Administrator Samantha Power at a Press Conference in Ecuador

ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you so much. I want to thank President [Guillermo] Lasso, President-elect [Daniel] Noboa, and the people of Ecuador who I've had a chance to talk to over the last several days for their warm welcome to Ecuador. I'm pleased to have had the chance to speak with everyone from national and municipal leaders to farmers, business people, civil society, champions, indigenous leaders, and others to hear their concerns and their hopes for the future.

I'm here, as the Ambassador alluded to, as just one official in a large government that is very, very excited about deepening our partnership with the Ecuadorian people. This is a partnership that stretches back more than six decades. I had a chance to meet today, as some of you know, with President Lasso. We discussed the work that we've had a chance to do together over these last 30 months – combating childhood malnutrition, seeking to spur job creation and economic growth, and strengthening democratic institutions – institutions that, as the Ambassador said, performed very ably in the recent election. And with what we know is going to be the imminent peaceful transfer of power, I join the Ambassador and President Biden in congratulating the Ecuadorian people on that democratic success. 

I also had a chance to meet, not that long ago today, with President-elect Noboa. And to congratulate him on his election. I relayed the United States's commitment to taking a partnership that is producing more and more dividends, I think, for both countries, to an even higher level – I think we are at a high point. But there is far more we believe that we can do together. 

Going back in time, I just want to reflect that it was over 60 years ago, only a year after President Kennedy created USAID, that he gave a toast in which he reflected on the friendship between the United States and Ecuador. This was in 1962, at a time of significant challenges to democracy and stability, not just in Ecuador, but throughout the Americas. President Kennedy was clear eyed about the importance of partnership between our nations, even at a time of such challenge. The United States and Ecuador, he said, are “involved in one of the great adventures in the history of this hemisphere, and indeed, the history of the human race and growth.” Kennedy was referring to the task of building a more democratic and more progressive future for everyone living in the Western hemisphere. He acknowledged that this so-called adventure was going to be long, it was going to be hard, it would be drawn out, it would last many administrations beyond his own. But Kennedy vowed to persist because he said because Ecuador’s and the United States’ “future and our freedom and our security,” as he put it, were inextricably linked.

Starting over six decades ago, USAID partnered with the people of Ecuador on that great adventure, to build that brighter future for both our peoples. In the 1960s USAID helped support the construction of nearly one thousand schools here in Ecuador. After Ecuador and Peru signed a formal peace agreement in 1998, USAID helped meet the needs of the southern border communities affected by conflict, building water systems and health centers that reached half a million Ecuadorians in border provinces. In recent years, USAID has supported mobile banking kiosks that helped thousands of smallholder farmers access financial services, helping communities that produce the majority of Ecuador's food, while far too many we know still live in poverty. 

Again, we want to build on this rich history. We have heard, consistently, three messages from the people of Ecuador, about their biggest priorities for this country. I mentioned all the different constituencies that I've had the chance to talk to you over the last few days. And really all of them echo the same three priorities: security, economic opportunity, and democracy that delivers for all. I'd like to take each of these, in turn and talk about what USAID and the United States government more broadly is doing to try to spur progress in each area. 

First, security. Nearly every person I spoke with shared their concern about rising rates of crime and violence throughout the country. They all stressed the importance of improved citizen security. That is why yesterday, I met with Mayor Pabel Muñoz, and actually went on Quito radio Municipal FM to launch USAID PILARES – this is a $17.7 million program focused on building safer communities. Already, PILARES is working in the region of Guayas and here in the city of Quito, and it is expanding into Esmeraldas and Pastaza regions in 2024, to work with citizens so that they can build comprehensive strategies to reduce crime, not just to improve policing, which we know is a key factor, but to build more secure communities across the range of areas that are helping enable increased insecurity right now. That could mean everything from installing community alarms, activating community-led neighborhood councils, improving ways for citizens to access information on security or on self protection, that can help keep them safe. 

The second concern I heard in the course of this visit was the need to expand economic opportunity for the most marginalized communities – women farmers are one such group. As some of you may know 61 percent of Ecuador's women work in the agricultural sector, but around 86 percent of them are not paid for doing so. Yesterday I announced a new public private partnership that will increase economic opportunities for smallholder farmers, including many of these women, by connecting them to Ecuador's leading supermarket chain La Favorita. Our partnership will provide direct training to help them – these farmers – meet market standards with their produce, we will help them access new markets and ultimately, this will help them increase their incomes. Corporación Favorita will also build more collection points in historically marginalized communities, helping connect farmers in those communities with economic opportunity. This will help eliminate middlemen in bringing smallholder farmers and their produce to market at a standard that consumers are seeking. 

