at usaid and prior to that, she was the mission director in iraq. so we appreciate them both being with us here today and without objection, the witnesses' full statements are going to be made part of the record and members will have five calendar days to submit any statements or questions or extraneous material for the record. if you could, ambassador, i would ask you to just summarize your statement in five minutes, and each of you, we'll go to questions. thank you. >> chairman royce, ranking member engel, and members of the committee. thanks for the opportunity to allow us to come here and talk about the administration's aappropriate to our hemisphere, the western hemisphere. we know that a democratic prosperous and secure western hemisphere enhances our national security and benefits our economy. our policies are built upon that premise. the united states shares common values and has strong economic bonds with all countries in this region. these long historical connections bind us to the nations of the western hemisphere more closely than in any

believe you know about usaid. and in its place i'm going to share with you how we are reshaping the agency and its role in advancing american leadership. more than anything else i'm going to ask all of you to open your minds to the partnership possibilities in the region because they are literally unlimited. now ever since i joined usaid, we've tried to reorient our development work arranged two very simple principles. first, the purpose of our foreign assistance must be ending its need to exist. not because america wants to withdraw from the world, and certainly not because we wish to help don't wish to help our friends. instead we say this because we believe in our friend. we believe in the inherent desire of every individual, every community, and every country to lead their own bright future. and because this sends so self-reliance and cooked into our own national dn airings, we also believe that when our friends are willing to embark on what we call the journey to self-reliance well then well should walk with

>>. >> yeah, from usaid's program is focused very much on peace. in fact, we work predominantly in helping the colombians and supporting their efforts to extend state presence in some areas that have not seen a government in sometimes decades. we are actually working in over 50 of the hardest hit communities in colombia to help the colombians provide the local institutions that can provide basic services to people as well as improve the environment to improve the rural economy. specifically when we work jointly with state department inl, they on eradication and us on alternative, it works well where the coco crop is eradicated. we come in with opportunities to have solid economic opportunities/jobs for people in the illicit economy. >> thank you. what an extraordinary nation of 40 million people in colombia. sadly, another country that was dynamic, was democratic, is venezuela. we now see the consequence of what margaret thatcher said, and that is, socialism will work until you run out of spending other people's money. so, now they've converted one

>> from usaid program its focus very much on peace.act, we worked predominantly in helping the colombian and supporting their efforts to extend state presence in some of the areas that have not seen the government and sometimes decades. we are actually working in over 50 of the hardest hit columbi columbia -- communities in columbia to provide basic services to people and improve the environment to improve the rural economy. specifically when we work jointly with the state department i and now on eradication and alternative development, it works extremely well. where it's eradicated and we commend with opportunities and enabling environment to have solid economic opportunities, jobs for people in the economy. >> thank you. what an extraordinary nation and 40 million people in columbia. sadly, another country that was dynamic and democratic was venezuela. we now see the consequence of what margaret thatcher said and that is the socialism work until you run out of spending other people's money. now they've converted one of the wealthiest

usaid has a large database that works with them. we have a vice president who has traveled to the region several times. regarding the caribbean -- the guiding -- >> i don't mean to cut you off. the only thing i want to say, e pe cepti perception is reality. if you poll those questions down there. i yield back. >> we go to dina titus. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm going to have to go with mr. cook. i appreciate your optimism, mr. martin. you have said it in the opening statement now that we have great bonds and nothing is more important than our relationship down there. but actually history tells a very different story. our relationships have been an at best shoring up or practices that practice state terrorism. now we are ripping children from the arms of their parents and currently policy is so bad, and the oas unanimously passed a resolution confirming our behavior. so i don't really think that's something to brag about. i want to bring up something that was discussed hours ago. you brought up miss lynch. we have a policy that's

morrison, csis, our partners at usaid. the gates foundation, rotary, this has been an extraordinary collaborative effort. i wasn't invited to speak because you needed me to bring you up to speed on the latest particulars. in the fight to eradicate polio. quite the opposite. i'm sure i could learn a lot from each of you. all of you are the experts, you're manning the front lines of this fight. so i want to take this opportunity to offer a few big-picture observations for your consideration. and also express my personal gratitude. to all of you. because while it's an honor for me to stand here in my capacity as senate majority leader, it's a particular honor to thank you in a different capacity as a polio survivor myself. my first memory in life was the last visit to warm springs, georgia. i was two years old. my dad was in europe fighting the germens. we lived in athens, alabama, my mother decided while dad was overseas to go live with her sister in a different part of alabama. which was literally just a farm crossroads. it

