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| <title> - A YEAR INTO THE PANDEMIC: THE STATE OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT</title> | |
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| [House Hearing, 117 Congress] | |
| [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] | |
| A YEAR INTO THE PANDEMIC: THE STATE OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| HEARING | |
| BEFORE THE | |
| SUBCOMMITTEE ON | |
| INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND GLOBAL | |
| CORPORATE SOCIAL IMPACT | |
| OF THE | |
| COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS | |
| HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES | |
| ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS | |
| FIRST SESSION | |
| __________ | |
| MARCH 10, 2021 | |
| __________ | |
| Serial No. 117-6 | |
| __________ | |
| Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs | |
| [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] | |
| Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov, | |
| or http://www.govinfo.gov | |
| ______ | |
| U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE | |
| 43-773PDF WASHINGTON : 2022 | |
| COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS | |
| GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York, Chairman | |
| BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking | |
| ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey Member | |
| GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey | |
| THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida STEVE CHABOT, Ohio | |
| KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania | |
| WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts DARRELL ISSA, California | |
| DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois | |
| AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York | |
| JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas ANN WAGNER, Missouri | |
| DINA TITUS, Nevada BRIAN MAST, Florida | |
| TED LIEU, California BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania | |
| SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania KEN BUCK, Colorado | |
| DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee | |
| ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota MARK GREEN, Tennessee | |
| COLIN ALLRED, Texas ANDY BARR, Kentucky | |
| ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GREG STEUBE, Florida | |
| ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania | |
| CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas | |
| TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey PETER MEIJER, Michigan | |
| ANDY KIM, New Jersey NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York | |
| SARA JACOBS, California RONNY JACKSON, Texas | |
| KATHY MANNING, North Carolina YOUNG KIM, California | |
| JIM COSTA, California MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida | |
| JUAN VARGAS, California JOE WILSON, South Carolina | |
| VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas RON WRIGHT, Texas | |
| BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois | |
| Sophia Lafarfue, Staff Director | |
| Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director | |
| ------ | |
| Subcommittee on International Development, International Organizations | |
| and Global Corporate Social Impact | |
| JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas, Chairman | |
| SARA JACOBS, California NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York, | |
| BRAD SHERMAN, California Ranking Member | |
| ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey | |
| CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania DARRELL ISSA, California | |
| ANDY KIM, New Jersey LEE ZELDIN, New York | |
| C O N T E N T S | |
| ---------- | |
| Page | |
| WITNESSES | |
| Shah, Rajiv J., President, Rockefeller Foundation, and Former | |
| Administrator, United States Agency For International | |
| Development.................................................... 8 | |
| Glick, Bonnie, Senior Advisor, Center For Strategic and | |
| International Studies, Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School of | |
| Government, Institute of Politics, and Former Deputy | |
| Administrator and Chief Operating Officer, United States Agency | |
| for International Development.................................. 16 | |
| ARTICLE SUBMITTED | |
| The Financial Times from the U.N. Economic Commission forAfrica, | |
| Vera Songwe.................................................... 35 | |
| APPENDIX | |
| Hearing Notice................................................... 45 | |
| Hearing Minutes.................................................. 47 | |
| Hearing Attendance............................................... 48 | |
| A YEAR INTO THE PANDEMIC: THE STATE OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT | |
| Wednesday, March 10, 2021 | |
| House of Representatives, | |
| Subcommittee on International Development, | |
| International Organizations and Global | |
| Corporate Social Impact, | |
| Committee on Foreign Affairs, | |
| Washington, DC. | |
| The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in | |
| room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joaquin Castro | |
| (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. | |
| Mr. Castro [presiding]. The Subcommittee on International | |
| Development, International Organizations and Global Corporate | |
| Social Impact will come to order. | |
| Good morning, everyone. | |
| Two things first. We have members that are coming back from | |
| a vote on a motion to adjourn. And also, we will try to raise | |
| the volume a little bit so we can hear the folks off the | |
| computer a little bit better. | |
| Thank you to our witnesses for being here today for our | |
| hearing entitled, ``A Year into the Pandemic: The State of | |
| International Development.'' | |
| Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a | |
| recess of the committee at any point, and all members will have | |
| 5 days to submit statements, extraneous material, and questions | |
| for the record, subject to the length limitation in the rules. | |
| To insert something into the record, please have your staff | |
| email the document to the previously mentioned address or | |
| contact our subcommittee staff. | |
| As a reminder to members, staff, and all others physically | |
| present in the room, per recent guidance from the Office of the | |
| Attending Physician, masks must be worn at all times during | |
| today's hearing, although sometimes we take them off when we | |
| are speaking, and then, put them back on. Please also sanitize | |
| your seating area. The chair views these measures as a safety | |
| issue, and therefore, an important matter of order and decorum | |
| for this proceeding. | |
| As a reminder to members joining remotely, please keep your | |
| video function on at all times, even when you are not | |
| recognized by the chair. Members are responsible for muting and | |
| unmuting themselves, and please remember to mute yourself after | |
| you finish speaking. Consistent with H.Res. 8 and the | |
| accompanying regulations, staff will only mute members and | |
| witnesses, as appropriate, when they are not under recognition | |
| to eliminate background noise. | |
| I see that we have a quorum, and I will now recognize | |
| myself for opening remarks. | |
| Thank you all for joining us today for this subcommittee's | |
| first hearing. I would like to thank Ranking Member Malliotakis | |
| and welcome all our subcommittee members, particularly members | |
| who are new to the Foreign Affairs Committee and to Congress. | |
| Our work will benefit from your unique perspectives and | |
| important contributions. | |
| It has been 1 year since the COVID-19 pandemic changed our | |
| lives. Since then, we have all seen the world, and our standing | |
| in it, disrupted in ways we could hardly once imagine. The | |
| pandemic has created new challenges and exposed old weaknesses | |
| in America's capabilities abroad. | |
| Our infrastructure for international development has been | |
| no exception to that. The United States contributions to global | |
| development, through USAID, the State Department, and our | |
| support for international organizations, such as the United | |
| Nations, as well as through the private sector, civil society, | |
| and the generosity of individual Americans, have all done | |
| incalculable good around the world. Now, however, these | |
| programs and institutions find themselves at a turning point. | |
| This hearing will serve to assess the damage, to identify | |
| developmental programs that may be at particular risk, and to | |
| chart a path toward rebuilding our Nation's development | |
| capacity. | |
| As we begin to see the end of the pandemic in sight, we | |
| expect some of our capacity to bounce back naturally, as our | |
| people return to work in person, both in Washington and around | |
| the world. However, we must also identify areas in which the | |
| damage the pandemic caused threatens to be permanent, and then, | |
| work to direct resources toward rebuilding more resilient | |
| development systems that can survive the known and unknown | |
| crises to come. | |
| This task is more important than ever. Rebuilding from | |
| COVID may well be as difficult and challenging as defeating the | |
| virus itself. Global poverty has risen for the first time in | |
| decades, and the pandemic's economic impact may last years in | |
| nations already suffering from high levels of inequality, | |
| instability, and underdevelopment. | |
| Our government's efforts to foster development must address | |
| not just the direct impacts of the pandemic, but its secondary | |
| and even tertiary effects. Congress has already taken an | |
| important first step. Today, we will pass the American Rescue | |
| Plan Act, a bill that will bring much-needed relief to the | |
| American people. The bill also includes important funding for | |
| development priorities that I and this committee have been | |
| calling for. | |
| That includes, for example, almost $10 billion for health | |
| programs, disaster relief, economic support, humanitarian | |
| assistance, multilateral assistance, and The Global Fund, an | |
| important international organization that has led the fight | |
| against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and now, COVID-19. This hearing | |
| will inform our subcommittee's oversight over these programs. | |
| It will also identify the long-term impacts of a pandemic, | |
| which I believe our Nation must lead in addressing. Early child | |
| development is one clear example of an issue that will have | |
