Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society 2012 Summit
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Tomicah S. Tillemann
Senior Advisor for Civil Society and Emerging Democracies
Tara Sonenshine
Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
Ben Franklin Room
Washington, DC
May 16, 2012
MR. TILLEMANN: Good
morning. I’m Tomicah Tillemann, and I serve as the State Department’s
Senior Advisor for Civil Society in Emerging Democracies. Today, it is
my privilege to welcome you to the 2012 Summit of our Strategic Dialogue
with Civil Society. This event brings together civil society
representatives from more than 40 countries who have gathered here in
Washington and thousands more who are participating via the internet and
at embassy viewing parties around the world.
This summit is taking place at a moment of profound change. The world
is witnessing a fundamental renegotiation of the relationships that
have historically defined interactions between citizens and governments.
Civil society has been at the forefront of that change, and this
dialogue represents our recognition of the rapidly expanding role that
you and your organizations play in shaping our world. This dialogue now
involves more than 50 bureaus and offices at the State Department and
USAID. We’ll hear more about that in a moment, but it is providing a
platform for translating your ideas into foreign policy. And our work on
this initiative is a concrete manifestation of our commitment to
elevating civil society as a full partner in our diplomacy alongside
other governments.
Now, we know that the work of civil society is never easy. And in too
many places it is truly dangerous. But amid this multitude of
challenges and opportunities, we are fortunate to have women and men
leading the State Department who understand the value and the potential
of civil society as a force for progress in our country and around the
world. And we are particularly fortunate that two of those women are
with us today for this global town hall.
We are glad to welcome our Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham
Clinton, who has been working with and for civil society since her first
job out of law school, and our Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and
Public Affairs, Tara Sonenshine, who recently joined our State
Department family after serving with great success in many civil society
organizations and who will moderate this town hall.
Our sole speaker this morning will be Secretary Clinton, and her
vision is the catalyst that brings us together today. Six months before a
Tunisian vegetable seller remade the political landscape of an entire
region, she spelled out the centrality of civil society in our foreign
policy at a keynote address to the community of democracies. During the
cold autumn that preceded the Arab Spring, she created an office on her
staff that was dedicated to engaging civil society. And long before TIME
magazine named the protester as the person of the year, she understood
what you could accomplish.
She has been supporting civil society since before it was hip. She
has been fearless, focused, and farsighted in her efforts. And frankly,
as the most admired woman in the world, she needs no introduction.
(Laughter.) Our Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very, very much, and thank you,
Tomicah. Tomicah has done an absolutely superb job in taking this idea
of a strategic dialogue with civil society and putting real flesh on the
bones. And this second summit is certainly evidence of that.
So it is a pleasure to welcome you here to the State Department. A
lot has happened since we launched this initiative with the summit last
year. When we met for the first time in last February, the revolutions
that Tomicah referenced had begun to unfold across the Middle East and
North Africa. Citizens were demanding their rights and their voices
which, for too long, had been denied. And amid the tumult, civil society
groups everywhere sprang up to push for democracy and change. Now some
emerged from those quiet places where they had been operating for years.
Others formed overnight as a great result of social media connections.
But in any event, it was brave men and women, including many of you
in this room, who came together to plan for a new future, and you spoke
eloquently about the need for civil society. Well, your work and the
work of millions of others around the world has never been more
important. We are seeing people stepping up to fill the space between
government and the economy.
In 1998, I gave a speech at Davos about a firm foundation for any
society being like a three-legged stool where you had to have a
responsive, effective, accountable government, and you had to have a
dynamic, job-creating, free market economic sector. And then you had to
have a strong civil society. If one of the legs got too long or too
short, the balance would be thrown off. And to make the case for civil
society, it’s really quite simple, because government cannot and should
not control any individual’s life, tell you what to do, what not to do.
The economy has to be in the hands of those who are the entrepreneurs
and the creative innovators. But it’s in civil society where we live our
lives. That’s where our families are formed; that’s where our faith is
practiced; that’s where we become who we are, through voluntary
activities, through standing up for our common humanity.
