ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you so much, Kimberly [Ball]. And thanks to all of you. You can feel the energy in the room. And since this is my first small business conference that I've had the chance to attend, I can't tell if it's just what it's always like, or because it's the first time we all have seen each other since before COVID, but harness that energy, harness the relationships that you were building, it is a very special vibe here in this room. It's hard to make a ballroom kind of feel kinetic but y'all are doing that. And I can't say enough about Kimberly's leadership, how important it has been, for me and the whole front office team to have her as the stalwart leader of our efforts to increase our work with small business.
Kimberly is not a person who reads talking points, yes, she just read the bio – I'm sorry about that. But she lives and breathes this agenda and this work, and it has been evident to me since the first time I saw her present. She is an incredible advocate inside USAID for the work that you all are doing. And it's not because it's in her title, it is because clearly, it is something that she believes in deeply. There are equity dimensions to it, there are impact dimensions to it, which we'll talk about a little bit. And you know, she is not ever mailing it in. And I think the reason, year in and year out, she gets to come to our staff meetings and report on the grade that the office has just gotten is because that spirit is infectious. And the team that she works with feels the same way. So I feel really lucky to have Kimberly as a partner at USAID pushing this agenda.
I want to welcome all of you, of course, representatives of American small businesses, today. I'm going to say just a few words about the crucial ways that your businesses can help further USAID’s work, and obviously in so doing that also pays dividends for your employees and businesses and for the American economy, which is so important to us all. I want to start today with a story and I know if I chose any one of you, I could share a similar story. So this, I'm only picking on one of you today.
But it's the CCI Group, which is an American small business founded by Indy Vega, and represented here today. And the CCI Group – where do we have the CCI Group representative – don't tell me they're late – okay, thank you. Excellent. Okay, we don't have Indy here, but we're thrilled to have you. And the CCI Group is helping USAID more effectively serve communities abroad. And I'll tell you a little bit about how. So Indy Vega immigrated to Florida from Colombia. And when she arrived, she answered 911 calls from Spanish speakers and later became a court interpreter. Her experience in the justice system showed her just how much non-English speaking communities, especially recent immigrants, depended on interpretation across the board, but also to just access crucial services that the rest of us can often take for granted. So in 2012, she decided to start her own business called CCI Group to expand access to these services.
Today, CCI Group provides these critical services to government agencies, as well, including USAID. From an initial contract of around $3,000, the company is now playing a critical role, helping USAID better harness the expertise of local leaders, organizations and communities. A lack of translation – it's very obvious, I suppose, and yet there was a need for this. A lack of translation is a major barrier for local organizations looking to work with USAID, looking to access USAID funding and support. And CCI Group is directly addressing that barrier while also creating American jobs. The localization push, as you heard briefly, is something that we are making to try to work more closely and provide entry into direct partnerships with local partners. But there's a ton of capacity building need that generates in those local partners and that I think is a real opportunity for small businesses like CCI Group.
Today, CCI Group is one of many small businesses, like yours, that are working with USAID to advance the fundamental cause that we pursue, which is that of dignity and opportunity. You are harnessing the best of American innovation and ingenuity to tackle some really substantial challenges. And again, I can't go into them all. You will, over coffee, be exchanging business cards and stories I'm sure. But this runs the gamut from removing traces of Agent Orange from Vietnamese soil — a program I saw up close, that has helped – that the fact that we are taking Agent Orange out of Vietnamese soil is literally unlocking a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the Vietnamese people that few would have thought possible. And so the outsized benefits of the work that you are doing can't even be felt merely within the narrower terms of the contract. Helping Bangladeshi officials boost trade and bolster foreign investment, expanding access to loans for smallholder farmers in Ghana, I could go on and on.
What is so appealing and what again, Kimberly is so good at championing within the Agency in Washington and out at Missions, is the incredible efficacy that this community brings. Small businesses like CCI Group, tend to offer more niche, concentrated expertise, which makes you incredibly valuable when our teams face what are fundamentally often hyper-specific needs in the field. Your hierarchies are often flatter, sometimes a lot flatter. And this means that USAID teams are more likely to be able to liaise directly with decision-makers. And we all know the difference that makes. It just makes the iteration and the collaboration much more tailored, much more straightforward. You are more nimble, by and large, able to pivot quickly. The world is throwing so many shocks at us right now. It's hard to even keep up. That nimbleness is a major comparative advantage – you're able to staff up faster than most larger organizations and again, provide this niche technical expertise without the administrative roadblocks, which can sometimes mean life and death when it comes to USAID’s work, particularly when it relates to emergency humanitarian services. You are also well equipped to advance many of this Agency's most pressing priorities.
