my question is, what is the department doing in light of the fact that the eeoc ranks the department of state among cabinet agencies in last place where persons with targeted disabilities to improve the experience of people with disabilities in the department and retention rates for people such as myself who feel we might have to leave due to our experiences as a person with disability. i just give this to you for your consideration and thank you. >> well, thank you. i recently met with our advisory council on disabilities. and they had some very good recommendations, and we are trying to improve our treatment of and support for people with disabilities. thank you. >> okay. our next question comes from jim finkel. can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called firefox. [laughter] [applause]

>> i just moved to the state department from the national geospatial intelligence agency and was surprised state doesn't use this browser. it was approved for the entire intelligence community so i don't understand why state can't use it. it's a much safer program. [applause] . thank you. >> well, apparently there's a lot of support for this suggestion. i don't know the answer. pat, do you know the answer? [laughter] >> the answer is -- the answer at the moment it's answer expense question. >> it's free! >> nothing is free. it's a question of the resources to manage multiple systems and it's something we're looking at and thanks to the secretary, is there is a significant increase

in the 2010 budget request that's pending by which we fund our information technology operations. with the secretary's continuing pushing, we're hoping to get that increase in the capital investment fund and with those additional resources, we'll be able to add multiple programs to it. yes, you're correct. it's free but it has to be administered. the patches have to be loaded. it may seem small but when you're running a worldwide operation and trying to push as the secretary rightly said out fobs and other devices, you're caught in the terrible bind of triage of trying to get the most out that you can but knowing you can't do everything at once. >> so we will try to move toward that. you know, when the white house was putting together the stimulus package, we were able to get money that would be spent in the united states, which was the priority.

for i.t. and upgrading our system and expanding its reach. and this is a very high priority for me. and we will continue to push the envelope on it. i mean, pat is right. that everything does come with some cost, but we will -- we will be looking to try to see if we can extend it as quickly as possible. it raises another issue with me. if we're spending money on things that are not productive and useful, let us know. because, you know, there are tens of thousands of people who are using systems and office supplies and all the rest of it -- the more money we can save on stuff that is not cutting edge, the more resources we'll have to shift to do things that will give us more tools. i mean, it sounds simplistic but one of the most common suggestions on the sounding board was having better systems to utilize supplies, paper

supplies, office supplies and be more conscious of their purchasing and their using. and it reminded me of, you know, what i occasionally sometimes do, which i call shopping in my closet. which means opening doors and seeing what i actually already have, which i really suggest to everybody because it's quite enlightening. [laughter] >> so when you go to the store and you buy, you know, let's say peanut butter and you don't realize you have two jars already at the back of the shelf, i mean, that sounds simplistic, but help us save money on stuff that we shouldn't be wasting money on. and give us the chance to manage our resources to do more things like firefox, okay? yeah. >> good morning, madam secretary. i'm shirley miles from the overseas building operation and i'm director of internal review and operation research. i asked you a question during

women history month celebration concerning workplace bullying and since then you have mandated a policy be developed for addressing the systemic issue with bullying and i want to thank you very much for being the first secretary of state to take a stand against workplace bullying. and because of this, a committee is being formed by the human resource department to develop this policy. i have a couple of requests. our request is that this committee also include some of the folks who have been bullied to look out of the best interests of those who have been abused, otherwise, it's like letting the fox into the hen house. you've heard that. secondly, i request that this committee address the retaliation against those that have filed complaints because that has been done as well. because when they are standing up for themselves, they are prevented from being promoted, rewarded for their work.

and then being marginalized being stuck from the corner and then advancing in their career. the third thing is that it has been stated by some senior management that if you work for a bad manager or if you don't like how your manager is treating you, then you shall look for another job. madam secretary, i'm certain this would not be your statement because bad managers make the department dysfunctional and as you mentioned, you need the support to move forward on your programs. and so our request would be that the bad manager be turned into good ones, of training, and if they don't change, then they have to be removed because when good people are still being placed under bad managers, those people will be moved out and then, you know, the other people come in would be abused as well. so i want to just thank you so much for all the good work that you're doing in setting up this committee. >> thank you. and thank you for those excellent suggestions, too. [applause]

>> thank you, madam secretary. my name is brian. i'm with the office of international religious freedom. with president obama's cairo speech last month and his outlining of several foreign policy goals specifically dealing with democracy, religious freedom and human rights, what are some things -- what are some -- what are some ways in which we can do more outreach and support for religious minorities especially, say, the religious minorities in iraq and other places? >> excellent question. you know, we began the follow-up efforts to the president's historic speech in cairo on the policy planning office under dr. slaughter who is coordinating that and we're looking for your suggestions.

