this is about 45 minutes. >> good morning. good morning, welcome to the society for international development-u.s. chapters 2024 annual conference. >> i'm kat repb, president of sidus.

it's my pleasure to congress off what i know will be a remarkable day of connecting, sharing, and reflecting. this promises to be sidus's largest conference ever. i know i say that every year, but every year we are, in fact, larger. we are expecting well over 1,200 people in person today. and another many, many hundreds of people online. you are coming in from all over the world. in person we'll welcome people from 30 states and 18 countries, and online you are coming in from everywhere. one of my favorite features of our virtual platform is the map under the participants tab that shows you where everyone is coming in from. so i hope everyone will take a look at that, including those of you in person. hope you'll get online late. we have more than 100 speakers,

96 sponsors, 12 in-person breakout panels, 13 virtual breakout, three learning labs, and more than 70 exhibits in our exhibit hall. and sidus has seven employees. it takes a village, and our village includes our board who has been so supportive and helpful and hands on. and our village includes our work group co-chairs, many of whom are here today. and our village includes our sponsors. and aid like to call out our highest level sponsors at the gold level we have american institutes for research. fhi-360. ifdc and wsp. at the platinum level we have apt global. accenture, acdi voca. california dmus. counterpart, d.a.i., d.t. global, oxford policy

management, r.t.i., tech change, at the time a tech, and training resources group. at the diamond level we have creative associates, deloitte, grant assistant, and opportunity international. thank you >> thank you to all our sponsors for making this day as robust as it might be. i can't start this event without recognizing the painful, divisive events taking place in our world. more than ever we are a world in crisis. as you may know the theme of our conference today is world in crisis, sparks of hope. today i hope we can focus on hope and solutions. max on our team asked chatgpt for some inspiration for social

media posts about our conference. and here's what he got. buckle up and brings yourselves for the most exhilarating, pulse pounding, and awe inspiring event of the millennium. i am absolutely bursting with excitement to attend the annual spectacle world in crisis sparks of hope conference, where the brilliance of hope will illuminate the darkest corners of our world. in a world bestaoepblged by tempestuous storms it's time to harness the power of optimism and ill hraoul number the path forward. this conference isn't just any ordinary gathering, it's a see lesstryial celebration -- celestetryial celebration of compassion and boundless potential of the human spirit. it went on and on. talking about reveling in enlightening conversations. a cosmic convergence of brilliance.

where minds collide, ideas flourish, and dreams takes flight. a bit over the top. but it does capture what we are trying to do. i'm not sure i can promise quite that level of hope, but we'll try. our learning labs this year will offer resources and skills building for resilience and self-care, and we asked all our speakers to try to incorporate a sense of hope. in our many sessions throughout the day. while our topics are somber and the world's challenges are overwhelming, we hope you will come away from today feeling inspired. i have to share one more little bit from chatgpt's description of our conference. prepare to be swept off your feet by a dazzling array of awe inspiring speakers. whose stories will leave you breathless, your hearts atphruter, and your -- atphruter, and your flirts

soaring. from visionary leaders to unsung heroes, each speaker will eug diet knight the flames of hope within you, ignite ago desire to spark change and transform our world for the better. so, i'm sure you want to get on with the show and hear from our dazzling array. so i'll hand off the podium to one of the pillars of sidus's community, someone who has been a tremendous resource to me and to the tiny sidus team and who is in his own write a visionary leader here to sweep you off your feet, sid-us, board chair and chief officer for international development at deloitte, wade. [applause] >> what a terrifying introduction. hello and welcome. wow. when katherine first floated the

idea of holding this conference on a friday, i thought, that's not a very good idea. i had a vision of this giant room being one quarter filled. what a fool i was. we have the biggest crowd we ever had as katherine just said. and very happy to have you here. i'm going to be playing a different role later at the end of the conference in the closing plenary, i have a few easy things to do this morning. first, thank you, katherine. you are a marvel. you're just tireless. always positive. i don't know how you do it. none of this would be possible without you. [applause] >> you are always talking about how small the staff is. i think they deserve to be recognized. [applause] >> julie, pebbles, noah, dan, max, you are amazing.

