 Good morning. I'm Dan Rondi. I hold the Shrier Chair here at CSIS. We're meeting today to talk about U.S. leadership and global food security, and Senator Casey will be making an address about this very important topic. I want to welcome Senator Casey to CSIS. Current farm productivity is not keeping pace with population growth, increased urbanization, and changing dietary preferences. And we're going to need major improvements in agricultural productivity, the adoption of improved seeds, and greater private sector investments in agriculture. And that's going to imply improved property rights, governance, and infrastructure, so that we can feed the world. Trade systems and international agreements matter as much as the science and technology behind food production. And even with improvements in fertilizer, farming methods, and seed technology, the right trade policies and regulations must be in place to allow food to get to where it's needed. This event also is a kickoff event for the new director of CSIS's Global Food Security Project, Kimberly Flowers. Welcome, Kimberly. And Kimberly is going to be building off of the important work started by Joanne and Nesseth and a number of other colleagues who started the Global Food Security Project more than five years ago. Kimberly comes with more than 15 years of experience in international development, food security, and strategic communications experience, including nearly eight years living in developing countries. Most recently, Kimberly was the communications director for FinTrack, a leading international development company that specializes in agriculture. She has had important experience at USAID, or among other roles, she led strategic communications for Feed the Future, the U.S. Government's Global Hunger and Nutrition Initiative, and was a public affairs officer for USAID Haiti following the earthquake in 2010. She's also served at USAID in Ethiopia and in Jamaica. She's also a former two-time Peace Corps volunteer, once in Bulgaria and once as well in Jamaica. Without any further ado, I'm going to turn the floor over to our new Global Food Security Project director, Kimberly. Good morning. Thank you, Dan, for that kind of introduction and for all your work here on critical development issues. I'm really humbled and honored to be in this position, particularly at such a prestigious place like CSIS, and to work on a topic that's incredibly important to me and something I'm very passionate about. I can tell by the large, diverse crowd that's actually here at 8.30 in the morning that I'm not alone. There are other people who actually care about global food security. I think it was probably my years in Ethiopia when I really started to see how U.S. development assistance programs can change lives of people, of communities, of regions. And when I was there, the United States invested about $5 million in agricultural development and about $500 million in food aid. And this was in a country that their economy is based on agriculture, and 85% of the population works in agriculture. Now, that was about a decade ago, and there's been some dramatic changes that have happened since then, both in the U.S. leadership as well as global leadership on food security. But I believe that we can do a lot better. I believe that we can eradicate hunger and extreme poverty in my lifetime, and I believe that we have to do this through a number of tools, but that includes a comprehensive, strategic for an assistance approach that includes inclusive, sustainable agricultural growth and improves nutrition. First, I want to thank Senator Casey for being here today to talk to us about global food security. And I want to start the discussion by defining the subject. I find a lot of people are not quite sure what we're talking about when we talk about food security. So there's really four dimensions. You can talk about availability, access, utilization, and stability. But in other words, food security is about having the physical access to and the economic ability to purchase healthy, nutritious food. And right now, as many of you in this room probably know, there are 108, I said that wrong, 805 million people in this world who are hungry, who are not food secure. So when we talk about food insecurity, we're talking about hunger and extreme poverty. And hunger and extreme poverty have long-reaching effects, both on vulnerable children, families, communities, but also has long-reaching effects on economic growth and trade and political stability. So food security is directly linked to global stability and economic prosperity. So addressing hunger and malnutrition is also a moral issue. It's a nutrition issue, it's a security issue, and it's an economic issue. But I believe that it's a problem with solutions. Those solutions include increasing agricultural productivity for smallholder farmers in developing countries, especially women, and includes engaging the private sector all across the value chain from farm to fork, and includes increasing research and development for innovative solutions. So the renewed CSIS Global Food Security Project aims to spark a new dialogue through sound research, bipartisan analysis, and clear recommendations. We're going to be examining the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance programs to clarify progress, identify roadblocks, and recommend next steps. We plan to take U.S. leaders, I hope to convince Senator Casey to come with me, to