we have already passed on to the white house a number of very specific ways to follow up. we don't want the speech to be given with nothing happening and nothing changing. so i would welcome your ideas and the ideas of the people working with you about how we could perhaps address these. i mean, you mentioned two particular concerns of mine, the treatment of people with the egyptian government and with the region to swine flu, all of their pigs were slaughtered, which is, you know, a real economic hardship that they are trying to recover from. and in iraq, we've seen some glimmers of hope in the way the iraqi government is treating and protecting minority religions, but there has to be a lot more to do and that's one of the issues that we're discussing

with the iraqis in our agenda but specific ideas are very much solicited. >> thank you, madam secretary. >> yes. >> our next online question comes from peter. could you please tell us what your plans are for restructuring the foreign assistance responsibilities of usaid and state. will usaid have an administrator before the end of the fiscal year? thank you. >> i hope so. we are working very hard getting to the point where we can announce a nominee for the usaid director which we think of as a very, you know, critical leader in our efforts. and i hope that will come very soon. but part of doing this qddr process rather than running separate processes which is what we do for budget, planning purposes is to start from the beginning with an integrated process that usaid will be a complete partner in with state

because i think there's so much synergy. you know, when you look at the work that we do here on population and refugees or or democracy promotion or some of our science outreach, our health and economic work, there is so much synergy that can be created if we're better able to work together and intergrate appropriately between state and usaid. now, clearly, getting a leader on board is a very high priority for me and i'm working very hard to make that happen. and i hope it certainly will be in the very near future. yes. >> good morning, madam secretary. >> morning. >> i'm monica. i'm an intern in diplomatic security, international programs african division. and i'm actually very honored to be here. i attend the university of miami. and i applied online and i'm here today.

i just wanted to know what -- as interns what we could do to help with the changes happening in the state department. and also ways that they can maybe in turn in the future help interns come to d.c. and just sometimes are not paid and have to find housing and just kind of live here for two months in order to help the state department. so if there's any way that we can help you with these changes happening in the very much. >> are you at the university of miami in miami, florida. >> yes. >> so donna shalala is your president? >> yes. >> i think that's a really good point because we -- how many interns are here? see, we have a lot of interns. [laughter] i know. >> i know. [applause] >> see, i think that is a great tribute to the state department, and i know there are interns over at usaid that we want to

utilize the talents and hard work, often free, of interns like yourselves. so part of what we hope -- i know we run a very good intern program here and by the hands that went up, it's a very -- it has a lot of good outreach. but any of your ideas about how we could improve it, how we could utilize you more, whether there's a way to solicit opinions from young people like yourselves about your experience and your desire and interest and work full-time for our government particularly at state or usaid, i'm very interested in what you might have to offer us. so i think it would be useful to have an organized way to solicit the opinions and ideas of the

interns who are here. i find it also is very telling that, you know, sometimes -- i mean, technology is changing so quickly that you may have some new ideas that we haven't even thought of and we have a very vigorous effort underway to make it more technofriendly and involved in all the new technology but we're very much looking for ideas all the time. so may i suggest to the interns that you can use a sounding board. you can make sure that the people with whom you work know, any ideas or suggestions that you have because we generally are looking for, you know, people to make a commitment to public service and we hope that many of you will decide to go in the foreign service or the civil service and be, you know, part of your country's foreign policy. thank you. >> yes. >> my name is grant and i work

in the office of the chief operating officer at usaid. this is my personal question, however. i think global -- americans are more and more conscious of global problems as they come home. your strategy represents an unprecedented opportunity to make a clear story of how our work addresses those problems. you've also mentioned that this would likely be institutionalized in legislation. our legislation does not present a clear explanation to americans. >> right. >> of how we take on these problems and what we do for u.s. citizens. many thinkers point to the need for a grand compromise between the executive and the legislature, how congress can feel comfortable with the supervision it has but the administration can have more flexibility in what it does. i'd like your ideas on your plan

to move forward with that. >> well, you know, i think that you make some very important points. we need a narrative. you know, especially in difficult economic times. we need to be able to explain to the american people who are losing their jobs, feeling more and more insecure, why spending money to send diplomats or development experts around the world to deal with problems in the view of a lot of the folks that i know out in our country people should just take care of it for themselves. and we need to make the linkage between not just our humanitarian and moral values but our interests, our strategic interests in the world and tell a story that is convincing to our fellow citizens. so one of the reasons why i want to do this qddr process is i think we need to update and refresh our story. i think we need to listen to

