Investing in Education
Honored guests, and especially, students . thank you for joining USAID here tonight. I have given many speeches in my time in Kosovo but the one tonight gives me the greatest pleasure. The reason you have been invited here this evening is to help us celebrate the official inauguration of the Kosovo American Educational Fund. The fund is a perpetual endowment to provide Kosovars, all those who live here, with opportunities to do graduate study at American universities. There is a key word in that previous sentence. The word is 'perpetual'. The fund will live on, providing generation after generation of Kosovars fellowships to study for advanced degrees in the United States and bring back here the skills they acquire to contribute to the betterment of your society. The initial endowment of the fund is about $8 million, the program funds USAID received when it sold the American Bank of Kosovo to Raiffeisen Bank. We expect the endowment to grow from solicitations in the United States and from being invested. It will be administered by the American Councils for International Education which has extensive experience in all the aspects which USAID included in its concept of the fund. There are two representatives from the American Councils here with us this evening, Dr. David Patton and Mr. Shane Austin. They are here to share with us in this ceremony and to begin establishing the on the ground presence through which they will solicit applications for fellowships and assist those selected. We intend the first fellows to enter American graduate programs in September 2005. Just as an aside, USAID will play no role in the selection. Tonight is our final official act with respect to the fund. Henceforth the American Councils will provide all management and administrative support. Why did USAID create this fund? One of our major objectives in Kosovo has been to help establish a market based economy so that Kosovars can have a prosperous future, one where everyone can have a chance to realize their full potential. Kosovo has a young population, the youngest in Europe. If you are to succeed in achieving that prosperous future, you must have the skills to operate a modern economy with efficient businesses that can compete with the best throughout the world. We need to give Kosovo's youth today and tomorrow access to the training they will need for this task. This fund is a part of that effort, but we believe an important part. There is another reason behind our decision to create the fund. Kosovo and American enjoy a unique relationship, one based on friendship. We both recognize your future leads to Europe. But that does not mean we will not and cannot maintain our friendship. This fund will build permanent bridges between our societies. America has benefited for a hundred years from such a relationship through the Rhodes Scholars program, a model for this effort. Throughout our society are leaders who have been Rhodes Scholars, President Clinton being a recent example. They provide a link between American and England which has many mutual benefits and which links our business, government and cultural leaders. In time Kosovo and America will share the same linkages. Our friendship will last. One of the Greek philosophers said some two thousand years ago that 'Only the educated can be free'. There are many meanings in that observation. A society cannot enjoy freedom until it has a well educated citizenry. An individual cannot be free unless he or she can think for himself or herself with reference to the teachings of others. Education is essential to freedom. Education is also essential to economic well-being. Recently a seminar organized here by Reinvest on the education system concluded that the human capital embodied in Kosovo's population is its most important economic asset. It is important to develop that human capital. The education system here must be continually improved and prepare the young for all the tasks needed to run a society. The young will respond if given the tools through high quality education. I do not want to keep talking because tonight is not for speeches but for celebration. I am pleased so many have come to help us do so because we are here to witness the beginning of something which will have a lasting and positive impact on what we all aspire to in Kosovo - a better future. USAID is pleased to be able to give this gift to the people of Kosovo. I leave my job at USAID in a little over a month and it will be one of the saddest days of my life. But knowing this fund will remain and grow and always assist Kosovars, I leave with a true sense of satisfaction. Thank you. | 