| long-term consequences if we do not address it now. We know | |
| that the acute food insecurity faced by many children today | |
| will have a lifelong impact. Schools for nearly 170 million | |
| children have been closed for a year. Millions of children will | |
| never return to school, and most of them will be girls. | |
| The impact of this pandemic so early in the lives of | |
| millions at home and around the world will affect health, | |
| education, and economic incomes for their entire lives, unless | |
| action is taken now. These impacts will be borne by entire | |
| societies and, indeed, by the world. | |
| Our commitment to international development has always been | |
| bipartisan, particularly in Congress, where we successfully | |
| resisted cuts for the last 4 years. This bipartisanship will be | |
| essential for us to meet the challenges of this important | |
| moment. | |
| If nothing else, COVID-19 has made clear that what happens | |
| over there affects us over here. Weak health care systems or | |
| poverty and instability that fuel extremism can all too easily | |
| reach our shores. | |
| With these new challenges ahead of us, USAID must be | |
| willing to innovate and adapt to the very changed world we now | |
| inhabit. I have every faith that, with the proper resources and | |
| support, they will be up to the task. | |
| I solicit the courage of America's international | |
| development work force that is in the field every single day. | |
| They are a critically important part of advancing our national | |
| interests and defending our national security, serving their | |
| country often in remote locations and under difficult | |
| circumstances. | |
| Our challenge now is not only to defeat the pandemic | |
| everywhere, but also redouble our efforts to battle humanity's | |
| shared enemies--poverty, hunger, and disease--in partnership | |
| with peoples from around the world. | |
| So, there is a lot of ground to cover this morning, and I | |
| look forward to hearing from each of our distinguished | |
| witnesses. | |
| But, before that, I would like to turn it over to our | |
| Ranking Member Malliotakis for her opening remarks. | |
| Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you, Chairman Castro. It is an honor | |
| to serve as ranking member of this subcommittee. I look forward | |
| to working with you and the rest of the committee members to | |
| conduct important oversight of our development programs and the | |
| United States' engagement in international organizations. | |
| Over 2.5 million people around the world have died as a | |
| result of the COVID-19 pandemic. That includes over 500,000 | |
| Americans. The pandemic has devastated communities and | |
| families, including many in my district. It has also had a | |
| crippling effect on food security, education systems, and | |
| global supply chains. | |
| The creation of this subcommittee comes at a pivotal time. | |
| To date, the United States has given $3.6 billion to help | |
| control the spread and mitigate the impacts of COVID-19, and | |
| there is another $10 billion on the way through the American | |
| Rescue Plan. | |
| Global efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 make us safer | |
| here at home, especially as variants begin to emerge. We must | |
| continue to invest in global health security and ensure other | |
| countries can detect and respond to global health threats | |
| before outbreaks become a pandemic and reach our shores. | |
| However, Americans here at home are struggling to pay their | |
| bills and feed their families. There is justified skepticism | |
| about our international spending with the immense needs here at | |
| home. We have an obligation to conduct rigorous oversight of | |
| U.S. foreign assistance and development programs. Every dollar | |
| of our aid must be targeted, strategic, and effective. | |
| Unfortunately, the House Foreign Affairs Committee did not | |
| have the opportunity to mark up and debate the $10 billion | |
| foreign affairs title in the American Rescue Plan. During the | |
| Rules Committee markup, I offered a common-sense amendment to | |
| transfer funding from The Global Health Fund to ensure vaccines | |
| are available for all our diplomats and developmental | |
| professionals. Effective development requires getting out in | |
| the field and monitoring programs. We simply cannot expect our | |
| diplomatic service to do their jobs overseas without urgent | |
| access to vaccines. I would appreciate hearing from our | |
| witnesses what more we should be doing to ensure the safety of | |
| our work force overseas. | |
| I am also particularly concerned about the impact of this | |
| pandemic on developing economies and international trade. The | |
| International Monetary Fund declared this crisis the worst | |
| economic fallout since the Great Depression. It is estimated | |
| that the pandemic has cost the global economy $11 trillion and | |
| global trade has declined 9.2 percent. | |
| Latin America and the Caribbean will experience the worst | |
| economic contraction in the region's history. These | |
| contractions not only hurt local communities, but they also | |
| impact United States businesses looking to invest in emerging | |
| markets. The world's fastest growing companies are located in | |
| the global south, and many of them were hard hit by this | |
| pandemic. | |
| USAID has done critical work over the last two decades to | |
| promote economic prosperity, build the capacity of trade | |
| partners, and create the environment for U.S. private sector | |
| investment. The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to undermine these | |
| gains, as backsliding and food security, health and economic | |
| systems, and governance ultimately hurts the investment climate | |
| and acts to commercial markets. I would appreciate hearing from | |
| the witnesses on how our development programs can address these | |
| issues. | |
| Ultimately, foreign aid alone is not going to solve | |
| development challenges. Our development programs must be | |
| designed as partnerships, with the goal of creating stable, | |
| self-reliance communities that do not need foreign aid. That is | |
| why I support the important role of the U.S. private sector in | |
| building infrastructure, creating jobs, and advancing | |
| sustainable solutions to development challenges, both here and | |
| abroad. | |
| Finally, the U.S. is not the only country offering aid. The | |
| Chinese Communist Party, who actively sought to undermine early | |
| investigations into the COVID-19 outbreak, is leveraging this | |
| pandemic to project their power and influence. Through | |
| shipments of the Sinopharm vaccine, faulty PPE, and by holding | |
| the purse strings of countries' debt relief, the CCP is looking | |
| to expand their Belt and Road Initiative, and ultimately, their | |
| influence in foreign capitals. | |
| That is why USAID must ensure that this aid and our | |
| development programs are clearly branded as a gift from the | |
| American people. The United States is the most generous nation | |
| in the world, but we have a duty to the American taxpayer to | |
| ensure that our aid is targeted, strategic, and maximizing the | |
| positive impacts of every dollar we spend. | |
| Again, I look forward to listening to the witnesses, and I | |
| thank them for being here. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you, Ranking Member Malliotakis. | |
| I will now introduce our distinguished witnesses for today. | |
| Our witnesses for today's hearing are Dr. Rajiv Shah, the | |
| president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and the former | |
| Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International | |
| Development, and Bonnie Glick, senior advisor at the Center for | |
| Strategic and International Studies, and fellow at the Harvard | |
| Kennedy School, who is also the former Deputy Administrator and | |
| Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Agency for International | |
| Development. | |
| I will now recognize each witness for 5 minutes. And | |
| without objection, your prepared written statements will be | |
| made part of the record. | |
| And I will first call on Dr. Shah for his testimony. I | |
| think perhaps you are on mute, Dr. Shah. | |
| STATEMENT OF DR. RAJIV J. SHAH, PRESIDENT, ROCKEFELLER | |
| FOUNDATION, AND FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR | |
| INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, | |
| Dr. Shah. Sorry, it seems I do that all day long. | |
| Thank you, Chairman Castro, for having me, and thank you, | |
| Ranking Member Malliotakis, for your opening statement and for | |
| having me as well. | |
| I see so many members of this subcommittee with whom I have | |
| had the chance to work when I served at USAID as the | |
| Administrator there for nearly 6 years. And I am thrilled to | |
| report that, during that period of time, I experienced an | |
| exceptional level of bipartisan support for the basic idea that | |
| American leadership around the world, particularly on disease, | |
| on hunger, and on creating opportunity for the world's most | |
| vulnerable people, became an area of strong bipartisan | |
| consensus, and I hope that tradition continues forward. | |
| American leadership to tackle the crisis that had been | |
| identified by both the chairman and the ranking member in their | |
| opening statements will be absolutely critical; in fact, more | |
| needed now than ever, as we look to the future. | |
| When I left USAID, I served in the private sector for a | |
| while, and now, I run the Rockefeller Foundation, which has, | |
| for more than 100 years worked to build public-private | |
| partnerships and leverage science, technology, and innovation | |
| to lift up those who are vulnerable. And I think we have | |
| learned through those efforts that, in fact, American | |
| leadership is indispensable on the global stage when it comes | |
| to tackling the challenges in front of us. And I would like to | |
| highlight three of those challenges that I believe warrant | |
| urgent leadership from the United States and from its foreign | |
| aid and assistance institutions. | |
| The first, of course, is COVID. And while more than a half | |
| a million Americans have, tragically, been lost to this crisis, | |
| we know that millions have died around the world, and we know | |
| that, frankly, the crisis will continue for a much longer | |
| period of time in developing and emerging nations than in the | |
| United States, if current trends around vaccination, access to | |
| therapeutics, and the ability to be safe hold. | |
| We know that, when you look around the world, we will | |
