Administrator Samantha Power with Khadija Ihsane from Medi 1 TV

KHADIJA IHSANE: Administrator Samantha Power, thank you for being with us today. 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Delighted to be here.

MS. IHSANE: Before addressing the objectives of your visit here in Morocco, how would you describe the achievements and advancement of USAID actions, as well as the key accomplishments so far in Morocco?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, the United States has been working with the Moroccan people in different forms, actually, since the late 1950s. And then, of course, after independence. USAID was founded in 1963 by John F. Kennedy. And that's when we took off. 

So I think what I've been struck by on my visit is particularly the impact of the partnership on the area of education. You know, the Ministry of Education has ownership over this, has a vision for what it is trying to achieve. And what USAID has the opportunity to do is to study the literature from around the world to find out, you know, how do you improve reading outcomes the fastest? How do you incorporate technology into a classroom? And then we work with the ministry to pilot things. And if we see the results collectively, if the Ministry sees the results of teachers, if parents see the results, then the Ministry can run with experiments like that and scale them. And so we've had a hand, I gather, in improving curriculum that has now benefited more than four and a half million Moroccan children. That's more recent programming in grades one through six. 

I think what I'm very struck by as well is the growing work we are doing together on climate adaptation, specifically. Morocco is a trailblazer in mitigation, in transitioning to renewables, with more than 40 percent, of course, of energy now already coming from renewables. I wish we were at that level in the United States, I hope we can get there – learning from the kind of work that Morocco has done. But adaptation is so challenging, because that's really about the climate that is already here. It's about the drought that has afflicted this country now, really over the last six years in really painful and powerful ways. So some of the work that we do with your academic institutions, with your farmers, you know, particularly with women who are growing things but aren't sure exactly how to get them to market. You know, small scale female farmers may have some issues at home, in terms of growing their businesses and giving them the confidence to go forth. So I think that that is going to be a very significant area of partnership as we go forward. Helping the agricultural sector and other industries adjust to what is going to be a much more difficult and unpredictable set of weather patterns.

MS. IHSANE: So the approach of USAID today is more than to localize action.

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: I'm really glad you mentioned that. I think to most Moroccans that would sound like the most obvious thing to do. It's like why would you come to somebody else's country and, you know, give your resources to people who are from outside. But it turns out because our – the American people, of course, are providing these resources through our Congress, it's actually kind of hard to work sometimes with USAID for local organization. There's a lot of paperwork. Maybe some organizations don't have lawyers or accountants. 

So over time, as we have become more careful that the money doesn't get wasted or stolen in countries all around the world – that has over time crowded out some of the organizations that really have so much to offer in their communities and know best, you know, what to prioritize. So we've tried to turn this around, and under President Biden, we've made a real push on localization. And Morocco is leading the way. I mean, three-quarters of our staff here are, of course, Moroccan nationals. Some of them, and somebody who's retiring this week who has worked with USAID for 28 years – I mean she knows everybody. And she has figured out as has the rest of her team, how to lower the entry costs, in a way, you know, how to reduce the paperwork, how to sit down, not after we have decided in the abstract what we want to fund, but at the very beginning, when we were deciding what should we fund, and where, and how. 

So, our USAID/Morocco mission is really leading the world in transitioning from funding large international organizations who do good work, for sure. But who, when they leave, often, some of the sustainability of that work is going to go with them. And so they have actually well over doubled the investments that they're making uniquely, specifically Moroccan organizations where our assistance flows directly to them. We're up at around 40 percent now, and we think those numbers are going to grow because our Moroccan team members will not have it any other way. They are so determined. They work around the clock, sometimes what they have to do is build the capacity of the organizations, so that the money concerns –

MS. IHSANE: – in terms of staff as well?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: In terms of staff, in terms of oversight, you know, again, because we do have these questions back in Washington that we have to answer. But I think the key thing is, the example I gave of the education sector, that is not us providing resources to the Ministry of Education. They said, we don't need your resources, we're fine, thank you. But we have technical knowledge, maybe that we might get, you know, from elsewhere, or we might be able to pilot something together, that then, again, they're in a position to scale. So, there are many different ways to put the communities in which we are working first and move away from the model from a long time ago, where outsiders thought they knew best what to do. I mean, that's a crazy idea, right? I mean, we come in, we don't know the Berber language, we are only getting to know the communities for the first time – we Americans, most of us. But that's the incredible thing about having a team on the ground that is mainly Moroccan because they bring these ideas, they have business cards falling out of their pockets. They have extended family members and networks who bring these ideas forward. And our job is really to follow their lead and just to listen very carefully.

