government and usaid across many administrations. we are very excited to hear the announcement that wgdp would prioritize women's land rights. the three pillars of wgdp. women puts patient a workforce, entrepreneurship, enabling environment, they are all undergirded by women's rights to property and land. our work on the initiative entitled property rights and women's economic empowerment supported by the wgdp aims to strengthen women's land rights in five african countries. in each of these countries will be working on four basic issues. securing or helping governments change laws and policies to support women's land rights. joint titling schemes that ensure that man and women have their name on title. and offers massive opportunity for benefits. addressing discrimination that happens under customary legal systems, where women's land rights are most often at risk. and addressing responsible land investment by the private sector. we know that companies recognize that land conflicts, land grabs , and avoiding them along with strengthe

we are joined by four from usaid. the state department joined by ambassador carol perez who serves as director general of foreign service and director of human resources. and budget and planning. in usaid, the assistant i will let ambassador perez deliver are putting remarks. >> thank you distinguished members of the subcommittee. for inviting me to discuss the fiscal state department budget request. as mike pompeo noted we have a remarkable workforce doing an important mission. at a time of growing global complexity, a strong the parent is critical to our success as a nation. over the past year we prioritized putting the team back on the field, under his leadership we have 827 foreign services employees and our foreign service and civil-service target staff at 454 employees above the december 31, 2017, staffing levels specified in the congressional appropriations and also stepped up employee engagement to communication and taken steps to expand training and professional development, filled vacancies and reward the wo

observations that have impeccable usaid, cdc usaid, cdc and other government agencies. can you share some of the experiences and observations your thinking that at usaid and perhaps have that integrates with an doctor shook it may jump back in with the great work you're doing and collaboration to five necessary support. >> was great. thanks. would echo her appreciation for the chance to be on this panel and be with you all here today. usaid roll is with the development agency for the u.s. government. we do work and health is when the ice we work in but sort of work in a number of other areas critical to go in country. as are administered talks our goal is to work ourselves out of a job and that is to build countries capacity to do all of the things whether health, economic growth and governance, et cetera. in health we do work across the board. we were close with our colleagues at cdc in a number of areas and you have a lot of programs in dr congo. on the last panel when the big issues with this outbreak is that it is in the middle of a war, a war that's been underway f

the usaid has that. we don't have that.ing in terms of our ability to procure different items that we need to procure so that we can have what we call other transactional authority so we can procure what we need when we need it. those two things would be very helpful -- >> for supplies? >> yeah, for supplies and not go to a million different people to try to get competitive bidding when we need an emergency response. this would allow us to be more effective and efficient in these responses. it is something as cdc director we would like to see we have that ability for these emergency responses. >> thank you. i yield back. >> last area. i guess i get the last word. actually you get the last word on this. i'm still highly concerned, and i think we all are about the potential for travel to the united states, and i understand we're fortunate that at this point, we have a low rate of travelers from the drc, and that they are screened before they come here, but my understanding from i think it was your written testimony is that th

koek from usaid jump in. i know the person who is sitting in your seat at usaid recently traveled maybe over a month now with dr. read feld improperly came back for some interesting observations that have impact for both usaid cdc and other government agencies. can you share some of the experiences and observations that you are think about both usaid and how that integrates and dr. schuchat me jump back and let the great work you are doing in collaboration. >> thanks. i would echo anne's appreciation for being on this panel and being with you all here today. we are the development agency for the u.s. government so please do work and health is one of the air areas working but certainly work in a number of other areas critical to building the capacity. to build country's capacity to do all of the things whether it be and health or overnights etc.. and help you work across-the-board closely with her our colleagues at cdc in a number of areas. we do have a number of programs and the congo. on the last panel for t

international affairs budget that has been appropriated by congress which has not yet been spent by usaid or the state department. what the administration is seeking to do -- what the white house is seeking to do because there is some tension within the administration on this, what the white house is seeking to do is prevent those funds from being spent. it seems as if usaid and perhaps the state department wants those funds to be spent and congress mandated they be spent because they hold the purse strings. it is a reflection i think of the perhaps lower priority that the white house or certain elements of the white house, perhaps the office of management and budget put on things like foreign assistance, foreign aid, global health intervention, preventing ebola from spreading. or making sure that food assistance reaches the correct people. it is competing priorities in the administration with this recent maneuver. host: 20 minutes left with mark goldberg if you want to talk about foreign policy and his podcast. 202-748-8001 for republicans. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-

