SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank
you so much. Thank you, Rodolfo Espinal. I appreciate very much your
serving as our moderator today. This is an exciting venture here at
FUNGLODE, the Global Democracy and Development Foundation, which is
hosting us in Santo Domingo.
We are connected online from
Brazil and Peru to Mexico, Jamaica, and far beyond even our hemisphere. I
am personally honored that President Fernandez is here with us. I’ve
had an excellent series of discussions with the president and his
ministers. I’m also delighted that Margarita is here as well. I have
known Leonel and Margarita for many years. We were – he was very young
and I was younger. (Laughter.) And it is a pleasure to be with him.
I
also want to thank your foreign minister. Carlos, thank you for your
hospitality and the great cooperation that we have. And again, Monsignor
Nuñez, who I was with earlier from the Pontificia Catholic University,
mother and teacher for the excellent education leadership, and the
Minister of Education, with whom I toured the Rosa Duarte School.
This
digital town hall seems particularly fitting to hold here in the
Dominican Republic on the eve of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad
and Tobago. Here in the Dominican Republic, I feel very much at home. We
are linked by geography and history, by common values and cultural
heritage. And now, we are finding new and innovative ways to engage one
another, expand our dialogue, create new partnerships, solve the
problems that we face together.
As someone who had the great
honor of spending eight years representing New York in the United States
Senate, I feel very close to this part of our world. And in particular,
I think of the Avenue of the Americas in the middle of New York City.
It has monuments honoring Latin American leaders, a square named for
Juan Pablo Duarte, the great Dominican who helped this nation achieve
its independence and whose sister, by the way, Rosa, started the school
that I visited earlier.
As you travel across New York and
America, you will find the influences of the Caribbean and Central
America and South America in bookstores and bodegas, in films and
fashion, in reggae and salsa and merengue. You will hear the sounds, you
will eat the foods, you will smell the smells, you will watch baseball
and cheer on so many major league players from Latin America.
My
point is that whether we are from North America, Central America, South
America or the Caribbean, we are all Americans, and we are of the
Americas. We may speak different languages and have some different
customs. We have different historical experiences. But we share this
home, this hemisphere, and a future that will be what we decide to make
it.
I will be meeting President Obama at the summit. This
marks the first time that a Caribbean nation has hosted the summit. And
we are grateful to Prime Minister Manning and his government for their
hard work to make this a success. This will be the first regional
meeting in the world since the G-20 in London. Leaders there pledged
$1.1 trillion in resources for nations that were the hardest hit by the
global recession. This summit upcoming today and the work we do in its
wake presents an opportunity for us to further a recovery that reaches
all of the people of the Americas.
In Port of Spain, President
Obama and I will share that the United States is eager to listen to the
ideas and concerns of our friends, partners and allies. But we are
committed to working with you to keep our people safe and secure, to
protect and harness our natural resources, and to widen opportunity and
prosperity. To achieve the shared prosperity we seek, we must integrate
our commitment to democracy and open markets with an equal commitment to
social inclusion.
Rather than defining economic progress
simply by profit margins and GDP, our yardstick must be the quality of
human lives, whether families have enough food on the table; whether
young people have access to schooling from early childhood through
university; whether workers earn decent wages and have safe conditions
at their jobs; whether mothers and fathers have access to medical care
for themselves and their children so that children dying before
adulthood is a rarity, not an accepted fact; and whether every person
who works hard and takes responsibility has the promise of a brighter
future.
Over the past 15 years, the rise of democracy and
free markets has unleashed the potential of people across our
hemisphere. It has ushered in new opportunities for economic and
political progress – higher wages, rising school enrollments, healthier
populations, citizens freely choosing their leaders are now hallmarks of
this dynamic region.
At the same time, the global economic
downturn threatens to erode these gains. What was already an
unacceptable gap between rich and poor in Latin America – the greatest
gap of any region in the world – is expected to widen as exports
decline, credit tightens, family incomes level off, remittances dip, and
growth rates slow. And the impact will be most acute for those on the
bottom rung of the ladder of every society, the poor, the young, women.