MS. IHSANE: And Monday, you conducted the visit to the school, primary school at the Aghbalou in the Amizmiz region, a school that has been uninhabited, or actually since the earthquake under the auspices of a program funded by the USAID. Tell us more about the major highlights of your visit there and also, the major USAID programs supporting Morocco's ongoing recovery efforts.

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, let me first just, even eight months later, extend my condolences to the Moroccan people. This is something that broke hearts all around the world. Just a devastating earthquake, the loss of life, the loss of livelihoods, loss of homes. And, you know, in a moment like that, of course, the government responds and we listen and learn. What can we do to supplement what the government is doing that might be additive? And what is clear, of course, is that a lot of schools either were destroyed or suffered structural damage that means it makes it too dangerous for a parent to send their child into that school. So kids have been learning in tents or out in the open and of course, that doesn't work with the weather over the course of the school year. So we decided again to work in partnership with UNICEF and with local Moroccan associations, to build schools or rebuild schools in areas where that was needed, knowing that the last thing you want after such a trauma is this – is for the education of young people to be halted. We already had COVID, it was a nightmare for everyone. Now for this to happen on the heels of that was a terrible tragedy. 

So we will together build probably more than 60 schools, and we're well en route to that. But what's important is it's not just the building, that's very significant – roof over kids heads and making sure that they have the materials that they need. But it's also the psychosocial support. I mean, those kids went through something very, very dramatic, and many of them are still homeless, because their homes might have been in areas that are too hard to reach, or they're in the queue, and will gradually move to more permanent accommodation. But you want to meet kids where they are at these vulnerable moments. And if you can, allow them to air what they've gone through, what their families have gone through, you know, that will actually preserve development gains for generations into the future – if you actually give them the proper psychosocial support. 

So we're trying to do what we call wraparound services, where we listen to the communities in which we are working and find out okay, how do you prioritize with so much need? What is the right way to invest? And, you know, the main message I think we had for the community is that we're not going anywhere, we hope to stand with you until this recovery is complete. Even though the memories won't go away. And the losses will be carried with people who lost loved ones, especially the least we can do as Morocco's friend and partner is work on this next phase together. 

MS. IHSANE: So, brilliantly, you mentioned the importance of education and climate change in the actions of USAID and the other visit that you conducted was to UM6P.

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: What an amazing place, my gosh, I had no idea.

MS. IHSANE: And it was an occasion to sign an MOU. My question is about how do you think concretely this initiative out of this MOU will help communities overcome the consequences of climate change? And what communities do you specifically target?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Yeah, well, I'd offer just a couple examples. And to see these artisans and these small-scale entrepreneurs up close was very powerful. But this is a program where we, USAID, will provide, through a partner called GiveDirectly, cash to cooperatives. Where women mainly self-organize, and say, okay, this is what we need – we need this kind of equipment, we have been using this kind of seed, but we now know that there's a heat resistant seed that will actually allow us to have a higher yield in these crazy climates that we are all confronted with. We provide these resources, but cash is important, but it's, and I love the aspect of the program, which gives them control to decide how that is used. And each of them has their own governance mechanism for figuring out if it's voting or some priority lists that they've developed in some other ways. So there's a kind of democratic organizing that goes along with this that I think is very powerful in a bottom up, you know, movement. 

So that cash is important, but the partnership with the University is so important, because my gosh, I mean, the faculty, the students, they are doing such important cutting edge research. So what they will do is actually provide the training and the technical assistance to these, for example, women farmers, or I met yesterday an artisan who uses only recycled materials to make some of the most beautiful handicrafts that are now available on Etsy, which I'm gonna have to look up when I when I get home. But there's no shortage of industry, work ethic, dynamism, determination, courage, resilience. Sometimes all you need is just a little cash and a little knowledge transfer, and then off to the races. And so that is the idea behind this kind of trilateral endeavor which takes the the technical knowledge, training and expertise on farming, on, you know, climate adaptation, on recycling even and how to do so safely and provides that to these small scale entrepreneurs, while we bring some catalytic resources to bear at the very start, but the key ingredient – and this is true of all or programming in Morocco, which is we have to follow the lead of the people where they articulate what their priorities are. 

MS. IHSANE: Yes, and I think one common thing between those two examples from the school of the earthquake region, and those cooperatives is resilience. And – 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Indeed – totally. 

MS. IHSANE: Speaking of crisis, this climate crisis – with another major crisis in the world today with the ongoing war on Gaza. After seven months, the humanitarian situation is chaotic, and it has never been recorded as the one it is today. The assault on Rafah and Israel staging this border crossing is blocking international efforts. How could the government of the United States, Administrator Power maybe change the situation? 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: It is a very important question. It is the issue on which I and my team right now are spending the vast majority of our time – is two things. First, in the conduct of the war, which is aimed at eliminating the threat posed by Hamas – Hamas, which says it still wants to kill Jews, it still wants to kill Israelis. So to seek to eliminate that threat is incredibly important. But to do so in a manner that respects civilians, that respects aid workers, journalists. So President Biden really uses every engagement with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and all of us do with our engagements with the Israeli government, to press on protecting civilians, respecting places where they are gathered, respecting humanitarian convoys that are doing nothing other than delivering humanitarian assistance. So that's really important. 

