Administrator Samantha Power Launches the Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Policy

ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you so much. It's great to see everyone here, and particularly so many people who give their everything to this cause – really, just an incredible room of people. I gather, also, it's a very heavily subscribed event. Turns out people care a lot about the future of democracy, and there are a lot of people out there who want to have a hand in shaping the trends. 

Mark [Green], just thank you for the lifetime of work you have invested in being a democracy guy. It has, really, when you draw a dotted line through all of your different leadership roles over the years, this is just so central to all of them. And I'm, what is it? I'm old enough to remember when democracy, you know, being frontally integrated at USAID, or in development generally, was, if not taboo, at least contested. And I think there are many in the long lineage of people who have worked at USAID, and shaped the agenda there and the leadership there who have had a hand in this, but you certainly just enshrined it in your time there – it’s so integral to the work the Agency is doing across the board, and I'll come back to some of that in just a minute. 

I will say, in general, it was humbling to follow Mark at USAID, but I think it's especially humbling to talk democracy with Mark in the house. Not because of this lifetime of trying to promote, and protect, and ensure that democratic rights and democracy is respected, but because he's actually the only USAID Administrator who has ever been elected to anything. Which gives him, like, special credibility – I think. Yeah, yeah we don't talk about that? Isn't that what democracy is, Mark? But that's pretty striking, actually, because – I really do think it gives you a unique vantage. 

To the Wilson Center, yes, I'm a great believer in the power of ideas, and labor, and empirical work to inform policy, and I benefit enormously from what this institution has turned out. I personally, and I think the Agency benefits from what the Wilson Center has done over such a long period of time. We also stole Monde [Muyangwa], so we benefit in very tangible ways every day, including watching her lead, again, a vast development portfolio, but bringing again and again, the conversation back to governance, back to human rights, back to the strength of institutions, and the need for checks and balances, and democracy.

Last thanks is to Shannon Green, who you just heard from and we'll hear from, our Assistant to the Administrator for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance, a bureau unto itself, which we're thrilled about, and Shannon shepherded what Mark knows to be – what can be kind of painful reorganization processes, but did so in such a collegial and impactful way. And because everybody knows that Shannon just cares about the work and the world, and the people in the world, I think a lot of the resistance that sometimes can accompany realignments and movements, and reorganizations of this significance, a lot of that melted away because people just know Shannon cares about what is happening in the world and believes that this is all the bureaucratic are a means to an end, which is supporting those people who are on the frontlines in really difficult circumstances. 

So again, there has never been a more urgent time, I think, as you all know in this room especially, the trends – I love Mark's line, we all hear democracy is not in decline it's under attack, but I really like the idea that democracy is in need of liberation. The data is sobering. It has been now for years and years. I was one who seized upon last year's data and really imbibed it, and crunched it, and sought to understand it and was pretty gratified by it because it aligned with what I felt I was seeing out in the world. I've gotten a little bit of a rude awakening because I gather much of what I was seizing upon in terms of improvements, at least in some parts of the world, stemmed from the lifting of the COVID era restrictions. So, you know, we have our work cut out for us. Obviously, the net decline is very worrying, and particularly with the powerful geopolitical forces who are aligned behind the more repressive actors, and as they get emboldened, that in turn, of course, is going to have an effect on those people who are bravely standing up for their rights and standing up for democratic institutions. 

But I'm completely with all of you, I think, in believing that nothing is inevitable. That this is a hotly contested question within communities, within countries, and when one looks at the macro trend lines, and we see it. We see it in the stories that Mark shared with us, which are reflective of our lived experience in so many parts of the world. We see it in just the basic impulse people have to shape their own destinies. It's in some ways, not that much more complicated than that. All the forces in a way of that render it complicated, but that universal longing to decide for oneself, to be able to react against malfeasance or repression, to walk with dignity, and for your kids, above all, to be able to do that. These are really powerful forces that should be underestimated, I think, at the peril of those repressive forces, who again and again, seek to do so.

And we see people, you know, taking to the streets, to protest laws, or policies that restrict judicial independence. That's not necessarily something that one would expect would necessarily generate wild enthusiasm to go to the streets. But people get it. They get the importance of an independent judiciary. We see people, of course, who were very moved all of us are by economic trends, and you know, our own family's economic welfare, we see that, you know, as a through line in human history, but people see the ways in which corruption can drive away investment and take a negative economic toll. They are making that connection, more and more, and especially, of course, when the corruption itself is pilfering, the benefits and the spoils of people's hard labor and hard work. 