And so as we see the explosion of civil society groups around the
world, we want to support you. I think that in the United States, civil
society does the work that touches on every part of our life. It really
reflects what Alexis de Tocqueville called the habits of the heart that
America has been forming and practicing from our very founding, because
we early on understood that there had to be a role for government and a
role for the economy, but everything else was a role for us –
individuals charting our own course, making our own contributions.
And we turn to you to help us support civil society around the world.
Now this initiative is a striking example of how government and civil
society, often supported by the private sector, can work together. And
under Tomicah’s leadership, we’ve spent the past year consulting with
civil society groups through the Strategic Dialogue and our working
groups, asking you for ideas about what we in government can do more
effectively, looking for more opportunities to collaborate.
Now I don’t want to give the impression – because it would be a false
one – that cooperation between civil society and government is always
easy, even if this dialogue sometimes makes it look that way. Most of
you will not be shocked to hear that civil society and government, even
in my own country, do not always agree. We have found ways to disagree
without being disagreeable. But I started my career working in civil
society. I did a lot to take on my own government starting in the 1970s.
The first issue I worked on was to try to help change the laws about
how we treated people with disabilities. And I worked for a group that
went door to door in certain parts of America asking families, “Do you
have a child who’s not in school, and if so, why?” And we found blind
children and deaf children and children in wheelchairs and children who
had been kicked out of school with no alternative. And I was a very
small part of a really large effort to require that American public
schools find a place for every one of our children.
And so I know that you have to sometimes stand up to your own
governments. You have to sometimes help your government do things that,
in the absence of the pressure you are bringing, they either could not
or would not do themselves. So we understand that the space that civil
society operates in, in many places around the world, is dangerous; that
many of you in this room and those who are following this on the
internet really do put yourselves on the line. And we want to be your
partners.
Now we know too that in the face of an upsurging civil society, some
governments have responded by cracking down harder than ever. Recent
headlines from too many countries paint a picture of civil society under
threat. But each time a reporter is silenced, or an activist is
threatened, it doesn’t strengthen a government, it weakens a nation. A
stool cannot balance on one leg or even two. The system will not be
sustainable.
So the United States is pushing back against this trend. We’ve
provided political and financial support for embattled civil society
groups around the world. Just two weeks ago, our Democracy and Human
Rights Working Group met with bloggers and reporters from across the
region in Tunis to hear about challenges to freedom of expression. And
we are trying to lead by example. We hope that by holding meetings like
this one, we can demonstrate that civil society should be viewed not a
threat, but an asset.
I’m very proud to announce today that the State Department is acting
on every one of the eight policy recommendations that have been
generated by civil society through this dialogue so far. Now, I won’t go
through all of them for you – I hope that you’ll have a briefing on all
of those; we’re putting the details online for everyone to see – but
let me just make a few highlight comments.
First, we are expanding the reach and deepening our commitment to
this dialogue by setting up embassy working groups. Our posts will help
us tap the ideas and opinions of local civil society groups, and then we
will channel their input back to Washington to inform our policies.
We’ve already received commitments from 10 posts stretching from Brazil
to Bangladesh, from the Czech Republic to Cameroon. I know many of these
posts are watching live via the internet right now, and I want to
extend a special word of thanks to them.
Second, our Working Group on Religion and Foreign Policy has focused
on how we can strengthen our engagement with the large section of civil
society comprised of faith-based organizations. Our posts in every
region of the globe work with faith-based organizations and religious
communities to bolster democracies, protect human rights, and respond to
the humanitarian need of citizens. So these groups are our natural
allies on a multitude of issues, including advancing religious freedom,
and we want to work with them wherever possible. These recommendations
will support our officers in the field who are engaging with religious
communities to make sure they have the appropriate training to carry out
their efforts.
Third, our Labor Working Group has examined opportunities to
facilitate discussions among governments, businesses, and labor groups
to make sure all points of view are represented at the international
level and in multilateral institutions. Labor groups are another
well-organized and important category of civil society, and we want to
help them connect with one another and pursue shared approaches as we
defend and advance workers’ rights.
And finally, bringing us back to the great changes throughout the
Middle East and North Africa, our Women’s Empowerment Working Group is
building awareness for women’s rights in countries undergoing political
transition. And we will work closely with civil society groups and
governments in the region to help make women’s rights part of new
constitutions, protected and practiced, and understood as critical to
the development of democratic, successful societies.
