Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Transcript
MS. DILRABO OTAJONOVA: Today's episode interview is a special and exclusive for UzReport TV, with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, Ms. Samantha Power. Good afternoon, Ms. Power. It's a great pleasure to see you here in our country in Samarkand. Welcome.
ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you. I'm not sure I've ever had a backdrop like this to do an interview. So, it's going to be very hard for me to pay attention to the interview itself with such spectacular beauty behind me.
MS. OTAJONOVA: Yeah, that's true. So, we know that you're very busy, so let's get started right now. So, my first question is about the cooperation between Uzbekistan and USAID. What are the key priorities which USAID is focusing on when it comes to the cooperation between – the USAID and Uzbekistan, and what makes this cooperation unique?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, I think that Uzbekistan is in the middle of a unique reform effort. I mean, I have not visited before. This is my first time in the country. But I gather, if I had come here a decade ago, things would feel really different. The young people would feel different about their future. Business people would feel different about the prospects of starting businesses. There's a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy in people's lives. There still is a fair amount of that, not only in this country, in many countries.
But I think what is really special about what's happening in Uzbekistan now is the young people wanting to stay in Uzbekistan, wanting to build their lives here. I met yesterday with a group of high school students, and they asked me the hardest questions, but also told me about their dreams of being engineers, being film producers, novelists. I mean, just the talent that is here. But also, now with a reform agenda, that is very, very ambitious.
And we've already seen that bear fruit with legislation to combat violence against women, the anti-child labor, and anti-trafficking legislation. But I think in the economic sphere, we are seeing much more reform that seeks to empower entrepreneurs to create, to build, to grow.
And so, when USAID sees around the world, reform moments, we really want to leap. Because those moments sometimes don't last for very long. Here, there has been six years of economic reform. And now, also the question of the political reforms and how the economic and the political reforms go together, this is something I had a chance to talk to the President [Shavkat Mirziyoyev] about.
That is the next phase of reform, is to see the political reform and the economic reform going hand in hand. Because when I go back to the United States and I say, "Uzbekistan is open for business, you should check it out," people also want to know, “okay, am I going to know if something is going wrong? Are people able to raise their voices and alert officials to the fact that there might be corruption or that there might be something that stands in the way.” And so, we are very excited about this next phase of partnership here in Uzbekistan. We're also really excited about Uzbekistan as part of a region that holds tremendous promise.
And if the trade connectivity among the countries of Central Asia can be improved, which USAID wants to help with reforms in those areas as well, that is going to unlock even more economic opportunity for the people of this country and the people of the other countries and the region.
MS. OTAJONOVA: So, my next question, about the environmental issues, globally – so, this issue has become very popular. And how do USAID address this question of environmental issues in coverage with Uzbekistan?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, I would say that we think about climate change in two ways. First, we want to help Uzbekistan and the other countries of Central Asia transition as quickly as possible to renewable energies. Not only does that do less environmental damage, it cuts down on more warming that could happen in the future, but it's actually good for human health and it's cheaper. Clean energy now, by and large, is going to be cheaper for citizens.
So, as a development agency wanting to help citizens, enjoy their lives and have money to be able to spend, actually shifting to clean energy sooner is going to be better for consumers. So, that's climate mitigation. USAID is also recognizing that climate change is here. The United States is a major source of emissions. We are one of the countries most responsible for rising temperatures. And we feel the responsibility, as USAID, to work with farmers who are dealing now with more drought and less predictable weather patterns, to deal with farmers who now might need technology to be able to study satellite data, to know when the rains are likely to come or not come. We – USAID – invest in research to try to create drought resistance seeds. Seeds that need less water to grow. We heard a lot today, in fact, about drip irrigation and the importance of drip irrigation.
So, that's just in the climate domain. But with so many natural disasters, with flooding and the like, it's also really important to have the technical expertise to build infrastructure in a way that makes it less susceptible to extreme weather events. So, that's climate adaptation.
And so, I think both in transition to renewables and in helping citizens of Uzbekistan deal with the climate change that is already here we have a lot of work to do. And President Mirziyoyev is very enthusiastic, I think, about growing work in both clean energy and in climate adaptation.
MS. OTAJONOVA: A few questions about C5+1, what is the priority of Central Asia countries for the U.S. foreign policy ? Are they a priority at all? And is this beneficial for the United States to cooperate with Central Asian countries jointly in the C5+1 format, whether that or separately with each country?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, I would say both. So, I think that there are huge advantages to the kinds of bilateral programs that USAID has run in Uzbekistan since 1993. We've invested $640 million here in Uzbekistan over that period of time in agriculture, in education, in combating domestic violence – in so many sectors supporting SMEs. I've announced new bilateral investments on this trip that I think are very important. But at the same time, in order for those SMEs to be able to not only sell their goods or their services here in Uzbekistan but to go further afield, the C5+1 format is very valuable.