| expect to have large amounts of viral replication and viral | |
| presence and prevalence, even as the United States, hopefully | |
| sometime this year, achieves real herd immunity and starts to | |
| put the pandemic behind us. And that presents two major threats | |
| to the American people and the American economy. | |
| First, estimates have ranged that we will lose $3 to $9 | |
| trillion in economic value from disrupted supply chains and the | |
| presence of the COVID crisis around the world, even when the | |
| United States economy and society recover. | |
| But, second, and perhaps much more worrying, is that new | |
| variants, which are almost certain to become a reality, have no | |
| ability to observe boundaries and borders. New variants already | |
| from the U.K. and South Africa present real risks and threats | |
| in the United States, and we expect that, especially as viral | |
| replication is so much more prominent, four to eight times more | |
| likely in the developing and emerging world than in the United | |
| States, we can expect that those new variants can present a | |
| real risk to the nature of the U.S. economic recovery and to | |
| the health of Americans that would like to put COVID-19 behind | |
| us. | |
| For that reason, it is absolutely urgent that the world | |
| come up with a solution to the funding and operational gaps | |
| that are preventing a full-on effort to tackle COVID-19 in | |
| emerging economies and developing countries. In particular, the | |
| ACT Accelerator, which is the representation of global needs | |
| when it comes to fighting the pandemic, has highlighted a | |
| funding gap this year alone of $23 billion that still exists in | |
| order to help the world mount a full recovery. | |
| The United States has been generous already, assuming the | |
| $4 billion for COVAX and the $10 billion that were referenced | |
| earlier go through and become the reality of law in the United | |
| States. However, the gap still remains. And in order for the | |
| U.S. to lead the world in tackling that gap, we will likely | |
| both have to do more and bring together multilateral partners | |
| through the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and | |
| other institutions where we can use our voice and our | |
| leadership to really solve this funding gap, and ensure that | |
| everyone around the world has access to safe and reliable and | |
| effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, as that will | |
| be critical to tackling COVID-19 around the world. | |
| I look forward to sharing some specific thoughts on how to | |
| do that, but let me just say, from my own experience, I am | |
| convinced that American leadership on that specific topic will | |
| be the only way the world tackles the funding gap that exists | |
| and the only way the world can come together to access the | |
| supplies, the tools, and the technologies needed to beat COVID- | |
| 19 across the planet. | |
| Second, we face a continued hunger pandemic. We have seen | |
| the number of people hungry around the world go up. Acute | |
| hunger is now estimated to be 270 million. I saw firsthand | |
| during famines and crises and droughts how hunger, in | |
| particular, leads to migration, instability, and social | |
| breakdown in ways that present real threats to the United | |
| States and to the global community. Hunger creates instability, | |
| and hunger creates massive amounts of unnecessary suffering. | |
| America has, from the inception of its foreign aid work, | |
| been the world's undisputed leader in fighting hunger, and that | |
| will have to continue. That will mean more resources for the | |
| World Food Program, but it will also mean renewed support for | |
| programs like Feed the Future and efforts to have science and | |
| enterprise-led agricultural development be a major component of | |
| America's leadership in the era going forward. I hope that we | |
| can reinvigorate those efforts and reinvest in those | |
| enterprises and those projects, because, as was mentioned | |
| previously, they have been proven to work. We know how to | |
| measure the results of those efforts, and we know that they | |
| sustainably and reliably help lift up communities. | |
| Finally, there will be the need for much greater assistance | |
| in a coordinated global economic recovery. It is true that | |
| developing countries and emerging economies have been hit hard | |
| by the pandemic, and it is also true that, while we have done | |
| 20 to 30 percent of GDP in fiscal and monetary responses across | |
| wealthier nations, emerging markets have done 6 percent and | |
| developing countries have done less than 2 percent in order to | |
| support a real economic recovery. That is simply not enough, | |
| and it is not done in a coordinated manner. And it will not | |
| allow for a global economic recovery to be full and inclusive. | |
| So, American leadership on that topic, particularly through | |
| partners like the World Bank and the International Monetary | |
| Fund, will be critical to success. | |
| I will close by just saying I have had the chance to speak | |
| to Americans in churches across the country, at universities | |
| like Clemson and Rutgers, and food companies in Minneapolis. | |
| And I am always struck by the fact that most Americans think we | |
| do so much more in foreign aid than we do. The perception is we | |
| do 20 percent of our budget in foreign aid. The reality is we | |
| do 1 percent. And when we explain what we get as results, I am | |
| always amazed by how most American families have expressed even | |
| more support for stronger and more effective American foreign | |
| assistance to deal with the challenges we face. I think the | |
| time is now to make that real and to make it meaningful in the | |
| context of the COVID response. | |
| Thank you. | |
| [The prepared statement of Dr. Shah follows:] | |
| [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you. Thank you very much for your | |
| testimony. | |
| And I think for our witnesses and the members that are | |
| online, at least a minute ago the online timer had gone out. | |
| So, we will try to help you stay on time from here. | |
| But, also, let me go over now to Ms. Glick, and if you want | |
| to take a little extra time also, please feel free. We have | |
| only got two witnesses today, so we should be okay on time. | |
| STATEMENT OF BONNIE GLICK, SENIOR ADVISOR, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC | |
| AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FELLOW, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL OF | |
| GOVERNMENT, INSTITUTE OF POLITICS, AND FORMER DEPUTY | |
| ADMINISTRATOR AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, UNITED STATES AGENCY | |
| FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT | |
| Ms. Glick. Thank you, Chairman Castro; thank you, Ranking | |
| Member Malliotakis, and members of the committee. | |
| I will not speak a million miles an hour then, as I go | |
| forward. | |
| Thank you all for the invitation to speak with the | |
| subcommittee today about some of the challenges facing USAID in | |
| the current environment that includes the COVID-19 pandemic and | |
| the global response to it. | |
| I served as the Deputy USAID Administrator and Chief | |
| Operating Officer of the agency from January 2019 to November | |
| 2020. The remarks I make today are solely in my personal | |
| capacity. | |
| Consistent bipartisan support for U.S. foreign assistance, | |
| regardless of the party in the White House or the majority | |
| party in the House or Senate, has been the hallmark of our | |
| foreign policy and one of the greatest examples of American | |
| generosity that we can point to overseas. The American people | |
| and their representatives understand that, even as we have | |
| domestic needs at home, our lengthy and historic generosity | |
| overseas is never in doubt. | |
| That said, our fiscal well is not bottomless. Priorities | |
| change. Unforeseen crises erupt all the time and call for U.S. | |
| action. Yet, despite the merits of responding to these | |
| challenges, the urgency and the need for flexibility to respond | |
| are constrained as more and more of USAID's programmatic | |
| activities are scripted and predetermined. | |
| Regardless of what else is discussed here today, the | |
| continued failure to address the harmful aspects of | |
| congressional earmarks would be insincere. And while others may | |
| focus on where the U.S. should be funding in the near future, I | |
| want to discuss key issues relating to how the U.S. should fund | |
| and implement these programs. This includes partnerships with | |
| new allied donors as well as with the private sector. It also | |
| includes the increased use of innovation and digital | |
| technologies to apply 21st century solutions to today's | |
| problems. | |
| And while vaccine delivery to developing countries is | |
| clearly a health-related issue, the mechanism that underlies it | |
| is not, a secure and reliable supply chain with redundancy | |
| built into it. USAID has been lucky, since the earliest days of | |
| the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, in | |
| 2003, to have recognized the need to invest in robust and | |
| secure supply chain capabilities. From a U.S. national security | |
| perspective, we must ensure that USAID and other government | |
| agencies focus on the safety and security of the global | |
| distribution of goods by moving to onshore, nearshore, and | |
| allied-shore our manufacturing and production basis. | |
| Because what happens if we do not make these critical | |
| onshore, nearshore, and allied-shore moves? The People's | |
| Republic of China will fill the void. We have seen this time | |
| and again. Development is a key area of our strategic | |
| competition with the PRC. The U.S. needs a development agency | |
| equipped to win that competition, which requires a change in | |
| mindset at USAID and Congress' help to realize the agency's | |
| full potential. | |
| USAID missions spend an enormous amount of time focused on | |
| how a single project can address multiple earmarks, thereby, | |
| allowing dollars generously funded by Congress to extend | |
| further. But this gymnastics exercise diverts attention from | |
| the big-picture funding opportunities, where USAID can be used | |
| as an effective and strategic tool to counter a resurgent | |
| China. USAID will turn 60 this year. I strongly recommend that | |
| USAID think bigger. Larger-scale projects in fewer countries | |
| may be the wave of the next 60 years. | |
| And while USAID focuses on fewer, but larger projects, this | |
| is a perfect opportunity for burden-sharing with our allies and | |