Now, our new policy recommendations do not end here. Later this
afternoon, the dialogue will hear new ideas developed by our Working
Groups on Governance and Accountability to improve transparency and
combat corruption. And we will continue engaging with you to identify
new ideas and opportunities. This summer, we will also be adding a new
Global Philanthropy Working Group to our dialogue, chaired by Under
Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine. This
group will expand our cooperation with leading foundations and develop
partnerships to support civil society.
Now, conversations and actions like these have ripple effects, and we
have had some positive responses from governments over the last year
who are reaching out and developing their own mechanisms for engaging
with their own civil society. Some of the representatives from those
governments are here today, and we greatly appreciate your presence, and
we also stand ready to offer any assistance we can.
So thank you for being here. Thank you for what you do. Please know
that are enthusiastic about the future of civil society and we want to
use this dialogue, as we have for the past year, to be a vehicle for the
exchange of ideas, for the promotion of new approaches, and for an
accounting, because we want to do what works and quit doing what doesn’t
work. So we want to be very clear that we’re going to be holding
ourselves accountable and going to be looking to civil society to be
held accountable as well.
So I’m looking forward to taking some questions about our dialogue
and having this exchange with you and then hearing more about the work
that each and every one of you are doing. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Well, thank you, Madam Secretary,
for the opportunity to moderate this very inspiring and loud program. I
do want to welcome all of you, and particularly those who are here on
ECA-funded civil society programs, the IVLP folks, the Humphrey fellows,
if you’re out there somewhere. We particularly welcome you here today.
In just a few moments, we’ll be taking some questions from the
audience, so as you do have a question, if you would signal us and we
will get a microphone to you. But in the meantime, I’m going to begin,
Madam Secretary, by picking up on this very inspired and moving thought:
Each time a reporter is silenced or an activist is threatened, it
doesn’t strengthen a government, it weakens a nation. So how do we
explain this rise of challenges and crackdowns on civil society? And are
these isolated events, or is there a trend here that we’re going to see
in the years outward?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think – this is loud. (Laughter.) I
hope it can be turned down. I think that the world is going through an
extraordinary historic change. More people are living under governments
of their own choosing and more people have the opportunity to do so than
ever before in human history. But it’s also true that old habits die
hard. There are all kinds of cultural, political, economic, even
religious, ethnic, racial – all kinds of mindsets that are difficult to
change in a short period of time.
I am very optimistic about the future, but I am also very realistic
that the pathway to that future of greater democracy, freedom, human
rights, human dignity is going to be a hard road for many millions and
millions of people around the world. And therefore, we have to continue
making the case for respect and tolerance and openness that is at the
root of any true sustainable democracy while recognizing that many
leaders, both old and new, are going to find such a transition very
personally threatening, threatening to their group, threatening to their
assumptions about power and order. And we have to continue to make the
case.
So I am humbled by the courage of so many people around the world
right now – dissidents, activists, political actors – who are
contributing to this historic tide that is building. But I also realize
that it’s not going to happen overnight, and therefore, we have to be
smart about how we help you move forward on this agenda for civil
society, democracy, and human rights.
So I really think, Tara, that we have to, also in the United States,
remind ourselves of our own long journey. We’re living in a time of
instant communication and 24-hour news, but we did not recognize every
American’s human rights, we did not have fully representative
one-person, one-vote democracy, when we started out. We had to fight a
civil war. We had to amend our Constitution. So we have to be, I think,
always advancing what we believe are universal human values, best
realized within the context of representative democracy but with enough
humility to understand that different peoples, different countries have
different histories, different cultures, different mindsets.
So what we want to do is support real change, not just score
political points or get on the evening news. At the end of the day, we
want our help and support for civil society and political change to
actually have advanced the cause of freedom and human dignity and human
rights and democracy, and not to be used as an excuse or a rationale for
clamping down even more. So navigating through all of that is
especially difficult if you’re in such a country, but it’s also
difficult for us who are trying to help those of you who are on the
frontlines.
