[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:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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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