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- 10/21/08: Remarks by Henrietta Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance at the White House Development Summit
- 10/08/08: Remarks by Henrietta Fore, USAID Administrator and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance at The President's Freedom Agenda
- 10/01/08: Remarks by Henrietta H. Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, at the Ceremony Marking the Full Operational Capacity of Africa Command (AFRICOM)
- 09/25/08: Remarks by Henrietta H. Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, at 2008 Millennium Development Goal Malaria Summit, New York - "U.S. Leadership in the Fight Against Malaria"
- 09/22/08: Remarks by Henrietta H. Fore, Administrator, USAID and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, at the White House Symposium on Advancing Global Literacy - "U.S. Commitment to Advancing Global Literacy"
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Remarks by Secretary Colin L. Powell
U.S. Department of State
50th Anniversary of Food for Peace
Washington, D.C.
July 21, 2004
Well, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Andrew, for that very kind introduction. And I can assure you that if you are ever late at one of my meetings, if you really knock hard on the door we might let you in, and then again we might not. (Laughter.)
But I'd like to wish you all a good afternoon and let you know what a great pleasure it is for me to have this opportunity to speak with you for a few moments and to be with such advocates of this program and to see at the table my cabinet colleague, Ann Veneman, who I know spoke to you earlier, and Jim Morris and so many others, Peter Bell and others with whom I have done business over the years, who are present and who are so committed to the simple but vital proposition of feeding those of our fellow human beings who are in need, in need every single day.
For 50 years, that's what the Food for Peace program has been doing, and the Food for Peace program has embodied the generosity and compassion of the American people. For over five decades, we have given more than 100 millions tons of American food aid to save countless lives and to restore hope in 150 different countries around the world. For 50 years, Food for Peace has fed people across the world and helped them to dream of a better future, of a better day.
In freeing people from hunger, we have helped to foster their hunger for freedom. In 1954, President Eisenhower signed Public Law 480, which later became known as the Food for Peace program, or, in shorthand known around the world, P.L. 480. Less than a decade had passed since the end of World War II at that time. The old international order that had consumed in that cauldron of fire and blood -- been consumed in that horrible cauldron of fire and blood called World War II, all gone, all gone. Fascism. About to see the rise of communism. New struggles were beginning to shake up and challenge the world all over again.
In the emerging cold war that was now coming, as in the preceding hot war, free nations stood around, needing help, and they looked to America. They looked to America as the liberator and still as liberty's sentinel. They looked to America to preserve, to defend and to extend the peace. And that is exactly what President Eisenhower did, what he was thinking about when he created the Food for Peace program.
He understood that feeding hungry people would nourish the cause of liberty and freedom, as well as feeding hungry people. Both would grow and thrive together. Among the first recipients of American food aid were Italy, Japan and Germany. “In victory: magnanimity,” as Winston Churchill once said, and Food for Peace was the expression of America's magnanimity toward its former adversaries.
The logic of Food for Peace was simple, but at the same time, it was very profound. To preserve the peace, to build the kind of world that we all were hoping for, America had to help others meet their most basic needs, none more basic than food. To defend the peace, America had to empower others to manage their own development, to take control of their own lives. And to extend the peace, America had to transform old enemies into new allies, make them partners who would join us in advancing the cause of freedom around the world.
That logic is no less powerful today than it was 50 years ago and many of the challenges we presently face would have been quite recognizable back in 1954. Hunger and disease, regrettably, still threaten global peace and global security. Promoting development and promoting democracy are still at the forefront of our national security strategy and now, just as then, we are present at the creation of a new international order, a time when great nations have a special responsibility to help those less fortunate through a period of remarkable and, often, very unsettling change.
Indeed, the Food for Peace program is more crucial than ever, even as the overall context of international security has changed. The central drama, as the President has said often, on today's world stage is the war on terrorism, not the containment of communism. We no longer worry about communist agents that will go around and subvert new and weak states, but we do worry that failed and failing states can function as incubation chambers and sanctuaries for terrorists.
In this new environment, America's mission remains the same: To safeguard freedom and democracy and to preserve, defend and -- as the President says -- finally extend the peace.
Food for Peace is helping us to achieve these goals, where people are most desperate and peace is most fragile. In the direst crises, such as in Sudan, Food for Peace is distributing critical emergency relief. Over a million people in Darfur have been driven from their homes. All of us in the international community continue to press the Government of Sudan to improve conditions in Darfur. Food for Peace is helping to prevent the situation from getting worse, until we can turn things around and make the situation far better.
We have committed 100,000 tons of food to help the save the lives of over a million men, women and children who are displaced within Sudan or living as refugees in Chad. Where conditions are better, Food for Peace is helping long-suffering people to reclaim their countries. In Iraq, Food for Peace played a key role in preventing a humanitarian disaster during and after last year's conflict. And we are currently helping to feed the Iraqi people, giving them the strength to get back on their feet, as a proud and sovereign nation.