We see in the hardest places like Sudan, Venezuela, where democracy, you know, may just seem like a glimmer off in the distance, but the risks that people take for freedom, risking their livelihoods, and their lives – whether by spray painting, pro democracy, graffiti on war-torn streets, or organizing civilian led resistance committees, or dodging gangs, just to vote and to be able to vote your mind, again, to take your own destiny into your hands in vote for who you want. So I think the autocracy's grip on power, where it is gripping tightly, is far from unbreakable. And it is more important than ever, that we collectively focus our resources in as smart a way as we can, in as proven a way as we can as an impactful way as we can, on loosening that grip and supporting those who are putting it all on the line to do so. 

So for decades, that's what our democracy teams across the U.S. government and at USAID have worked to do. Monitoring elections, strengthening civil society and independent media, coming to the aid of democrats and democracies that are under attack, and pouring resources into emerging democracies, and again, reformers and democrats, in the hopes that they can find a foothold and progress. But the challenges of this particular moment, and there are a lot of features of this moment for which there's a through line to something in the past, but have pretty novel features. And so the imperative for us is to adapt.

And credit the people in this room, and so many of you out there who fed ideas into this policy, that is what this policy does. It allows USAID to adapt to this moment where democratic progress is imperative. It has us modernize our ongoing support for frontline democracy defenders all over the world as they bolster democratic institutions, strengthen civic engagement, and re-establish the norms that undergird democracy. I'll come back to that. It leverages all of the resources at our disposal. And this is really critical, across not only our democracy teams, but all of our Bureaus and Missions to advance democracy around the world. And it recognizes, centrally, that some of the most important work USAID is doing to promote and protect democracy and human rights, is being carried out by people who don't have, and will never have, the words democracy, rights or governance in their job descriptions. 

This policy codifies what we know to be true that democracy is not and cannot be the work of any one department or team. It is all of our responsibility. So if we look back, and I'm just going to, you know, focus on a few of the highlights of the new policy before handing off here, but if we look back at the work over the years that had been done, you know, to support courageous citizens, civil society organizations pushing back on restrictive new laws, the number of independent media journalists who've been trained and supported now getting viability, you know, market support in understanding how to stay afloat, even economically. We have stood by these individuals who are at the vanguard of standing with democracy and who would self identify as people whose job it is to be checks and balances. And again, people who hold political leaders and others accountable, we will support them, we will go on supporting them, and we need to modernize the way we think about supporting them. 

But in addition to that, again, modernizing our toolkit means thinking beyond those communities of people who get up in the morning, really thinking about preserving and protecting their democracy or standing up against repression. And so, what we need to do, and the policy has many features, but I'm just going to touch on a few of them, is fully harness the power of technology to strengthen democracy. We know there's a grave risk, of course, that autocrats are using the same technology to push the democratic trends in a very negative direction.

We need to further hone our recent emphasis on fighting corruption. At USAID, that's something Shannon was our person – first ever dedicated USAID standalone effort to fighting corruption and keeping, again, with the White House’s interest in this, and focusing very specifically on those corrupt efforts that stand to do the most damage to democracy. So I'll come back to that. 

And then, thirdly, moving beyond building up institutions, which we will continue to do, and it's very important, but focusing as well on the political culture, the political culture that will help those institutions endure. And this can sound a little amorphous, but I think when I just say a little more about it, it will ring true. So first on the digital, emerging technologies, like AI and spyware are giving autocrats frightening new powers, and they are moving very, very quickly to take advantage of those new powers. The facial recognition technology being used to identify and silence opposition, the disinformation, the deep fakes that are discrediting not only democratic reformers but also even those who would support them. 

This policy expands our toolbox so that we can keep up with fast moving technology that can be weaponized against citizens. As the Agency's first ever credo on digital democracy, it codifies our intent to counter the rise of digital repression at its source. We are working with lawyers, judges, legislatures and other oversight organizations to develop national strategies and standards around the use of technologies. We are supporting initiatives that seek to increase transparency about the way elected leaders are using technology and the way they are using individual data. And you'll hear more about that this afternoon. And we are doing more to help activists, organizations, and ordinary citizens, particularly young people better understand and be in a position to guard against the ways in which these technologies can be used against them, including to manipulate them. 

We know, of course, as well, that corruption, the second theme I just want to touch upon, continues to be one of the greatest threats to democracy, in part because the amalgamation of resources creates such an unlevel playing field for others to compete on. That's why three years ago, USAID launched a series of new programs and initiatives focused on identifying, rooting out, and preventing corruption. We grew our corruption team from a single person to a group of twenty. And what a small but mighty team they are to better identify and root out systemic corruption, you know, which really helps us understand what the nodes are where we can make the biggest difference with scarce resources, and of course, supporting those trying to bring corrupt actors to justice, given that the culture of impunity is one that is abetting so many of the problematic trends of our time. 

