Ambassador
Ambassador's Speech
AMBASSADOR WAYNE SPEECH AT CIPPEC
October 25, 2007
Good morning everyone. First I’d like to thank CIPPEC Chairman Jorge Mandelbaum; Executive Director Miguel Braun; and Director of Institutional Development Inés Castro Almeyra for their kind invitation to be here today and for giving me the opportunity to share some ideas with you on an increasingly important topic for all of us – Public-Private Partnerships.
CIPPEC is an organization known throughout Argentina, and indeed throughout much of Latin America, for the quality of its ideas, programs and leadership. Since its founding, it has been at the forefront of shaping the debate on and helping to improve the quality of public policy. Moreover, I’m pleased to note its collaboration at various government levels on developing programs aimed at better education, health care, judicial reform, and transparency in government.
Your efforts are exactly the type of collaboration that is at the heart of the public-private partnership initiatives that we hope to see around the globe in our efforts to strengthen the institutions and practices that support development and democracy. U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere is rooted in the essential link between development and democracy. Sustained social and economic development needs the stability of strong democratic institutions and norms that people can believe in and work with to improve their government, their communities, and their individual lives. In turn, democracy needs the stability provided by steady, long-term economic growth and development to unleash the full human potential of our citizens.
As Secretary Rice has said, one of the central questions in the Americas today is not whether governments are of the Left or the Right. It is whether those governments are elected and govern democratically and seek to spread the benefits of democracy more broadly throughout their societies.
We all face important choices in this regard each and every day. These choices and our own commitment can make a difference in the vision that will define the Americas in the future – and whether our children will have the same or better opportunities we anticipated for ourselves
Governments alone, however, cannot create the type of sustainable development that this enormous task requires. Collaboration between the public and private sectors, and among the various private sector actors, is critical to innovation. By leveraging the complementary resources, capacities and strengths of governments, private organizations, and individuals, we give ourselves the ability to accomplish far more than any of us could achieve alone.
We must also engage the private BUSINESS sector if our economic development strategies are to succeed. Unless the Business sector is ready, willing and able to invest in a community, economic growth simply will not happen, regardless of how much government spends. The business sector should not just have a seat at the table; it needs to be involved from the beginning as a partner in strategies for economic growth.
The U.S. is actively engaged in a wide variety of public-private sector partnerships with businesses, NGOs and educational institutions around the globe as well as at home.
A good example of public private cooperation on a global scale is the U.S. $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The U.S. is leading the world’s global response to HIV/AIDS. To expand the reach of this important program, the U.S. is working with several partners including multinational companies, U.S. as well as foreign, labor unions, community and faith-based organizations and foundations. The Pfizer Corporation, for example, has funded the Global Health Fellow program that loans financial and management experts to assist NGOs and local ministries to strengthen health systems. The U.S. Government-funded International AIDS Vaccine Initiative launched a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline to develop an AIDS vaccine using a promising new technology. Add to that the fact that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has contributed 350 million dollars to the Global Fund
since 2001, and you have a public-private partnership on an impressive scale.
In my own experience, we increasingly found the value of bringing governments, NGOs and businesses together to forge a more effective and more generous response to natural disasters. In response to the Asian tsunami of December 2004, for instance, we first organized coordination between governments and international organizations. Soon, however, we realized we needed regular outreach to businesses and to NGOs who were also eager to participate and who brought valuable resources to bear in helping rebuild damaged local communities.
The U.S. Embassy in Argentina has been active in developing and implementing effective Public-Private Partnerships. A terrific example is the “Judges Go to School Program.” Founded two years ago, this program brings judges to local high schools to teach students about the justice system and their rights under the law. The program is funded by the Embassy and carried out by the Association of Judges and Judicial Officials of the National Judiciary and the NGO Asociacion Conciencia. Since its inception, “Judges” has reached 900 students in the city and province of Buenos Aires and the Provinces of Santa Fe and Chubut, and organizers are hoping to expand the program soon to other provinces.
There are numerous other examples of outstanding local partnerships the Embassy has forged with local institutions, including with CIPPEC. I understand, for instance, that several years ago the Embassy, the OAS, and CIPPEC collaborated on a program designed to provide training to Argentine journalists. We certainly hope that we will have the opportunity to work with CIPPEC again in the near future.
In that respect, I wanted to mention a project we are currently developing that I hope you can be part of. It is conceived as a follow-on to the July 9 White House Conference on the Americas, which Nicolas Ducote attended on behalf of CIPPEC, along with 10 other Argentine leaders. What we are planning is to host an NGO Fair that would support Argentine NGOs by connecting them with potential funding and expertise partners, which we hope will include multinational companies, Embassies, foundations, and local and U.S. NGOs. The goal of the White House Conference was to discuss more effective ways for democracies to deliver aid and strengthen the institutions of civil society in the Americas. This NGO Fair Project is an effort to move us closer to that goal. We will be looking for partners in this project, and I can’t think of a better one than CIPPEC.
As we know, lack of investment in human capital and education is another major obstacle to doing business and for more effective government and civil society. By investing in education and health care for our citizens, countries ensure that there will be a strong and capable work force to meet today’s demands for innovation in science and technology.
Our high-tech global economy requires that youth entering the job market have the training and life skills necessary to get and keep a job. The public and private sectors must cooperate to invest in youth, so they arrive at adulthood healthy and prepared to be good citizens in today's workplace. Most developing countries have a short window of opportunity to accomplish this before their record numbers of youth become middle-aged. Worldwide, young people make up nearly half of the world's unemployed. Without a doubt, the best social program for a young person is a job.
We have countless examples of partnerships in the education field. I just found out that several U.S. companies like Microsoft and Intel are working with government authorities in the region to make computers available to more students. This type of social responsibility will expand the horizons of these students. Businesses today understand that it's one thing to sell a product; it's another thing to help people buy the product but it's also productive from a business point of view to be involved in the communities in which they're doing business.
There are many partnerships models – as varied as the problems to be addressed. As I noted earlier – we all have choices everyday. These are important choices about how we use our time, talent and resources. While there are multi-million dollar efforts underway, there are also important initiatives that make an enormous difference that require only our time, talent and creativity. CIPPEC lives that reality each day.
I look forward to talking with you about your programs and activities. I hope that this will be just the beginning of a continuing conversation. Thank you.