each other, and we need to cut down the bureaucratic barriers that sometimes get in the way of common effort in our own government and with the private sector and with ngos and set forth a clear sense of mission backed up by defensible requests for resources. so we're just beginning this process. i have ideas. it sounds like you have ideas. i bet everybody here has their own ideas. and that's why we want this to be a bottom-up process. we want to hear what you think we should be doing, but i want people to think about it in terms of telling your family members, people you go to see at a high school reunion, you know, hard-working americans -- why what you do is in their interests and the interests of their children. if we can't make that case, we

can't sustain the increased resources that we are obtaining. you know, i've worked very hard over the last six months to make the case for greater resources. and we've done well. but part of the reason we did well is because i kept saying over and over again, united states cannot be a bystander. it will come back to hurt us. it will endanger the future of our children. and, therefore, what we're doing is most profoundly and fundamentally in the interests of the american people. and we've got to make that case. i think we can make it without any question at all. but we need to make it. and so that's what this process is for. so i don't want to, you know, pre-judge it and say what i believe we should do x, y, and z. i want to hear from all of you and i want to make sure we come up with a very convincing story

about who we are and what we do for the american people and for peace and progress and prosperity around the world. yes. >> our next online question comes from tommy grant. border security is a top priority, yet, i am not sure how state fits in the overall plan to combat illegal trafficking and drugs, humans and the travel of terrorists. what are we doing now and what are our plans in the future? >> well, we're doing a lot. and i would hope that -- it was tommy? i hope that tommy would get a copy of our tips report, the trafficking in persons report, that has just come out, which is the definitive analysis of what's happening with the trafficking of persons around the world. i think that report is a very critical part of our role in trying to raise standards and protect human rights, but i have said that next year we're going to include ourselves.

i want us to start looking at the united states for every report we do. because i happen to think we'll end up being a tier one country but i think we will have more credibility if we start looking at the united states while we criticize other countries as well. [applause] >> there's a lot of work that the state department does in conjunction with homeland security, with ice, with the department of justice. we also, through inl, have a very active role in drug interdiction, counter-narcotics trafficking work. i think that many of our missions around the world house dea agents and others that are part of the american presence. the state department and usaid

are very active in our border security efforts. we don't have the lead. that is not our mission, but we are very active participants and supporters in our country's policy. yes. >> good morning, madam secretary. my name is lauren nesbitt. i work in the messaging office of irm and i'm also a staton school student and i'm very excited to be in the program. but i was wondering if you had any interest in promoting the co-op program? it's a little bit broader and it, i think, brings in more students especially from the area. i go to the catholic university of america, columbus school of law and i know a lot of students will look for an internship or something that would bring them in and be able to keep them in the federal government. >> i very much support those programs. and i wanted to add to the young woman who spoke earlier about the internship program. i know it's a financial hardship on many students who cannot afford to do unpaid work. i don't know what the legal

constraints are, but it might be possible to provide some minimal subsidy for people who have financial needs. we'll look at that. but anything which expands our pool of potential interns and fellows and others who are coming in to the department is something i'm in favor of. yes. >> good morning, madam secretary. i'm brittany, i'm another intern. i work for western european affairs. just not to make this into an intern-central town hall thing, but i've really enjoyed my time here working at state and i'd like to encourage everybody here to stay in touch with interns even after the internship is over. i think that is a particularly important time where we could find out information about possible job opportunities or just staying in touch with each other, you know, building on future career paths. so keep in touch with your interns. >> do we have any kind of website for interns? do we? we do? what's it called? >> intern connect. >> intern connect. [inaudible]

>> lots of interns are signing up and starting conversations there. it would be a great place for you all to share your ideas. >> i think that's great to have the interns themselves connecting but then i think the people who have worked with and mentored interns should stay in touch because there's a lot of evidence that interns become the best pool of recruits. if people have a good intern experience, they are much more likely to come to work. and so i think the more we can nurture those career ambitions, the better. so thank you. >> thank you. >> good morning, madam secretary. my name is nina, and i serve on the arabic diplomatic interpreting and translating team. we are very proud and very happy to see you for us who serve

under you and who serve under former secretary rice to see women in leadership. you are a source of inspiration for us. now, a quick two points. the first one we definitely are very thankful for our leaders at the department when they encourage things like work/life balance. for the lady who spoke about showers and things like that, this makes a big difference because if you have a healthy mind, you can have a healthy, very productive work force if they feel at ease, you know, with themselves, families and everything so we are thankful for that. one more point about allocation of assets, human assets. if you think about the cooperation, for instance, in the private sector, they can see an asset and how they can tap into it for different multipurposes, if you will. is it possible to have at our department a database where, for instance, you have particular contingent that is serving in a particular project or, you know, positions but, you know, if you need, for instance, to go and help or assist or be on