And today we really talked about two things. We talked about energy connectivity across the C5+1 and what the investments USAID and the rest of the United States government can make in helping connect electricity – hydroelectricity, let's say, in one country with consumers of electricity in another. And that's, I think, the growth area.
And then second, one of the things that holds back trade is a lot of paperwork, bureaucracy, and red tape at the borders. And if we are able to digitize, if we are able to simplify, if we are able to harmonize so that the systems in Uzbekistan resemble the systems in Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan, then what you would have is fewer delays in terms of transit.
And the best of all, cheaper products that will cross borders and be more appealing to consumers. So, figuring out how to accelerate the trading relationships and cut down the barriers in this C5+1 format is really, really important. And USAID not only has a bilateral program here in Uzbekistan, but we have a regional mission that is based in Kazakhstan that thinks only "how do we enhance the connectivity across the countries in Central Asia?" And so, that regional mission works in tandem with our bilateral mission here to see what we have to do in Uzbekistan, but also what does Uzbekistan want USAID to be urging happen in Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan or Turkmenistan, for example.
MS. OTAJONOVA: Yesterday, you met with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. So, my question, what did you talk about during your meeting with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev? And what – did you discuss some new specific projects?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Absolutely. I would say our discussion ran the gamut. We had a very lengthy and very fulsome discussion of investments that we can make in the agricultural sector. In SMEs, we announced an additional several million dollars of investment in small businesses here in Uzbekistan, grants that will support about a hundred businesses. We talked about the education work that USAID has done over the years. Our education materials and our teacher training have reached about six million young Uzbek students – about 10,000 schools, particularly the English-language materials.
Now that Uzbekistan is trying to expand the English-language training, we are very eager again to spread those programs further. We talked about the importance of inclusive education so that, for example, children with disabilities – like a young child I just met in the Art House here in Samarkand – that a child, who, just because he has Down Syndrome, doesn't mean he's not entitled as well to an education.
And so, USAID is now announcing that we are increasing our investments in inclusive education to support the government in reaching its goal of being able to ensure that children with disabilities get access to education. This issue of paperwork and red tape matters at the borders, as we discussed in the trade context, but it also matters in the lives of Uzbeks. And I think one of the things that was very exciting to talk to the President about is what more can we do to make life simpler for an Uzbek citizen. If they want to get access to services, if they want to complain that a service isn't working the way they hoped, if they want marriage license or – we see a wedding here on the square – to get access to their wedding certificate, if they want to open a bank account, simplification and ease of the citizen experience is something I think that we could do something very ambitious on in the coming years.
So, at the end of the meeting, the president said, "I want to see the roadmap for how we de-bureaucratize how we get rid of these burdens on businesses and on citizens." And the last thing we talked about is what I mentioned at the beginning, which is how economic and political reform go hand in hand. The president has talked about the importance of a constructive opposition. He talked about the importance of a free press. And things have definitely changed here and improved in terms of the level of openness. That is a critical ingredient to the kind of economic progress that the president and his team are seeking. Because when there is rule of law, when the media can expose corruption, that media is a friend to the anti-corruption agenda that the President is attempting to prosecute across the country.
And so, making sure that those checks and balances in Uzbek society, beyond the executive branch, that those are thriving. And that's one of the reasons that USAID trains journalists on fact-checking and proper reporting, trains journalists on how to make money. Because it's very difficult, as you know, for media as a business – in the age of social media where people can get their news for free – many citizens don’t want to pay for it. So, USAID does a lot in helping media organizations increase their profitability. And that I think could be an important check and balance, again, on the broader work that is going on.
MS. OTAJONOVA: I've got all the answers to my questions really. So, just in perspective. You are a successful woman, politician, you have such a beautiful family. How do you manage to balance those things, your work, your job, your career with the family?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, the positive is that when I go home, I – my daughter is now a collector of snow globes. The glass dome and the little snow globes. So, every country I visit, I bring home to her a snow globe, which usually in stores they choose – they pick what they are most proud of. So, after our interview, I have to go to the store and find the perfect Samarkand snow globe. But I try to make my kids feel the sense of discovery that I feel every time I get to travel.
But, for every parent, not just women, but I think especially mothers, you feel the hole in your heart. It feels as if you wish you could clone yourself and be in two places at once. Right now, I'd like to be with my daughter getting her ready for school, but I also really want to be in Samarkand looking at what we can do to support the Uzbek people. So, you just try to find the balance. But I think no mother feels like they have the perfect balance. No one that I've ever met has the perfect balance.
MS. OTAJONOVA: Thank you very much. Thank you for the interview. It was great to talk to you.
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you.