not sure where you are. you are running around making sure things are in order, but we appreciate you. second, katherine abg engaged the -- acknowledged the board. we have a great board. an organization like sid would not be able to do what it does if it didn't have a real working board. the board members bring their time, creativity, resources of their organizations to everything that s.i.d. does and that's what makes the organization as successful as it is. most of the board members are here. if you could stand and be recognized i would appreciate it. [applause] >> thank you all. i'm ending my fourth year as chair of the s.i.d. board. i wanted to give you a very quick update on one important aspect of our organization which is our membership. two years ago we made a decision that we wanted to significantly increase our membership and also expand our membership beyond the

washington metropolitan area. i'm happy to report in the last two years we have had a 47% growth in our institutional members, and 80% growth in our individual members. any of you who are here who are new to s.i.d., we are delighted you made t also more than half of or new members come from outside the washington metropolitan area and 40% of our overall membership is outside washington, based elsewhere. those statistics highlight the changing face of the international development community. events like this conference which is held live but also live streamed, helps us to remain the global town square for international development. finally, it is my honor to introduce gloria steel. we have known each other for more years than i care to admit. we both grew up in u.s. aid, she

was there longer than i was. we worked many decades today at usaid. we both held phup tillp positions in -- multiple positions. after retiring from usaid, gloria worked as the chief operating officer for care. she's currently the chair of the board of development met reubgs -- metrics. she's a force of nature. she's the chair of this year's conference committee. most of what you see today is due to her expertise. those of us who worked with her appreciate her for her keen intellect and tireless work ethic. gloria, thank you. [applause] >> thank you, wade. i always start with lean down

the microphone to reach my height. thank you, katherine. i did not use chatgpt. my words will not be as fantastic as yours. i do want to thank wade. thank you for the kind words. and, yes, we worked for a very long time together. and i do want to take this opportunity to thank the members of the planning committee. they took time off every friday despite their busy schedule, since january, planning this event to make sure that it's relevant, meaningful, and worthwhile. all of you participating in. thank you so much. i do want to name members of the planning committee and alphabetically. start with roger, bobby, mark.

jay, rose, civil vila -- sylvia. carolyn. rula, i worked very closely with rula with the lunch event today. mike, ann, and kathy. to all of you thank so much for taking time off to think about what we are going to do this day. or the rest of the day. it was a lot of very fruitful and enjoyable discussion. and of course million thanks to kathy and her theme for helping us put it together. this year's conference theme, world in crisis, spark of hope. came very quickly to the planning committee. the number and intensity of prices -- crisis that the world is grappling with today are

increasing and becoming worse. according to the u.n., not chatgpt, progress on more than half of the sustainable development goal targets have been -- has been slow, insufficient, and weak. and more than 30% of the targets progress has stalled or reversed. and this is more painfully clear in efforts to reduce poverty. the rate of poverty was going down over the last three decades until pandemic interrupted, and now for the first time in a generation the rate of extreme poverty has gone up it has not only stalled, and security, we'll have a security panel, the 2024 global report and food crisis notes that over

the five years global hunger has been increasing. and last year more than 280 million people in 59 countries and territories faced acute hunger. that's really bad. all the effort that has gone into improving food security of the countries where we were. and also last year staggering 110 million people were displaced by conflict, human rights violations, and extreme weather events. 35 million of these are refugees. it's the highest number ever recorded in terms of u.n. displacement in refugees. i could go on and on and depress all of you, but will i not do that. instead i would like to ask each of you to reflect on the tremendous transformation that has happened over the last few

