Secretary Rice: Our Chief Advocate for Development and Transformation

Thank you, Charlie, for that warm welcome. As some of you may remember, a little over a year ago, my first public address as Director of Foreign Assistance and Administrator of USAID was at InterAction’s 2006 Annual Forum. Beginning with that event, InterAction’s experience and willingness to engage in a two way discussion since then has been essential to our progress thus far.

I hope that you have received clear signals—the Secretary’s presence here tonight is certainly one—that we are, in fact, in this together. During that address a year ago, I described our plans to respond to Secretary Rice’s challenge to improve U.S. foreign assistance.

I vowed then to do all I could to make changes that would “be a force multiplier to help all of us—government and non-governmental organizations alike—pool our collective power toward a common mission: unleashing human potential to overcome poverty, exclusion, and suffering.”

Tonight, I have the pleasure of introducing the person who laid out that vision, and whose support and leadership since that call to action have been unwavering. Many know her as one of the brightest foreign policy minds in a generation, an accomplished professor, a talented pianist.

Beyond those accomplishments, I have come to know and admire her in a number of other ways – but none more compelling than as a champion of transformation, whose tenure has been marked by unprecedented commitment to empowering people around the world to achieve our common human aspirations – aspirations that are in common with our own.

I am grateful for the opportunity to be with you tonight, and honored to introduce to you the Secretary of State of the United States, the Honorable Condoleezza Rice.

Secretary Rice's Remarks