temporary women's issues or engagement with the muslim world and things like that, perhaps they can bring something to the team, to the overall team. yeah, just email or particular initiatives or stuff like that. they can have an impact. >> thank you. thank you for that. that's an interesting idea. yes. [inaudible] >> madam secretary, good morning. my name is alexander. i'm a contract employee under irm at the moment. as zaformer soldier i noted during my time in the army that many of our field commanders have extensive diplomatic relations with their local counterparts. i was wondering if it was possible if there's an initiative to actually draw on that experience from the state department's point of view and then also to exchange it by sending foreign service matter experts and regional experts to deployment units or to critical

units and to help brief them and get them ready for the challenges of nonkinetic warfare in their operations. >> excellent. thank you for your service. i think we are trying to do more of that. you will not be surprised that a lot of military officers have been increasingly responsible for what we would consider diplomacy and development in conflict zones. and we're working closely with the defense department and the congress to try to get some more balance into that so that we can have more of our diplomats and development experts working with the military and that we can learn from the military experience. you know, one of the things that the military did, which made diplomatic and development work possible for them was to create something called the commander emergency response funds, surf

funds, back in 2002 and '3 -- when i went to iraq and afghanistan several times and particularly in iraq, you know, i met young captains and messages and lieutenant colonels who had a sum of money that they were able to disperse without any accountability. it was an important tool. we don't have that on the diplomatic and development side. it's a very cumbersome process. lots of what was going on was -- and a lot of military officers told me is this. they were relying on diplomats and usaid personnel to tell them how to spend the money which they had. so we're working to try to get a better balance again between that defense diplomacy and development. and i think it's important that we do try to learn from each other. if you take what we're trying to do in afghanistan and pakistan, both general petraeus and ambassador holbrooke are working

very closely together. they had a lot of joint meetings together. there's almost a mind-meld around some of what we're trying to achieve there so we're learning. but any thoughts you have or ideas based on your experience, we would be very happy to see because we need to get better at that. thank you all very much. [applause] >> the state department also held this briefing with more details about the quadrennial diplomacy and development review. deputy secretary of state jacob lou in charge of the new initiative leads this half hour briefing. [inaudible conversations]

>> good afternoon, everyone. and welcome to the state department. to lead off our briefing, we have deputy secretary jack lou and ahead of policy planning emory slaughter to talk about the quadrennial diplomacy and development review, the qddr that secretary clinton announced this morning. i think secretary lou is going to start.÷ >> thanks. thank you all for being here. i will speak very briefly at the outset 'cause the secretary addressed this initiative in the town hall and i think you all had the ability to either be there or listen in. but i want to start by saying how excited we are about this undertaking. we feel it pulls together an awful lot of things we've been talking about from the very first days we've been here in terms of how do we take a strategic look at everything that we do in diplomacy and

development to be able to order our resources, our people, our programs so that they are in service of our highest priorities. i would say that we began the process as an outgrowth of review foreign assistance programs. i think everyone knows we've been in the process of looking hard at our foreign assistance programs. and it quickly became apparent to us that one couldn't really just look at development in the absence of looking at development and diplomacy. that one has to inform the other and it has to go both directions. that our development strategy has to tie into what our foreign policy objectives are and frankly our foreign policy objectives have to reflect our development strategies. we're putting together an effort that will reach across the entirety of the state department and usaid. it will involve the participation of the senior leadership in both organizations. as the secretary mentioned this morning, there'll be the leadership group in addition to myself and ann marie will

include the acting administrator of usaid. he would have been here today but he's doing today what we all should do as good parents. he's on a college tour with his daughter and we're going to be usaid at the town hall yesterday. we had the town hall today. the town hall on monday and that's kind of the plan for how we announce it. let me talk a little bit about the expectations and the timetable. you know, we are -- we are very aware that what we announced is a big undertaking. you know, we don't have the luxury of undertaking it in an academic way where we have years to complete it. we're in a world whereas early as middle of september, we have to have our budget proposals at the white house for next year. for 2011. at the end of the year, beginning of next year, it has to be locked up so that our proposals for 2011 are set. so we're undertaking this process in parallel to the normal budget processes.

