About the Author: Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe serves as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN Human Rights Council.

The United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva just concluded its 21st session, which was the last regular session of the United States’ first term on the Council.  Since we joined in 2009, working together with a broad range of cross regional partners, we made significant progress across a wide array of important human rights issues.

Early in the session, the United States along with the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Lithuania, the Maldives, Mexico, and Nigeria, presented a resolution on the rights of freedom of association and assembly. The resolution reaffirms the importance of respect for the rights of peaceful association and assembly as essential components of democracy. The resolution calls upon States to cooperate fully with the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom… more »

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers remarks at the Forum on Small States Opening Session at the United Nations in New York, New York on October 1, 2012. [Go to http://video.state.gov for more video and text transcript.]

Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
United Nations
New York City October 1, 2012

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Foreign Minister, and thanks also to the Secretary General and the UN General Assembly President for their remarks and for their leadership. I’m delighted to have been invited by Singapore to join you at the Forum of Small States to mark the 20^th anniversary of its founding. I think organizing this event and the program that follows this opening provides a valuable opportunity to reflect on the issues that we face as a global community, and in particular, the roles and responsibilities that small states have.

In my time as Secretary, I’ve been honored to travel to over 100 countries and to meet with leaders in government, business, and civil society in every corner of the world. Now of course, this means frequent visits to larger nations and traditional centers of power, but for me, it has been equally important to visit many of your countries, to understand what you’re going through, to share ideas about how we can make progress together, to meet the Millennium Development Goals and then the initiative of the Secretary General, the Sustainable Development Goals.

Just last month, I attended the Pacific Islands Forum in the Cook Islands to talk with leaders of the region about how the United States can build stronger partnerships with their countries, and I’ve had similar conversations with small states from around the world. Now I believe this is absolutely essential because we have a lot of challenges that we are confronting, and I don’t think it’s unfair or inaccurate to say that smaller states often bear the burden of a lot of these challenges. These challenges don’t respect international orders, whether it’s a global financial crisis or climate change or transnational crime. And none of these problems can be solved by three or four big countries sitting around a table. We need partnerships from large and small nations alike. MORE

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers remarks at the Forum on Small States Opening Session at the United Nations in New York, New York on October 1, 2012. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Esther Brimmer, State Department Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan, and State Department Spokesperson for the Bureau of Near East Affairs Aaron Snipe discuss their work at the UN General Assembly in New York. [Go to http://video.state.gov for more video and text transcript.]

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta S. Jacobson, State Department Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan, and U.S. Chief of Protocol Capricia Penavic Marshall discuss their work at the UN General Assembly in New York. [Go to http://video.state.gov for more video and text transcript.]

About the Author: Tjada McKenna serves as the Deputy Coordinator for Development for Feed the Future, and Jonathan Shrier serves as the Acting Special Representative for Global Food Security and as the Deputy Coordinator for Diplomacy for Feed the Future.

In May 2012, we answered a few of the most common questions about the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in the blog post Five Questions about the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. This blog post follows with additional answers to other common questions about the New Alliance and progress.

1. What has happened with the New Alliance since the G8 announced it at the Camp David Summit in May 2012?

While it has only been a few months, we’re excited about the progress and momentum of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which is a unique partnership…more »

About the Author: Roberta S. Jacobson serves as Assistant Secretary of State forWestern Hemisphere Affairs.

On Thursday, I had the pleasure of participating in a meeting with Secretary Clinton that she co-hosted with Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Ángela Holguin to advanceConnecting the Americas 2022 (Connect 2022), the newest initiative under the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas. The meeting included many foreign ministers from the Western Hemisphere and focused on how Connect 2022 aims to increase energy access to citizens across our hemisphere.

More than 31 million people in the Western Hemisphere lack access to affordable, reliable energy services. Compared to the rest of the world, the Americas has high rates of electricity access, but far too many… more »

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton hosts the Ad Hoc Friends of the Syrian People Ministerial, at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, September 28, 2012. You can read the Secretary’s remarks at the meeting here. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]