As tempted as we each may be to withdraw inward in the face of economic
challenges, it is precisely in such moments that we must extend a hand
outward. The failures and fortunes of every nation in our hemisphere are
bound together, and so is our progress.
With this in mind,
the Obama Administration is seeking a 17 percent increase in U.S.
investment in Latin America and the Caribbean this year, even amidst our
own economic hardships, because we think it is both the right thing to
do and the smart thing. It is a down payment on the future we can build
together as partners in so many areas from renewable energy to job
creation.
There is so much to talk about, but today, I want to
focus on just three areas where our work as partners can address the
human cost of the global recession. As we take on these challenges, we
must remind ourselves that in our diverse hemisphere, one size does not
fit all. We need to look at the unique needs of each country and shape
our effort to meet those needs in a spirit of openness and cooperation.
First,
a principal area of investment must be education. And as I said earlier
this morning at the school, that is the lynchpin of economic progress.
The United States will invest $30 million in education projects in the
region. While enrollments have swelled throughout our hemisphere, too
many young people still don’t complete their studies, or they’re not
benefiting from the quality of education they richly deserve.
This
is true also in parts of the United States where students have lagged
behind in math and science achievement, and in countries in Latin
America where academic performance needs to improve. Today, as we are
speaking in this beautiful setting, 22 million young people in our
hemisphere do not study or do not work. They need training and skills to
get a job and earn a living.
There are, however, solutions
at hand. And what we want to do in our new Administration is look for
the best practices everywhere, look across boundaries, ask people, what
is working for you? We want to adjust American aid programs so that they
are furthering what works, not just doing the same thing over and over
again. If you look at programs in Mexico, if you look at programs in
Brazil, similar efforts in Chile, Colombia and Peru, governments pay
allowances to poor families to keep their children in school. They take
them for regular medical checkups. Millions of children are in school as
a result of these programs in Mexico and Brazil alone, and the dropout
rate is expected to decline.
The success of these programs has
even led New York City to devise a similar program of its own based on
the Mexican model. When I was in Mexico with President Calderon, I told
him that we wanted a reciprocal and respectful relationship. We have
much work to do together and the United States thought we had things to
learn. And I talked to him about the example of New York City borrowing a
concept that was designed and implemented in Mexico.
I’m
pleased to announce that the United States will host a conference to
launch the Inter-American Social Protection Network. This network will
bring together stakeholders from across our hemisphere to highlight best
practices and new approaches. We should not be reinventing the wheel.
We should be learning from each other. We should be borrowing the best
ideas, successful programs, and then putting them to work right here.
Earlier today at the school, I announced that the United States will add
$12.5 million to a successful program we pioneered right here in the
Dominican Republic, a program to enhance teacher training, to work on
school curricula and supplies, in mathematics, and in language
instruction, to help with school governance. This program is proving to
be, in partnership with the Ministry of Education here, such a success
that we’re not only expanding it to 450 schools in the Dominican
Republic, but we want the Dominican Republic to serve as the model for
the expansion of this program throughout the region. (Applause.)
The
end goal of these efforts is to prepare our citizens to compete in the
global marketplace, to secure good jobs, to lead productive lives. As
diverse as our countries may be, people across the Americas yearn for
the same thing – a decent job, a fair wage, the ability to hold their
heads up as they provide for the safety and security of their families.
And that leads me to the second challenge I want to address: the
challenge of food security.
I was in Haiti yesterday. You
know that the crisis in food access and cost was a very difficult
political challenge for the government there. As the global economic
crisis deepens, the poor face survival challenges. For some of us, it
means we don’t take a vacation or we don’t buy a new TV or a new car.
But for many people through our hemisphere and around the world, it
means the difference between food on the table or nothing at all.
Our
hemisphere produces bountiful harvests. This is a very fruitful region
of the world. But in places of extreme poverty where people subsist on
less than one dollar a day, hunger stalks them. It malnourishes
children. It stunts growth and mental development. The consequences of
hunger show up in homes, workplaces, and schools. We have seen the
effects of malnourished people too weak to work, chronically hungry
children struggling to learn. So food security is not only a source of
suffering. It is a direct threat to economic growth and global
stability.