so we've started our senior reviews on the budget process. they will be structured around strategic issues. they will inform the qddr and the qddr will inform them. frankly the qddr will have a longer time frame. i don't think we're going to be done with an undertaking as expansive as the qddr by the middle of september. but we will have some initial thoughts. those initial thoughts will inform the budget process. as we get towards the end of the year, we will be almost six months into the qddr before we finalize our budget, we'll have the opportunity to have that process of checking in take place again. you know, the question that i'm sure many have when will there be a report and what will it look like? we're shooting to have our first -- you know, our first round to look at the beginning of next year. since the beginning of a new process, i'm reluctant to set a date. we're reluctant to say we'll on

x date. we want to have it going and have a quadrennial process. every four years it's updated and there's a longer period of time to do it on an ongoing basis. i think if you look at the initiative that is we've undertaken in the area of development and foreign assistance, you can already see the seeds of some of the things that we're thinking about. you know, the food security initiative, the global health initiative, they've got a lot of things in common in terms of strategic direction. they're the result of asking questions about how do you have sustainable results? how do you tie what you're doing so your diplomatic and your development efforts support one another? and how do you reach out across not just u.s. government agencies but other partners to have bigger results than we could have by ourselves? those are the kinds of questions that we'll be asking in the qddr on a much broader basis and i'm quite certain when we get through the process we will have

a set of reorganized and reprioritized objectives because that's why you go through a process like this. it's to ask the fundamental questions to make sure that we've identified the right strategic objectives. to make sure that our diplomatic effort is geared as best as it can be to meet the needs that we see today and coming years. and to ask the question about how the development and diplomatic efforts complement one another. why don't i stop there in terms of opening and emory and i are happy to answer any questions that you have. >> i'm having a hard time getting my head around exactly what this is supposed to do. i mean, hasn't the u.s. government or the state department and aid since their inception been trying to streamline -- make more efficient development and diplomacy? and if they haven't -- i mean, i think the taxpayers kind of

would like to know why that is. i can't imagine that this is the first time that the state department under any administration has started to look at these questions. and then the second thing is, what exactly is the report going to say when it comes out? and why is it going to be different than any of the myriad similar reports done in the private sector by think tanks which we're all aware of. there are floods of them. i mean, 10, 15 a year, maybe about how state and usaid could do better. >> even if we were doing everything well it would still be our job to ask the question, how can we do it better? and we've been very candid we don't think we've been doing everything as well as we should. there's areas of our program that we need to change. some in case is how we do business, in some cases how we define the objectives. the pentagon had a very serious program to defend the united

states and armed forces before they had a qdr process. they learned by having a systematic process and they can look down the road and see what the challenges look like that better informed the decision that is they make. there's no agency that freezes in place its plans for four years or five years at a time. so it's an organic process that's ongoing. but there ought to be a longer view where you ask the question, what do we think our objective is and when you take changes along the way do it self-consciously so there's an analytical systematic approach. there are many reports put out by governmental and nongovernmental organizations. there are a lot of ideas out there. the process of pulling those ideas together, having it informed by the experience of the professionals at state, usaid and the other agencies that will be involved and framing it for strategic choices by the current leadership are what we're talking about.

p of those other reports were prepared by leaders responsible for putting forward by budgets for the president to present to congress. none of those other reports were put together by people responsible for implementing our foreign policy or development program. >> well, in many cases they were put together by people who had been previously and given the revolving door nature of this down, will be coming back into these positions. >> having been -- >> why is this thing not going to get put up on a shelf and when it's done the report will be put up on the shelf and forgotten. why is that not going to happen? >> i would just underscore the way it's connected to the real business on a day-to-day basis. we will have a budget proposal that goes to omb in mid-september. that will be informed by the quality of work done in this qddr up to this point. we will have a budget that the president sends to the congress at the beginning of next year. it will be informed by the work that we do in this process. you know, having been in government and out of

government, it's very different to have ideas when you're giving suggestions than it is to make decision which is you're responsible for them. >> i think the other big difference is this is the first time ever we've done something that that brings development and diplomacy together they are the embassies of the future, there's those kind of reports and there's lots of reports how you can do development assistance better but secretary clinton has said one of her primary goals is the development and diplomacy are going to be equal pillars of foreign policy and this is the process that is going to do that from the bottom up. that it's not just going to talk about it but intergrate it with aid and state and all the other agencies that do development and diplomacy working together for a combined plan. >> two things. one, you know, d.o.d. is a much more generously resourced place than state. >> we hadn't noticed. [laughter]

