Washington, DC
Remarks
It is such a pleasure to be with you all for USAID’s first ever conference and career expo for Asian American and Pacific Island Serving Institutions. We’ve been overwhelmed by the response and participation, and are excited to introduce our work and our opportunities to this community, in particular.
Despite generations of contributions to our nation’s history, the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander community has not always been an intentional focus of USAID’s outreach. It’s the fastest growing demographic in the country with so much to offer, and for decades, we have limited ourselves as an Agency – and as a country – by not elevating the voices of or investing in the potential of the AAPI community.
So I want to extend my gratitude to Neneh Diallo, USAID’s Chief Diversity Officer, and her entire team; and to our partners from Cal State Fresno and York College for their efforts to bring this inaugural event to life.
And to the PepsiCo Foundation for their partnership and sponsorship of the IDEA Case Competition. As you might have discovered in preparing your submissions, private sector partners like the PepsiCo Foundation are crucial to our work here at USAID.
That’s been true for a while, but it’s especially important today.
Because here’s the reality: no amount of American foreign assistance is remotely commensurate with the scale of the challenges we face, from near-constant climate disasters to pandemics to conflict.
So we need to go beyond what our budgets can achieve. We need to think more creatively, partner more broadly and more inclusively, and spark greater investments in critical sectors like energy, infrastructure, and technology. We’re doing this at USAID with a wide-ranging set of reforms that draw from the idea that together, with sufficient and targeted resources, we can achieve progress beyond the scope of our programs.
Programming will always be central to our work – it is the key to unlocking so much development success and is often a catalyst to bring other partners to the table. But when we see programming as a platform on which we can build even more progress, and not simply the end goal, we can secure exponentially more significant results. We can use our investments to crowd-in even greater contributions from others, using one activity to set a model for others to follow, forging new sustainable, local partnerships that can last long after a program ends.
That’s the idea behind the Case Competition, and before we get to the awards, I want to share two brief examples of how USAID is tackling the problem that you’ve addressed in your submissions.
First: In the Dominican Republic, USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean program piloted a model approach for closing garbage dumps – which are typically poorly managed and leak plastic into the environment – and replacing them with sanitary landfills. Having raised $3.9 dollars million in local public and private investment, our approach has been taken up by the Government of the Dominican Republic in an effort to close and replace 96 open dumps with sanitary landfills across the country.
Second: Through an investment of $2 million dollars, USAID and the Development Finance Corporation provided a partial guarantee to an impact investment firm to establish a fund for promising waste management and recycling businesses in key Asian countries. The firm then leveraged the $2 million dollar guarantee to mobilize $106 million in private capital from leading businesses like PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and Dow. The fund invests in companies like Tridi Oasis, an Indonesia-based, women-owned recycling company that recycles plastic bottles into new packaging and textiles. The fund’s investment will enable Tridi Oasis to set up a larger recycling facility, expand operations to recycle additional types of plastic, and empower more women to join the workforce.
Now, to deliver on a progress, not just programs agenda, we are also working to implement ambitious reforms to how USAID recruits, hires, and invests in the growth of our workforce, with a much more intentional focus on diversity than ever before.
I hope this competition, and this conference, have opened your eyes to the possibility of pursuing a career with USAID. With our mission to lead the United States’ global development and humanitarian efforts, the AAPI community is not simply a natural partner to help us drive progress in the countries where we work – you are necessary partners that we need to help us grapple with increasingly complex, interconnected, borderless challenges.
We’re not just grateful for your interest – we are in need of your perspective and your energy, and we look forward to embarking on this next chapter together.
Now, on to the awards. I know our judges had difficult decisions to make, as all of the finalists presented innovative ideas. Our finalist teams should all be proud of themselves and I personally cannot wait to see what they do next!
Let’s start with our People’s Choice Award. This is based on your votes after this morning’s presentation. We are proud to announce The People’s Choice Award goes to Team Game Changers. Congratulations!
Now, on to our prize winners. Our third place winning team, earning $5,000 is Team Dasig. Congratulations, great job!
We are proud to announce our second place winner, winning $10,000. Second place goes to Team Trash2Cash. Congratulations! Let’s hear it for our second place winners.
It’s time now for our final winner of the competition. In first place, with a prize of $15,000 is Team CollectEd. Congratulations to our first place winner! Amazing job!
Congratulations again to each of our finalists and to today’s winners. You should all be incredibly proud of your work.
Thanks again to the PepsiCo Foundation for their support, and to all of you for getting engaged with USAID.
Before we close, I want to urge you to be in touch with the USAID staff who you’ve heard from throughout the conference. Take their contact information, strike up a conversation. Ask how you can contribute to our work and partner with us. No matter your major or your area of interest, our doors are open and we are inviting you to join us.
Thank you.