decades, digital transformation, computerization, a.i., etc. all of which were possible because of knowledge, technology, resources, and the commitment to invest in change. so this gives us all hope that we can reverse the current trend. change is possible and necessary. and we all have a role to play in this -- for this to happen. hopefully all of today's events will park optimism in each of us for positive change. and now to kick off the first part of our show i would like -- it is my great pleasure to introduce investor mark green. ambassador green currently serves as president and c.e.o. of the woodrow wilson international certainty for scholars -- center for scholars. an institution chartered by the u.s. congress to strengthen the relationship between the world

of learning and world of public affairs. ambassador green was administrator of the u.s. agency for international development, or usaid, from 2017 to 2020. at usaid, i know there are a number of people here from usaid, he is fondly remembered for his integrity, empowerment of staff, and his vision of a world where resources are deployed, who help countries and their people become self-reline. and truly lead their own development. he was an equally distinguished minimum tk*eupl mat. he served as u.s. ambassador to tanzania from 2007 to 2009. and four terms in the u.s. house of representatives where he represented wisconsin's eighth district. a role which significantly helped usaid in its relationship

with congress. ambassador green's other distinguished leadership positions include serving as the president and c.e.o. of the international republican institute and executive director. he has been honored for his outstanding work by many institutions including the republic of tanzania and colombia and institutions as the scowcroft institute at texas a&m and georgetown university. please joan me in warmly welcoming ambassador green. join me in warmly welcoming am ambassador green. ambassador green: great to be with you here today. it's like old times for me. i'm following wade warren. bill steiger and i are quietly fist thumping our green bay packers. and now i find myself at the mercy of gloria sta*el.

it's just like -- steele. it's like old days. thank you to all of you for allowing me this moment to share a few thoughts with you. i am thrilled to be here because i care deeply about the issues you care about, most importantly, i want to salute all of you for the work you're doing. these are challenging times. but the work that all of you do each and every day in lifting lives and building communities, it's essential in the world we find ourselves in. so i'd like to beginning this morning with a little story. in early 2018 i had been administrator for only about six months. i had the opportunity to travel with a delegation to burma. during that trip i had the chance to go to a small rohingya camp. i believe i was the only senior u.s. official to be able to visit. it was essentially a prison

camp. it was encircled with barbed wire. armed guard all around patrolling inside and out. i remember coming across a young a hinga father. he had a question for me. he told me he had been living there for several years. all his kids were born in the camp. he wasn't allowed to leave without prior written permission, which he never got. the camp had a clinic that few doctors or nurses ever visited. there was never enough medicine. there was an outdoor classroom with no real teachers or textbooks. he had no way to earn money. he said that the only food he had is what we gave him. he looked me in the eye and said, my question is, what do i tell my son? i had no answer.

i'm here this morning because i believe that our job, all of us, you, me, all of us, we have to answer that father's question. when the u.n. refugees agency releases its global report later this year, it will likely project that there are 130 million displaced people in the world. over half of them are women and girls. roughly 40% are children. in fact, each and every year nearly 400,000 children are born as refugees. of course the number of i.d.p.'s, internally displaced, is much higher. it's not just the numbers that are unprecedented. it's the forces that are driving them. as the i.m.f.'s christa lena says we are living in

increasingly shock tkerb prone times. we are seeing weather extremes and climate unpredictability that is fusing new conflicts over precious resources, clean water, critical minerals. it's also testing our infrastructure and disrupting economic growth. what's even more pernicious are the man-made driven forces sending people in motion. tyrants and their followers who are purposefully driving families from their homes and communities. some of these leaders have actually weaponized human beings. the displaced. they have made them tools in the hybrid war. daniel ortega's partnered with human traffickers to make nicaragua a springboard for migration, sending africans and asians and others north towards the border.

that's evil. putin is not only pushing ukrainians to moldova and poland, but he's amassing syrians and others along the border with finland. he's threatening to punish finland for daring to oppose his war. none of these dark forces is going away. not the struggles over resources, not the tyrants, nor their wars. and the numbers tell us that the displaced are remaining displaced for longer and longer periods of time. so the question i think for us is pretty simple, someday, god willing, when the fences come down and the gate swings open, how will they not be vulnerable to the worst kinds of exploitative forces? we have to answer that father's question.