>> yeah, i'm glad you now know. [laughter] >> so do you have any concern that pulling people -- you know, you obviously want smart people to work on this. do you feel like you have the bandwidth to do this or is it going to suck, you know, smart people away from perhaps a more pressing need. and a perennial process that many of us in this room associated with the budget process is that when we ask, as we did, for example, recently about honduras how much does the u.s. government to give honduras and it took 48 hours to get that question answered. and, you know, one of the reasons it's so hard to do that, of course, is that money that goes to different countries get split up better than you know in lots of different accounts from the government. i wonder as part of this you guys are trying to get a better feel for not just how much money state and aid spend on country x but how much the government as a

whole does so that your thinking of diplomacy and development you actually have a sense well, the u.s. government invests x dollars in country y maybe we should adjust it in the following ways. every time it's like reinventing the wheel trying to figure out where the money goes and what it's used for. >> we needed to have it all come together so we can see what we're doing in each country in a systemic way. being part of an agency being responsible for a big piece of it. it's not like we inherited a system where the numbers tie together and you can push a button expansion report. there's a lot to do it. a history has a history of the programs and the systems that support them. someone has to have the attitude that we view what we're doing a whole of government effort or

not. this process will be imbued with a sense with all the agencies that state has any responsibility for has to look at it holistically. to the extent we're able to reach out and work across government, that certainly will be an objective. and i should note -- this is not something that will be combined strictly to the sheriff's department. there are other agencies of government that have significant roles in the international arena. we are very conscious of the fact that international financial institutions, trade policy, law enforcement policy -- a host of areas have enormous impact on what the total presence of the united states government is. our qddr will feed into a review process where the nsc is going to try to pull together across government a view of this. it's a big undertaking. i don't think that anyone should expect that in 12 months we will have it down perfect. and that we'll be able to, you know, after decades of all of those things being separate have

them seamlessly integrated so you can sit at a computer and get the answer to your honduras question in five minutes. and so we can form strategic judgments on a real time basis. as i talk to our colleagues and other agencies i think this administration is focused on doing it that way. there's not a lot of patience for jurisdictional answers for what should be policy answers. >> just for what it's worth, it's more than eight years now since you were at omb and, you know, secretary rice talked about how she asked this question when she came in as secretary of state and she never was able to get good or quick answers, how much money do we spend on country x. and i just fear that eight years from now it'll be the same thing. and nobody -- and if you can't actually figure out easily the money you're spending on a place, it's very hard to see how you can properly intergrate your development and diplomatic efforts. >> i think in fairness the

systems are better developed than they were eight years ago. there's more of an ability to look at the different organizations that state has responsibility for. and i think when one asks the question what are the biggest piece that is one has to get their hands around as opposed to how do you get every single source coordinated, you can make significant progress more quickly. i don't want to go beyond the boundaries of what is our process. our qddr is going to be aimed at the institutions that we're responsible for. but it would be in consultation with other agencies and hopefully put together a process where there's a shared objective to get closer to that point. >> it's all difficult to follow 'cause it is abstract but maybe if you took the example of the middle east, how would you match development and diplomacy better? we already have examples where each, of course, has a program and palestinians, how would it be really different from what it is today? >> rather than use the middle

east as an example, i think the history of the different streams of support for the middle east are so unique that it's hard to generalize from it. let me use an example that covers many countries in many regions. the pepfar program coordination with other programs. pepfar is an enormously effective program. it has covered 2 million people for treatment, for hiv-aids, malaria and tuberculosis. when i was omb director if you told me that level commitment of level was there, we have a challenge. how do you have a sustainable program where the country owns it, where you add treatment -- prevention to the treatment and where there's a system in place so that fewer people get sick in the future. that's not something you can do through the boundaries of a pepfar program alone. it involves usaid because there are health programs and economic development programs that are

highly relevant. it involves the mcc because some of those pepfar-focused countries are also mcc eligible. it involves diplomatic relations. in order for us to have a pepfar-focused country understand how important it is in terms of our support to have a sustainable government approach, it involves the ambassador and the leadership of the department engaging with the leadership of the country at the presidential prime minister and finance minister as well as the health minister as well. i think we have an outstanding new head. it's not within the boundaries of pepfar to achieve sustainability. it's going to take an -- literally an al-government effort but it's going to have to be driven by development and diplomacy being brought together. now, we're doing that review in parallel to this but it's part of it. you know, we have a report due to congress in september on a

strategic review of pepfar. it's informed by the form of questions that are informing the whole qddr. i use that as an example because i think it cuts across as many lines of the programs that are in -- that we're responsible for as anything does. now, i hope that we come up with answers that are different because we're asking the question the way we are in the qddr. >> it's interesting the two examples that you mentioned. there are both bush administration initiatives -- you're saying that you're going to take these good programs that the former administration put into place and make them better? >> well, i actually mentioned quite a few programs. >> how far in the mcc is what -- how far is the mcc? >> there's no question there's a big growth in foreign assistance in the areas of pepfar and mccs. it will be the focus of a lot of review of how we coordinate our foreign assistance programs and when we announced the global health initiative we went out of our way to complement the efforts of the past administrations to say we want to build on it.