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Let me go to the audience here
first, and then we’ll go overseas. I notice the first hand is in the
second row, three seats in. And if you would not mind identifying
yourself and also asking folks to keep questions relatively short so
that we can work our way around the room. Please.
QUESTION: Hello, I am Shatha Al-Harazi, a political human
rights journalist from Yemen. I am so honored to be here today with you
and so inspired by your speech. I have only one question. You just spoke
about universal human values. When it comes to that, that just reminds
me that – of a friend of mine who just told me to tell you face-to-face
that Yemenis are not less important than American, and if you want to
work hand to hand and counter terrorism, you have to work with the civil
society. You have to strengthen the civil society. And we thank you
here for the great work that NDI and the USAID are doing, but still the
drone strikes are disrupting everything and it’s getting our civilian
killed. So I’m just asking you here, is there any consideration or any
plans on working with civil society on counterterrorism? Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we certainly intend to and are
working with civil society on counterterrorism, because one of the
long-term solutions to terrorism is building up civil society, giving
people the feeling of empowerment: their voices are heard; they don’t
need to turn to violence because they can participate fully and equally
in a political process.
We also are committed to working with civil society to counter
violent extremism; to counter the messages of extremists who promote
violence; who are not respectful of human rights or even human life, but
instead are intent upon undermining the political order and, in effect,
capturing it to promote a certain ideological or religious point of
view.
So we do have to do more with civil society. There is absolutely
total agreement on that. And in a conflict situation, as we see in many
places around the country, we do try to do both. We try to support the
government or the political system against the threat from violent
extremism while trying to work to enhance civil society as a way of
diminishing either the attractiveness or the reach of extremism.
So it’s not either/or in our view. It’s primarily on the
political-civil society front, but I’m not going to sit here and mislead
you. There are also people who are trying to kill Americans, kill
Europeans, and kill Yemenis; who are not going to listen to reason; who
don’t want to participate in a political process; who have no interest
in sitting around a table and hearing your view because, with all due
respect, you’re a woman. And so they cannot be given the opportunity to
kill their way to power, so we will support governments who are trying
to prevent that from happening while we also try to build up civil
society, help move a country like Yemen on a path to true democracy with
representative government.
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: We’re going to go from Yemen to Morocco. I believe we have a video –
PARTICIPANT: (Off-mike.) (Laughter.)
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Okay, I think we’re first going to
go to the real Morocco, which is a video question we have via YouTube.
And if we could queue up the first overseas question for the Secretary
and play our first video.
QUESTION: My name is Manelle Ilitir and I’m from Morocco.
Unemployment is the most pressing issue in our MENA region. Expectations
are high, and youth are demanding action now. The complexity of the
(inaudible) of this urgency only creates more tension. So my question to
you, Secretary Clinton, is: How can civil society drive a social
dialogue among the concerned stakeholders where there is public,
private, academia, NGO; a social dialogue that is result-oriented, that
reinforces their collaboration, amplifies what already exists, and
delivers the jobs needed in the immediate future? Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you very much. And I think that
young woman’s question is one of the most common I’m asked around the
world, because 60 percent of the world’s population is under 30; the
highest percentage of the unemployed are under 30. Young people are very
worried about what kind of futures they will have across the world. But
in particular, when those worries collide with the rising expectations
produced by political reform and even revolution, it’s a volatile mix.
So I think there are several things. First of all, governments have
to have good policies. That is obvious. And it is more difficult in the
21st century for a lot of reasons which you say are
complicated. I agree. But civil society can be a great catalyst and
partner with government and with the private sector on job creation.
What do I mean by that? Civil society can help with the acquisition of
job skills and training for certain kinds of jobs that are available in
the marketplace. Now, we have this problem in our own country. We have
lots of jobs available in lots of industries without enough people
either willing or able to take those jobs. So doing job training, doing
outreach, helping prepare young people for the jobs that are there.