humanitarian assistance is a response. an immediate response. it's not an answer. at hrao*ets not -- at least not a compassionate answer. i think our job is to dust off our development tools. adapt them. reshape them. re-energize them. with this generational struggle. 130 million people are not where they were and not where they are going to be. so our health, education, food security programs they have to move with them. every dollar of humanitarian assistance must be rei forced -- re-enforced with threads of development and resilience, to help displaced communities withstand future shocks. today's technology, frugal technology, creates boundless opportunities for all of us to do just that. our tools need to be people

centered. in ways that preserve human dignity and re-enforce human choice. cash assistance, smart cards, mobile phones. two years ago hi a chance to sreus ate refugee processing center in serbia, i remember talking through the center and seeing all of these families sort of amassed against a corner. what's this about? i went there and expected to see food being handed out. or classroom lessons taking place. of course they were recharging their cell phones. sometimes our development in foreign assistance debates conjure up my worst nightmares from math class. we are caught up in numbers and we are ruled by percentages, and we are arguing over how we slice up that pie. and we posture over which agency and which acronym should lead

the work. our focus must be on people like never before. preparing them for the future. a future that they drive. a future that they are able to create regardless of where circumstances find them. whether it's in a camp or in the neighborhood. and for the communities and countries that are serving compassionately as hosts, we have to do more to help re-enforce their resilience as well. countries like colombia and jordan and moldova they have taken heroic steps to bring refugees out of the shadows. and to bert integrate them into -- better integrate them into the country's economy. we should absolutely help them in that effort. job training, capacity building. and more. the future of development won't

be about numbers or wonky terms or individual programs. it will be about humanity and compassionate communities, harnessing idealism and innovation. it will be about helping every country, every community, more importantly every person to be self-reliant. and that's the answer that we have to give that poor father. let me close with another quick story. on the very first trip i took overseas at usaid, i visited sudan, south sudan, ethiopia. ethiopia went to the somali region which had drought for five, six years in a row. and i did a food distribution with our friend, governor beasely of the world food program. i remember walking through and watching sacks of grain being

handed out. in another area, the families that received the grain were signature and resting for a moment before they took them back home. as i was walking through a young ethiopian mother stopped me. and she said that she had a question. she said to me that she deeply appreciated the food assistance. she said, look, we need it. the question she asked is, can you help me with irrigation so i never have to do this again? that question, the father's question, the mother's question, that's the question each and every one of us here today we have to answer. if we don't, the crises of today will become the crises of tomorrow. we are not compassionate if we aren't answering those questions. thank you. [applause]

>> wow. >> it's easy in the cheap seats. >> i remember when we went to visit the rohingya and to the bazaar -- pwaz czar to visit them. i remember the sadness and desperation in your eyes. i had never actually seen that anywhere and from anyone. so always remind me bring me back. >> i'll say this. when you -- all of us here in the field in which we work, we see tough things. but the level of despair i saw there, that i was not entirely prepared for.

despair is the killer of humanity. so it rattled me a lot. obviously the work that all of us did hopefully in long-term response matters, we are not there. but it matters. >> i do remember you kept pushing me to figure out a way to bring education to the displaced people in rohingya and to the rohingya refugees in the bazaar. it was just not possible. i remember your frustration. i just couldn't make it happen. i still have not been able to. i'm really sorry about that. your message today about the importance of longer term development reminds me of that conversation that we had. because of the increased number and duration of crisis that we

are facing today, the u.s. government has increased significantly the funding for humanitarian assistance. in fact, it did increase. one of the few in the foreign aid budget that increased. unfortunately development assistance went down. global health went down. i wanted to get your reflexes on this given what you just -- reflections on this and what you just said. they really have different objectives. what we do under humanitarian assistance program is really different. the goals are different. i wanted to get -- speak some more on the perspective you shared. ambassador green: there are a few take aways from what we have seen in budgets and in our work.