severely restricted from receiving usaid. let's use common sense here. this legislation was never, never intended to hurt the most vulnerable in society or to be used as an excuse to ignore a deadly epidemic with international implications. in fact, congress foresaw the need for exceptions to these sanctions in extraordinary cases in 22 u.s.c. chapter 78 section 4 of the trafficking victims protection act. this language that i just cited allows the united states to waive sanctions and provide assistance when it is in our national interest to do so. indeed, the law specifically says, and i quote, the president shall exercise the authority -- shall exercise the authority under section 4 when necessary to avoid significant adverse effects on vulnerable populations, including women and children, close quote. according to the world health organization, the ebola virus disease has a 50% mortality rate, and no one can deny its effects on vulnerable populations. if the people of eastern congo, including women and children, are not vulnerable, then i don't know w

we are funded to work in the drc by cdc with usaid. i want to ask a couple questions regarding the security strategy. we were great and pleased to see that released and that content included. [inaudible] i understand that for the strategy there is an internal working group and i am wondering when you think that might be set up and practically to your point there are so many complexities here is what does that look like? on the global security strategy we look back was asked for five things. that's a little complicated but partly because omb does not want to put itself on record but i want to ask could you give us an idea of what the cost of this programming might look like going forward for each of your agencies. [inaudible] thank you. >> so, i can't give you the specifics but that said i will say around security cdc and usaid works closely together. our leads probably call or talk to each other every day. on the ground the plan that were talked about earlier are done jointly. it's in response to evaluations of the work u.s. government

you can see the map there from usaid.he darker the countries on that map, the more foreign assistance they received in the fiscal year. we hear from bridget from brentwood, tennessee, on the lines for those who oppose the cuts. good morning. caller: i oppose them for several reasons because when we talk about the amount that president trump wants to take away, it sounds like a we have all these extra fundings but what programs is he actually going to use that will benefit americans? and another point is when you think of foreign aid, foreign aid is not just giving countries that don't like us money. the money is broken up into like 20 different government agencies that distribute that funding. some more for economic development that promotes corporations, being able to go into these countries so they make money that way. they also help in certain countries that say are perhaps have a negative image of us. when we go in there and let's say help with certain things, we help them build water. we clean up their education syst

and we have a senior executive from usaid that sets to my immediate left at every meeting as one of my most senior reps. we can figure out how to best integrate it. >> so the trumpet ministration recently cut off all nondefense aid to the countries in the northern triangle. as i know you are aware of. guatemala, honduras, and el salvador. did the immigration consult you as to whether or not that would make sense? >> the pressure that is being applied to these governments, i would offer is good and the decision to cut off was a policy decision and i am not normally a part of policy decisions. but i advocated and articulated to the defense leadership the important contributions that the professional militaries from honduras, guatemala, and el salvador have made in the fertility narcotics area where the special forces are getting after it in a way that is paying dividends for u.s. security and that is why we were able to continue our milton mills engagement center. >> the lot bars assistance to security forces with committed gross human rights violations, as you are aware. would it make s

benefit the soft power you get from sending aid stamped with the usaid seal from the american people,tamped on every food aid that goes around the world. it is a reflection of american values when they receive aid, when hospitals are built and staff salaries are paid for to prevent the kind of global goodngency, ebola is a example with an outbreak now in parts of the democratic republic of congo. the idea foreign aid is to help people in the affected regions take care of that problem for themselves by giving them expertise and funding and food and shelter. in part this is so ebola does not spread elsewhere and affect us here at home. there is a national security argument to be made. the most compelling argument is it is the right thing to do. host: eastpointe, kentucky, danielle, independent. good morning. are you with us? we will go to harry in pennsylvania, republican. good morning. , good: hello, c-span morning and thank you for the opportunity to call in. good morning, mark. it is excellent to hear your vision for what is important. i want to ask you a question about the united st

. >> bernie sanders said he wants to leverage all the usaid we are giving to what he calls their racist policies and there is no reason and no right for israel to do this. >> i communicated today with our great ambassador to israel, david friedman and david made a tremendous point when he said the israeli government was going to welcome these congresswomen into israel, they just wanted them to spend a little time with israeli officials so israeli officials could give them an overview of what they were doing to treat palestinians and humanitarian way. these congresswomen refused to meet with israeli officials, instead the only place they wanted to go was occupied palestine was all they were doing was gathering evidence and ammunition against israeli people to use in their propaganda and israel has every right to refuse them gathering ammunition to use against israel. shannon: thank you both for having this discussion. democratic 20/20 rivals, hosting a keep america great rally in new hampshire and democrats continue to try to woo voters in iowa. team coverage, kristin fisher in des moine