| partners. It is important to discuss the expansion of our | |
| alliances. Given COVID and the trillions of dollars that the | |
| U.S. has taken on in debt for our own relief, it is important | |
| to embrace more and new donors. | |
| We worked closely when I was at USAID, for example, with | |
| Israel, India, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and others to | |
| broaden the tent of donor countries. We should continue in | |
| those efforts, particularly as countries like India move away | |
| from being aid recipients to being aid donors. | |
| We should recognize and celebrate other donors' | |
| contributions. And in the wake of the Abraham Accords, we | |
| should certainly celebrate that donor countries like the UAE | |
| and Israel are now able to collaborate jointly on aid programs | |
| around the world. Fostering this kind of creativity and | |
| creative thinking, particularly by engaging with the private | |
| sector, will go a long way to making the Abraham Accords | |
| permanent and to maintaining a very warm peace. | |
| Creative thinking through partnership with private industry | |
| and through the use of digital technology will also stretch | |
| scarce budget dollars more effectively and assist in job | |
| creation in parts of the world that were terribly impacted | |
| economically by COVID-19. | |
| The non-health imperatives for development are clear. They | |
| include food insecurity, diminished livelihoods, increased out- | |
| migration, and uptick in violence against women, and others | |
| that we haven't even considered yet. USAID should focus its | |
| resources on where it can have the greatest impact and partner | |
| with allied countries when it makes more sense for them to be | |
| the primary donors. If we do not fund jointly with our allies, | |
| we risk ceding the table to China. | |
| We have spent the entirety of the modern era as the most | |
| generous nation in the history of the world. It is a role that | |
| is uniquely American and should remain American. | |
| Thank you very much, and I look forward to the opportunity | |
| to answer your questions. | |
| [The prepared statement of Ms. Glick follows:] | |
| [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you, Ms. Glick, and thank you to both our | |
| witnesses for your testimony. | |
| I will now recognize members for 5 minutes each. And | |
| pursuant to House rules, all time yielded is for the purposes | |
| of questioning our witnesses. Because of the hybrid format of | |
| this hearing, I will recognize members by committee seniority, | |
| alternating between majority and the minority members. If you | |
| miss your turn, please let our staff know, and we will circle | |
| back to you. If you seek recognition, you must unmute your | |
| microphone and address the chair verbally. | |
| And I will start by recognizing myself. | |
| This, of course, is the first hearing of this subcommittee, | |
| and we have a new President and a new Congress. And so, I want | |
| to start off with a broad question for either of our witnesses, | |
| or both of our witnesses, if you would like to take a shot at | |
| it. | |
| The testimony today makes clear that the United States | |
| leadership on development must be an important part of our | |
| global COVID-19 response. In the next few months, the | |
| administration will submit its budget request for Fiscal Year | |
| 2022, and the Congress will review that request. Given the | |
| scale of the challenge described in the testimony today, how | |
| important is it that we see a request for greater funding | |
| levels for development programs? And are there specific | |
| programs where you would put more money or move money? What are | |
| your recommendations? | |
| Dr. Shah. Bonnie, I am happy to start, but I did not want | |
| to interrupt if you were intending to. | |
| I would just say thank you, Chairman, for the question. I | |
| do think American leadership needs to be elevated to tackle the | |
| challenges that exist, and the challenges that exist go far | |
| beyond what American foreign affairs funding is going to be | |
| capable of solving directly. So, for that purpose, I would say | |
| three things. | |
| The first is the budget should be strong and it should be a | |
| reinvestment in building the types of alliances that Bonnie | |
| mentioned and making sure that we lead with our own approach, | |
| which is making bigger investments in tackling COVID-19 around | |
| the world. It is not just buying the vaccines through COVAX, | |
| which we have already made a big commitment to, but also | |
| investing in training community health workers and building out | |
| health systems, so that you really can reach everyone. We | |
| learned during the Ebola crisis in 2014 that that was actually | |
| the critical investment necessary in order to successfully | |
| protect the population from the virus. | |
| I would say, second, programs that have a documented track | |
| record of being public-private partnerships and delivering | |
| results--Feed the Future, Power or Electrify Africa, other | |
| enterprise collaborations that I know Bonnie led when she was | |
| at USAID--are all the types of programs that have real data to | |
| document their effectiveness, and in my view, should be | |
| invested in. | |
| And the final area is around technology and innovation. We | |
| are seeing it right now with American ingenuity being so | |
| critical to the fight against COVID-19. But USAID created the | |
| U.S. Global Development Lab, which has earned strong bipartisan | |
| support from Congress, in order to reinvigorate America's | |
| capability to make innovation, science, and technology a driver | |
| of American foreign assistance. And I hope that that theme can | |
| be extended and carried forward in a much more significant way, | |
| because the challenges we face demand it, and because, frankly, | |
| American companies, American scientists, and American | |
| universities, including students on those university campuses, | |
| are eager to participate in this mission. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you, Dr. Shah. | |
| I have got about a minute 45 seconds under my time left. I | |
| am going to try to keep myself on time. | |
| Ms. Glick, did you want to weigh in? | |
| Ms. Glick. I will just say very quickly that we have never | |
| lived in times like this in modern history. And so, yes, the | |
| focus on COVAX and vaccine distribution is the critical moment | |
| for the short term. As Raj said, it is accurate that being able | |
| to depend on digital technology is going to be vital, and | |
| American ingenuity that comes along with that. | |
| And so, that involves engaging with the private sector, and | |
| it involves, too, an eye toward who else is in this space. And | |
| the answer to that, as I noted, is the People's Republic of | |
| China. And our ability to act alongside our partners and | |
| genuinely with the private sector is going to be the way that | |
| we come up with the best solutions for the world. We have done | |
| this before and we can do it again, but we have to recognize | |
| that there is a disinformation campaign coming out of China | |
| that is discrediting American vaccines--a little bit crazy. | |
| And we have to ensure that our staff, as Raj said, have the | |
| skills and technical ability to roll out distributions | |
| worldwide. Health systems strengthening is something that | |
| helped save countless lives in Ebola in 2014 and in Ebola today | |
| in the eastern Congo. And investing in those systems is going | |
| to be what helps us get through COVID worldwide. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you, Ms. Glick. | |
| All right. Ranking Member Malliotakis? | |
| Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you very much. I very much | |
| appreciate the testimony. It was enlightening. And I just had a | |
| few questions. | |
| My first question is really about, because both of you come | |
| from USAID, and my first question would be, based on your | |
| experience there, what kind of safeguards can we put in place | |
| just to make sure that the money is used most effectively. As I | |
| said in my remarks, our aid needs to be targeted. It needs to | |
| be strategic. It needs to be impactful. Do you have any | |
| recommendations on what we could be doing to ensure that? | |
| Ms. Glick. I will jump on this one. Ranking Member | |
| Malliotakis, one of the most important things is the | |
| partnership that USAID has with Congress and the relationship | |
| that AID has with the Members to understand what we are doing | |
| in foreign assistance and how it impacts your districts. And | |
| so, the congressional oversight that you and your staffs | |
| demonstrate is always going to be something that helps keep | |
| USAID on the ball in terms of being able to respond to the | |
| needs while also being responsible stewards of taxpayer | |
| dollars. | |
| Dr. Shah. I would just quickly add that I do think there | |
| are a handful of programs, perhaps more than a handful, where | |
| USAID sets the standard on measuring results and documenting | |
| performance. And I think you can learn from those efforts and | |
| extend those practices across the full range of American | |
| foreign assistance efforts. | |
| One of the benefits of strong bilateral assistance | |
| programs, like many of the ones that USAID implements--and | |
| frankly, where the Rockefeller Foundation and others partner | |
| with USAID and so many others--is you can go out and do surveys | |
| at the beginning of a project and understand the nature of the | |
| population you are trying to serve. And then, you can do annual | |
| assessments, and three or four or 5 years later, do end-of- | |
| project assessments, and actually quantify the impact you are | |
| having. | |
| We do this every day at the Rockefeller Foundation, which | |
| is how we know the 500,000 people we serve in northern India | |
| with renewable electricity access have used that access to | |
| increase their incomes by 60-70 percent and create new jobs and | |
| launch new businesses and enterprises. And that basic | |
| discipline is, I think, critical to this entire field, no | |
| matter which institution is charged with the responsibility of | |
| carrying it out. | |
| Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you. | |
| How can we best work with America's private sector? I know | |
| that so many companies or global entities, that they are | |
| building infrastructure; they are creating jobs; they are | |
| advancing sustainable solutions. How can we best utilize them | |
| as partners? Either one of you want to answer that? | |