Based on President Obama’s initiative announced at
the G-20 conference to double food assistance, the United States will be
providing nearly $100 million in food assistance to countries most
affected by hunger in the Western Hemisphere. But our goal must be to
reach the roots, the causes of food insecurity. There’s an old proverb –
yes, alleviate hunger by giving someone a fish, but alleviate long-term
hunger by teaching them how to fish.
What we must do is to
build up the means of sustainable production and distribution. For this,
we must harness the power of agriculture to reduce hunger and drive
economic growth. I can give you two examples. In the 1980s, as recently
as then, Haiti was self-sufficient for food. It even exported. Today, it
imports food. And anyone who has, as I have, flown across this great
island going from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, you see starkly, the
erosion, the lack of trees, the lack of cultivatable land. And then you
cross the border and you see green.
We can look at Brazil and
its success through investments and agricultural research and
entrepreneurial farming to see the possibilities. Through our collective
efforts, we can bring to bear technical assistance, research and
technology, education and training to increase agricultural productivity
and access to markets, to reduce food insecurity. This is one of our
goals throughout the hemisphere, and in particular, Haiti. And it’s one
of the areas that we are going to look to partner with the Dominican
Republic in helping to achieve progress.
The third area is
perhaps the most fundamental of all. It is hard for people to escape
poverty or fulfill their potential when they’re not physically safe in
their homes and neighborhoods, their schools, their workplaces, or on
the roads traveling for commerce or pleasure. So none of the advances
that we make can be achieved without improvements in public safety and
efforts to stem all forms of violence, including violence in the home.
We all think about the violence that the drug traffickers bring with
them, and this must be our highest priority. The United States must work
to reduce demand for drugs and stem the flow of guns and drug profits
traveling from our country for use in the drug trade.
To that
end, President Obama recently announced measures to ensure that our
country is doing all we can along the Mexican border. In Mexico, when I
had the privilege of visiting, I announced that the United States was
pledging additional resources to support training, equipment, and other
means of bolstering President Calderon’s courageous struggle against the
drug traffickers. This is part of the Merida Initiative, to improve
security in Central America, an $875 million dollar commitment over two
years.
As we do more in Mexico and Central America, however,
we know we face threats in the Caribbean. I had discussions about this
with both President Preval and President Fernandez. That is why we are
planning a strategic security dialogue with the Caribbean countries to
confront rising crime, illicit trafficking, and border security issues,
like disaster preparedness.
The organized criminal networks
operating throughout the hemisphere are adapting, and we must adapt as
well. We have a very high proportion of young people in Latin America
and the Caribbean. These young people are on the front lines, as those
watching us today on the internet are, for online civil society. And I
believe the young people of this hemisphere have untold power to stop
the drug trafficking that goes on that undermines their communities,
their safety, intimidates and corrupts governments and institutions.
In
Mexico I announced that the United States will support a summit, the
Alliance of Youth Movements, to connect young people working to end
violence throughout Latin America. We can all learn from the example of
Colombia, where an unemployed, 33-year-old engineer, armed with his
laptop computer, was able to organize the largest public protest in
history against the drug cartels, and diminish their power. People
talking to one another across the internet, saying, enough, we will not
take any more of this, coming together intimidated the drug traffickers.
This is something that we can do and empower across our hemisphere. And
it engages people at all levels of society, of all backgrounds and
groups. All you need is to be able to log on to be part of civil
society.
And it’s not only with respect to drug traffickers,
but also domestic violence, local criminality, corrupt public officials.
We need to be sharing information that comes to the attention of alert
and active citizens.
Now, these three areas are just a part of
our broad, shared agenda. There are so many opportunities for us to
work together and to learn from one another. In Port-au-Prince
yesterday, in meeting with President Preval and Haitian leaders, I
listened to what they need to help their country recover from the
combined devastation of four hurricanes last year, plus the global
recession. Earlier at the Haiti Donors Conference in Washington, I
announced that the United States will offer non-emergency, targeted
assistance to help Haiti regain its momentum.
We need to
rebuild their infrastructure and create jobs and enhance security. This
is in the Dominican Republic’s best interests, in the interests of the
people of Haiti and the United States, and the entire Caribbean region.
