you are on the program with rajiv shah. caller: this morning, thank you for your very hard work, sir. i have one question. do you handle all the funding yourself through your own agency or do you have to go into a country and kind of an jiggle around or fight with them about how much they are going to spend? do you just control all the funding? a couple years ago there was something where pakistan wanted money that we were going to give them, not the products. i was wondering, is this something that you come up against? guest: thank you, diane. it is. we have been very committed to working in partnership with hosts countries where we worked and with communities. working with civil society organizations in countries, finding sand on locking the talent of local entrepreneurs, whether they are creating feed companies that can help bring visibility and on that nation's struggles and inspire people to commit for the long run. we have under our stewardship really tried to change the way we work so that we are not sort of working

was aware talking with rajiv shah head of usaid the agency for international development.call 2-027-372-0002. let's look at usaid admissions and its money. here is where money that the usaid worked with ends up going to. we covered afghanistan, haiti, kenya and also jordan and pakistan and african countries like tanzania and the south africa republic. what is this money being spent on? >> we invest primarily in a few subjects. one is in food security and the new alliance of president obama announced on friday and that we discussed at camp david with the group of aid to leaders around the world. it was an effort to say look up we are going to attack hunger and poverty we cannot do it alone. we need other partner countries investing with us in a few years ago president obama got the country to invest $22 billion to tackle this problem. on friday we said we also need the private sector. we need american companies like dupont and others to make investments that will help reach small-scale farmers in ethiopia and tanzania and many other countries you mentioned. we see the resul

rajiv shah this afternoon. dr. shah, welcome back to the program. >> thank you, ray, for having me. >> suarez: we've already briefly described the overall project and it's objectives. but maybe you could talk a little bit more about how we're going to accomplish that very grand goal, lifting 50 million people out of poverty in ten years. >> well, it's actually, it's a grand goal but it's an achievable goal. and we're going to accomplish it by bringing significant public sector investment, maintaining the commitments that president obama and others have made over the last few years to reinvest in african agriculture and african agriculture institutions, and we're going to achieve that goal by bringing a whole host of exciting new partners to the table. private companies in africa that are providing seeds to small scare farmers. companies from india or europe that have something to offer, improving small scale agriculture in africa and american firms, firms we recognize easily that are now committing themselves to ma

. >> rajiv shah, the u.s. administrator of u.s. aid, the administrator for international development, thanks for coming this morning. i want to talk of a global food security. what does that mean? >> guest: basically it means there are almost 1 billion people that go to bed every night hungry, and as a result of that, there are tremendous consequences. hundreds of millions of kids don't have the energy to protect themselves from disease and dhaka of malnutrition. those children don't necessarily learn well if they have the chance to go to school, and that holds them back and their economy back for decades. when we know that some prices go up a and more and more people are struggling to get access to such a basic commodity of food we see the sales states and syria's national security threats and risks to the basic concept of the sood securities to have more people having access to food to not be hungry and as a result to build a more stable and secure world. >> host: in an earlier conversation we had about afghanistan and the discus

host: rajiv shah it is the administrator of usaid. guest: good morning.t: i want to talk about global food security. guest: basically it means there are almost one didn't people that go to bed every night hungry. as a result of that, there's tremendous consequences. hundreds of millions of kids don't have the energy to protect themselves from disease and died of malnutrition. those children don't necessarily learn well if they have the chance to go to school. it holds them back and in hold their economies back for decades. when we know that when food prices go up and when more and more people are struggling to get access to such a basic commodity as food, we tend to see food riots, failed states, famine, if an serious national- security threats and risks. so the basic comment of food security is to have more people having the access to food, to not be hundred, and as a result to build a more stable and secure world. host: in an earlier conversation this morning about afghanistan and nato discussions about afghanistan, if some of our callers said let's wor