our goal is -- we don't think it's say it's an unsustainable path and how do you pivot it to get it to a place that sustainable. >> there's some controversial problems in the fast are you going to fix it as far as these problems are concerned? >> accountability in terms of the way the funds are handled by the countries we make foreign assistance grants to? well, i think at the core of a lot of issues are capacity of governments that we provide capacity to. it comes in the form of democratic institutions. it comes in the form of the transparency. it comes in the form of corruption. i think that we have to be focused on capacity-building and if one really hopes to get the sustainable results, that has to be one of the things that we're aiming for. it has been a challenge in the past. it will be a challenge in the future. i think we've learned lessons in the past. it's certainly one of the things

that we'll be looking at in this review. >> you've got a briefing upstairs. >> is all this being done under ordinary funding for your offices now? are you requesting more money to do this? >> you know, i mean, the -- it is within the boundaries of what the policy staffs here do to ask questions like this. so we're pulling people from different places. i frankly haven't looked to see whether in the aggregate it stresses any of our office budgets. we're not talking about hundreds of people. there are other agencies that do this with hundreds of people. we will be doing it with -- you know, with less than a dozen people. [laughter] >> so i hope that we can handle that. >> is this created or -- is this ensconced in statute in any way?

in other words, the next administration that isn't led by president obama, will they be obligated to perform -- >> the secretary addressed that this morning in the town hall. we know there have been proposals in congress to require a process like this. you know, our view has been we wanted a little bit of time to think it through and structure it in a way that we think makes sense. we believe it does make sense ultimately to take the process and regularize it. the real value comes from repetition. you get immediate results the first time you do it. but, you know, i've talked to my colleagues in the defense department. they know a lot more now than the first time they did a qdr. they know about problems to avoid and a way to get value out of it. we're going to try to learn from experience from others once we establish the process here, we think it makes sense to carry it forward. >> and do you think that this exercise will have any impact on the approaches that we take toward those countries with whom we don't have any diplomatic relations? >> you know, i'm not sure

exactly how to answer that question 'cause -- as we think about the challenges of the future -- and i think as the president and the secretary have made clear, one of the things we have to think about is how do we have relations with countries to move towards progress in areas where progress has been difficult to achieve in part because we don't talk to each other. i suspect the questions like that will come up in the diplomacy part of this qddr. we're just at the beginning. i can't give you the answers. >> in other words, does this have the potential, this exercise, to basically become a policy-making exercise as opposed to just a review of some kind? >> well, i think it is inherently a policy-making process. they have a bit of a bias. but i think even in the resource allocation decisions that will be informed by it or a policy. you know, where we put our people and where we put our program dollars is policy. the diplomatic piece of this and

anne-marie can address this after i leave. it will have a lot of bearing on how we present the u.s. presence in countries and perhaps in countries where we're not. we're going to be asking questions about what is the right way for the u.s. diplomatic presence to be managed? you know, there's a lot of policy with what we're doing. this is not a procedural exercise. there may be organizational decisions that come out of it. there may not be. we're not going to in with the notion that at the other end of this is a certain organizational chart for all development and diplomacy. if at the end of this review that's what we think we need to do to get results, that's one of the recommendations will be. it's all about how do we achieve results and it's all about policy. i apologize. i'm going to have to run but anne-marie will stay. >> i have a question over here. >> can i just just say one thing following up on that. you'll hear the secretary next week talk about broad strategic objectives and broad strategic

approaches. this process takes that very broad view down to the more operational let me and says, all right, how do we actually achieve those objectives and that clearly is establishing resource allocation but also it is -- it is defining policy in specific areas. but as we said from the beginning, from the bottom up, it's not an outside report saying this is what the state department and aid should do. it's people in aid and the state department consulting on what do we need to do to accomplish those objectives. yeah. >> traditionally humanitarian aid has been kind of walled off from the diplomatic objectives of the united states. should this be seen in some way as a blurring of that bright line? >> i don't think so. that's one of the questions we're constantly engaging when we talk about diplomacy and development and how they work together and sometimes one is clearly a tool of another. when we have a peace settlement, we need to pour in development money to stabilize it, well, there you've got development

serving a security objective but the secretary has made clear as far as she sees our objectives, they include women's education, education broadly, health, reduction of poverty. those are foreign policy objectives. and i would include as one of that, clearly providing humanitarian assistance in extreme crisis. to the extent that is a foreign policy objective, it's not going to subordinate it to something else and it's certainly not going to interfere with our ability to supply it. i would say it's more likely to leverage our humanitarian assistance dollars by thinking about how we connect to other governments and international and regional organizations. yeah. >> the secretary touched on this this morning but maybe you can shed some more light on when we could expect the naming of the u.s. aid director? i'd manage that would be somebody who had a lot to do with this report. can you explain why there hasn't been one named already? >> i can't explain -- all i can say what the secretary said, we

