Thank
you all very, very much. As Kris just said, we’re all like one
millisecond away from just collapsing here – (laughter) – because of the
emotion and the feelings that are coursing through all of us. And this
is my final event in a room named for Ben Franklin who has watched over
us over the last four years. I have lost count of how many times I’ve
walked in here along with many of you for an event that rewards
innovation or launching a new initiative or bringing together a diverse
group of stakeholders to tackle a shared concern. And there are so many
of you that I am grateful to.I want particularly to thank my two
colleagues and friends who are here on the stage, the Special
Representative for Global Partnerships, Kris Balderston, and our first
ever Ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer.
They have, along with other of my colleagues, really embraced the whole
idea of partnerships and understood that in the 21
st century,
diplomacy and development is not in any way confined to
government-to-government relations. Those have to be tended, those have
to be respected, those have to be nurtured and grown. But at the same
time in this increasingly interconnected, networked world, we wanted to
reach out people-to-people, to our NGOs, our faith communities, our
private sector, and so much more.
So partnerships have been a
hallmark of what we’ve done in the last four years here at the State
Department, because many of the challenges that we face extend beyond
traditional, political, and even geographic divisions. How do we grow
the global economy and give those hundreds of millions of young people,
men and women alike, a chance at a good, decent job that will give them
and their families and children better opportunities? How do we address
the threat of global climate change? How do we fight global terrorism
and undermine and rebut the narrative that recruits young people and
spreads extremism?
Now, these challenges and so many others affect
people from all walks of life, and therefore, they do require a new set
of solutions and new kinds of collaboration. So I set up the Global
Partnerships Initiative because I wanted to spur the State Department to
collaborate more among government, civil society, the private sector,
universities, religious institutions, other groups, and even
individuals. And I’m very pleased and proud of what we’ve achieved.
Through Partners for a New Beginning, we’re working with local
businesses and civil society groups in 10 countries across the Middle
East, North Africa, and Asia. Working with Cisco, Coca-Cola, and the
Aspen Institute, this partnership has launched 120 projects in the last
two years to promote economic opportunities, strengthen education, and
yes, create jobs. The International Diaspora Engagement Alliance is
mobilizing America’s vast network of diaspora communities to promote
volunteerism and philanthropy around the world. With the Migration
Policy Institute, Microsoft, IDB, DigiSol, and Boom Financial, we’ve
built a network of more than 1,500 communities representing more than
190 countries and regions.
And I could go on and on, because there
have been so many exciting partnerships, sometimes very small and very
targeted, sometimes quite large and expansive, but they all had in
common a belief that we had to start thinking more creatively about
solving problems that affect us all.
I’m pleased we are announcing
new initiatives today. One called wPower looks at the cross-cutting
challenges of climate change, access to clean energy, technology, and
economic opportunity for women. We will be working with the MacArthur
Foundation, USAID, CARE International, Solar Sister, the Global Alliance
for Clean Cookstoves, and the Wangari Maathai Institute to provide
training for more than 7,000 women entrepreneurs, helping them to sell
new technologies, like clean cookstoves and solar lanterns in India,
Nigeria, and throughout East Africa.
Another called the Alliance
for Affordable Internet will expand access to the internet in developing
countries where only 25 percent on average of the population are
online. This is a key element of economic growth and innovation, so
working with multilateral institutions, civil society, and the World
Wide Web Foundation, we’re going to help the next billion people come
online.
We’re also expanding on some of our successful
partnerships. In 2011, I launched the Global Equality Fund to promote
and protect the human rights of LGBT persons around the world. And I
want to welcome the Governments of Norway, the Netherlands, and France
to this partnership. And I thank the Arcus Foundation and MAC AIDS Fund
for their recent contributions. Also with us is Michel Togue, a human
rights lawyer from Cameroon who has fought tirelessly to defend LGBT
persons with support from this fund, and we greatly applaud his
commitment and his courage.
And our Global Alliance for Clean
Cookstoves, which has helped millions of families live healthier, more
productive lives, has expanded now to include 600 partners and 18
foreign governments, including our newest partners, Mongolia and France.
Our longtime partners from Morgan Stanley, Dow Corning, and UNF are
also with us today. And new commitments from Paradigm Project and Bunge
will bring as many as 5 million stoves to East Africa. In Kenya, OPIC
and GE are establishing a stove manufacturing facility with additional
plants in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Finally, Philips, the
South African industrial development corporation and African Clean
Energy, have begun manufacturing and distributing what is probably the
cleanest cookstove made in Africa. When I first started beating the
drums on this alliance, there were people who said, “There she goes
again.” (Laughter.) “Clean cookstoves? What does that have to do with
world peace and prosperity and human rights and democracy and freedom?”
Well, everything actually. And a recent publication, I guess in
Lancet,
right Kris, of the world disease burden actually upped the fatalities
from breathing the air from unclean cookstoves to four million, making
it one of the top five, actually the number four killer in the world.
But it’s also a contributor to black soot, which along with methane and
other slow-acting pollutants is a major contributor to climate change.
So you go on and on.
We have to think differently. Part of what it
means to be the Secretary of State of the United States today is to
expand what we do and how we do it on a range of issues, to add to our
toolkit that already consists of government-to-government diplomacy,
government-to-government development, and the other kinds of
values-driven actions that are part of our portfolio, but to add new
tools. And this partnership initiative that we have nurtured and grown
has really delivered to show how we can do more together. And by that,
it’s not just the people who traditionally walked into the Ben Franklin
Room, but it’s all of you and so many others.
So partnerships have
proven to be an invaluable tool for meeting very tough challenges. And
I’m confident that the United States, under our next Secretary and in
the Obama Administration and, I hope, for years to come, will continue
building this capacity for creating and nurturing and growing
partnerships that produce results around the world. Now, partnerships
themselves are not a solution; rather, they bring together the people
and the resources that can then lead to solutions.
So really, in
other words, we’re not just happy you’re here so we could have this
final event together; we’re happy you’re here because it is you, our
partners, who have to be part of the solutions. It’s you who have made
the great difference. I mean, we could have opened up a partnership
office and nobody came. But instead, you understood, and in fact, you
helped to create the vision that we had. And you have helped verify the
validity of that vision through the work you have done with us. Your
commitment, creativity, and compassion have led to outcomes that are
improving lives, building prosperity, and promoting justice.
Now,
great things about partnerships – and we’re beginning to do even more of
that and we’ll add to it in the future – is through our online
communication, we can encourage people to begin partnerships anywhere.
People who are out of government, you can’t tell them, okay, you can act
like a government; that’s not going to work. But you can sure be a
partner, and you can create partnerships, and you can come up with
solutions, and we can support you in every way that is possible.
So,
thank you so much for what you have already done. I hope that you will
continue to be partners with the State Department and USAID and the rest
of our government as we expand this whole approach and look for new
ways to solve problems that affect all of us. So for me, it truly is a
bittersweet moment to leave this room for the last time as Secretary of
State at an official event. But it gives me such great pride and
pleasure to thank you and know that the work will continue. I am very,
very grateful. Thank you all very much. (Applause.)
