Clinton Speaks in Morocco at Forum for the Future
Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:47:06 -0600
Remarks at the Forum
for the Future
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of
State
Marrakech, Morocco
November 3, 2009
So
it is a pleasure to join you for this discussion, and I
especially recognize the significance of having governor –
government ministers and civil society leaders talking
together about these issues of common concern. That may be
too rare at sight, but it shouldn’t be, because our goal
is to listen, learn, and discover new ways that we can work
as partners for the good of the people that we represent.
Like all of you, I have experienced firsthand the
warm hospitality and openness of the Moroccan people. And
yesterday, I had the opportunity in a meeting with King
Mohammed VI to express my appreciation for the progress that
Morocco is achieving; in particular, the reforms that have
granted new freedom to women who now bring their
considerable talents to strengthening democratic
institutions, accelerating economic growth, and broadening
the work of civil society.
On a previous visit to this
beautiful country 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to
meet with many of the citizens of Morocco. I remember well
having a chance to listen to an illiterate father who
endorsed his young daughter’s dream of becoming a doctor
and meeting devout women who had risen up to become
advocates for human rights on local councils. Examples like
this remind us there is much in Morocco’s experience that
we can look to guide our efforts today.
Five months
ago in Cairo, President Obama called for a new beginning
between the United States and Muslim communities around the
world – a relationship that is comprehensive rather than
focused on a few political and security issues, a
relationship based on partnership between people as well as
government, and a relationship that lasts for the long term.
Those were some of the important words that President Obama
spoke in Cairo, and his speech generated a great deal of
enthusiasm around the world. Many people heard his call and
asked, what can we do; what can you, the United States do;
how will President Obama’s vision bear out in a new
approach to U.S. policy; and how will that new approach
translate into meaningful changes in people’s everyday
lives?
As President Obama and I believe, it is
results, not rhetoric, that matter in the end. Economic
empowerment, education, healthcare, access to energy and to
credit, these are the basics that all communities need to
thrive. And the United States seeks to pursue these common
aspirations through concrete actions. We know that true
progress comes from within a society and cannot be imposed
from the outside, and we know that change does not happen
overnight. So we will not focus our energies on one-time
projects, but we will seek to work with all of you in
government and in civil society to try to build local
capacity and empower local organizations and individuals to
create sustainable change.
I have asked our Embassy to
engage with local communities to solicit ideas for how the
United States could be a better partner. I also appointed
the first-ever U.S. Special Representative to Muslim
communities. The ideas we have heard have helped to shape
our plan. Farah Pandith, our new Special Representative, is
traveling widely and listening and coming back and
expressing the concerns that she has heard from those who
are living and working for a better life.
Now, we are
focused on three broad areas where we believe U.S. support
can make a difference. The first comes from the work and
research that has been done over many years. When you ask
people in all countries in this region or anywhere in the
world what is the biggest concern you have and what do you
want to see that happens differently in the future, the
answer overwhelmingly is “I want a better job. I want
rising income. I want to give my family, especially my
children, more opportunities.” It cuts across every
society no matter where that society is.
I often say
that while talent is universal, opportunity is not. And so
we are committed to building ladders of opportunity to help
develop the enormous talents that reside in the people of
this region. Early next year, the President will host an
entrepreneurship summit in Washington to convene people
focused on creating small businesses, expanding their
businesses, taking the talent that they have and translating
it into income generations to assist their
families.
We have launched a website for this summit.
It is http://http://www.entrepreneurship.gov/summit.
And I invite you to submit the names for delegates that
could possibly benefit from coming to this summit, and
please provide your comments on topics for the agenda.
Because this summit is part of a broader effort to expand
support for entrepreneurship in the region, including by
establishing new business development centers. It is also my
hope that together, we can launch a virtual entrepreneur
network that connects the range of people engaged in such
activities in the region and even beyond.
There are so
many good ideas that die because the conditions are not
right for bringing those ideas to market. There are so many
people who work so hard every day that they can’t realize
the benefits of that hard work to the extent that they
should. Now we already, as you know, give billions of
dollars in ongoing direct aid programs in this region,
ranging from a community’s livelihood program in Yemen to
a youth employment program in Jordan to our work here in
Morocco.
We have invested $700 million in Morocco
through a Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact. And this
is an approach that we are working on that grows and has a
partnership between our government and the government of
people of a country – in this case, Morocco – where we
say we’re not here to tell you what you need from us;
we’re here to ask you what we can do to help you realize
your own goals. In this case, we are supporting to two
agricultural sectors – fruit tree farms and small-scale
fisheries – as well as artisan craft and strengthening
financial services and enterprise support. Over and over, we
hear from small and medium-sized businesses that cannot get
the financial assistance, they can’t get the technical
support that would grow their business. So working with the
Government of Morocco, we are hoping to really help to see
blossom a lot more economic activity at the lower level that
will then, from the bottom up, build prosperity.
Our
second area will be advancing science and technology,
something that we have heard from many of you, to help
create jobs and to meet global challenges. It’s not
something you don’t know; it is your history. But it was
the Islamic world that led the way in science and medicine.