america, all of you know, is far away largest american donor, i'm proud of that. aim not arguing we do less in humanitarian assistance. i am arguing forcefully other countries need to do more. there are a lot of countries that, quite simply, are not stepping up to the plate and it makes me angry. that's one take away. secondly, i think sometimes we are so understandably moved by the immediate that we are not thinking dispassionately about the future. as you know i started off my career, never planned it that way, my career in foreign policy and development as a teacher in africa and kenya. i always tell people i was so moved by the fact that my students never, not one student ever asked me for money. they might ask for extra lessons. they might ask for help with

textbooks. and it really drove home to me all around the world people want the same thing. they want a chance to shape their future. they want a chance to raise a family and for things to be better. so if we aren't in our approach to foreign assistance and foreign policy, if we aren't finding ways to help people, particularly young people, africa is the youngest consin tent -- continent as you know, if we are aren't looking at that and looking for ways to help them see a future, we are letting them down. we are letting ourselves down. i believe in it very strongly. and again these are tough choices. i'm in the cheap seats. i'm not responsible. it's easy for me to say. but i think it's a mistake to underresource our development programs. we have to be compassionate. we have to be able to build the

future. and we have to find ways of taking on these challenges otherwise this is going to be in perpetuity. it's not sustainable. it is not sustainable. i'm a big believer in the -- also, final piece to it, i mentioned it isn't always a choice. one of the things that i'm proud of what so many at usaid have really done -- started in our days, is looking to build resilience in those humanitarian programs. yes, we are, in fact, providing humanitarian assistance. i think it's a moral obligation we have. but at the same time we are building capacity and we are sharing technologies and sharing approaches to withstand future shocks so we can answer that ethiopian mother. otherwise if we are simply handing out food, again, that's

fine for today. but it's not an answer. it's not what we believe. we believe in a hand up. that is what i think we have to focus on. gloria: that's a good segue to my next question. many usaid administrators and i worked for usaid for 40 years. so i have been through many of them. many usaid administrators set as their goal poverty elimination. not a bad goal except you wonder how we can eliminate poverty for them. others even focused more narrowly on extreme poverty, which is what you have been talking about. however, you chose a different north star. really took me by surprise when i think about it. to me at least it made a lot of sense, which is accompanying

countries on their skwroupbies to self-reliance. helping countries to become self-reliant. i never asked you before, it made sense, but i wanted to find out what made you think of setting as the north star for our missions, working with countries to become self-reliant? do you think that this is still relevant today? when you look at all the countries' strategies of u.s. missions, you will see that every single one of them -- even after you left, and their strategy you'll see the word self-reliance. helping countries become self-reliant. those strategies will end either this year, some of them were four year, some were five year, some will end this year and

others next year. share with us here because i think it is really important for you to share with people who are doing development. future and current development petitioners and leaders. what your thinking was and whether you think something is to be relevant past 2025. ambassador green: last part first. i hope so. those of you who know me well know i tell endless stories about it, but my years as a teacher in kenya was life altering. i was in a village where we didn't have proper running water. i didn't have a telephone. i didn't have electricity in our house. anything like that. but it also brought home to me the universality of the human spirit and how much people want

the same things all around the world. it's personal to me. this is the way i look at the world. and that's what i was able to bring. i think back the first speech that gave at usaid, it was titled the 14th street speech. as i walked in the purpose of all foreign assistance has to be ending its need to exist. first people are rattled, then they pause for 30 seconds. then that's why they are here. that's what we believe in. i still do. i think that -- i want to take on poverty, but i want to help other countries take on that poverty. i want to help them be self-reliant. for me self-reliance means in charge, in control, shaping their own future, shaping their destiny, empowering responsive governance to be able to take