In
the 15 years since my husband first hosted the very beginning of the
Summit of Americas process in Miami, our world has become more connected
and interdependent. We live in a globalized society. It shrinks
distance. It collapses time zones. It erases borders. It transcends
oceans. It integrates people from every country and every continent
through media, travel, trade, and popular culture.
Now, while
some bristle at the challenges this new global landscape presents, it
also offers unprecedented opportunities for cooperation, collaboration,
and fresh approaches to solving problems from extreme poverty to climate
change, from drug trafficking to trade. I see that at work right here
in the Dominican Republic. I asked President Fernandez earlier today to
work with us and other leaders in Central America and the Caribbean, to
be a bridge so that we can begin to build that bridge to the future, to a
better tomorrow. Our leaders are essential for that process, but it is
people who will decide what progress we make. It is people who will
either be complacent or active; people who will be acquiescent or
protesting of what they see as unfair conditions or poor governance or
corruption that literally takes food from their tables and undermines
their futures.
I want to see a hemisphere in which, working
together, we give every single boy or girl the chance to live up to his
or her God-given potential. That is our promise and that is our hope.
And I look forward to working with you to achieve it. Thank you very
much. (Applause.)
MODERATOR: We will now open the
floor for those who placed a question prior to today’s events on the
town hall website, and for those attending that have previously
requested to place a question.
Our first question comes from the Republic – attending. Mr. Armando Manzueta has the first question.
QUESTION:
(Via interpreter) In Latin America, there are more than 30 million
people who have never gone to school. In addition, there are not a
sufficient number of schools to correctly transmit the necessary
knowledge base to reach a universal primary education level. Given this,
what policies will the Obama Administration promote regarding education
for the region?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much
for that question. And I think, as I said, education is the lynchpin of
progress. It unleashes the potential of young people and, with lifelong
learning, even older people. That’s why we will commit $30 million in
education projects in the region, because we are well aware, Armando, of
what you said. You said that there are people out of school, there
aren’t enough schools. We would like to see a commitment in the
hemisphere, by countries that are willing to participate with us, to an
education planning process, where each country could come with what the
needs are, and we could borrow from one another about what the answers
could be. For example, I mentioned programs in Mexico and Brazil that
have solved some of the problem of getting children into school and
keeping children in school by literally paying the families. And the
families – the children have to attend school, their report cards have
to be reviewed, they have to have medical checkups to make sure they can
see and they can hear and they don’t have other problems that interfere
with learning. That’s a model that we are very interested in.
In
the building of schools, what is the most cost-effective way to build
schools? It may differ in the Dominican Republic than it does in Haiti
or in Bolivia, but we need to find the most cost-effective ways to
build, equip, and provide for actual schools.
We need to do
more online. We need to have more online learning. Now, that may not
reach the poorest children, but eventually, over time, it could. There
are decreasing costs associated with electronic equipment that if we had
a curriculum and we had people able to access that, we could reach more
people in that way.
Finally, we’re going to launch this
Inter-American Social Protection Network. Education will be part of it.
That’s why I’m talking about a sort of summit within that to be able to
look to see what we can do, how we can do it, what role the United
States can be of help. But let’s learn what’s worked. There are many
different approaches to the same goal. And let’s make this a very high
priority. We should aim to meet the Millennium Development goals. We
should aim to make sure that no child is without education in our
hemisphere as soon as possible. We should set a realistic goal and
benchmarks toward achieving that.
But we also have to do
something else. We have to make sure that families appreciate and
respect the role of education. One of our challenges in the United
States is that Hispanic youngsters drop out of school at a much higher
rate than any other group of American children in the United States.
Many of them drop out – we have about a 50 percent drop-out rate in high
school of Hispanic youngsters. Many of them drop out because families
want them to go to work. We have to persuade families that investing in
the education of their children is a good payoff for them, which is why
these programs in Mexico and Brazil actually pay families so that they
don’t forgo the income. They get paid to send their children to school.
So let’s come with good ideas, and let’s try to come up with a plan, and then work toward achieving it.