are very anxious to have the aid administrator on board. the acting aid administrator will be working with us until the aid administrator is named. and he or she will be a full part of the process. no one will be happier than we are to stand up and make that announcement. yeah. >> one of the things the secretary said this morning is that there's been a dearth of information for the american public as to where all the money goes. and that this qddr is part of a function of telling the american public some of whom have lost jobs, many of whom are having economic problems, here's where your money is being spent and why. is it going to be like a corporate annual report where there's a lot of flag-waving and gee, aren't we great we spent this money on this project? >> well, it will be quadrennial to begin with so not annual. i emphasize that. and we hope there's going to be a break between the end of this and the beginning of the next so it's not a four-year process. absolutely, the idea that part of what we're doing in reviewing how we're spending the money and are we spending the money as

effectively as we can in support of a defined set of objectives, that's an internal narrative but it also has to be an external story that we can defend on the hill, that we can defend when the secretary gives speeches and press briefings. it's a large part of the way she thinks of our mission, which is we're out in the world. we're engaging other countries but we are also spending taxpayer dollars and we need to account for that. >> i think the success of the approach to the strategic approach to the u.s. diplomacy, does it depend on all the money and the budget you all you know all put forward and give these countries in there but especially in the middle east, people after the great speech of president obama, that what secretary clinton has mentioned this morning about engaging other countries that don't agree

with you, that -- that success of this diplomacy would depend a lot on how much the u.s. administration is going to depend on the value of america and the principles of america and the international legitimacy. so how much of that is going to be part of the new strategic approach of diplomacy of the united states when it comes to implementing these principles and values in the middle east and not that the dependence on only the alliances with israel that is bothering and igniting the trend of violence in the middle east? >> well, i think the question of how we intergrate the values we embrace and we champion and what we do when concrete policies, both diplomatically and development policies is exactly what we hope to get at in this review. and it isn't all about money.

part of the review is, well, if these are our objectives and these are our values, are these policies serving those objectives and those values? and you could sometimes conclude, no, and don't have to spend any more money but in other cases, you want to intergrate what we're doing better. let me give you an example. one of our values is to strengthen civil society across the middle east, in many countries. one of the things that development policy can do better is to leverage the work of nongovernmental organizations on the ground, also from abroad in ways that do strengthen civil society so there's a diplomatic objective there. there's also a development set of objectives. there are ways to save some money by leveraging what people are already doing. and simultaneously have our development objectives and our diplomatic objectives work together. >> so do you -- are you trying to say the new strategy of diplomatic approach of the united states is going to adopt the values and the principles of

the country of america in implementing its policies and not only the alliances that, you know, has been taken more importance in the previous administration when it deals with the arab, you know, grievances against what israel has been doing, you know, in their territories. >> i think president obama made very clear what values we want to stand on in his cairo speech and i would definitely stand by that. >> thank you. >> is part of the u.s. influence around the globe, whatever this new strategy coming up? >> well, i think the idea that we're reviewing our objectives and trying to align the way we spend our money with our values with our stated diplomatic objectives is part of what this administration wants to do. and why are we doing this now? we're at the outset of a new administration and we want to make sure we set those objectives and that we resource them as effectively as possible.

>> do you envision this being an elaborate interview process or do you envision conducting a lot of this business by conference calls or travel? i mean, how exactly do you physically see this review being conducted out with the various agency and department heads? >> well, there'll be a lot of working groups within the government but also cables out to posts asking for input. you heard the secretary this morning essentially say to all the employees of the sheriff's department, send us your ideas. we'll be doing that more systematically. we'll do it by video means rather than sending teams out. it will be an effort to canvass the people who are out there and to build on previous reviews. >> but it will be done green? >> it will be done green. [laughter] >> so there won't be a 500-page paper report at the end of the process? >> there certainíru)s& be a

report. i can't say how long it will be and it'll be electronically available i would imagine. >> can i ask you a question. the administration has talked this over with the with chairman burman that has proposed the language that has been passed by the house. and if you did discuss it with him, are you -- it wasn't clear to me from secretary lew's comments whether you'd like to see his language become law which would then make this mandatory and under, you know, particular terms? >> secretary clinton has consulted closely with chairman burman and deputy secretary lew also and i think the secretary said, we'd like to see this made regular. we're introducing it as a quadrennial review. the exact terms of how that's ultimately put into legislation, obviously, that'll be worked out. part of what we wanted to do was to do one before we found ourselves under a mandate. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> you're welcome.