| Ms. Glick. I think one of the most important things that we | |
| did at USAID when I was there was to highlight the role of the | |
| private sector in development. And as part of the aid | |
| transformation, we set up a private sector engagement hub, so | |
| that there is a one-stop shop for private companies of all | |
| sizes--large corporates down to small businesses--in the United | |
| States, so that they can become involved in the delivery of | |
| foreign assistance around the world. It is job creator for us | |
| here at home, but it is also recognition that the private | |
| sector is the strongest force in world history for lifting | |
| people's lives and for giving people livelihoods that they can | |
| depend on for themselves and for their families. And so, that | |
| added focus at USAID has been something that I would recommend | |
| leveraging into the future. | |
| Dr. Shah. And I would add I agree entirely with Bonnie, and | |
| I think there are two additional tools that I would ask | |
| Congress to support as much as possible. One is, during my | |
| tenure, we used a tool called the Global Development Alliance | |
| Structure that allowed USAID to partner with the private | |
| sector, frankly, in more creative ways than many other parts of | |
| the U.S. Government. And while that is a small share of USAID | |
| programming, I hope it can grow into a larger share. | |
| And the second one is the U.S. Global Development Lab. By | |
| creating a lab that focused on building technology partnerships | |
| and bringing kind of modern science to the tasks at hand, we | |
| were able to build partnerships with firms that we otherwise | |
| would not have been able to, and frankly, attract a certain | |
| kind of talent to the institution in a way that is unique. So, | |
| I would call out both of those tools in addition. | |
| Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you. I had one more question, but I | |
| will go---- | |
| Mr. Castro. Go ahead. Sure. | |
| Ms. Malliotakis. The chairman is being gracious with our | |
| time. | |
| I did have one last question regarding the supply chain, if | |
| you had any thoughts on COVID's impact on the supply chain, | |
| both from a manufacturing and a distribution standpoint? You | |
| may or may not. I just thought I would throw it out there to | |
| see if you--both of you are very wise and perhaps have your own | |
| recommendations there in how we can address that issue. | |
| Dr. Shah. Maybe I will jump in on this. I do think, if you | |
| look at the estimates of what will cause disruption to the | |
| global economy post-the United States and other industrial | |
| nations achieving herd immunity through vaccination, it is the | |
| sanctity of global supply chains that are causing the estimates | |
| to be between $3 and $9 trillion of economic loss as a result | |
| of, basically, disrupted supply chains. | |
| USAID has lots of partnerships with companies as parts of | |
| its programs that build and support those types of supply | |
| chains. So, I think that is yet another reason why the | |
| institution should be sort of strengthened and invested in in | |
| this period going forward, which, frankly, will be a longer | |
| period than I think most people realize. It is not just a | |
| threat for 6 months or 12 months. It is probably a threat for | |
| three to 5 years, because that is, most likely, the timeframe | |
| required to really get ahead of COVID-19 in the emerging world. | |
| Mr. Castro. All right. | |
| Ms. Glick. Let me just add to that, real quick, that the | |
| criticality of securing the supply chain, which is the most | |
| sophisticated supply chain on earth and capable of delivering | |
| lifesaving medications to the village level around the world, | |
| the criticality of investing in that, and also, ensuring that, | |
| through onshoring, nearshoring, and allied-shoring our products | |
| and manufacturing from the United States and our allies to | |
| bring it closer to the village level, is what is going to make | |
| a monumental difference in being able to distribute vaccines | |
| and everything else that is needed to rebuild global economies. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you. | |
| All right. I am going to go now to the vice chair of the | |
| subcommittee, Representative Jacobs. | |
| Ms. Jacobs. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. | |
| And thank you to our witnesses for being here. | |
| I want to go to a specific problem that we are seeing | |
| around the world. I think the pandemic has exposed just how | |
| difficult digital learning can be, both here in the U.S. and | |
| abroad. But it is not new. USAID and others have had many | |
| programs over the years to distribute computers and tablets and | |
| internet connectivity to underserved communities. In my | |
| estimation, some of these programs, such as One Laptop Per | |
| Child, sound really great in theory, but when you actually look | |
| at the data, have had very mixed successes. | |
| And so, I was wondering, in both of your opinions, if you | |
| think USAID is adequately applying the lessons learned from | |
| those past failures in digital learning projects to meet these | |
| new challenges, what you think those lessons are and what more | |
| we can do here to ensure, as we are implementing these | |
| projects, we are doing it in the best way possible. | |
| Ms. Glick. So, one of the areas of extreme focus when I was | |
| USAID, because I came from a technology background, was a focus | |
| on digital technology in the application and rollout of USAID | |
| programs. In order for the agency to be equipped for the 21st | |
| century, we launched a digital strategy 11 months ago. It was | |
| supposed to be in person and, of course, it was virtual, which | |
| seems appropriate, of course. | |
| And what we have focused on is an approach at USAID that is | |
| digital first. Look for ways to apply solutions using digital | |
| technologies that are available. But the critical technology | |
| that has to reach the shores of the developing countries in | |
| order for countries to become self-reliant and competitive in | |
| global markets is 5G. And in order for 5G to be rolled out in a | |
| democratic manner, one of the things that we focused on was | |
| ensuring that secure 5G solutions were available around the | |
| world. We can get into the software that can enable this as | |
| well as the infrastructure, but 5G, and secure 5G, is the | |
| critical element for digital technology in bringing education, | |
| job opportunities, et cetera, to emerging markets. | |
| Ms. Jacobs. Former Administrator Shah, do you have anything | |
| to add, particularly on how we are getting these digital | |
| learning techniques out to the hardest-to-reach students around | |
| the world? | |
| Dr. Shah. Well, I want to thank you for the question. | |
| During my time there, I found that it is true that some | |
| programs that get a lot of visibility were not necessarily able | |
| to deliver quite as much. But there are plenty of efforts | |
| within U.S. investments in education access that were quietly | |
| very successful at getting new tools and technologies to very, | |
| very remote communities, and I had a chance to visit many of | |
| them, one in rural Nepal, for example. And I was struck by both | |
| the effectiveness and the measurement they had put in place to | |
| track third and fourth grade literacy and match scores | |
| associated with that, and made that a sort of practice we try | |
| to replicate broadly. | |
| The other thing I would say is this is not the kind of task | |
| that I think America should try to handle in just a bilateral | |
| context. Investing in digitalization and digital | |
| infrastructure, broadband access, and 5G is a task that America | |
| can help lead together with the World Bank, and potentially, | |
| together with the use of certain types of IMF resources that | |
| seem like they will be made available to lower-income nations, | |
| because this can all be part of a focused recovery effort to | |
| restart the economy and create kind of a jobs-rich economic | |
| recovery in many emerging economies. So, I hope that the | |
| approach can be bilateral and multilateral. | |
| Ms. Jacobs. Great. Thank you. | |
| My next question is kind of addressing that poverty. We | |
| have seen that this pandemic has erased 10 years of the income | |
| gains for the first time since the 1990's, and global poverty | |
| rates are increasing, as you have mentioned in your testimony. | |
| I was wondering, besides additional funding, which I think we | |
| all recognize is an issue, what more can USAID programs be | |
| doing, with our partners or otherwise, to combat poverty, and | |
| what can we do to support USAID to meet those goals? | |
| Dr. Shah. Well, maybe I will start with that. I think there | |
| are two big things I think that we can do besides funding. The | |
| first is really work with multilateral institutions to | |
| coordinate the impact of rescue and recovery packages. So, for | |
| example, if the International Monetary Fund is able to provide | |
| an allocation of what are called special drawing rights, but, | |
| basically, new resources to emerging economies, in that | |
| context, it would be great to see USAID and other bilateral | |
| institutions sort of partnering with the World Bank and the IMF | |
| and the development banks to make sure those many billions of | |
| dollars are deployed effectively and are really focused on the | |
| response and the recovery. | |
| I think the second component is making sure that we have a | |
| longer time horizon on these efforts. There is a big risk that | |
| the programming we do is sort of 1-year timeframe kind of | |
| programming. And the reality is the recovery needed to avoid | |
| the loss of two decades of human development progress is going | |
| to take five, six, seven, 8 years. And I would love to see more | |
| long-term thinking applied because this moment calls for it. | |
| Otherwise, as you point out, we will lose one or two decades of | |
| progress fighting poverty, fighting disease, and fighting the | |
| lack of educational access for girls across the world. | |
| Ms. Glick. And I agree wholeheartedly with that, and | |
| particularly, working with multilateral institutions. One of | |
| the things that we saw in the fall meetings at the World Bank | |
| was a call by World Bank President Malpass for debt relief for | |
| the poorest countries that have been impacted by COVID. And | |
| this is an area, too, where these same countries that have been | |
| so severely impacted on many levels have been impacted because | |
| they have bought into the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, and | |