Finally, I've heard people speak about the need for leaders at all levels of government to be able to meet the needs of all their people, especially historically marginalized communities. And here again, to be able to show that democracy delivers not just rhetoric, but tangible benefits for citizens. That's why today, I am pleased to announce the Tu Municipio Responde Program – or TuMUNI for short – that will do just that, help local governments respond to citizens' needs by expanding access to water and sanitation, and other public services. These public services will be critical as well for reducing malnutrition in children, a concern especially prevalent I know in indigenous communities, but far too prevalent across Ecuador. This is an issue that President Lasso and I have spoken about many times – that he has launched a major initiative on, as many of you know, and we spoke today actually about his plans to carry on this emphasis on malnutrition into his post-presidency period. 

I believe that we are still on what President Kennedy called that long, great adventure – to build a more secure, more prosperous, more democratic future for all the people of this region. And today – and this is an important announcement that I'm here to make this evening – as a reflection of the deepening partnership between USAID and Ecuador. I am pleased, here, to announce that we are going to be upgrading our country office, our USAID office, here in Ecuador, to a full USAID Mission. This change reflects our commitment to exploring new avenues of support for the Ecuadorian people and to doubling down on projects that we know are working right now. We have achieved a great deal together. We recognize the challenges that the people of this great country are facing. And we are really excited about further partnership in more domains and expanding the impact of the U.S.-Ecuadorian partnership to meet these critical challenge areas today. 

With that, I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

TELERAMA (via translation): Thank you, Administrator Power. I would like to know, Administrator, in terms of economic terms, what is the amount that USAID is providing as a contribution to the Ecuadorian government and how much will be addressed to security?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you. Well, let me first say that USAID is only one of the U.S. agencies invested in helping Ecuador strengthen citizen security. So the initiative that I launched yesterday, as I mentioned, is a $17.7 million three-year initiative that is focused on working with municipal authorities to provide greater services to address youth and the problem of the recruitment of youth, potentially in gangs, to do more detailed strategic planning about what each community requires in terms of tackling increases in violent crime. 

But that happens alongside the work that the U.S. military does with the Ecuadorian armed services, and training with the Ministry of the Interior, info sharing combined exercises, and of course, the counter narcotics, counter transnational crime work that other agencies in the U.S. government are better positioned to speak to. 

In terms of USAID, its broader investment. You know, we had a mission, here in Ecuador, as I mentioned, between 1961 all the way until 2014. And in that period, we invested $800 million in, again, everything from roads to schools to economic, economic access for low-income individuals and communities. And that was a profound and really important investment that I think paid significant dividends. Unfortunately, our mission closed in 2014. And our office, small office – opened again in 2020. Since 2020, and is really, as the Ambassador said, at the end of 2020. But since then we've invested about $178 million in Ecuador, across sectors, again, on everything from agriculture, to citizen security, to education, to support for independent journalists, and to public private partnerships along the lines of what I announced tonight. 

So we, again, just as in other countries, you know, when a pandemic breaks out, we look to be responsive and to try to be nimble. So we surged, of course, vaccines to Ecuador and supported the vaccination of a large share of Ecuadorians. And that is the kind of thing that we will continue to do – as issues arise, we try to follow the lead of the communities in which we work. And you know, there was a time when citizen security was not the issue that citizens and leaders brought to us as an area where they wanted us to invest, they may have been much more focused again on other sectors of investment. But right now, that is an issue that is very much, of course, on people's minds. We all know the statistics. We all know the challenges that communities are facing, and how relatively new this phenomenon is. So in addition to the resources that we invest here, we will also seek to draw on the experience that we, as USAID, have obtained in other countries, including nearby as in Colombia, where we have worked with communities, town councils, mayors, national governments, police forces, civil society and others, to actually bring about really dramatic reductions in crime. And so, we hope we can, in addition to our programming resources, bring some of those lessons learned to the communities who are really struggling right now to fend off these increases in violent crime.

TELEAMAZONAS (via translation): Thank you very much, Administrator, good afternoon. I just wanted to clarify about the $178 million you were talking about, how much is budgeted for the future, mainly in sustainable development matters? And how much for security? How will security be around for us regarding weapons intelligence? And I'm asking this because Ecuador is considered one of the countries with the highest crime rates, not only in Latin America, but the world. 

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: I am the USAID Administrator, so I can speak, again, to our programming. But maybe I'll ask the Ambassador to speak to the whole of government response on security if you are looking for more detail. You know, for us without giving a precise breakdown, we believe that the foundation for progress in combating insecurity and in growing the economy and creating jobs – the foundation for that is support for democratic institutions, including anti corruption bodies, support for the rule of law, support for those organizations that are not part of the government that are outside of the government holding the government accountable. So whether that's strictly independent journalists who need training on how to stay profitable in a very difficult time for journalism all over the world, or anti-corruption, civil society organizations that expose the corruption, including of officials. Part of our portfolio, in the past and going forward, is about those investments in supporting democratic institutions. 