feed the future focused countries where we can see what's working and what's not. We will collaborate with leading thinkers and bring together new voices to explore and highlight global food security efforts that are effective and sustainable. We're really fortunate to kick off the Global Food Security Project with Senator Casey. Senator Casey's top priorities include fostering economic growth, advocating for the well-being of children, and pursuing a national security strategy that protects our interest. So it's a natural fit for him to be a champion for global food security. In particular, his work to support nutrition assistance programs for Pennsylvania families demonstrates that he understands the critical need for children to eat a balanced, healthy diet. Senator Casey was elected in 2006 as Pennsylvania Senator and re-elected in 2012. He's received more total votes than any U.S. Senator candidate in Pennsylvania history. He currently serves on five Senate committees, including as a member of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. What I find most impressive though about Senator Casey is his commitment for years to give out hunger across the globe and improving nutrition and developing nations. In 2008, he co-chaired a CSIS task force on global food security along with Senator Luger. That task force also issued a report on the then global food crisis and called for the United States to provide stronger leadership. And currently, including this week, he's now a sponsor for the Global Food Security Act of 2015, which I'm sure he'll tell you a bit more about. Senator Casey? Well, good morning. Kimberly, thank you very much for getting us started. And best of luck on your work here. So we're grateful that you've dedicated so much of your life to this topic and this challenge, food insecurity. And I'm humbled to be in the presence of so many people here who have, if I can use an old expression, labored in the vineyards for a long time. So I want to thank you, Kimberly and Dan and Mr. Ambassador, for all of your commitment on these issues and so many others. And I also appreciate this invitation from CSIS to speak here today, because I believe global food security is not just another issue that we consider in Washington. It's an issue of great urgency. And I think it's an issue of great consequence for our country and for the world. I've been working on it for years in the Senate, and I'll continue to work until we get the Global Food Security Act passed, and then we'll probably have more work to do after that, of course. But I speak about this challenge with a measure of humility. So many people in this audience have done so much work over many years. Many of you have dedicated most of your life or a good portion of your life to this issue. And if you're new to the issue, we're grateful that you're with us this morning. But I don't come here to impart all wisdom and knowledge on the subject, and I don't believe that I'm omniscient. There may be some in the room who are, but I'm not one of them. So I do approach it with a measure of humility. But we're grateful for your interest and your dedication, because I believe, just as the Beatitudes tell us, that blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied. And in the work that we're all trying to do together, we're literally concerned about people who are hunger and thirsting for life itself. We have to do everything we can to make sure that we're hungering and thirsting for justice, because I believe this is a matter of basic justice. You can't say that about every issue that confronts us here in Washington. There are a lot of important issues, but few are as urgent as this. I believe the United States is in a unique position to lead the international community in making a strong and sustained commitment to improving food security and nutritional outcomes for the developing world. Agriculture has always been a key part of the American economy. I know that as a Pennsylvanian, where most of our economy has bases in agriculture for a good part of the 1800s and even beyond, and still is in our State the number one industry, we have across the country some of the most entrepreneurial agricultural producers, academic and research institutions that are, if I can say, the envy of the world in so many ways. But these academic and research institutions are creating innovative technologies. And then, thirdly, we have aid implementing organizations that are leading the way in adapting assistance programs to target communities. The United States can and should lead in at least three key ways. First, we should continue to increase investment that the United States is making in agricultural development through the Feed the Future initiative. The remarkable investment that U.S. taxpayers have made, especially over the last five years through Feed the Future, is beginning to yield results, but some adjustments to the way the U.S. delivers this assistance may be necessary. Second, we should look for new and expanded opportunities to leverage the particular strengths of different stakeholders, which include aid organizations, private voluntary and faith-based organizations, academic institutions, of course, civil society representatives, private sector businesses, and many U.S. government agencies that participate in the Feed the Future program. And third and final, the Congress of the United States needs to step up to give authorization, legislative