Secondly, we have formed a partnership called the Partnership for a
New Beginning that is in North Africa and the Middle East. And when I
was just in Morocco, I met with the leaders of this effort who are
leaders of corporations, small businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators and
we are working with them to try to increase their economic reach so
that they can offer more jobs. What can they do to improve their
exports? What can they do with our help to break down barriers so that
they can get into new markets? Now one of the things that would
particularly help in the Maghreb, if you look at from Morocco through
Egypt, those countries trade less with each other than any contiguous
countries in the world. You have the border between Morocco and Algeria
closed. You have continuing difficulties with other countries in terms
of trade agreements, open borders – the kind of free flow of commerce
that does create jobs. And so the more that can be done to integrate the
economies of the Maghreb, the more I believe you will have greater
opportunities for young people.
Then I think civil society can take a strong stand against
corruption, because corruption is a job killer. Corruption is a cancer
that eats away at economic opportunity. So civil society needs to be
loudly and clearly speaking out against, acting against corruption, and
using social media – posting anonymous pictures of people taking bribes,
posting anonymous stories of officials who stand in the way of the
creation of your small business. So take that stand against corruption.
We will work with you. We will help you on that.
And then look at the ways that technology can create more jobs and do
an examination of what are the barriers within your government to the
creation of businesses and jobs. Because there is a ranking that is done
by an independent organization that ranks every country in the world in
the ease of doing business. How easy is it if I show up tomorrow in
Morocco or Tunisia or Jordan or Yemen and I say, “I want to start a
business, and I think if I’m successful I could employ 10, 20, 30
people. How long does it take?” Sometimes it takes more than a year. How
discouraging is that to people who want to get started and want to get
going with their own energy to create something? Sometimes you have to
pay many bribes. Sometimes you have to get all kinds of licenses that
have nothing to do with actually starting your business, but it’s just
to keep somebody in the government employed. If the government
employment takes up too much of the sector of employment in a society,
it squeezes out the opportunity for business to flourish to create jobs
in the market.
So these are some of the things that civil society can do in
cooperation with both government and business, and we’re working on all
of those through this Department to be of support to you.
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: I know there was a gentleman had
his hand up first, right on the edge there. And we will, again, try to
move as quickly as we can here and overseas.
QUESTION: Secretary Clinton, thank you very much. It’s an
honor to be here. I just want to ask you a question. We have teams – my
name is Marc Gopin. I’m from CRDC George Mason University, and I have
teams that work in some countries that are adversaries of the United
States like Syria and others that are allies. And I want to ask your
advice about how we can do what we do better in terms of civil society,
conflict management, and social transition that will help you balance
the challenge of working with allies that you need to keep as allies,
but at the same time are hurting our people. So how can we do what we do
more effectively in a way that will help American policy provide
positive pressure that’s constructive and that what we do is
constructive and helpful to what you’re trying to do?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think you’re putting your finger on
a difficult issue because, if I heard you right, you do conflict
mediation, resolution, in countries with which we have both good and not
so good relations. And even sometimes in the ones we have good
relations, very often they don’t have the best track records in how they
support civil society and treat their own people, which we are well
aware of.
Look, I think there are a couple of things. Why do countries change?
Why do leaders change? Why do they decide one day that they are going to
go in a different direction? There’s a certain level of mystery to
this, but a large part of the answer is because they become convinced
they’re on the wrong track. We’re watching with great interest the
opening in Burma over the last months. And there’s been a lot written
about why did these former generals who had been part of a very
oppressive regime for a very long time – the prisons were filled with
political prisoners; Aung San Suu Kyi was a prisoner in her own home –
why did they decide this is the wrong direction? I don’t know that
there’s any specific answer, but I’ll tell you some of the answers that
have been suggested, which I think are more general.
First, there were leaders in other countries who had gone through the
process who reached out and began in a very respectful way to talk
about what democracy could mean to the future of Burma. It’s been in the
public record, but one was the president of Indonesia, a former general
during a very difficult time of dictatorship, who took off his uniform,
ran for office. Now Indonesia, the largest Muslim population in the
world, is a thriving democracy where women and men are equal
participants. And so President Yudhoyono began to reach out the generals
in Burma through ASEAN, through other organizations, to say, “Let me
tell you about my experience. Not like, ‘you must go do this’ but let me
tell you what we did in Indonesia.” The generals began to travel, and
they began to see that their country was not as developed. It didn’t
have as much prosperity. It didn’t have jobs for young people like other
countries nearby. Thailand had been under military rule; now it was
booming. It was next door.