next joint chief of staff vice chair general paul and usaid administrator mark green. this is about 45 minutes. welcome. i'm delighted to be here with such a lustrous panelist. master green, thank you both for joining us. we are talking about this afternoon, some of the big crises that we are seeing globally and am very struck at somebody who has spent a long time in the humanitarian world at the fact that a decade ago 80% of our humanitarian assistance went to people who suffered from natural disasters. a decade later now 80% goes to people who are victims of violent conflict and we are seeing a record number of people who are just displaced from their home by conflict and many people as the state of california and texas combined, 66 million people. we are seeing famine and civil wars that are increasingly internationalized because of regional and international power. of course we are also hearing about the rise of great power competition, a lot of concern of russia and china and north kore korea. with all of this going on, i will turn to you first, if you could talk

it's an important task of usaid. that calls itself the world's premier development agency. which leads me to thank mr. royce and ranking member engel for their bipartisan leadership and the other co-sponsors of this legislation for this very important bill that we call the women's entrepreneurship and economic empowerment act. which recognizes that when girls and women of the world are free from violence, educated, have access to tools for economic success, their communities are more safe, more economically vibrant, and more peaceful. this is, of course, when women exert greater influence over finances, childhood survival rates go up, security and educational attainment increases for their children. women actually place a greater emphasis on household savek savings, which improves -- savings, which improves families' resiliency. it's hard to comprehend the hardships ands on kl -- obstacles women face globally. i think of a girl born in mali. at 8 months old she's subjected to genital mutilation. by age 12 her father sells her for marriage to a man she's never met. she's amo

i benefited a lot working in who and working with colleagues who are supported by the funding from usaid. >> i hope you don't mind me putting you on the spot, it was a great question. about the inspiration for staff and rotary has done an amazing job and to keep that momentum going. when the staff of the organization are motivated and inspired, that bleeds into the external facing environment where we need inspiration. really the best ambassadors for the initiative when you have motivated staff working on the issue but it is incredibly difficult every day, sort of slogging through and really challenging time. if you don't mind, i would like to ask, how does rotary keep at it. what is the inspiration that keeps everybody going. >> thank you. i'm michael mcgovern, chair of rotary international polioplus committee. trying to lead the efforts with polio eradication. we are very happy to support this and happy to support it for actually more than 30 years. the reason we do it is because of the kids. i think that goes without saying, is what motivates us. i think this week we have reached the

i'm sure you have heard from usaid that the overall principle the drive the new development strategy trying to improve the government responsiveness to citizens to increase the private-sector lead and export led growth and to consolidate the social gains in the health education and women's apartment. we have the peer of counterterrorism providing specific programs including to enhance the security of kabul and other urban areas and it is, get a topic and the numbers are confusing we can provide a detailed letter for you with the breakdown. >> okay. that would be very helpful. even the things you just told me know out of the billion dollars how much is being spent on poppy eradication customer. >> first off, i need to clarify that it is not a billion dollars. we talk about afghanistan for the 2017 and the numbers that i have that are actual be money was about $160 million. >> if it is not a billion dollars could you give me a rough idea of what the number is overall? >> between 19 request is we have $632 million. >> how about the actual set -- >> i'm sorry, the afghanistan them is our

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how that sort of fits together. >> my name is sophia -- we helped implement the usaid projects. i have many questions but i will pick one. we've been talking about institutions that need institutional support and technical capacity building and we have talked about the population that needs to come from the bottom up in terms of encouraging attention to the justice sector and people and courts but i am curious about the private sector and what role they can play in all of this because interestingly enough, el salvador and columbia have a lot of issues with each other. they exchange ideas and how they prosecuted past the populations are different. in el salvador there is a migration and a lot of people who want to voice their concerns are not there. resin columbia they are internally displaced so they have a voice. in this case they don't. i'm curious about that. and how can the private sector fit into this calculation. >> let's go one more in front. >> good afternoon my name is luis parada. i'm concerned about what is happening in el salvador. i was a combatant in the war. i am