rajiv shah. hector barreto will host -- will talk about the issues facing small businesses. .e'll take a look deprogram "washington journal" airs every morning at 7:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. live today on c-span at 10:00 a.m. eastern, the national ministration is marking small business week. then at noon, the u.s. navy undersecretary will outline the surface combat fleet. at 2:00, remarks from former u.s. supreme justice john paul stevens. justice stevens a step down in 2010 after 35 years in the course. again, you can watch live coverage here on c-span. >> consumers are very frustrated right now. their mobile devices and smartphones are working so slowly. >> competition for wireless space and two commissioners tonight at 8:00 a.m. eastern on "the communicators." >> world leaders are in chicago for the two-day nato summit. >> president obama and afghan president karzai are among nato summit in chicago. earlier today, the two spoke briefly about the strategic partnership agreement reached be

[applause] general colin powell, doctor rajiv shah, maestro andre previn, honorable members of the congressexcellencies, members of the diplomatic quorum, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, thank you as well for your warm welcome. thank you to the board of the atlantic council, chairman senator hagel and president frederick kempe, for their extraordinary honor. i take it as an eloquent symbol of partnership, united states and the united nations, and, therefore, all the staff and peacekeeping operations staff, and i humbly accept this honor. seldom, if ever, have our principles and shared been more relevant. seldom if ever has this partnership been more vital than at this moment. ladies and gentlemen, our world is rough place. as secretary-general of the united nations, my thoughts are n.th more than 120,000 u.s peacekeeping operations staff, from more than 120 countries, who are walking day and night on the very difficult and dangerous continents. -- circumstances. my deepest admiration's to all of them, and to all the people who are walking tirelessly for -- working tireless

ladies and gentlemen, rajiv shah. [applause] >> thank you and good evening.k you, senator hagel, for hosting i this evening. -- hosting us this evening. it is an honor to be with such an incredibly distinguished audience, an audience of leaders who have imagined different possibilities for our world in so many different fields, and in particular, in different ways to make our country safe and secure. it is this that setting that it's my distinct honor to introduce a friend of mine, paul polman. it's unfortunate that just this evening more than 900 million people around our planet will go to bed hungry. and it's unfortunate that more than 500 million of them are young children, and many of them because of their chronic hunger will not have the strength to fight the next illness and will succumb when they should persevere. many will not have the strength for their brains to fully develop so they can learn, grow and contribute to making their world more productive and economically rewarding for their communities. and it's in that world where we're able to honor

this is the brainchild of the head of usaid, rajiv shah one of the stars of the administration, as the president mentioned. >> every time i meet him, i realize that i was an underachiever in my 30s. >> joining me now is raj shah. the president embarrassed you in front of the world here in terms of what you have brought to the table, an initiative to try to do nothing short of lifting 50 million people out of poverty in africa over ten years. there have been a lot of initiatives before. why is this one going to be different? >> this is going to be different in part because president obama the minutes he took office made this an absolutely presidential commitment. in 2009, he rallied the worlds and raised $22 billion to reinvest in agriculture and nutrition so that we could move people out of poverty in africa. we've seen great results over the last three years of that effort. today is unique and it's unique because you have companies from the united states, from india, from europe, and most importantly dozens of african entrepreneurs and companies coming together and saying we want to b

[applause] general colin powell, doctor rajiv shah, maestro andre previn, honorable members of the congressmbers of the diplomatic corps, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, thank you as well for your warm welcome. and thank you to the board of the atlantic council, chairman senator hagel and president fred kempe, for their extraordinary honor. i take it as an eloquent symbol of partnership, united states and the united nations, and, therefore, all the staff and peacekeeping operations staff, and i humbly accept this honor. seldom, if ever, have our principles and shared -- [inaudible] seldom if ever has this partnership been more vital than at this moment. ladies and gentlemen, our world is rough place. they were just celebrated and commented listed men and women of armed forces. as secretary-general of the united nations, my thought, with more than 120,000 u.s. peacekeeping operations staff, from more than 120 countries, who are walking day and night on the very difficult and dangerous continents. my deepest admiration's to all of them, and to all the people who are walking