| they are heavily, heavily indebted to the People's Republic of | |
| China. It is a great opportunity for the world to focus on debt | |
| relief for the most indebted countries and to call on the | |
| People's Republic of China for debt relief. | |
| Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. I yield back. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you. | |
| We will go now to Representative Issa. | |
| Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Ms. Glick, under your leadership at USAID, the agency | |
| developed key strategies and policy documents such as the | |
| Digital Strategy and Private Sector Engagement Policy. And you | |
| comment on recommendations for the Biden administration to | |
| continue or expand your initiatives? | |
| Ms. Glick. Congressman Issa, thank you so much for the | |
| question, and it is really an important one for all | |
| administrations to recognize. I worked hard at USAID to bring | |
| it into the 21st century. And I am hopeful that the | |
| noncontroversial, highly lauded efforts that were undertaken to | |
| engage with the private sector as true partners around using | |
| digital tools to deliver development, including the recognition | |
| that 5G is an imperative, not just for developed economies, but | |
| for emerging markets, too, I hope and I trust that the momentum | |
| behind these efforts carries forward. | |
| We socialized private sector engagement in our approach to | |
| 5G, to food distribution, to supply chain management, with | |
| other donors, as well as across the U.S. Government. We had a | |
| particular engagement with the Federal Communications | |
| Commission. In fact, I signed an MOU with former FCC Chair Ajit | |
| Pai to have our two agencies collaborate on the rollout of 4G | |
| and 5G systems to developing countries. | |
| There is broad recognition that in the 21st century no | |
| country will develop if it does not have appropriate digital | |
| tools and if children are not educated on the use of these | |
| tools. So, this is where USAID can partner effectively with the | |
| private sector, particularly with local private sectors, to | |
| deliver solutions worldwide. | |
| For the Biden team, I will just say that the career staff | |
| at USAID is excited and more than capable to continue their | |
| focus on private sector engagement and on the digital strategy. | |
| They feel it is relevant and connected to the goals of self- | |
| reliance, and they are leading the agency into the 21st | |
| century, and others are eagerly joining in. | |
| Mr. Issa. Thank you. | |
| And hopefully, this is a quick yes-or-no question. One of | |
| the anomalies in the USAID package continues to be in excess of | |
| a million dollars a year that it spent on Cypress, a member of | |
| the European Union and certainly not a developing nation. Would | |
| it be fair to say that Congress needs to at least address the | |
| question of whether that pot of money, the USAID pot, should be | |
| spent on a disagreement, continued tension between the Greeks | |
| and Turks in Cypress, or whether, if we are going to make that | |
| investment, it should be made in some other way, particularly | |
| since it is a contingent expenditure? | |
| Ms. Glick. Sir, it is a great question, and I would just | |
| say that this is really where congressional oversight is so | |
| important, and I urge that. | |
| Mr. Issa. Thank you. | |
| Last--and this is for both our witnesses--having spent 2 | |
| years associated with the Trade Development Agency, one of your | |
| sister organizations, and beginning to realize from the time I | |
| was originally nominated for it that TDA, USAID, the EXIM Bank, | |
| our entire plethora of agencies is dwarfed by China's | |
| engagement in Belt and Road. And you mentioned 5G, and their | |
| obvious desire to dominate 5G and to dominate, if you will, the | |
| information-gathering behind those systems they install. Could | |
| you each give us your view of what the vision should be for | |
| Congress and for this administration to create a system, | |
| through any or all of those agencies, that would be able to | |
| compete aggressively and fairly for those system developments | |
| throughout the world? | |
| Dr. Shah. Sure. Congressman, it is wonderful to see you | |
| again. | |
| And I would just say you are right, the Belt and Road | |
| Initiative is a trillion dollar public-private, if you can call | |
| it that, collaboration in China that---- | |
| Mr. Issa. ``Public-public'' we might call it. | |
| Dr. Shah. You might call it ``public-public,'' exactly. But | |
| there is a significant amount of commercial capital included in | |
| that trillion dollars. And it is funding everything from 108 | |
| gigawatts of new coal development to all kinds of projects that | |
| have less-than-transparent documentation with respect to | |
| meeting basic Western standards for anti-corruption and | |
| transparency around public-private investments. | |
| So, there is a tremendous need for the United States, in my | |
| view, to continue to invest in elevating the U.S. Development | |
| Finance Corporation and ensuring that America's foreign | |
| assistance agencies are working in concert with that | |
| institution, as well as with the World Bank and the IMF, that | |
| do focus on putting forward, you know, call it Western | |
| standards of governance of the economy and of economic | |
| transactions, and making sure that Bretton Woods system, | |
| together with the United States, can actually be an effective | |
| alternative proposition to the 23 or 26 countries that are | |
| currently actively participating in the Belt and Road | |
| Initiative. | |
| And to do that, we have to focus more on making | |
| concessional finance available at much larger levels. We have | |
| to focus more on the kinds of industries countries value, like | |
| energy generation and electricity distribution and access. And | |
| we have to be much more focused on public-private | |
| collaborations to that end. | |
| And the Rockefeller Foundation actually works on exactly | |
| those issues and would be happy to collaborate. But I do think | |
| that is what it will take to present a counter that is | |
| meaningful, given the scale of the Belt and Road Initiative. | |
| Ms. Glick. And Congressman---- | |
| Mr. Castro. Ms. Glick, do you want to give Congressman Issa | |
| a quick answer on that also? | |
| Ms. Glick. Congressman, the quick answer on that, too, is | |
| the one component that China leaves out, and we do not, is the | |
| $60 trillion of U.S. industry that are involved in the rollout | |
| of large-scale infrastructure around the world. So, while U.S. | |
| Government is dwarfed by the PRC, and as you rightly noted is a | |
| public-public partnership with companies like Huawei and ZTE, | |
| the public-private engagement to bring in the private sector of | |
| the United States bumps our numbers up tenfold, at least, over | |
| potential Chinese investments. And so, that is where I would | |
| urge that the Congress focus, that agencies focus, is on true | |
| partnership with the private sector. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you. | |
| Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you. | |
| Representative Omar. | |
| Ms. Omar. Thank you. I just wanted to start out thanking | |
| you, Chairman and the Ranking Member, for holding this | |
| important hearing. It is exciting to be here for the first | |
| hearing of this new committee. I am looking forward to doing | |
| great work together. | |
| The World Poverty Clock estimates that up to 120 million | |
| people have been thrown into extreme poverty because of COVID, | |
| extreme poverty meaning that their households live on less than | |
| $1.90 a day. The people bearing the burden of this life live in | |
| the south, the global south, especially Sub-Saharan Africa and | |
| South Asia. | |
| Last year, I lead a letter with Senator Bernie Sanders and | |
| more than 300 parliamentarians around the world to the World | |
| Bank, the IMF, and G20 country leaders. Our letter asked for | |
| serious consideration of debt cancellation as a way to address | |
| the rise of global poverty. One of the things we asked was for | |
| the IMF to issue special drawing rights, which could provide | |
| hundreds of millions of dollars in immediate relief to the | |
| world's poorest countries. | |
| Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce into the record | |
| this article in The Financial Times from the U.N. Economic | |
| Commission for Africa, Vera Songwe, making the case for using | |
| SDRs for Africa. | |
| Mr. Castro. Without objection, it is entered into the | |
| record. | |
| [The information referred to follows:] | |
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| Ms. Omar. Dr. Shah, you have been supportive of special | |
| drawing rights as a way to alleviate the economic crisis. | |
| Secretary Yellen has also shown support for this policy. Dr. | |
| Shah, can you explain how the IMF issuing SDRs will help ensure | |
| countries in Africa respond to the pandemic? | |
| Dr. Shah. Sure. Thank you, Congresswoman, for your | |
| leadership on this issues and your commitment. | |
| In particular, the opportunity for the United States to | |
| support a G20-led coalition to enable the IMF to allocate | |
| greater special drawing rights across its member nations would | |
| create, depending on the scale of that issuance, potentially, | |
| up to $600 or $700 billion of value that can, then, be | |
| allocated to nations based on their shares of the IMF. | |
| And in the past, we saw this coming out of the crisis when | |
| Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, coming out of the global | |
| financial crisis, and we saw some smaller actions on this front | |
| last year. Wealthier nations, then, would have the opportunity | |
| to take those SDRs, as they are referenced, and donate them or | |
| unlend them back to the IMF's Poverty Reduction Growth Trust to | |
| be used for nations that have much greater need in this moment. | |
| And that, effectively, does not cost the wealthier nations | |
| anything in the current moment. | |
| So, it is a way of generating fiscal support for developing | |
| countries at a scale that is much greater than what I suspect | |
| America can do by acting bilaterally alone. And it is an | |
| effort, then, to make sure those additional resources that go | |
| to those developing nations are, then, used for health and | |
| economic recovery, so that COVID-19 can be tackled on the | |
| ground and can be dealt with, and the recovery can be much | |
| stronger. | |
| I would say two points for this committee to sort of | |