these things on. i think sometimes we don't mean to, but we come across a little patronizing. i think we sometimes treat communities as though they are hopeless and hopeless. we don't mean to. i just think that's the way it comes off. because we don't listen. and we don't do a very good job of training and capacity building in ways that they guide their future. can't want it more than they do. we all know. that's an adage of good development. i just always looked at the world like that. when i think about development, i always see those kids in my class. always. it's ingrained in me and always will. gloria: thank you. thank you for that. i can see the sincerity in your

decision to lead usaid to helping countries help themselves. it does make a lot of sense. we can't want it more than they do. but we need the capacity to understand why it's needed. going back to the crisis, i hope i still have time, katherine, going back to crisis we talked about increasing number and intensity. and a lot of literature talked about the reason for this are the three c's. covid, conflict, and climate. climate change. i was thinking about it and wondered what your reflections are. others say there is a deeper problem than what caused covid to happen or climate or

conflict. share your reflections about this. are there deeper issues that we need to be focusing on as we work on development on helping countries to become self-reliant? mark: obviously there's no one size fits all. each area of the world vary in how they appear. so you remember one of the things i used to do to try to irritate people in usaid as we walked around i would say, just so we're clear, we don't do development here in the building. we fund it. development's out there. and so i think it's turning to our wonderful mission directors and dedicated field staff and professionals and it's working with our partners and stakeholders, listening, trying to understand what's going on as we develop the metrics that we

-- that are now in road maps, they're independent metrics and they're aimed at commitment and capacity. so looking to see, you know, we don't have all the answers but trying to use metrics to help us understand where sound investments will help build the capacity of governments to take things on. but also, and i think this is equally important, looking at their commitments. do they have skin in the game? there's not enough money to go around. and so if our partners are not willing to undertake reforms, if our partners are not willing to put their own money in the process -- i have other places i can spend the money. given a choice between countries that are in a difficult place, that have deep poverty, longstanding generational poverty, but are trying to do the right thing, undertaking reforms, and those that just count on our largess because they think they're entitled to it, for me the choice is really

easy. i will go to bat every single day for those leaders who are making the tough choices or willing to do those things. otherwise, again, there's not enough money to go around. you know, america's the greatest country on the face of the earth. we lead the world. we leads the free world -- we lead the tprae world. we don't have -- free world. we don't have all the answers and we don't have all the money. so we look for places to make a difference and we also look and realize that where we find good partners who are lag to do -- who are willing to do those tough things and we help them to rise, that send as very clear message around the world and to me that's how we have to do it. taking the money that we have and sort of dolling it out equally -- doling it out kwrael to all the countries, that's never going to work. we're never going to make a difference in places. finding the places, the opportunities, the partners and doubling down and going and going full-in. that is to me is special.

and when we do that, all of you, there is nothing that we can't conquer. there is no condition that we can't respond to. there's no challenge that we can't meet. again, i believe in what you guys do. very, very much. your work has never been more important, more needed. this is a moment. this is a introducesroads moment for us. gloria: i want to follow up on that if i may ask one question. kathryn, kathryn said, let's all hope that -- let's hope that all the sessions today leave us with sparks of hope. and i wanted to build upon what you said last which is we have a very big audience. 1200 in person coming and then others watching virtually. based on your deep experience in

development and in various system, what advice can you give us in terms of sparking hope, knowing that things can be different, things will change? what do we need to do? mark: i don't think it's complicated or we have to go terribly far. every single place i look at in the world, there are sparks of innovation, creativity and dedication and energy. they inspire me. i mean, i look at young people and the innovations they come up with blow me away. all kinds of things and so that's where i see it. it's not grand theories. it's not, you know, splitting up the pie. it's not the acronyms, it's not the -- we get on our high horse and have these fights back in d.c. it's finding those leaders, that inspiration, and embracing it and doing everything that we can to lift it up. that's where the answers are. and we can play a role in elevating and sreufpbting in them -- and investing in them

and that's which are get my inspiration. gloria: thank you so much and that leaves us with empowerment. [applause] mark: thank you. thanks, everyone. gloria: thank you very much. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024]