MODERATOR:
The second question comes from Juan, writing from Cuba. Juan asks:
Don’t you think that if you suspend the embargo of the Government of
Cuba, it would put an end to leadership’s excuses for hiding the
failures of the regime?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Juan, as
you probably know, earlier this week, President Obama announced the most
significant policy changes toward Cuba in decades. And we are
continuing to look for more productive ways forward in dealing with
Cuba, because President Obama and I and the Administration view the
present policy toward Cuba as having failed.
You are familiar
with President Obama’s view that engagement is a useful tool to advance
our national interests and the goals of promoting human rights and
democracy and prosperity and progress. And I don’t know if Juan, who I
hope is watching and listening to us, knew that earlier today Raul
Castro made some comments, comments which we have seen. We welcome his
comments – the overture that they represent – and we’re taking a very
serious look at how we intend to respond.
So I’m very aware of
the point of Juan’s question about how both sides need to address the
differences that exist between us, and we see Raul Castro’s comments as a
very welcome overture.
MODERATOR: The following
question is from Pedro Reynaldo Peyton in Brazil and was submitted
online. Pedro writes: How can we strengthen our commercial relations in
the Americas when we are living with an international crisis that has
significantly weakened consumption and when countries are retuning to
protectionist practices greater than ever before?
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, I am very concerned about the substance of Pedro’s question –
because I think he accurately describes the dangers that we confront
right now. However, I believe that the collective action taken at the
G-20, the pledge of $1.1 trillion, the emphasis on protecting vulnerable
populations, has made a very strong statement of commitment by the
major economies in the world.
We are going to work very hard
at the Summit of the Americas on the follow-up work coming out of the
G-20. We’re also working very hard under President Obama’s leadership to
get our own economy working again, to get it to recover, so that we can
contribute to prosperity in the region.
We will guard against
protectionist measures and trade barriers, and we think every country
should. I mean, it’s natural in a time of such economic insecurity for
people to look inward, but we can’t afford that. The way we will get
this world back working and producing prosperity and jobs and rising
incomes is if we stay open with one another.
And we have
called on the Inter-American Development Bank to maximize lending at
this time. We have to restart the flow of credit in our hemisphere. I
know that Luis Alberto Morales, the president of the IDB, will be at the
Summit of the Americas. And we’ve got to take collective action within
our own hemisphere. And then, of course, we have to put into place
regulations that prevent this from ever happening again. That is
something that will be critical.
But let me just add one other
point. Even as we deal with this crisis, we’ve got to think about the
future. That is why we think it’s so important to invest in clean,
renewable energy, to take action against climate change, to invest in
education, even when times are as tough as they are. Because that will
set us up so that when the recovery happens, we’re not behind where we
were when the crisis hit.
So part of what we are hoping is
that as countries think about what each can do, investing in clean,
renewable energy is a win-win. It puts people to work and it cuts energy
costs over the long run. Dealing with the effects of climate change,
reforesting areas. I think of Haiti again. Reforesting the watersheds in
Haiti will save Haiti money if we can figure out a plan to be able to
do that.
So we have to make investments today that will pay off tomorrow.
QUESTION: The following question will be placed by Mr. Alan Fernandez in the Dominican Republic.
(Via
interpreter) Given the consistent presence of organized crime and drug
trafficking in many of the countries present at the summit, what is the
role that United States will play in combating these scourges in the
region?
SECRETARY CLINTON: This is such an important
problem, and I thank you for raising it. We spent a lot of our time in
my meeting with President Fernandez and ministers of his government
talking about this.
Well, first of all, we all are making it a
priority. We’re going to talk about it at the Summit of the Americas,
and we’re going to begin a process of coming up with specific plans that
will enable us to address it.
Secondly, the United States has
acknowledged we share responsibility for what is happening in South
America, Central America, and the Caribbean. I said when I was in Mexico
that the demand for drugs in my country fuels the lawlessness that
President Calderon and the people of Mexico are fighting, and the
movement of guns and the money laundering from my country south enables
the drug traffickers to pose such terrible threats to so many. So we
have acknowledged that we have a responsibility and we have to act in
concert with you to try to address this.