And then the point you make is incredibly important, not enough food is getting into Gaza. And we, under President Biden's leadership, and now our military has built this maritime temporary pier off the coast of Gaza. I think it's important in the sense that anything that goes in is important, but it is no substitute for land crossings and sustained humanitarian access. 

MS. IHSANE: It’s not a replacement. 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: No, no. No. No. No. 

MS. IHSANE: For deliveries of aid through land. 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: No, not in the slightest. And nobody ever thought it would.

MS. IHSANE: Even with the Rafah crossing –

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: This is the problem, this is the problem – is that it has to be the case that the land crossings into Gaza are open. About two months ago, maybe six weeks ago, there were almost 500 trucks a day, finally, actually able to cross over the land crossings. But this is why President Biden warned against the offensive in Rafah, he recognized that it would have an extremely disruptive and devastating effect on the humanitarian hub that is Southern Gaza. Fundamentally, that is where most of the humanitarian organizations are, you know, the crossing points, the land crossings, many of those have been affected now by the conflict. 

So you asked about U.S. engagement, our engagement, again, is on the importance of civilian protection, and the importance of reopening those land corridors, not just for some small number of hours, but having a constant pipeline. And I will just give you a stark statistic, which is that over the last two weeks, only 147 trucks have gotten into Gaza each day. And that's just an average. So some [days] is even lower than that, some a little bit higher. And we are looking to get 600 trucks a day into Gaza. But we have to recognize that 500 trucks got into Gaza before October 7, commercial and humanitarian, mainly commercial. 

And if you think about all of the loss of land, of granaries, of supermarkets, of people's own homes, and the stores of food that they kept in their homes, you know, even to get to 600, we're going to want to increase that and increase that. But instead, we've gone backwards in these last weeks. So that is one of the reasons the National Security – the President sent his National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to Israel over the weekend, in order to press on these issues because the amount of food reaching hungry desperate people is woefully insufficient right now.

MS. IHSANE: The maritime corridor is now operational.

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: It is operational, we want to get the numbers of trucks that come up on that pier and onto shore way up. I will say, there is inevitably more pressure on the trucks when they come off the pier, because the other land crossings are not having enough traffic go through. So as people get more and more desperate, it gets harder and harder to actually even move those trucks because if you're a parent and and you think that truck that's coming off the pier and into into Gaza, and maybe the last truck because you don't – there's not a reliable steady supply that gives rise to a level of insecurity that actually makes it hard even to do the deliveries from there. 

So we will work these, you know, the logistics out and get the number of trucks coming on to shore through the pier. We will work out those details, I hope in the coming days. Our aim is for that pier to help deliver enough food to feed around 500,000 people for a month. So it could be substantial, but it will be no substitute for reopening the land crossings and having meaningful flow by land through multiple crossings – Kerem Shalom, Erez, and others.

MS. IHSANE: Now to Africa. Administrator Power, 43 percent of the African population lack adequate access to electricity, most of them in sub-Saharan countries. To address this issue USAID has launched back in 2015, this initiative called Power Africa. What are the successes of this program? And are the objectives being met? 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, we are, none of us are going to be satisfied in any community or any country if we don't have access to electricity. And think of how it limits how long a young person can study, you know, whether they can study into the night or not. Think of a surgeon performing an operation in a health facility that is not electrified. So, ending energy poverty – electricity poverty, is a priority above all for the people of Africa. And again, as their partner, we are eager to be helpful in driving investment in these areas.

I think Power Africa in the relatively short time, it has been driving change in investment, it has made a profound difference. The estimates are that about 200 million people have benefited either from brand new electricity electrification or from significantly improved electrification. But I think that what you're going to see is, as you know, the host governments or partner governments, and communities get more and more enthusiastic about electrification, as the price of solar and wind continues to go way down, you're gonna see those numbers go up and up and up, as we go forward. 

And again there are many, many reasons to look at renewable energy as your energy source, as Morocco is a great leader and having done. But I think not enough focus has been paid to the affordability and how much cheaper it is, but also how you can do so much important off grid work, because you could just pop up a solar panel and next thing you know, you're pumped – you're you're able to power your well and even build a new well in which is going to be very important in an era of climate change. You're able to help that surgeon whose operating on his patient know that, you know, he has a supply of energy that can be stored and employed. It's a game changer in development, electrification. And we have to do much more of it.

