplomatic and development side. It’s a very cumbersome process.
So lots of what was going on was – and a lot of military officers told
me this, is that they were relying on diplomats and USAID personnel to
tell them how to spend the money which they had.
So we’re working to
try to get a better balance again between defense, diplomacy, and
development. And I think it’s important that we do try to learn from
each other. If you take what we’re trying to do in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, both General Petraeus and Ambassador Holbrooke are working
very closely together. They’ve had a lot of joint meetings together.
There’s an almost a mind meld around some of what we’re trying to
achieve there. So we’re learning.
But any thoughts or ideas you have
based on your experience, we would be very happy to see, because we
need to get better at that.
QUESTION: Thank you, Madame Secretary.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you all very much. (Applause.)
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