There are many
aspects of fighting the drug gangs and the narcotraffickers that we have
to address. On the supply side, we have to do a better job in the
United States. But countries like the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and
others, you must get on top of this supply issue very soon. Because what
drug traffickers will do is try to get people in your country addicted
to drugs, so that if times are tough or they want to make extra money,
they don’t just have to think about the American – the United States
market. They can think about the market nearer to home, safer. So there
must be a public outcry against the drug traffickers trying to addict
young people in all of the countries of the region.
We are
looking at better ways to deter and divert and treat and prevent drug
addiction and continuing drug use in our country. We need to share those
ideas.
We have to do a better job training and equipping and
preparing police. We have to root out corruption in police forces, in
the military, in government. It is very tempting – I know that, I had a
long conversation with President Calderon – very tempting when these
drug traffickers offer people money. But the problem is, once you take
money from a drug trafficker, they own you. They own you and they own
your family. You can never escape their reach.
And part of
what we have to do is prevent people in our institutions from falling
into that temptation. That means rule of law, tough judicial systems,
good policing, corrections systems that work.
So we’re going
to have a summit on security in this area in May. The Dominican
Republic, President Fernandez, are leaders of this effort. We’re going
to come up with plans – very specific. The United States will do what we
can to support the plans that individual countries come up with. But we
have to work together. It doesn't do us any good to drive the drug
traffickers out of Colombia if they find a safe haven somewhere else.
President Uribe and the people of Colombia have been incredibly
courageous in battling the drug cartels, so now the drug cartels are not
doing as much business out of Colombia, but they have found other
places. So we must work together on this. We have come too far, too much
progress has been made, to see it corrupted and undermined, and to
create conditions of lawlessness and insecurity for honest, hardworking
people. I know because I remember what it was like when the drug trade
was out of control in New York. And some of you who have gone back and
forth to New York, and some of you who have family in New York, you
remember that. People were afraid to go out of their homes. They had 20
locks on their doors. Thankfully, we have beaten that back in the United
States, but we can’t ever, ever take a break from battling these
ruthless criminals. We will do the very best we can, working with you.
QUESTION:
The next question is from Gilles (inaudible) from Canada and was
submitted online. Gilles wants to know what the U.S. objectives are for
the fifth summit.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we hope that
President Obama and my presence at the summit will clearly illustrate
the change in American policy. We have only been in office a short time,
but we have tried very hard to illustrate clearly the change in
direction that we are pursuing. And this is an important opportunity for
us to address some of the major issues that confront our hemisphere,
where we all face these drug trafficking, insecurity, lawlessness
issues. We face poverty, social inclusion problems, inequality. We face
energy and climate change challenges. We face economic and other
difficult issues that have to do with prosperity and security and
sustainability.
So we are eager to listen and to consult. And
we want to be sure that we come out of this summit with some very
specific plans. It’s important to use this summit, even at this time of
economic downturn, to renew our commitment to shared prosperity, to good
governance and the rule of law, to working together in partnership, and
that’s what we intend to do.
MODERATOR: Due to the
fact that both Secretary Clinton and Dominican President Fernandez will
be shortly boarding their respective air transportation to Trinidad and
Tobago – (laughter) – we only have time for another two questions.
The next question will be placed by Ariel Roberto Contreras Medos in the Dominican Republic.
QUESTION:
(Via interpreter.) In spite of the agreements achieved, especially in
the framework of the Fifth Summit of the Americas and in reference to
the promotion of sustainable environment, what initiatives will be taken
to guarantee the implementation of the agreements achieved?
SECRETARY CLINTON:
Well, let me say that first of all, the United States, with the new
Administration, has recognized our responsibility as the largest
historic emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. This is an abrupt change
from the prior administration. It enables us to take the problem of
climate change and sustainable development seriously and begin to
address it.
Secondly, President Obama is committed to pursuing
domestic legislation that will equip the United States to play our role
in combating greenhouse gas emissions. In the stimulus package that
President Obama introduced and that was passed, we had a lot of money
set aside for renewable energy, to begin becoming more energy efficient,
to refit – retrofit houses and commercial buildings, to weatherize
them, to take what are long overdue steps to begin to do our part. We
also are looking at an economy-wide approach with a cap-and-trade system
that we think makes a lot of sense, that would enable us to reduce our
emissions significantly by – we hope 80 percent by 2050.
