Remarks by Dr. Rajiv Shah, USAID Administrator at Indian Agricultural Research Institute

New Delhi | December 20, 2011

(As prepared)

Dr. Shah: Thank you. That was an overly generous and lengthy introduction. I’ll say that in this setting with that photograph and with Dr. Swaminathan here I don’t feel like there’s anything more to add to this event than what he described and just the fact that we’re blessed by his presence.

I’ll just make a few points and a few remarks. I’d like to introduce Bill Hammick, our Mission Director. I don’t know if you all know Bill, but he’s been here for a few months. Bill, please stand up and say hello. I also want to introduce Nisha Biswal, our Assistant Administrator for Asia.

I want to take this moment to thank the Institute leadership here. I want to thank the professors and agricultural researchers from India, from the land grant university system in the United States--even the onesfrom Ohio State -- I attended the University of Michigan so it’s hard for me to say too many nice things about Ohio State -- but I have come to deeply respect the historical contributions that that institution has made, particularly to the Punjab Agricultural University, andto this country and this continent.

And I want to just say a few things. First on agriculture and food security. It was I guess more than six decades ago that we launched the partnership between the land grant universities in the United States and counterpart institutions here in India. Today there are nearly 50 agricultural universities in India and it is widely seen as perhaps the single best investment American higher education has ever made abroad because it created an intellectual leadership, it created a series of technologies, and it created an agricultural system that’s saved hundreds of millions of lives around the world. I don’t know that in the course of history in global development or in agricultural research if there has ever been such a powerful success story around any one partnership.

That didn’t just happen, of course. It took leaders like Dr. Swaminathan and Dr. Borlaug, both of whom I had the chance to know. Dr. Borlaug and I had the chance to learn and work with Dr. Swaminathan. In both cases you see that it’s not just agricultural science partnerships, but a willingness of an agricultural scientist to fight in the political arena for what they believe. I know as you all know the story of what they accomplished here, was not only achievements on research fields or on farmers’ lands, but it was a success because they fought to get political leaders to introduce technologies, they fought to get political leaders to invest in access, they fought to create programs that would in fact eliminate hunger and avert famine and they succeeded because of that persistence.

Dr. Swaminathan, I sort of wonder which you think was more difficult: is it more difficult being a Member of Parliament today or ushering in the Green Revolution in this country decades ago? I suspect we all want to know the answer to that question.

But it was with that history in mind that President Obama used his historic visit to this country last year to launch a partnership for an Evergreen Revolution. We chose this term to honor Dr. Swaminathan with to make the point that future increases in agricultural productivity, and of course the aspirational reductions in hunger and child malnutrition along with improved nutritional outcomes must be driven by a better agricultural system. And by better agriculture we mean a more efficient system, one that is more cognizant of managing water resources, one that uses technology that has been demonstrated to be safe and effective, and makes that technology accessible to all, one that really has a significant role for the private sector as an engine of investment, as an engine of market organization, and as an engine of continued agricultural productivity and marketing growth.

That partnership is one that we were proud to re-inaugurate last year. It has led to this Agricultural Innovations Partnership that I know you’re celebrating today, and it is one that we hope will continue to generate the kinds of successes that we’ve seen in the past.

The second thing I wanted to talk to about was U.S. aid to India. We talk a lot about the history of this partnership based on what has been achieved here, but it took me a while to even understand it. The U.S. Agency for International Development, as an institution, is the result of those early food aid programs that took place here 60 to65 years ago. In fact that’s how American foreign assistance started. Food aid to India was the first major investment of foreign assistance outside of the Marshall Plan in Europe that then led to the creation of USAID to carry that message forward around the world. The transition from food aid to food security was one that really defined the first several decades of our agency and our nation’s engagements around the world in foreign aid and assistance.

But that was then. Today we no longer think of India as a country that needs assistance. In fact the opposite is true. Today India’s innovators, India’s technologists, India’s scientists, many of you are creating the breakthroughs that we need in the United States and that are needed in places like Africa and other parts of Asia and everywhere around the world. So we aspire to shift from a traditional relationship of donor and recipient to one that is really about peers standing together, engaging in technical cooperation, leveraging the unique resources that each of us have, and doing so with an absolute focus on science, technology and innovation. That’s why we’re reinvesting in agricultural research, but it’s also why we’re investing in social entrepreneurs in India who are creating new businesses to sell soap and water purification systems that help poor children have a healthy life. It’s why we are investing in the use of mobile phones to provide agricultural extension services. But it’s also why we’re investing in mobile banking platforms that can allow women for the first time to have a safe place to save resources and can allow all people to access micro-insurance and a range of other products.

Just earlier today we launched a major new program together with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and a number of other partners to really create an innovative ecosystem in development and to think of our Indian mission as a cutting edge laboratory.

The third thing I want to talk about is institutions. We sometimes forget when looking at such a great institution, that development is not just about achieving the specific result that we seek to achieve in a particular timeframe, but about creating institutions like this one that have transformational power over generations. And I think today too often the United States, the European partners, as well as some of the Chinese investments around the world, are too focused on helping their own national firms gain access to contracts and resources abroad, and we forget sometimes the value of investing specifically in local institutions not just for a year or two, but for decades. And not just when times are good, but also when times are toughso that we leave a lasting legacy like the one we are honoring here today.

That fundamentally is what our USAID Forward Reforms are all about. Around the world we’re shifting from about 9 percent to more than 30 percent of USAID resources -- which is about $5 billion a year -- that will be invested directly in local institutions with the goal of creating many more of the success stories.

The final thing I’d like to say is that at the end of the day these goals are all achievable. We can end hunger, we can save children from unnecessary death, we can end HIV/AIDS, and we can ensure that every child on the planet has the ability to read at grade level. But doing all those things requires real and genuine political leadership.

So it’s an honor to be with Dr. Swaminathan on a day when he might be introducing the food security legislation. But great nations can make great actions. India is taking seriously the challenge of ensuring food security for its 1.2 billion people, of wiping out a child malnutrition rate that is still 48 percent even after a decade of nearly 10 percent annualized economic growth, of addressing the fact that it’s a very powerful agricultural economy, but it still only accounts for 1.7 percent of global trade in the ag sector. Those are the kinds of challenges we face. We have similar challenges at home in the United States. The combination of political leadership, scientific insight, the faith and the commitment to great institutions, and a desire to innovate will help us succeed.

So thank you and I’m really honored to be here today. Thank you very much.