Afghanistan Development Goals 2014 and Beyond
REMARKS BY LARRY SAMPLER, ASSISTANT TO THE ADMINISTRATOR FOR AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN, AT THE NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION
Monday, February 10, 2014
Afghanistan Development Goals 2014 and Beyond
[As Delivered]
Good afternoon and thank you for allowing me to speak today here at the New America Foundation. I would again like to thank Anne-Marie Slaughter and Peter Bergen for having us here today. I am thrilled that Ambassador Samad was chosen to moderate what I hope will be an interesting and lively discussion on the role USAID will play in advancing development goals while simultaneously supporting our broader national imperatives in Afghanistan through 2014 and beyond.
If you follow Afghanistan in the media, you are bombarded with negative stories of corruption, violence, bitterness, and lack of hope. The media, and even some in the US government, would have you believe that 12 years of sacrifice and investment in Afghanistan is being squandered and will soon be lost, as that country falls back into civil war and chaos, or that USAID is shoveling money out the door to corrupt Afghans, as schools and hospitals crumble into money-pits unsuitable for human use.
My first message today is this: Don’t believe it; I don’t. I have both the opportunity to know, and a responsibility to pay close attention. I am not naïve. I know that our track record has not been perfect, and that Afghanistan’s future will not be easy, but we’re not working in Afghanistan because we expect it to be easy. We’re working in Afghanistan because it is important to our own national interests.
Afghanistan today is important to US interests for the same reasons that it was important to us on the eve of that horrible September 11th in 2001. We know the dangers of turning our back on this part of the world.
The negative reports are easy to write. In a country as poor as Afghanistan, which is emerging from abject poverty and decades of violent civil war, it’s never hard to find a disgruntled
Monday, February 10, 2014
Afghanistan Development Goals 2014 and Beyond
[As Delivered]
Good afternoon and thank you for allowing me to speak today here at the New America Foundation. I would again like to thank Anne-Marie Slaughter and Peter Bergen for having us here today. I am thrilled that Ambassador Samad was chosen to moderate what I hope will be an interesting and lively discussion on the role USAID will play in advancing development goals while simultaneously supporting our broader national imperatives in Afghanistan through 2014 and beyond.
If you follow Afghanistan in the media, you are bombarded with negative stories of corruption, violence, bitterness, and lack of hope. The media, and even some in the US government, would have you believe that 12 years of sacrifice and investment in Afghanistan is being squandered and will soon be lost, as that country falls back into civil war and chaos, or that USAID is shoveling money out the door to corrupt Afghans, as schools and hospitals crumble into money-pits unsuitable for human use.
My first message today is this: Don’t believe it; I don’t. I have both the opportunity to know, and a responsibility to pay close attention. I am not naïve. I know that our track record has not been perfect, and that Afghanistan’s future will not be easy, but we’re not working in Afghanistan because we expect it to be easy. We’re working in Afghanistan because it is important to our own national interests.
Afghanistan today is important to US interests for the same reasons that it was important to us on the eve of that horrible September 11th in 2001. We know the dangers of turning our back on this part of the world.
The negative reports are easy to write. In a country as poor as Afghanistan, which is emerging from abject poverty and decades of violent civil war, it’s never hard to find a disgruntled