Thirdly,
we are very actively engaged in the international arena. There will be
the summit on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of this year. The
President and I jointly appointed a Special Envoy for Climate Change
who’s working with his counterparts around the world. We are going to do
everything we can to get an agreement that includes everybody. Nobody
can be left out. There may be different requirements and maybe different
timetables for developing countries and for the developed world, but
everybody must be in the agreement. And we’ve had very productive
conversations with a number of nations from China to Russia to the
European Union and beyond.
And let me just say a word about
some of the steps that can be taken by countries in this hemisphere.
We’ve got to stop the destruction of the rainforest. The destruction of
the rainforest is a double whammy. It reduces our capacity in the world
through what has been referred to as the lungs that the rainforest
represent to absorb carbon dioxide. And the substituted uses of the
land, primarily for agriculture, emit more greenhouse gas emissions. So
we have to do more to figure how to protect these very precious
resources that are within national boundaries, but have global
consequences.
We also have to do more to help all of us become
energy efficient. The cost of electricity, however it is generated, is a
significant drain on both family and government resources. How do we
get more energy efficiency? We believe, in the United States, that we
could go a long way toward meeting our global goals for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions if we were more energy efficient. No new
source, no new generation, but just use more efficiently what we
currently have. So we will be discussing this at the summit. We’re going
to be looking to work with our partners in the region to chart a clear
path toward a low carbon economy for the future.
MODERATOR:
The next and last question comes from Susana Finger in Argentina and
was submitted online. You probably answered this question already in
your opening statement. But probably it would be good to widen and
broaden your opinion about the question which reads as follow: What
strategies have the Obama Administration elaborated to support
improvement in quality and equality of education in the Americas? And
also, does the U.S. have views toward developing policies of cooperation
for education in the Americas, principally through supplying
technological, professional, and financial resources?
SECRETARY CLINTON:
And the answer to all those questions, Suzanna in Argentina, is yes. We
do intend to be a strong, effective partner on behalf of education. I
mentioned earlier in my remarks, and in response to one of the prior
questions, that we believe in education. We have invested in education
in the region. And we want to make sure that our investments are as
effective as possible. USAID programs have focused on strengthening
primary education. I saw that in action today at the school I visited.
And we want to do more to take best practices.
Two other
programs that I would mention, because they’ll be part of what we look
at when we have our summit meetings, is there’s a program in Jamaica
called Expanding – I think it’s Expanding Educational Horizons – that
works with families to try to help families educate their own children
and to help schools that have child-centered learning programs.
You
know, a child’s first teachers are that child’s parents. And we have to
do more to help parents understand both the value of education and to
feel that they have something to teach their children. I worked for
years in a program that I learned about in Israel that helped train
mothers, illiterate mothers, who had never been to school. They were
mostly immigrants to Israel from Ethiopia and other African countries.
And they were given skills to teach their own children, very basic
skills that paid off once they got to school.
The program in
Jamaica has proven results in literacy and better mathematical skills.
There is a program in Mexico that I have seen the results of where we
help young people get better trained as teachers. And of course, the
seed programs where we try to bring more people together to universities
so that they can get trained. We want to do all of that.
And
I think it’s important that we hear from people who are watching us and
following this online, as well as here in the audience, what works,
what have you seen? Because too often in education, we go from fad to
fad to fad. We don’t take enough time to let something take root and
actually bear fruit. If somebody has a new product to sell, everybody
doesn’t want to be left behind.
But there is no substitute
for a well trained teacher interacting with a child encouraged to learn
by that child’s family. That’s where the magic takes place. And so we
have to do more to help train our teachers and prepare them and provide
them the equipment, the materials they need. And we have to do more to
change the culture, the mindset in a lot of families, so that children
are encouraged to learn, encouraged to do well in school, they’re
rewarded for that. And I think that we’ll find some very positive
programs that we can help expand and that the United States stands ready
to support.
Rodolfo, thank you so much for moderating it and asking the questions. I appreciate you.
MODERATOR: My pleasure.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you all very much. (Applause.)