In Afghanistan, Food for Peace has helped nearly 3 million displaced people to return to their homes, one of the greatest reverse migrations in history, where 3 million people who had been living outside of Afghanistan have been able to come home over the last less than three years since Afghanistan was liberated of the hold of the Taliban and the terrorism of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network that essentially had seized the country. Three million people have been able to return to their homes to find new lives, to build schools, to build hospitals, to send their children on the path to a better life. One of the reasons they've been able to do that is Food for Peace was there to sustain them during the early days.
We are now feeding thousands of Afghan citizens who are building their nation's roads and classrooms and irrigation systems so they can put their lives back in order and grow their own food. Thanks to Food for Peace, Afghan children are attending school and learning the skills they'll need to build a free and prosperous future for themselves.
The Food for Peace program is still absolutely crucial to our international development efforts. And today, Food for Peace is one of many ways America is reaching out to people and nations that are in need, empowering them to become productive members of their broader communities, their regional communities.
Fifty year ago, President Eisenhower said, "The peace we seek can be fortified not by weapons of war, but by wheat and cotton, by milk and wool, by meat and by timber and by rice." Today, peace is also being fortified by the Millennium Challenge Account, which encourages countries to govern responsibly, reform their economies and invest in their people's education and welfare. Peace is being fortified by the Global Fund, which is working to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases that are devastating human communities around the world. And peace is being fortified by President Bush's Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS, which has committed $15 billion to fight the most terrible weapon of mass destruction on the face of the planet, HIV/AIDS.
Great challenges lie before us in this new century, but those challenges are no more daunting than the ones Food for Peace helped America overcome during the past 50 years. In order to seize the opportunities of the 21st century, America needs programs like Food for Peace. And all of you are helping to make Food for Peace stronger and more effective than ever before.
The President is totally committed to this kind of effort. We recognize that as we go into this 21st century, as we deal with the challenges of terrorism, as we consolidate democracy in nations around the world, as we give hope to people around the world, we'll have to use our strategic tools in ways we have never used them before. We have to make sure that we are going after the Usama bin Ladens of the world, we are also going after disease and hunger. We have to make sure that we are creating conditions in these countries so that people will find hope on a path to democracy and not turn away from that path and become places where terrorists can be recruited.
The President's National Security Strategy recognizes this, understands this, knows that what we need are partners, partners to work with us. Partners to work with us when we have a crisis such as we had in Iraq, partners to work with us when we try to deal with the suffering of people in the Sudan, partners who will work with us to make this a better world. And no better partner do we have, no greater partner do we have, than all of you assembled in this room today, who understand the absolute need for people to have a full belly, for people to be able to see their children thrive and be healthy because they are well fed.
You can't separate these out. You can't separate out HIV/AIDS from nutrition needs. You can't separate out democracy and say, "Have democracy," even though you are not being fed well or you are not having your health needs taken care of or your children aren't being educated. Democracy will not thrive. It's all part of one strategy. It's all part of one way of looking at the world.
If you want democracy and openness, if you want societies and political systems to respect human rights and the individual dignity of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, if that's the kind of political system you want, then it's necessary for you to help those people develop economic systems and social systems which respect rights, but beyond that, give people an opportunity to get a job that will allow them to come home at night with a salary, with money in their pocket, to bring food to the table, to educate youngsters, to put a roof over the heads of their family, to have health care so that their youngsters will be healthy and grow up to live better lives.
And it begins at the most basic level. It begins with having enough to eat. It begins with a decent meal. It begins with all of us coming together to erase some of the images you just saw on that screen of youngsters staring up with bloated bellies or wide-open eyes or skeletal features that we can do something about.
We do do something about it and Food for Peace has done something about it for the last 50 years and it will continue to do more and more in the years ahead until every child goes to bed quietly at night, happy, looking forward to tomorrow, and goes to bed with a full stomach, a full stomach that we have helped fill or because we have created conditions in that country -- and this is where we want to be -- where that country can provide for its own needs. But until that day arrives, your work will remain vital, your work will be essential, essential to the cause of peace and freedom and security throughout this world that we all care about.
So keep up the great work and you can be absolutely sure that President Bush and his Secretary of State and the occasionally-late-for-staff-meetings -- (laughter) -- Administrator of the Agency for International Development and all those who work for us and Jim Morris and our great Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman and so many others who are here, Peter Bell and Ken Hackett and all who have been with you today, and I dare not go any further because I'll forget one of the dedicated people here.
Just keep up the great work that you are undertaking now and know that in this Administration and with this Secretary of State, you've got guys who are there with you every step of the way. Thank you all. God bless you.
(Applause.)
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