In addition, one of the things I haven't really talked about yet today is our investments in environmental conservation – this is extremely important. You saw the debt for nature swap that the Development Finance Corporation helped facilitate. USAID has been involved in the protection of millions of hectares of the Amazon. And we expect the work in environmental conservation to expand. And again, in so doing, doing it in a manner that is also supportive of livelihoods. Because there is a connection between citizen insecurity and economic insecurity. And we have to recognize that connection across all of our programming. 

I mentioned during COVID, the surge of health support that USAID facilitated. We support, as well, Venezuelan migrants and host communities – those Ecuadorian communities that are hosting large populations of Venezuelans. That's really, really important to make sure that those communities that are integrating Venezuelan migrants into the health system, into the education system – that they get the financial resources to be able to not see any diminishment of social services for themselves, as we’ve helped support that effort as well. With regard, again, to the whole of government security effort beyond this brand new $17.7 million USAID initiative I'd let the Ambassador speak to that.

USAID MISSION DIRECTOR DANIEL SANCHEZ-BUSTAMANTE: I wanted to add something that Administrator Power said. When USAID reopened the office here in Ecuador, we signed an agreement with the government of Ecuador for five years for about $62 million. Showing the commitment that the U.S. government and USAID have. In June this year, we increased this agreement for a ten-year term, increasing this to an additional $130 million for a total of $182 million so far. So this is an important number and we, I'm sure we, are going to go over this number by 2030 as well. With this I will give the floor to the Ambassador. 

AMBASSADOR MICHAEL FITZPATRICK: Thank you very much. If you want I will keep my intervention until the end after the Administrator.

AGENCIA AP/ASSOCIATED PRESS (via translation): Good afternoon Administrator. I would just like to ask you if it specifically, if you could specifically tell us about the agreement or request made by the President-elect and the law regarding cooperation and security matters. He was talking about the creation of an agency – intelligence agency, is the US going to be supporting this sense during the time that Mr. Noboa will be in office?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Again, to reiterate, I'm the Administrator of USAID, which is the development and humanitarian arm of the U.S. government, so I will ask the Ambassador, again, just as with the previous question, to address any matter related to intelligence, cooperation and intelligence sharing. But let me just say, again, that the partnership between the United States and Ecuador extends in the areas of governance, economic growth and resilience, and of course, security and intelligence cooperation. And I think, what was really important about the lengthy and very productive meeting that we had with the President-elect and his team, is how much alignment there is between the partnership between the U.S. and Ecuador as it is as as it has evolved, including USAID programming since 2020, which has really picked up in in terms of its range, and its scope. But the alignment between that and his chief priorities, which are, of course, citizen security, enhanced job opportunities, and enhanced education opportunities for young people, and growing the economy, and getting the economy on a more sustainable track. 

So these are exactly the kinds of areas that USAID has been involved in. And, you know, we discussed the public private partnership I launched yesterday with La Favorita, and right there on the spot, you know, you could see the ideas being generated about what other kinds of public private partnerships we may be able to launch together. As somebody who, you know, has a background in the private sector, I think there's great potential there to take advantage of those those networks in order to try to enlist the private sector in doing everything from combating crime, to investing more in communities, and indeed, investing more in civil society organizations from both a philanthropic standpoint. And from a business standpoint, in order to actually create more job opportunities for the people that would work. 

I think, you know, USAID is all around the world, our core objective is to help economies grow, to help countries find dignity and opportunity for their young people. The President-elect is clearly focused on the number of young people who are, you know, wanting to be entering the job market every year. And no matter their marks in school, or how hard they've worked, there just aren't enough jobs to go around. And that is where we, USAID, bring our experience from other parts of the world to try to expand job opportunities, because we also see that a growing number of Ecuadorians feel that in order to find that life of dignity and opportunity, they need to migrate. And there's not one Ecuadorian family that wants to see a young person leave their community, leave their family and migrate. And so collectively between the private sector, civil society, the government and development agencies like us, you know, we want to be thinking comprehensively about how the environment evolves here in Ecuador in a manner where people have the ability to achieve their dreams right here at home.

TC TELEVISIÓN (via translation): International commitments are reaffirmed with the U.S. government, those signs over these times that have been reaffirmed and bonds have been tied in with the U.S. government over these times. What do all these agreements comprise – even read the reinforcement of then technology equipment, arms intelligence, what word in terms of security means this and in what time would these be implemented? In what time? Can you implement this?