we know a lot of money spent there particularly through usaid goes to what we call the beltway banditse country to which the money is sitting. full disclosure, mary and i both covered latin america for many years. i did a lot of storieses usaid money coming directly from taxpayers or totally wasted or stolen by countries. >> here is another thing i will take exception to a little bit, when people say the fault is latin america. we give money, for example, to the u.n. in a program that was called the commission against impunity in guatemala. turned out it got totally corrupted, taken over, politicized t was doing more damage to guatemala and nobody in congress would get involved in the oversight process. they didn't want anything to do with it. the left wanted to push it and the right just backed off. david: the biggest fault i think is the logic of the democrats. if you take their logic, which is the reason for the border crisis is because corrupt governments, therefore answer to that crisis, send more money to corrupt governments. that shows disdain for taxpayer dollars. where it goes

honduras are leading staff that are well-informed about the situations and professional diplomats and usaid that are driving some of the programs successes we are seeing especially in el salvador and i had the benefit of going to see them at work and see how hard they are working in partnership and i do thank you have great dedicated to pulmicort trying to advocate for change and improvement in commissions and all the countries. >> is not a u.s. ambassador in honduras for over two years. that's shameful. we got to be smarter than that. the roles that ambassadors play following the election of [inaudible] put together his team is usually constructive role in fact prevent almost two and half years without an ambassador in honduras is shameful. we should raise our voices and things got to do better than this. real quick. what are three years we can help you with vacancies with people in place? >> several nominees in front of the committee for getting an inspector general for oversight is critical and thank you for that. we got a fema comedy as we head into hurricanes is seasoned next week i ve

you europeans do not get usaid so i do not see a way that pumping capital into the iranian capital would be sanction will. i'm not an attorney and this is my first assessment so these are ideas that are out there. the europeans did pump capital into the turkish economy for the refugee issue and again, i'm not speaking on turkey. so, i think my point is, there are ideas out there. am i saying jcpoa can be salvaged? i'm not assessing that and that's not my place case right now. are there ideas that are being explored? yes. could these ideas potentially salvage the situation? possibly. i think i will end there. thank you. >> thank you very much. well, that's sobering because i think one recognizes that arounds regime depends on the sale of oil. because you can't sell oil you have a gun but your head essentially. if none of these arrangements work out, particularly in terms of oil fields, iran has few options, walking away from the agreement is one option out on the table now and escalating the gulf, as a response predictable to this situation. i think that's very important. >> i'd like to t

you were also the head of the office of foreign disaster assistance in the bush administration at usaid. so you've come at these issues from a whole host of different perspectives, academic practitioner, government official. so same question to you, how do you think about these issues? >> first, i will congratulate you and csis on the report and really to keep the migration issue regular/irregular at the forefront. i think it through with the urgency we have to come up with a better way to deal with migration flows. where i think your report noted that perhaps with rising sea levels in bangladesh we may be dealing 40 or 50 years with an entire country under water, what do we do with that entire population? in new orleans where i live and louisiana, as you know, we are losing land by the day where if you're outside the levee system ,, already there are towns that are under water. what do we do with this population? it's relevant overseas, it's relevant here. i think what -- how we approach and how i approach we need to have more evidence-based approach to dealing with the migration issue

there are so many records online available now for students and for us, one collection i have usaid hassively, thousands and thousands of primary source documents online. it is a really wonky website, it is hard to figure it out, but once you have figured it out, there is lots of stuff on their about the national council for neat row women, the overseas education, part of the league of women voters, there is lots of stuff on women's organizations and every other topic that you might think of. and you can search it by nation as well. so if you are interested in what is going on in rwanda or in bangladesh, you can search if i particular nations. >> i would also make a plea for collections, that the archives don't just magically appear. i think it is important that second wave feminists are not getting any younger, and many of them have large numbers of newsletters to be told and collected. that has not been done. >> priscilla from the university of macau. i think it was chris who spoke about the need to look differently at the state, one of my former colleagues in hong was working on french , a

that theyo mentioned do a lot of contrasting their activities globally with usaid and other countries. you mentioned they do a lot of infrastructure. that's hospitals and health care infrastructure -- >> health related. this is talking about ,ransparency and coordination the commerce department in the report howy usually theybuildings they do, don't specifically bring out -- this is a hospital, this is a clinic -- they don't report that way. teams, and iearch work with a few, who are looking at these infrastructure buildings in the medical support, and we are trying to bring out -- ok, this is a hospital, this is a malaria clinic, to be considered as a health assistant. >> and build infrastructure, whose companies do they use? do they use local companies or chinese? >> that's a good question. i think there's a changing trend. in the past, like any other infrastructure building in africa or asia, they bring in their own workers. but i think the chinese government is very sensitive to the criticisms of international society that they are not helping local industry. buildings theynt are

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