our bureau is primarily responsible for those place where is there is no usaid mission and often no u.s. embassy. so we're able to do it and do it pretty effectively. and then on the other side, when we have a country that has a sudden breakthrough in democracy or an opportunity to advance democracy, we try to move quickly and the people are trying to do that. one of my colleagues is out as we speak in ethiopia, where, who knew it, but they had total change in the attitude of the government and now they're trying -- they said they want to model their society going forward on our values. and they're looking for ways to do that and looking for assistance. i met with our ambassador to malaysia yesterday. she was telling me similar opportunity there. we've got a real chance with uzbekistan, too. so these were places that had bad human rights problems. they're not fixed yet. but you have people who want to make a change and they're looking to us to help them and that's our mission. our guidance from our leadership has been very clear as ambassador haley said, that withdrawing from participat

from well-traveled usaid staffers and u.s. volunteers but we know polio eradication has been a huge endeavor. it is not for lack of perseverance by those involved. many of these people have often contributed to other health activities and programs that remain valuable even after eradication. i liken it to the development of diamonds. incredible pressure. people in the field and international leaders have been under incredible strain to reach every child in the world with polio vaccine. every child in the world. the researchers have produced some real progress. the national -- polio surveillance project and the training program -- to help understand the polio assets and how it can be applied to other health goals. we are watching this launch a new wed -- web product. this site breaks down the infrastructure in individual parts and sets out to explain what they are, how they are aiding eradication, the potential contribution to other health activities and the challenges to continuations. it is live. it focuses on emergency opera

talk about the military because they deserve it and i don't talk enough about the state department usaid members that serve in various daters occasions without the security footprint that we would like and we take risk on behalf of this nation and they are very much you're a good voice for their needs. as to the presidents budget request there are 20 something% below what we want of doing and we have time constraints but these arere the threats we face. nine state actor challenges in state actor challenges really since 2011 when we implemented sequestration. everything in that chart is in orur purview. north korea may be one of the easier challenges you face. north korea, a iran and isis ara pretty good challenge and then you keep going and on and on and on. here's what we're trying tore prevent. proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and you are an essential part of all of this. i don't see how it make sense to cut the budget with over 20% giving your portfolio and i'll ask you one quick question in a minute but if we give you more money you thank you can wisely spend it and you w

in indonesia, with usaid and re renewable to develop the first utility scale wind farms for clean power to 75,000 indonesian households. our millennium challenge $200ration has granted million since 2004 to promote good government in indo pacific nations. right now m.c.c. is spending 500 million to build hundreds of kilometers of traps significance lines into nepal and recognizes that country's energy potential. today at this form, proud to announce a $350 million compact with the government of mongolia to develop new long-term sources of water supply. in addition to helping mongolia fulfill a critical human need this will position the country to attract new investment and stimulate private sector-led growth. i know that the mongolia foreign minister intended to be here today, but unfortunately was called away for business. this m.c.c. program will benefit mongolia, the region and the world. i could go on much longer and give you more examples. american companies have been a force for prosperity and good throughout the indo-pacific region. our good faith as partners are evident that hon

to my left is the country representative for el salvador on --she leads a project -- and usaid during the obama administration. attorney whoorian heads the program on impunity. ands investigations advocacy on issues relating to guarantees for past armed conflicts and certain conflicts in latin america. government as a commissioner for the national commission for the search for disappeared persons. professor ofate international peace and conflict resolution and a nonresident senior fellow at the workings institute. he works on human rights and please send it justice reform and has conducted field research . in 2012-2014 served as a senior advisor in the state department your love conflict and stabilization operations, where line.o kept me in he lived in a settlement for monthsed persons for 15 from 1987-1988 and published it transition from war to peace. delighted to welcome them and i am sure this will be a terrific conversation with relating expert. you are from el salvador but based in washington. you listened to the debates we had about the root cause of migration. what comes to yo

you served at usaid and at the white house in the prior administration and particularly in 2014 when there was a similar -- atin washington about that time it was unaccompanied children coming over the border and the need to both respond to the crisis of the border, but also think what are the root causes and why so many people are fleeing. you have now spent time on the ground helping implement the strategy that you helped to put in place. and what moreg, could the united states be doing? what would make the strategy more effective in your view? what should we be thinking about when we had this conversation about root causes in a place like el salvador? ms. guilarte: thanks with a very good question. it is very interesting to work in washington drafting policy and getting to implement it on the ground. feel very honored and lucky to be able to see it from both sides, just because it gives. you a whole different perspective you get the numbers, you work with the different interagency here, all the different numbers that are reporting, but to see it on the ground is a different dimens