AMBASSADOR FITZPATRICK (via translation): Thank you, a complicated question. Let me start with what we are already doing in various areas, because this is not a question of deadlines in the future. There are things that we are already doing with President Lasso's government, that the president-elect has evidently asked us, according to the Ecuadorian press, to continue. I am pleased to hear that he would like to continue these programs and explore other opportunities in various areas.  

The last question regarding our investment in security matters in Ecuador. I often get the question: how much money [will be invested]? And my answer is: yes, but how much capacity [can we build]? What Ecuador needs is not dollar amount on the table, but the Ecuadorian capacity to respond – to democracy, to the Ecuadorian people –  by helping them to have better security on the streets – employment security, legal security, different kinds of security – we have USAID programs, programs from the Department of State and from other agencies of the American government – investments come in different forms. 

And I would like to come back to what the Administrator mentioned  – DFC and the blue bonds – what does this have to do with security? Lowering the national debt. More than a billion dollars will stay in the hands of Ecuador, instead of paying international interest rates. So with this money, with the work of certain American government employees, instead of giving money directly to Ecuador, we invest in technical capacities from our side, and also opening new connections with international banks, with NGOs, environmental NGOs, including the civil society and other stakeholders, for there to be more money to invest in Ecuador – [and more money] for Ecuador to invest in its own security. 

For me, that's an investment in the national security of Ecuador. Improving maritime control of the country where there are submersibles operated by drug traffickers going through the Galapagos Islands every day, sending cocaine to the United States, or through Guayaquil and Manta ports, sending tons of cocaine a week to Europe. This is security. It is not only a matter of dollars, [but also the] exchange of information, intelligence, training, better coordinating the information that is already in the hands of some members of the Ecuadorian state, so that there will be more action in defending Ecuadorian democracy – this is all in there. But in general terms, we are investing more than $100 million a year in several sectors, from a variety of U.S. government institutions to defend democracy, institutionality, and security out on the streets and of course, economic security. 

GAMA TV (via translation): Mr. Ambassador, I have a question. In contrast with other countries in the region, Ecuador is a country that receives Venezuelan immigrants, and there are talking that probably with these migration measures that Chile or Peru might have undertaken. Many people will come to check whether USAID, along the history we've [just] heard, has worked with social services to strengthen rural communities.  Is there a possibility of servicing this population that will probably get to Ecuador, and remain here we don't know for how long? Bearing in mind that Ecuador, itself, has no resources to support some very necessary social programs that are needed to promote the people’s well-being? So, from this money that will be the lever, is there a part of it that will provide for the populations that come to our land? 

AMBASSADOR FITZPATRICK (via translation): Yes. I say yes, of course, yes. Because we're already doing this, not only via USAID, but the United States government as a whole is investing – I don't have the exact number right now – but we just announced last week, more than $400 million from the Department of State to help host countries for Venezuelan migrants. Ironically, today we see in the case of Ecuador, which is not only receiving people from other countries but also sending Ecuadorians to the United States. We have several recently announced programs from the U.S. government to help Ecuador maintain better conditions for Ecuadorians here, but also, if they decide to travel to the United States, for them to do so legally, safely, and directly. 

And in the short term, we will have three offices in Ecuador to receive people of other nationalities [in Ecuador] who seek legal ways to travel to the United States – programs for Ecuadorians as well, and for Ecuadorian communities. We have several programs that have already been announced and formalized here, valuing several hundred million dollars that we are investing in Ecuador, in communities, and in the communities hosting migrants. I don't know if Daniel would like to add anything. 

And we will, in the short term, we will have three offices in Ecuador, to receive people of other countries looking for legal ways to travel to the United States – the programs for Ecuadorians as well and for the Ecuadorian communities. Here, we have several programs that have been announced and formalized with a volley of several hundreds of million dollars that we are investing in Ecuador, for the communities, for the host communities of migrants. I don't know if Daniel would like to add something. 

MISSION DIRECTOR SANCHEZ-BUSTAMANTE: Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador, actually, USAID, since the day we opened the doors in Ecuador, again, has been working with host communities of Venezuelan migrants and with the Venezuelan migrants themselves. So we have two methodologies. 

The first one is humanitarian assistance when the families that are already most in need come to Ecuador, allowing them to have access to food, to hygiene, to having a roof over their heads. And the for those who have been here longer, the idea is to help them get integrated at an economic and social level in their host communities, meaning by developing capacities in between the vulnerable Ecuadorian community and the migrant Venezuelan community for them to work in startups, for them to finish their status or find better jobs and for them to have a productive life. 

And I just want to point out that the actions of the Ecuadorian government to normalize the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants that are here is a great opportunity for us and for other people working on these to help expand the work that we are doing because now many more people will have the opportunity of living a full life in this country that is hosting them so kindly. 

Thank you.