So these personal experiences and the outreach of other leaders or
people who can relate to those in power in oppressive countries, coming
from similar backgrounds, having similar experiences – never
underestimate the power of personal relationships and personal
experiences. We talk about geopolitical strategy, and sometimes it seems
way up in the sky, but I’ve often found it’s the personal connection.
I remember going to Nelson Mandela’s inauguration, and there were
many, many very important people there. And after he was inaugurated, we
went back to the president’s home for an inaugural lunch, and he stood
up and he said, “I want you to meet three – the three most important
people to me who are here today.” They were three former jailers of his
on Robben Island; three hard-bitten white men who had overseen his
imprisonment, but who had treated him with dignity and respect. And I
remember asking him in one of the conversations I was privileged to have
with him, “How did you come out not embittered, wanting revenge,
wanting to do to them what they had done to you?” And he said, “Well, I
knew if I walked out embittered, I’d still be in prison.” He said, “But I
also knew from those years in prison there were people who saw me as a
human being, and I, therefore, had to see them as human beings.”
Now I tell you those stories because a lot of time conflict mediation
or resolution is very formalistic. People are engaged in dialogue. But
what happens that’s most important is, I think, outside the dialogue,
where they talk about their families, their interests, when they decide
that that person of another religion, of another race, of another tribe
is also a human being. So I think you’ve got to try to engage leaders
and countries that are oppressive in those kinds of personal ways. It
doesn’t always work. There are some really hard cases in the world. We
know that. But it might help in the person who comes after, or it might
help in the guy standing on the sidelines who said, “We can do this
better.” And – but just persist. You never know what’s going to make an
impression.
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Let’s go quickly to another part
of the world, Brazil, and let’s hear from our Brazilian civil society
leader and include them in the conversation here. So we’ll queue up
Brazil, we’ll come back here, and keep moving along as quickly as we
can.
QUESTION: My name is Marlon Reis. I am a state judge in
Brazil. I take part on the Brazilian movement against electoral
corruption. My movement was responsible for conquest of the (in
Portuguese), the law of clean slate. I would like to ask: How could we
improve our relationship, the partnership between U.S. Government and
social movements on fighting against corruption? Thank you.
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Let me suggest we’re going to run a
couple of these, just to give you a chance to wrap them together. If we
could go to Afghanistan very quickly, because I know some of these
civil society leaders worked very hard to be heard here, and I’d like to
have a few of them and we’ll wrap them together.
QUESTION: (In foreign language.)
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: So I happen to have a translation
of the question for those who couldn’t follow it, but it does address
the gender issues in Afghanistan, and I think the rule of law questions
on the Brazil. So if you want to take on both of those, and then we’ll
probably have time for one more here and one more there.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, with respect to the Brazilian
question on corruption, I just want to reiterate what I said. The more
civil society can be a force against corruption, the more likely the
reforms you’re seeking, whether it’s in the economy, in the environment,
in any area of human rights or dignity, are more likely to have a
chance to succeed. And taking on corruption should be the job of
governments, but very often governments need civil society to push them
and pull them into doing even more.
Regarding the question about women in Afghanistan and the withdrawal
of NATO-ISAF troops over the next two years, this is a great concern to
the United States. It is to me personally. There has been an enormous
amount of great progress made in Afghanistan. This young woman is an
example of that, running a radio station, something that would’ve been
absolutely unheard of, punishable under the Taliban. And we have made it
our priority to do everything we can to help support civil society, the
rule of law, women’s empowerment, and the enforcement of the laws and
constitution of Afghanistan, which clearly lay out the rights of men and
women to be treated equally under the laws. I mean, that is not too
much to ask for. And that is what every person, man and woman, is
entitled to.
So we will continue working with civil society and the government,
making it clear that that has to be a redline, and do all we can to
support the brave women of Afghanistan who are out there every single
day saying, “I have a right to go to school,” “I have a right to be a
practicing doctor,” “I have a right to be a teacher,” “I have a right to
open my business.” And we just think that that goes with being a
democracy. And women have the same right to make the choices that are
right for them and their families, as any man does. So we have to keep
making that absolutely clear. (Applause.)
