Washington Business and Technology Institute - Business & Administration (PPAA Forum 21)

Wed, February 2, 2011 9:36:06 AMSecretary's Remarks: Global Chiefs of Mission Conference
by Hillary R. Clinton
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To: tojulei@yahoo.com
Secretary's Remarks: Global Chiefs of Mission Conference
Wed, 02 Feb 2011 10:28:36 -0600
Global Chiefs of Mission Conference
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Cheryl Mills
Counselor
Dean Acheson Auditorium
Washington, DC
February 2, 2011
MS. MILLS: Good morning. Wow, this is fabulous, most particularly because it�s someone else that the Secretary gets to play with nonstop now that you guys are here.
First of all, I want to say good morning and welcome to the first Global Chief of Mission Conference. We are so delighted you are here, and more importantly than saying welcome to the conference, welcome home. It is so nice to see so many of you. My name is Cheryl Mills. For those of you all who I haven�t had the chance to meet personally, I�m the Counselor and Chief of Staff here at the Department.
And we have really been looking forward to this. We have been looking forward to this not only because we would like to sleep after it�s over, but because this really has been something that has been critical to the Secretary for some time. She really wanted to have the opportunity for all of us to be able to gather in one place so we could talk about what it is and how we can build on the things that we do well, what are the opportunities to improve those things that we think we really could do better, and most importantly, what are we missing and what are the ways in which we can identify those things we are missing in a fashion that means we are all more effective on behalf of the country that we are privileged to serve.
In that vein, I do want to talk about the fact that this really is designed to be the best opportunity not only to share information with you, but also to listen and learn from you. And that really is an invitation that you should just walk right through the door of. I hope you take it very seriously because at bottom, what we�re really trying to reduce, if I�m being quite selfish, is the number of times we get a call saying, �Why is Washington doing this??And invariably, you all have better ideas and better thoughts about how we could do it better and well. And so it would be great if we were limiting the number of those and increasing the number of times we actually were doing the right and smart thing with the benefit of your guidance and your leadership and your participation. So that�s our goal, and I hope that you all help us reach our goal.
So before I introduce the Secretary, I do want to thank, as my family always says, the hands that prepared it, and in this case, the hands that have been helping to prepare for this conference. And they include many people, but I particularly want to make sure I thank Shawn Baxter and Bernadette Meehan, Marguerite Coffey, Ruth Whiteside, Leslie Moeller, and of course, the incomparable Pat Kennedy and Steve Mull who have been working tirelessly to help bring all of this together. I also want to thank everybody else who has been helping to make this successful.
Now, with that, it is my pleasure to introduce the woman who has been really looking forward to seeing you, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. (Applause.) Thank you all very much. Thank you. It is such a pleasure to welcome all of you back to Washington for the first ever, in American history, all-hands-on-deck ambassadorial conference. Chiefs of Mission from every corner of the world who may not ever get a chance to meet each other or exchange ideas are here today for the gathering that we have been looking forward to.
We�ve wanted to do this for some time. We figured early February would be quiet, not much going on. (Laughter.) What better time to pull you from your posts and responsibilities? And, of course, Margaret Scobey from Egypt is not here. But I am very grateful that we�re going to have a chance for you to interact with the senior leadership of the Department. I will be back tomorrow afternoon for a Q&A session, and I want everybody to be fully prepared. Today, you will have a chance to hear from Mike Mullen ?Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs at lunch ?who will make remarks and do a Q&A. And we have some other surprises along the way.
It is, for me, a great honor to look out and see a lot of faces that are familiar to me from the traveling that I�ve already done as Secretary of State, and of course, the traveling that I did in my prior lives. And the level of professionalism and commitment is never-endingly impressive. And as we see with what�s going on today, recent events in Egypt and certainly in that broader region, remind us all how crucial it is to have top-notch leadership on the ground, and how quickly that ground can shift under our feet. So whether your mission is large or small, whether you�re a political appointee or a career diplomat, you are all on the front lines of America�s engagement with a fast-changing world. And that�s why we think this conference is so important.
It goes without saying ?but I will say it anyway ?that this is a critical time for America�s global leadership. We have spent two years renewing our alliances, forging new partnerships, and elevating diplomacy and development alongside defense as pillars of American foreign policy and national security. Now, as we look to the next two years, it is time to build on that progress and deliver results ?results that are expected from ourselves and certainly from the Congress and the American public.
We�re going to be looking to see how we can advance America�s interests and values on security, on climate change, on boosting exports and rebalancing the global economy on all of our core priorities. But I will hasten to say we face a very difficult budget climate and we face an increasingly complex, no easy answers if there ever were any, diplomatic and development environment. From the theft of confidential cables to 21st century protest movements to development breakthroughs that have the potential to change millions of lives, we are all in uncharted territory, and that requires us to be more nimble, more innovative, and more accountable than ever before.
That is why we launched the first ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the so-called QDDR. Now, many of you participated in this process and you contributed valuable suggestions and ideas, your staffs were deeply involved, and we consulted not only thousands of people within State and USAID directly and indirectly, but also hundreds of experts outside government. And the result is a sweeping report that we hope will fundamentally change the way we do business.
The reason I decided to direct us to undertake the difficult challenge posed by producing the first-ever QDDR is because as a senator, I served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And every four years, the Pentagon would produce the Quadrennial Defense Review. And it was a very effective organizing tool for the Pentagon because it set forth what their assessments were and what their commitments were in a way that kind of guided the legislative and appropriations process.
At the same time, both from my years as First Lady and as Senator, I often saw State and USAID coming in on separate tracks, making different arguments, fighting over scarcer resources, not coming up with the kind of organizing blueprint that would move people into a decision process that would benefit our immediate and long-term goals. So the QDDR is a first-time effort, but it is a blueprint and it is a blueprint as to how the United States can lead in a changing world through the use of what I call civilian power. That is the combined force of all the civilians across the United States Government who not only practice diplomacy and carry out development projects, but who act to prevent and respond to crisis and conflict.
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