MS. IHSANE: To do much more, more budget, but I believe that last April, we were on Capitol Hill to discuss – 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: – Pleading.

MS. IHSANE: Pleading.

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: – Persuading.

MS. IHSANE: I believe it wasn't an easy task for you to, to plead to, to plead for this agency's budget for 2025. To what extent Administrator Power, do you think the divergences within lawmakers may affect U.S. foreign assistance?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: I think it's a great question. And I appreciate actually you raising it, because I think there are many questions in people's minds during an election year about, you know, will there be continuity in American foreign policy, how is the election going to go? And I don't comment on politics, per se. But I would take note of the fact that – despite our divisions, and boy, do we have big divisions in the United States, we're very polarized, it's getting worse, not better, unfortunately – the polarization that is. But notwithstanding that, we just came together, Republicans and Democrats alike, to support what's called the Supplemental Package. Now people focused on the supplemental package because it had support for Ukraine, which has been brutally attacked by Putin and Russian forces, and it had weapon systems for Ukraine. It also had support for Ukraine to get its agricultural – its wheat and its other exports out, which really helps keep the prices down in developing countries. 

But actually, here in Morocco, what I would want to highlight about the Supplemental is that it had in it about $9 billion of humanitarian assistance for the whole world, of which about a billion will go probably to Gaza and to the West Bank, which is also suffering, terrible economic effects of the conflict. And, you know, when there are natural disasters, climate disasters in Africa, or any place else, it puts the United States in a position to extend the hand of friendship and partnership. 

And I think there are many people who predicted you could not get a strong bipartisan coalition behind such a large humanitarian assistance support package. But despite all of the back and forth, and much too long a delay, finally, those communities came together. So that is what I would hope would happen, irrespective of the results of any election that you would still see the U.S. interest in leading, and in showing compassion when when people are down on their luck, especially given the historical responsibility the United States has for missions, and for the rising temperature, also, that we would see that sense of responsibility. 

And that when the United States retreats, other global actors are going to fill the void. So hopefully those arguments will be persuasive. I tried to be persuasive on Capitol Hill. The verdict is out as to whether I succeeded, but you know, the fact of the matter is the United States is a country whose economy, whose values, whose citizens are active all over the world. And it's important that our foreign policy and our development assistance policy reflects that 

MS. IHSANE: Last question about idealism. In 2019, you published one of the books of the year, entitled Education of an Idealist memoir. What would you tell us about the advocacy for the cost of human dignity in modern times? And what is it that empowers your idealism? That, and this famous quote of late President John F. Kennedy just came to my mind, “I'm an idealist without solution.”

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Yes, that's a very, very important quote. So I think idealism gets a bad reputation. You know, somehow it suggests that you're naive, or you don't understand the dark and messy forces of the world. I'm very clear eyed, I have spent – the largest part of my career in places where really horrible things are happening to innocent people. So I understand how messy the world is. In this job, I've seen the effects of climate change setting back development gains, you know, a generation. I saw, of course, the effects of COVID. Now debt, so many countries wracked with debt. 

So I'm not naive, I don't think that there's some one size fits all solution. But I have seen the power of individuals to take their own lives into their own hands and push for change. I have seen what tiny investments, catalytic investments, whether from a venture capitalist or from a development agency or from a government ministry, what determined individuals can do with those resources. And often it's just about opening the door a crack, and then getting out of the way and watching people go do what they have waited too long to have the opportunity to do. 

So my favorite slogan I think, maybe where I get my idealism, gets reaffirmed, is “shrink the change.” I think sometimes you read the newspaper, it's so depressing what's happening out there. There's so many people suffering conflict and displacement. Or you see the, you know, this month was the hottest month and next month is the hottest month or the wettest month or the driest month. And it's very easy, especially for young people, I think just to kind of turn off — you know what, since Moroccan football is so good, you know, let's just watch the football and we can't do anything about the world. 

So it's important that we, as older people, that we show that there are paths not to make the full difference. Of course, not one person is going to reverse the effects of climate change, but to show that there is a path to make a difference and so shrinking the change, you know, looking that maybe you can't change the world but you can change many individual worlds. And that is happening here in Morocco, in profound ways. And it's been a real privilege to see that with my own eyes 

MS. IHSANE: And to play our soccer as well.

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: We weren't going to mention that because that didn't go as well as the rest of the trip. But that was much harder than being grilled by the U.S, Congress. I can tell you playing with these young Moroccan boy and girl football players – they are spectacular.

MS. IHSANE: And I believe it might not be the last time you play soccer and you're paying a visit to Morocco, Administrator Power. 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: I can't wait to come back.