The way this came through, the speaker is unidentified, but there is no mistaking whose voice this is.
Presidential Memorandum on Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering Women and Girls Globally
Press Statement
Washington, DC
January 31, 2013
The
Obama Administration has made it clear that advancing the rights of
women and girls is critical to the foreign policy of the United States.
This is a matter of national security as much as it is an issue of
morality or fairness. President Obama’s National Security Strategy
explicitly recognizes that “countries are more peaceful and prosperous
when women are accorded full and equal rights and opportunity. When
those rights and opportunities are denied, countries lag behind.”
That’s
why I’m so pleased about the Presidential Memorandum that President
Obama signed yesterday, which institutionalizes an elevated focus on
global women’s issues at the State Department and USAID and ensures
coordination on these issues across the federal government. And it is so
important that incoming Secretary of State John Kerry has expressed his
support for the continued elevation of these issues in our foreign
policy.
As I have said many times, protecting and advancing the
rights of women are critical to solving virtually every challenge we
face as individual nations and as a community of nations. We have made
great progress, but there is more to do. This is the unfinished business
of the 21st Century, and it is essential that it remains central to our
foreign policy for years to come.