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: So we’re in the last few moments.
The Secretary has to leave. What I’m going to suggest is a very quick
question here, a very short question from Kazakhstan, and we will wrap
up. The Secretary has to leave. I will stay behind and help answer some
of the questions or pass them along to her.
So very quickly here, Kazakhstan, and we will close.
QUESTION: Thank you. I’m Hamid from Morocco, the first country
that recognized the United States. And I know that you love it.
(Laughter.)
So I’m talking about civil society in Morocco, but I think it’s the
same in the Maghreb. There is an increasing role in the last 10 years of
the role of civil society, yes, but there is some threats, lack of
transparency. We know one number saved by the minister of – in Morocco
that 90 percent of public aid for civil – for NGOs in Morocco goes to
only 10 percent of NGOs. It means that the states control the funding of
civil society.
And also the foreign aid for civil society don’t goes to the real
NGOs in the ground, which they work close to people. And they don’t know
what are the mechanism that you use to help NGOs in the grounds to work
with people. And I think it’s something very interesting. You can give a
lot of money, but if it don’t goes to the goal that you want to do,
it’s a waste of your money. Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you for that. Let me quickly say that
we need your help – that’s why you’re here – to advise us about how to
be more effective with the aid that we give to NGOs. Because you’re
right, sometimes we are told by governments that we cannot give aid to
any NGOs that they don’t approve of, and that puts us in a very
difficult position because we don’t want to accept that, but we also
don’t want to fail to support even the NGOs that are approved of.
So we have to make a tough decision. Sometimes, governments make it
so difficult for us to help, as you say, grassroots NGOs that it becomes
impossible. So we can’t find them; we can’t interact with them; we
can’t convey support to them. So we need your feedback. What can we do
better? And we’ve got a lot of our top officials from the State
Department and USAID here, and we need to hear from you about what will
work.
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: So we’re going to close on a
subject we didn’t spend much time on, the internet and technology. We’re
going to run a short question on that from Kazakhstan. And then the
Secretary, I want to thank in advance for being here, and all of these
senior government officials and civil society leaders and promise to
stay and collect your questions. So we will do our final video and then
we will end the session.
QUESTION: Dear Madam Secretary, my name is Alina Khamatdinova
and I am from Kazakhstan. I once participated in your meeting with NGO
in 2010 in Astana. With internet development, many possibilities for
civic engagement have emerged. Many group of civic activities online are
very popular now and their impact is very visible. What do you think
about this trend? Is it good or bad? And especially for traditional NGOs
who focused on human species, what kind of plans does State Department
have for this tendency? Thank you very much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much from Kazakhstan. Well,
we think it’s so important to help civil society utilize technology that
we have a whole program to do just that. We have been running tech
camps around the world where we invite civil society activists to come.
In fact, there’ll be one in a few months in Kyrgyzstan, right? So --
PARTICIPANT: Kazakhstan.
SECRETARY CLINTON: When is it?
PARTICIPANT: Kazakhstan.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Kazakhstan. It’s going to be in Kazakhstan.
So we will have a tech camp where civil society can – representatives
can come together to learn everything we can share with you about how to
use technology – how to use it to promote the ideas and programs of the
NGO you’re part of; how to use it to reach out and enlist more people
to support you; how to use it to convey information to the people you
serve. We’re doing a lot of work – if you take women’s health, something
I’m very interested in, how do you get information to women about how
to take better care of their health? If you are interested in small
farmers, how do you get more information to them about how to help them
be more productive? So we think technology, on balance, is a great gift
and opportunity for civil society.
Now, there’s always a downside. That’s human nature. The good often
comes with the not-so-good. And so there will be people on the internet
who could attack you, who could try to interfere with you, could try to
shut you down, both independent, government-sponsored – we’re aware of
that. But, on balance, we want you to be as equipped as you can to use
technology to promote and protect civil society across the world.
Thank you all very much.
UNDER SECRETARY SONENSHINE: Thank you, Madam Secretary. (Applause.)