now, our bureau is primarily responsible for those places where there is no usaid mission and often no u.s. embassy. so we operate p in places where we aren't even present, but we're able to do it and, i think, have done it pretty effectively. and then on the other side, when we have a country that has a sudden breakthrough in democracy or an opportunity to advance democracy, we try to move in quickly and help the people that are trying to do that. one of my colleagues is out as we speak in ethiopia where suddenly, who knew it, but they had a total change in the attitude of the government, and now they're trying -- they said they want to mod be e their society going -- model their society going forward on our values, and they're looking for ways to do that and looking for assistance. we've seen, i have met with ourword to malaysia yesterday, and she was telling me similar opportunity there. we've got a real chance with uzbekistan too. so these were places that had bad, bad human rights problems. they're not fixed yet, but at least you've got people now who want to make a change, and th

i work with gsi on usaid's maternal child survivor program. thank you for all the -- the points you made today. just a few comments, one is looking really at that whole community engagement piece. i was really delighted that you all reiterated the fact that the polio eradication, the way we're implementing it has changed over time. and recognizing that that community engagement is really, really critical to finish the job. that means that this is going to require not just the polio vaccines, but also other services including routine immunization. particularly in communities where they don't have access to any other services. so it's really heartwarming to hear that. usaid is funding some of our work in madagascar. looking at community-based surveillance. not just for afp, but vaccine-preventable diseases and i wanted to hear more about how that community-based surveillance is actually looking not just for acute flaccid paralysis but other important diseases that affect the communities and part of the work is also looking at one-health approach

our bureau is primarily responsible for those places where there is no usaid mission and often no u.s. embassy. we operate in places where we are not even present but we are able to do it and have done it effectively. and then on the other side, when we have a country that has a democracyakthrough in or in opportunity to advance democracy we try to move in quickly and help the people trying to do that. one of my colleagues is out as we speak in ethiopia, where there is suddenly -- who knew it, but they had a total change in the attitude of the government and now they say they want to model their society on our values going forward and they're looking for ways to do that and for assistance. we have met with our ambassador to malaysia yesterday and she was telling me a similar opportunity there. we have a real chance with uzbekistan, too. these are places that had human rights problems. they are not fixed, but these are people who want to make a change. our guidance from our leadership has been clear. withdrawing from participates in in the human rights council does not mean we are with

julio you should not listen to him or myself, but listen to what representatives of usaid have been saying to the u.s. congress, telling them, bragging inut laying the foundations nicaragua, bragging about doing the work in the past that was done by the cia. all you need to do is look at the support this movement has in the likes of representatives and senators. these are some of the most conservative politicians in the u.s. the trump administration, the us representative of the organization of american faith, julioe oligarchy that speaks about is 100% behind this petition. in fact, they are the ones that originally called for the protest. it is all right there. you don't have to listen to us. i have sent you some articles about who is behind a lot of this organizations. don't listen to us, just look at the document that is available for everyone. in terms of this being a progressive government, i think that 74% of people who voted for can give 2016, that you a pretty clear idea of who the people are behind. if you look at the programs that we have, nicaragua, before april 18, was one of t

has there been any meetings with usaid, state department, to put a a line what could be cut? >> frankry we like not to see that happen. we would like to see then step up, do more, stop illegal immigration to the united states. like their help and their participation in making that happen. thanks so much, guys. have a great day. reporter: what is -- melissa: that was press secretary sarah sanders from the podium there. she field ad couple questions there at the end about immigration. but a lot of press conference was dedicated to questions about the president's upcoming supreme court pick. although, she didn't really break any new news on that front which i think was her goal. david: i think so. she succeeded in the goal. bring in our panel to react. madison gesiato, i understand she passed the law. so she is entitled to speak on these legal issues. capri cafaro can speak as well, not a lauer, but former ohio state senate. congratulations passing the test. it ain't easy. >> thank you. david: do you think there is another gorsuch? it is quite clear that the nation as a whole, e

any meetings with usaid, state department to outline what could be cut? >> we, frankly, like to see that not happen because we would like to see them step up and do more to stop illegal immigration into the united states. we would like their help and participation in making that happen. thanks so much, guys. have a great day. >> what's the administration doing to -- reporters there. speaking with - the first we have heard in about a week or so. saying the president is not asking potential supreme court justices how they feel about specific cases. this after the president revealed this afternoon he's met with four candidates. she also would not budge at all in terms of who those candidates were and even asked if they were women. sanders saying secretary of state pompeo returning the north korea leaving on thursday and go there to meet with kim jong-un and his team. when asked specifically whether president trump still trusts kim jong-un sanders would not say. now kaitlyn collins there in the briefing. there's so much talk about, of course, roe versus wade