| consider, and perhaps encourage. The first is America's | |
| participation in this effort would send such a powerful signal | |
| to the rest of the world that we are willing to work through | |
| multilateral institutions to, in a very efficient way, make | |
| resources available during a crisis. | |
| And the second is America, by partnering its bilateral and | |
| multilateral agencies and efforts, has the opportunity to, in | |
| particular, ensure that these resources, which could be tens of | |
| billions of new dollars for the health response specifically, | |
| are used effectively to fill this ACT Accelerator-identified | |
| gap of $23 billion that I spoke about in my opening statement. | |
| So, right now, as we look across the world at the | |
| Rockefeller Foundation, this is one of the few tools the planet | |
| has to relatively quickly put resources into play at that | |
| scale, and we hope that it can move forward. | |
| Ms. Omar. Wonderful. And I know we are running out of time, | |
| but I wanted you to quickly maybe tell us what should the | |
| United States do to make sure vaccines are distributed quickly | |
| to Africa, Latin America, and the rest of the global staff. | |
| Dr. Shah. Well, I think two things. The first is the | |
| immediate injection of the $4 billion to COVAX and the Global | |
| Alliance for Vaccines will make it possible to achieve the | |
| procurement goals GAVI has set or COVAX has set. As you know, | |
| that is still only trying to achieve 20 percent coverage for | |
| vaccination, and you need to get to 60, 70, 80 percent to | |
| really get herd immunity. | |
| So, the two things I think is the U.S. needs to continue to | |
| make sure some of these multilateral tools like SDRs can be | |
| linked to further efforts to expand vaccination. And the second | |
| one is America has been a leader in investing through USAID, in | |
| particular, and PEPFAR, in particular, at building the health | |
| systems needed on the ground to make sure these products are | |
| actually delivered to people in need. And now seems like a | |
| moment where continued American leadership on that specific | |
| task can be of tremendous value to the world. | |
| Ms. Omar. Yes. Thank you, Dr. Shah. | |
| Thank you, Chairman. I yield back. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you, Representative Omar. | |
| Let's go to Representative Sherman. | |
| Mr. Sherman. Thank you. | |
| Today, we are going to pass a $1.9 trillion bill. Less than | |
| 1 percent of that is there to help the world deal with this | |
| problem. And yet, that less than 1 percent has been subject to | |
| the most scathing, cheap political attacks. The fact is we have | |
| a strong interest in getting the world immunized. | |
| A diplomat would tell you that our standing in the world is | |
| dependent upon our contribution to world immunization. A | |
| theologian would tell you that we must help the least of these | |
| and that we have a moral obligation. An economist would point | |
| out that our economy cannot fully recover while our trading | |
| partners are sheltering in place. And a virologist will tell | |
| you that, with over 7 billion people in the world, until they | |
| all get immunity or the benefits of herd immunity, the virus | |
| has a chance to infect; where it infects, it replicates; where | |
| it replicates, it mutates, and it could easily mutate into a | |
| form that, then, is a problem for the United States. So, if we | |
| were interested only in ourselves, we would work toward world | |
| immunization as quickly as possible. | |
| Yet, there are two issues here. One is the distribution, | |
| and I think that will be dealt with by others in this hearing. | |
| And the other is the shortage of vaccine. And here's where the | |
| United States has been particularly shortsighted. | |
| There are research studies that I think will show that, at | |
| least for people under age 55, only half the dosage is needed. | |
| Yet, there are those who say we should not fund those studies | |
| because we will not have the results until May, and by then, | |
| Americans will be immunized, and who cares about the rest of | |
| the world. That is stupid. | |
| Right now, we are wasting over 10 percent of the vaccine | |
| because the FDA instructs people who are administering the | |
| vaccine, if there if half a dosage left in the bottle, to throw | |
| away the bottle, rather than get half the dosage from this | |
| bottle and half the dosage from the next bottle, which are part | |
| of the same manufacturing lot. | |
| So, Dr. Shah, it is great to see you back before our | |
| committee, now in a new role. | |
| Are we doing enough to study how we can stretch the | |
| existing vaccine and how we can manufacture vaccine more | |
| quickly, not with the finish line being May 31st, because that | |
| is when Americans are vaccinated, but with a goal of immunizing | |
| the vast majority of the people in the world? | |
| Dr. Shah. Thank you, Congressman, for your statement, and | |
| it is good to see you again. | |
| I do agree that the need to identify vaccine efficacy | |
| strategies via research will continue to be a significant | |
| requirement, certainly well beyond May, and potentially, for | |
| years to come. And I think you might think of it as covering a | |
| number of different areas of research and inquiry. | |
| The first, as you point out, is the efficacy of current | |
| vaccines against current variants that are present in the viral | |
| population. And both are going to be changing over time. So, it | |
| is really not something you can just end the research on. You | |
| have to continue to do it. | |
| The second is actually monitoring the variants that emerge | |
| from developing and emerging economies, and frankly, in the | |
| United States. Now, in the United States, the CDC has crafted, | |
| together with the NIH, a very strong plan for raising the level | |
| of genomic surveillance to track viral variants. | |
| Mr. Sherman. I would point out they have been very late to | |
| do that, but now---- | |
| Dr. Shah. Yes, they have been very late to do it, but now | |
| there is a plan to do it. I think the country that has done it | |
| best is the United Kingdom, and they have done it in a public- | |
| private partnership with the Wellcome Trust and others. | |
| We are working with--and we hope the U.S. can play a very | |
| big role--replicating what they have done there in emerging | |
| environments and developing countries around the world where | |
| very little to no viral genomic surveillance is taking place. | |
| And I would say that is just as important as the other question | |
| of vaccine efficacy. | |
| And then, finally, as part of all of this, there need to be | |
| ways to constantly test existing vaccines and convalescent | |
| plasma against the new variants that do emerge, and that is | |
| another area that will require continued research. So, I think | |
| the research enterprise here has to be global and has to | |
| persist, frankly, for many years after most people, hopefully, | |
| move beyond thinking of COVID-19 as a day-to-day challenge. | |
| Mr. Sherman. Thank you. | |
| I would just comment that there is nothing that is more | |
| penny-wise and pound-foolish than us to fail to spend on the | |
| things you identify that, if we can get people vaccinated | |
| against the variants that we are aware of, that will reduce the | |
| replications and mutations that can give us a variant that does | |
| not yet exist. And it is perhaps the best expenditure of | |
| American resources to do a lot more than 1 percent of our | |
| expenditures on stopping this worldwide. | |
| I also want to take a moment to commend Mr. Castro, our | |
| chair, on being the first to chair any hearing of this | |
| subcommittee in history, and I look forward to more greats as | |
| good as this one. | |
| And I yield back. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you, Mr. Sherman. | |
| All right. Let's go over to Ms. Houlahan. | |
| Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. And I want to echo Mr. Sherman's | |
| commendation. This is a really important and exciting new | |
| subcommittee. And I actually want to focus on the title or the | |
| name of the subcommittee with having it ``Global Corporate | |
| Social Impact.'' | |
| And my question, first question, is for Mr. Shah. I really | |
| am interested in corporate accountability. Are companies/ | |
| corporations across the globe | |
| [audio interference] about social impact and | |
| responsibility? | |
| Mr. Castro. It looks like Ms. Houlahan's video froze there. | |
| Let's see if we can get her back here for a few seconds. And if | |
| not, then we will go--why do not we go to Mr. Kim, and then, we | |
| will come right back to Ms. Houlahan. | |
| Mr. Kim of New Jersey. Thank you. | |
| Mr. Castro. Mr. Kim. | |
| Mr. Kim of New Jersey. Yes, thank you, Chairman, for | |
| pulling this together. | |
| And we will turn it back to my colleague, Chrissy Houlahan, | |
| after this; hopefully, her bandwidth gets it. | |
| I was looking through your testimony, and you give some | |
| really thoughtful remarks about some of the things that we | |
| should be doing, especially when it comes to China. And one of | |
| them was about the World Health Organization, and you are | |
| proposing some different reforms there on that level. I have | |
| heard that from both people who have been supporters and | |
| critics of the WHO, that we be looking into reforms. | |
| What I want to | |
| [audio interference] coordinating body. In the aftermath of | |
| the pandemic, can we think about what do we need as a global | |
| structure to be able to make sure that we are better prepared | |
| for the next time around? And I think I want to just kind of | |
| hear a little more from you because some of the language you | |
| use is really spot-on, but also some of it, like when you say | |
| kind of a trimmed-back WHO, it concerns me because, in the | |
| aftermath of a pandemic, wouldn't we want to have more | |
| abilities to be able to engage globally when it comes to | |
| health? And I am sure that is something you agree with as well, | |
| but perhaps it means a different entity or a different | |
| structure is put into place. So, if you can just kind of | |
| elaborate on that a little further? | |
| Ms. Glick. So, there was a little bit of a lag there, and I | |
| am not sure I heard the entirety of your question, Congressman, | |
| but I think it was directed to me. And I want to thank you for, | |
| one, reading the testimony, and two, for the very thoughtful | |
| question about the World Health Organization. | |
| When the Trump administration made the decision to leave | |