American small businesses are crucial to helping expand USAID’s workforce and we have had to grow to keep up again with what is an increasingly full inbox. You hire thousands of the institutional support contractors that help drive almost every aspect of our work in Washington and overseas. And by partnering with USAID, you are driving economic growth for your own communities as well, creating American jobs, opening up new markets for American products. By generating opportunities for communities abroad, you are generating opportunities for entrepreneurs right here at home. It is the ultimate win-win proposition.
USAID is heavily prioritizing expanding our partnerships with American small businesses. In fiscal year 2023, we obligated close to a billion dollars to small business partners. That is our highest commitment ever. But it is only the beginning. We awarded nearly 15 percent of our total contract obligations across the entire Agency to American small businesses. And we are building on this by facilitating more partnerships between small businesses and USAID. And by raising awareness with business leaders and Mission teams alike to the ways that American businesses can plug into our work. And here I just want to give you a couple examples of how we are trying to evolve to facilitate these growing partnerships.
We are actively adjusting our policies around procurement to give American small businesses a fairer shot at USAID contracts. Any contract worth $100 million or more domestically overseas now has to be reviewed by Kimberly and her team in the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization so the small businesses don't miss out on opportunities to work with us. We are conducting outreach specifically to small businesses owned by service-disabled veterans, Kimberly mentioned, women, Black Americans, Native Americans and others. Those specifically that over the years have traditionally had a harder time getting through USAID’s door. We want to make sure that that door is open not just a jar, but wide open into which communities again that haven't been as represented in our annals are able to work with USAID.
USAID has missions. And sometimes I feel like it's good to do 101. We have missions that are fully staffed, sometimes huge missions in more than 80 countries, and we have programs in more than 100 countries, I think you know that. Three quarters of our overseas staff are nationals of the countries in which we work. That is an incredible ground game to offer. That those are people, many of them have worked ten to twenty years at USAID – they know everybody.
And we know that American small businesses can offer critical expertise and perspectives to inform our work on the ground. But the simple fact of geographic distance has made it harder. It has, as Kimberly said, we have work to do in terms of our Missions, to get to know you, and to know what you have to offer. Often, they're honestly just not aware of the comparative advantages and the unique capabilities that you have. When they are, they often have lacked the resources to effectively harness your expertise. So we are being more intentional about this. We are hosting conferences and training sessions with Missions to raise awareness among field teams of specific ways American small businesses can plug into their work. We are helping Mission staff up on the contracting officers that are crucial to implementing these partnerships. And because we measure what matters to us, most people do, we are doing something very important – we are setting small business targets for missions so that we can track progress.
You will hear more about all of these efforts later this morning and throughout the day. We want to keep hearing from you about what you need to make it easier to grow these partnerships, particularly overseas. And I just want to flag something very specific where we need your input. From the time I got to USAID, I have made it my mission to try to cut what some in the public policy community called sludge. The high administrative burdens, the barriers to entry, the reporting requirements – our first phase of our burden reduction effort focused on internal burdens, taking person hours, reclaiming person hours for our workforces, so they weren't mired in duplicative reporting requirements and so forth. We've made significant progress there.
We have just launched phase two, which is – we haven't been doing nothing on phase two up to this point. But an even more concerted push in phase two on the external burdens that are getting in the way of small businesses like yours, local organizations in working with USAID. Now the best way we will reduce burdens is to crowdsource from you what specifically is standing in the way and to bring that input to bear as we move out on significant reforms, which you will hear more about from Ruth [Buckley] and others. So if you have ideas about what would make things flow more smoothly, what those barriers to entry are that would need to be addressed or mitigated, please reach out to osdbuoutreach@usaid.gov.
It's not like you don't have Kimberly's business cards, not like you don't necessarily let her hear that. But even to send this email address out to your teams and to say there's an open door there. They're in the midst of a burden reduction effort. They want to slash burdens. Let's tell them what those burdens are for us. We are eager to keep working together to grow these partnerships and to build prosperity for all. And I thank you so much for everything you do and I hope we can do much more. Thank you.