ambassador around the world that works in an auto crat i can regime, every diple mat, every soldier, every usaidicial can be hounded by autocrats abusing the rule of law to try to silence us and in the worst of worlds try to arrest. that's not in america's interest and in donald trump's interest to look weak before president putin. >> included in this conversation has been bill browder. president putin mentioned him during that news conference. used to be an american citizen, now a british citizen. i spoke with him last week on the program. i asked him to respond to something that you tweeted. you said to your critics you weren't trying to sell books. you were worried about what this means for you traveling and doing your work, how this is going to make your life difficult. i put that tweet to him to ask how his life has been made more difficult. they tried to arrest him in spain six or seven weeks ago. help us understand how your life is going to change, how it might have changed already as a result of this happening at this news conference in helsinki. >> well, first, my life has already chang

talk about the transformational work about getting eight different agencies to start together from usaid to cdc to d.o.d. to start all working together. this is the guy who made this happen. >> well, the guy that made that happen is president bush. it's tough to get agencies and secretaries together unless you're the president and the president did that. we can go into details about how but it was systematic. everyone knew it was his initiati initiative. everyone knew to be responsive and josh hates to hear this but he was the angel of pepfar beneath the president who made sure things stayed on track because the president is busy with other stuff, whether it was at omb more to the president's chiefs of staff office. nothing would have happened without josh making sure the president's vision was achieved but you need that to make them work together. the second is the transformational piece of in the the country. most people doing work in government are there to serve. and if you offer them the opportunity to do something much bigger than themselves they will grab at it because that is wha

well, there are women and men, men and women working for the state department, working for usaid, and they are just as great americans as those people in uniform, and they're part of the american team. and so when he went with after them to cut them while we're building up the military, it's not in america's interests to do that. and i'm glad that that has stopped. what i hear, i was just in d.c. a couple days ago and met with folks in the state department, that pompeo, the new secretary, is reversing that. and i have a lot of disagreements with secretary pompeo about some big policy issues. i'm nervous about -- i think they made a huge mistake on iran, i'm nervous about north korea, but i'm glad he's bringing that attention, because those people deserve it especially working in moscow under -- you know, i just showed you some things that happened to maine that that happened to all my staff as well. those people need our support. [applause] yeah, yes. isaac. >> hi. so i'm isaac, i'm one of your students -- [laughter] so you list the libyan intervention as one of the successes of the r

[laughter] acting inspector general usaid. department of defense. discrimination against african-americans and federal government. u.s. department of agriculture. and the dialysis whistleblower. the air national guard. the human brothers. air marshals pension benefit guarantee corporation whistleblower. high risk kidney patients. department of homeland security. department of energy. acorn. bristol-myers. missouri national guard. [applause] [laughter] scottsdale arizona homeowner associates. service disabled vets whistleblower. north carolina court system gerald smith united states air force ig white house. u.s. department of state. suffolk county schools. department of commerce. u.s. security and exchange commission. new york state whistleblower body armor whistleblower. burlington northern. fbi. law enforcement whistleblower. u.s. marshals services. is there anybody that i missed? do not be embarrassed. please stand up please do not be embarrassed. stand up and announce yourself. [applause] [inaudible] fda. b9b17 anyone else? [applause] >> the uni

. -- acting inspector general usaid. the department of defense whistleblower. discrimination against african americans in federal government. the u.s. department of agriculture. fbi whistleblower and law enforcement. new york state developmental disabilities whistleblower. dialysis whistleblower. he -- new york air national guard. the lehman brothers holding. our marshall. michelle parker, pension benefit guaranty corporation whistleblower. nancy paul blew the risks -- whistle on high risk can the patients. the department of homeland security. the department of energy. marcel reid, the acorn whistleblower. dan richardson, bristol-myers whistleblower. the missouri national guard whistleblower. he -- approved reprisal. scottsdale ozona houma -- arizona homeowners association. service disabled veterans. north carolina court system. the united states air force ig. white house. the u.s. department of state. corruption and the suffolk county, new york school. the department of commerce. u.s. securities and exchange commission. new york state whistleblower. body armor

next joint chief of staff vice chair general paul and usaid administrator mark green. this is about 45 minutes. welcome. i'm delighted to be here with such a lustrous panelist. master green, thank you both for joining us. we are talking about this afternoon, some of the big crises that we are seeing globally