It was the Islamic world that paved the way for much of the
technology and science that we now take for granted. And now
we face global challenges. How do we address water issues?
How do we solve the climate crisis? How do we eradicate
disease? Well, we want to look to your societies and we want
to help Muslim majority communities develop the capacity to
meet economic, social and ecological challenges through
science, technology, and innovation.
The State
Department has established a science envoys program, and
I’m pleased to announce today that the first envoys will
be three of America’s leading scientists: Dr. Bruce
Albert*, a former president of our National Academy of
Sciences; Dr. Elias Zerhouni, a former director of our
National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Ahmad Zawawi, the
Nobel Prize-winning chemist. Each of these men has agreed to
travel to North Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast
Asia to fulfill President Obama’s mandate to foster
scientific and technological collaboration. The State
Department will also expand positions for environment,
science, technology, and health officers* at our embassies.
To finance these solutions, the United States Overseas
Private Investment Corporation known as OPIC is launching a
technology and innovation fund.
Our third area of
engagement is education. Last week, I announced our support
for a new program for higher education in Pakistan. We have
also begun a program to support partnership between U.S.
community colleges and institutions in Muslim communities to
share knowledge and to train students for good jobs. We are
expanding our scholarship opportunities, particularly for
underserved secondary school students. One of our most
successful education programs is called Access. It provides
English language instructions to bright students in poor
communities. I am personally committed to this program, and
I look for ways to provide additional support, because I
have seen firsthand its power.
Earlier this year, I
visited an Access classroom in Ramallah. I walked into an
enthusiastic discussion of Women’s History Month. These
were students who did not come from educated families, but
they were students with the same ambition and motivation
that we heard described by our colleague, the Palestinian
foreign minister, about his own son. We want to create more
opportunities for students like these to fulfill their
God-given potential
And this points to a related
priority – the empowerment of women. I have said, as some
of you know, for many years, and President Obama said it in
Cairo, no country can achieve true progress or fulfill its
own potential when half of its people are left behind. When
little girls are not given the same opportunities for
education, we have no idea what we are losing out on because
they’re not going to be able to contribute to the growth
and the development of their countries.
The United
States has named our first-ever Ambassador-at-Large for
Global Women’s Issues, Ambassador Melanne Verveer. We
strongly support the call made at last year’s Forum for
the Future for the creation of a regional gender institute
to help advance women’s empowerment across the board
politically, economically, educationally, legally, socially,
and culturally. And we look forward to working with other
governments and civil societies to launch this initiative
soon. And we will provide initial funding to make it a
priority.
We seek to support civil society efforts
worldwide because we believe that civil society helps to
make communities more prosperous and stable. It helps to
drive economic growth that benefits the greatest number of
people And it pushes political institutions to be agile and
responsive to the people they serve. So the United States is
launching an initiative called Civil Society 2.0. This
organized effort will provide new technologies to civil
society organizations. We will send experts in digital
technology and communications to help build
capacity.
Now, these are some of the ways that the
United States is pursuing President Obama’s vision for a
new relationship. Our work is based on empowering
individuals rather than promoting ideologies; listening and
embracing others’ ideas rather than simply imposing our
own; and pursuing partnerships that are sustainable and
broad-based. We believe that despite our differences, there
is so much more that unites us. Fathers and mothers
everywhere want safety and opportunity for their daughters
and sons. People everywhere want to have a role in the
decisions that affect them, to express their needs to their
leaders to be heard, and to help chart their own
futures.
I also want to make clear that the United
States is committed to a comprehensive peace in the Middle
East. I know this is a matter that is of grave and pervasive
concern among the countries represented here, but even far
beyond this region. We are committed to a two-state
solution, and we are determined and persistent in the
pursuit of that goal. It is important that we all work
toward that objective. And I think that does require that
all parties should be careful about what we say, the kind of
recriminations that are so understandable, but we need to
work together in a constructive spirit toward this shared
goal of a comprehensive peace.
I believe very strongly
that it is attainable. I believe that President Obama’s
commitment is understood. And I believe that with your
support, we can find a way through the difficult and tangled
history that too often prevents us from making progress on
this most important issue. As leaders of countries that have
a direct stake and care deeply about all of the final status
issues that must be resolved, I would just ask you to think
about how we can each demonstrate the commitment that is
necessary for us to go forward.
Now, we can maintain
an allegiance to the past, but we cannot change the past. No
matter what we say about it, it is behind us. Or we can work
together and follow the vision and the inspiration of
President Obama to help shape a future that will be so much
better for the children of both the Palestinians and the
Israeli families. I am hopeful we can succeed in creating
that better world together, because I know what could lie
ahead for us if we do.
And I thank you for having a
forum about the future, because that is what we have to
determine together. And I appreciate the opportunity to be
here to build on the vision of the President’s speech in
Cairo, but to go to the concrete actions with specific
results that are necessary, whether it is making peace,
creating jobs, or educating our children so that the people
we represent can see their lives improving, because at the
end of the day, that is what we are all committed to try to
achieve. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
ENDS