Now to have a more lasting impact, building on that work, we are now placing a far greater emphasis on the other actors that help perpetuate corruption, exposing the lawyers, the bankers, and the fund managers that help kleptocrats move and shelter their money, and developing programs to figure out how to disincentivize that kind of work. Working with, again, reformers sometimes inside government, sometimes outside. 

For the first time, we are more effectively connecting our anti corruption work to our focus on free and fair elections, by investing in initiatives that target corruption in campaign finance. So that is going to be a significant growth area as well. Third, and finally, for my purposes, again – there's much more in the policy – we are working in a new way thinking about political culture, political culture that respects and embodies democratic norms. Now, as we in this room, in this country know firsthand, there is no secret sauce in engendering democratic norms and nurturing them across generations. Polarization, and discrete media environments, you know, make it really hard to create a shared rulebook and a shared ethic, in part, because not everybody is seeing the same facts as they understand them. 

Up until now, our Democracy, Rights, and Governance teams have focused largely on strengthening institutions. This has been done for decades, and there's so many who have come out of these programs and initiatives that credit, you know, some of this training and this work with where they have ended up and the impact they've been able to have. This is training judges who are currently presiding over corruption cases, or improving the administration of elections. But honestly, it is only with a culture of integrity, honesty, and accountability that our work strengthening institutions is going to have its desired lasting effect. It's only if judges are impartial that justice systems can enforce the rule of law, it is only if incumbents allow genuine competition, and of course, accept the will of the people that elections ultimately will be free and fair. 

So here, again, we are creating new initiatives aimed at strengthening that culture – will be partnering with organizations working to promote informed factual and peaceful discourse, including trying to chip away at polarization by bringing people together around shared community challenges, around problem solving. 

We've seen that in the United States, some of the last vestiges of, you know, true collaboration exists, you know, at the very, very local level because of the need to get down to business. We think there's insight there and we have programs that have shown that also globally. We will support activists working together to overcome polarization and rebuild social trust, and we will fund initiatives that increase civic engagement and make democracy more accessible, and often more decentralized, so it is brought down to the community level in the places where we work. 

I am confident that this new policy will help USAID’s Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance teams make great progress in strengthening democracy and democrats around the world. But as I said at the beginning, and as we in this room all know, progress can't be driven only by those with democracy and their job descriptions. It has to come from everywhere. It will need to be driven by all of us. And this policy, again, codifies that belief that each of us has a role to play. No matter what bureau, department, organization you call home, whether you are supporting smallholder farmers, or protecting the environment, or helping reduce the prevalence of infectious diseases, your work can help strengthen democratic norms, or train a new generation of citizens, again, who don't self identify as being democracy guys, like Mark, but just a new generation of citizens who see fit to speak their minds, to channel concerns about the local politician into grassroots organizing, or maybe just to work not only to spur development, economic development, but to really think in terms of inclusive development, and bringing in marginalized communities, and people who've been untouched by economic growth and progress in the past. 

I'm going to close just with one really beautiful example of this. Since 1993, in Nepal, the lush forests have been formally managed by networks of rural communities, what one development professional called “the largest civil society groups in the country.” To help these rural communities take action against unsustainable harvesting, USAID provided training in leadership skills, communications, and advocacy. And in the process, inspired those local communities to have a say in more than just resource management. Since the program began – I just think this is so cool – nearly 2,000 people trained in this program to get brought together just as rural communities. 2,000 people trained in this program have been elected to public office, right? More than 600 of them are women, and they are focused on urgent issues, like reforestation, sustainable eco tourism, and carbon sequestration. 

There are countless other ways USAID programming can help, by including civic education in teacher training initiatives, launching food security programs, in partnership with elected reformers who are seeking to show that they can deliver, that democracy can deliver, that reform matters at the dinner table. The point is our fight to advance democracy today is more effective, again, when we can harness our collective power. 

And that is why our new policy codifies a whole-of-Agency approach, one that leverages the expertise and resources of the entire Agency toward a shared goal. Each of us, no matter what's in our job description, no matter how we self identify, how can we advance democracy in our own work. Again and again, when our teams travel the country and the world to meet with development partners, even in 2024, we hear the same thing: I'm not a democracy person, our work focuses on hunger, we do poverty alleviation, we were going to prevent the next pandemic, we're not in the democracy business. But this policy codifies an eternal truth: we are all in the democracy business, no matter our expertise, our job title or organization, this is the cause of our lifetimes. 

Thank you so much.