| the WHO, there really was a lot of consternation in the | |
| international donor community, but there was no other time | |
| during which a U.S. exit from what is a malfunctioning | |
| international organization could have had a greater impact than | |
| during the pandemic itself. WHO has been on a slow slog toward | |
| complete dysfunction. And while this was made manifest to the | |
| world during the initial COVID-19 outbreak, it was obvious to | |
| global health practitioners and to people who were suffering | |
| from the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo before COVID-19 hit | |
| the world stage. The WHO was broken. | |
| So, the focused attention that the Trump administration | |
| brought to WHO's failings in Wuhan has, hopefully, gone a long | |
| way to starting the reform of it. And I hope that a U.S. | |
| reentry into WHO will live up to its original mandate of global | |
| health coordination, but it needs some significant reforms. | |
| The Biden administration should continue to press for | |
| reform. WHO does not have to be all things health-related to | |
| nations all over the world, but, rather, it should maintain the | |
| high-level coordinating function that it was established to | |
| have. | |
| So, we may have forced some tough medicine onto the WHO, | |
| but I do think that, as you noted, a trimmed-back WHO may be a | |
| better coordinating body than the current WHO that is dispersed | |
| in 150 countries around the world and really micro-focused | |
| rather than focused on broad global concerns. | |
| Thank you so much for the question. | |
| Mr. Kim of New Jersey. Yes, thank you, Ms. Glick. | |
| I mean, look, I am open to looking at some of these reforms | |
| and looking for how we can improve the coordination when it | |
| comes to the WHO and the function there. But, again, while we | |
| are thinking about that, I would also need to just understand | |
| more clearly going forward what other structures that we could | |
| put in place to have some of the oversight. You know, if some | |
| of the problem was the lack of the WHO to be able to do proper | |
| inspections and oversights, and aspects like that, I worry | |
| about trimming back. I worry about that kind of language in | |
| terms of how we push on that. So, that is what I was just | |
| trying to get at. | |
| Perhaps it is not the WHO that needs to play those | |
| functions, but we need to put sort of a bigger apparatus | |
| together on how we move forward in the aftermath of this | |
| pandemic, once we are able to really assess on that. And I hope | |
| you are right that the Biden team thinks very thoughtfully and | |
| carefully about how we can structure that. | |
| So, if you do not mind, I would love to just stay in touch | |
| with you, Ms. Glick and Dr. Shah, about that in terms of just | |
| understanding that broader ecosystem in which we pull together | |
| what kind of public health and global health foundation and | |
| infrastructure we need going forward. | |
| And with that, I will turn it back to the chairman. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you, Mr. Kim. | |
| All right. We are going to circle back to Ms. Houlahan. | |
| Hopefully, we got the technical issues solved. | |
| Ms. Houlahan? There is still a lag perhaps? | |
| Ms. Glick. I think you are muted. | |
| Ms. Houlahan. Can you hear me? Hello. Can you guys hear me? | |
| Yes? | |
| Mr. Castro. Yes, we can hear you. | |
| Ms. Houlahan. Excellent. Excellent. | |
| I really want to direct my question, the first one, to Dr. | |
| Shah. One of the things that excites me most about the new | |
| committee has to do with its emphasis on global corporate | |
| social responsibility and interest. And my question is, | |
| considering kind of the power of the for-profit sector of our | |
| economy and the global economy, how can we, Dr. Shah, help to | |
| drive corporate accountability for the social impact that many | |
| of our companies have the ability to have? | |
| A lot of our companies, particularly when we speak to the | |
| pandemic and their opportunities to help on a global scale and | |
| to help address these issues, talk a really big game, but they | |
| do not necessarily follow through on it. And so, I was | |
| wondering if you might be able to comment on the importance of | |
| global social and environmental responsibility on the part of | |
| the for-profit sector, if that is something that you might be | |
| able to comment on for us. | |
| Dr. Shah. Sure. Thank you for that question, and I am glad | |
| that that concept is built into the structure of this | |
| committee. | |
| It is true that there have been a number of different | |
| efforts to enable companies to, in a more systematic manner, | |
| report regularly on their performance on economic, social, and | |
| governance issues as it relates both to domestic and | |
| international priorities. And I think we need to continue to | |
| encourage and establish those types of standards of reporting. | |
| And Rockefeller does a fair amount of this work, and as a | |
| social investor, is also actively investing in ESG or companies | |
| that claim to do better on economic, social, and governance | |
| issues. The challenge there has always been transparency and | |
| reporting. So, a company that pays very low wages or contracts | |
| out much of its work, and avoids most labor protections in | |
| doing so, can also have a very attractive marketing campaign | |
| around a few special projects and create the impression that | |
| they are doing well across all these issues. | |
| There are some indices out there. In particular, JUST | |
| Capital is a platform that I think is doing very good work on | |
| creating indicators and rankings of companies, in that case | |
| across the Russell 1000, that is a more sophisticated way of | |
| understanding corporate social responsibility and impact | |
| related to it. And I think an outstanding path forward for our | |
| country would be having some of those types of more serious | |
| reporting requirements built into corporate accounting very | |
| broadly and required in one form or another. | |
| Ms. Houlahan. I really appreciate that, and I appreciate | |
| the connection that we have today and hope to be able to | |
| followup with you on this particular subject. | |
| And I know I have a short amount of time. So, if it is OK, | |
| I would like to send this one over to a different subject which | |
| I am very passionate about, which is women and girls. This | |
| pandemic has been really devastating to everyone, but I think | |
| particularly to women and girls across this country and the | |
| globe. | |
| I was wondering, what is the most important thing that we | |
| can be doing with USAID to address the gender and | |
| [audio interference] of this pandemic? Where should we be | |
| focusing our efforts on both issues? Perhaps we will start with | |
| Ms. Glick. | |
| Ms. Glick. Sure. And thanks for the great question and for | |
| that genuine level of concern. | |
| We know that women and girls are the most vulnerable | |
| populations. And one of the things that is predicted to be one | |
| of the secondary or tertiary impacts of COVID-19 is going to be | |
| the impact that it has on livelihoods, on gender-based | |
| violence, and on basic education. | |
| And the real concern is access, access to livelihoods for | |
| women, out-migration very often of their male partners to other | |
| countries in search of higher wages, and to girls in terms of | |
| access to education. One of the areas where USAID can make a | |
| difference, I believe, again, is in the provision of education | |
| through digital technology. We are seeing creative ways, | |
| working with important partners like UNICEF, to bring education | |
| to internally displaced people, to refugee camps, using | |
| technology in a way that it has never been used before. So, | |
| there is keen awareness that the issues as they relate to | |
| girls, to their continuing education, to gender-based violence, | |
| as well as to the needs for women to be active and engaged in | |
| the marketplace, are really felt within USAID, I believe. | |
| One of the areas, too, where the United States shines, and | |
| USAID really shines, I will say, is in the delivery of the | |
| maternal and child health systems around the world. Because of | |
| the investments that have been made by the United States, more | |
| and more women and girls have access to health care and family | |
| planning. | |
| One of the other areas where we have made investments, and | |
| this Congress is upping those investments, is with GAVI, the | |
| global vaccine alliance, and ensuring that children have access | |
| in some of the poorest countries to vaccinations, which will | |
| allow us to move from those levels of malnutrition and poor | |
| health as children into healthier young adults, and then, into | |
| engaged members of the economy. | |
| Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I know I | |
| have run out of time, but I did want to put focus on the | |
| importance of health in women and girls, and I look forward to | |
| reintroducing my bill on funding the UNFPA again. | |
| And with that, I yield back. | |
| Mr. Castro. Thank you, Ms. Houlahan. | |
| And that concludes the questions from our Members of | |
| Congress to our witnesses. | |
| I would like to thank everyone again for joining us for our | |
| subcommittee's first hearing. And I would particularly like to | |
| thank our witnesses for their expert testimony. You have given | |
| this Congress a lot to consider as we seek to rebuild our | |
| Nation's international development capacity and work force. | |
| For the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has done much to | |
| expose and widen the fractures in societies around the world. | |
| Even as the pandemic causes new challenges for U.S. development | |
| policy, we find that American leadership in this space is more | |
| necessary than ever. | |
| I trust that the work force of USAID and the State | |
| Department are up to the challenge, and I am committed to | |
| ensuring that this Congress provides them with the support they | |
| need. | |
| Working together with international partners and | |
| organizations, I am confident we can build a safer, healthier, | |
| and more prosperous world for all of our people, and in so | |
| doing, ensure the safety, health, and prosperity of our own | |
| nation. And we look forward to the work ahead. | |
| Thank you. | |
| And with that, we are adjourned. | |
| [Whereupon, at 11:29 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] | |
| APPENDIX | |
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