Expanding the Circle of Opportunity in the Western Hemisphere

–in harmony! We are honored that so many members of the President’s Cabinet have joined us here this morning–Secretaries Gutierrez, Leavitt, Paulson, Spellings. Welcome to Your Excellencies from the Diplomatic Corps, and welcome to our conference attendees who come from 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere and many of the United States of America.

When I became the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, President Bush asked me to make Latin America one of my priorities. While many focused on other aspects of my job–outreach to Muslim communities, nurturing our trans-Atlantic ties with Europe, increasing engagement with China and India–and these are all important–President Bush knows and deeply believes that nurturing our connections with friends and neighbors in our own hemisphere is absolutely vital.

As you probably know, the President and I both come from Texas. And in Texas we like to say we have "tios and tias in los dos lados del Rio Grande" We have aunts and uncles, ties of family and friendship, on both sides of the Rio Grande.

From the tip of Chile to the top of Canada, we are united in the Americas by history, by geography, by common values and interests. We are a community of democracies. And the challenge we face together is to deliver its benefits to all of our citizens–through expanded access to education, health care, economic opportunity, and jobs.

Throughout the Americas, we share a desire for social justice. As President Bush has said, the United States seeks an Americas "Where all find room at the table, and where opportunity reaches into every village and every home."

That’s why President Bush has nearly doubled foreign assistance to the Western Hemisphere during his Administration. America’s assistance has grown from $857 million in 2001 to more than $1.5 billion in the President’s 2008 budget request. In addition to that, the Millennium Challenge Corporation has signed three compacts to provide another $900 million in the region.

This summer, Secretary Leavitt helped open a new Regional Training Center in Panama City to train a wide range of health workers to improve the quality of health care across Central America. Already, the center has trained 100 medical professionals from six Central American countries. America’s hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, just finished a visit to Guatemala and is right now in Panama. It’s staffed by Navy personnel and by volunteers from America’s Project Hope. It will be making port calls–the U.S. Navy’s version of house calls–providing medical care, help and hope to patients in 12 countries on the Caribbean Coast.

Underscoring the importance of the nations of our own hemisphere, President Bush’s most recent trip in March to South America was his 11th in the Western Hemisphere–more than any other U.S. President in history.

We are delighted that each of you could join us here today because we recognize that achieving an Americas where economic opportunity, education, and health care extend to all will take more than the efforts of government alone.

And that is really the purpose of today’s summit–to exchange ideas and best practices, to create new partnerships–to recognize that non-government organizations, charities, religious congregations, private sector donors are increasingly a major part of what I like to call America’s "diplomacy of deeds," the concrete ways in which our country reaches out to help people across the world have better lives, especial in the areas of education, health care and economic opportunity.

The 2007 Index of Global Philanthropy found that individuals, foundations, and other private sources in the United States provided more than $95 billion in aid and remittances to developing countries in 2005, more than triple the amount given by the federal government. When we bring those private sector partners and their committee volunteers together with government, we increase all our effectiveness.

I’ve witnessed that myself–in Colombia, where the Fundacion Proyectos Tecnovo employs disabled veterans and their families at a factory making beautiful decorative candles for export–a few of which now decorate my Washington condo. The project is supported by private companies, including Microsoft Corporation, several non-governmental organizations, and the governments of Colombia and the United States.

In Mexico, I met with women in Chiapas who are starting their own businesses with micro-grants. Some of the funds were raised by women and school children in my home state of Texas. In Brazil, I met with some remarkable young people who came back from an exchange program in America and started a backpack club to teach English to young students. And I met an inspiring young man named Artur Borges, who works at a shoe factory to help support his family, attends high school at night, and gets up on Saturday morning to distribute food to the hungry.

With people and partners like these we will expand the circle of opportunity across our hemisphere, bringing progress and prosperity to more and more of our people. Thank you for being here today. In just a few minutes, we will have the opportunity to welcome the President to discuss how we can join hands to achieve greater social justice for all the people of the Americas.

Thank you very much.