authorization, to U.S. food assistance and international agricultural development programs while strengthening the mechanisms to ensure U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used effectively. This will ensure that these life-saving programs carry on for many more years. Many of you know, as Kimberly referred to and others will refer to today, that the Feed the Future initiative didn't just develop the last couple of years. It was actually born during the Bush Administration in response to the food price spikes of 2008. For many, 2008 was a wake-up call about how dependent developing countries can be on agriculture and how vulnerable they are to price shocks. A 2011 World Bank study estimated the food price shocks alone sent 44 million individuals into poverty, 44 million. I'm not sure, in the last couple of days, I had a sense of that. So I decided to add up the populations of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. And it's less than 44 million people. It's about 41 or a little more than that. So just imagine that each and every person living in those three states was in poverty because of an economic event in a rather short timeframe. It's staggering not to mention the number, Kimberly, that you mentioned, about the number of people in the world who are indeed food insecure. So this food insecurity at that time triggered instability of all kinds. We know that competition for scarce resources can lead to corruption, migration, and violence. In 2014, in the Worldwide Threat Assessment Report, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence stated, and I quote, lack of adequate food will be a destabilizing factor in countries important to U.S. national security that do not have the financial or technical abilities to solve their internal food security problems. Unquote. He also identified the threat that insurgent groups could capitalize on food and nutrition insecurity to exploit food aid and discredit local governments. So indeed, this is an issue of our own national security, in addition to, of course, the security of so many countries and regions of the world. By way of example, we know that the terrorist group ISIS has employed this strategy, cutting off resources to embattled communities in Iraq and Syria until they are so starved for food and fuel that resistance is diminished. We also know that extremist groups in the world sometimes ambush assistance, convoys, and steal food to sell on the black market for profit. It's clear that combating international food insecurity is indeed national security imperative, an imperative for the United States of America. The Feed the Future Initiative was established to ensure that U.S. assistance in the food security sector was coordinated and drawing on the particular mission of each U.S. Federal Agency involved. As many of you know, the Feed the Future Initiative has the dual goals of accelerating inclusive growth in the agricultural sector and improving nutritional status, particularly for women and children. Major progress has been made since its inception. I think that's an understatement. In 2013 alone, Feed the Future reached 7 million farmers and more than 12.5 million children with its programs. Our assistance has helped improve crop yields, pushed governments to make needed policy reforms on issues like land tenure rights, and has increased household incomes. This effort by President Obama and his administration should be applauded and they should be accorded with the commendation that's appropriate. And we should support their efforts going forward. One of the ways to support them is to pass the bill that I've been working on. We'll get to that in a moment. But more work needs to be done. We know that. We want to see the U.S. assistance program, not only assistance programs, I should say, not only improving agricultural production, but we must ensure that they're also empowering, empowering the most vulnerable populations. Of course, in most of these countries, that means women, children, and smallholder farmers. We know that women in developing economies often have less access to key inputs, like seeds and two other financial resources as well, like loans or saving accounts. They may also not have the vehicle needed to transport their produce to market or the access to information to know what the prevailing prices are. Women and smallholder farmers, those that farm less than two hectares of land or less, are less likely to have the political clout needed to influence policy on a local or a national level. They're also less likely to hold leadership positions in local government or to have the educational opportunities to learn about advanced agricultural practices. In short, they face a number of serious obstacles to improving their agricultural productivity and their families' nutritional status. So it's appropriate for U.S. assistance and U.S. assistance programs to focus on these key populations as they often are the most vulnerable. USAID has made this commitment in its strategies, but more work needs to be done at the field level to ensure that assistance is reaching women. A case study by the Group Oxfam recently found that, quote, at the implementation level, participation in the projects examined was skewed towards men, unquote. It is vital that addressing the specific barriers to women's participation in the agricultural sector be integrated into the U.S. programs from the earliest possible planning stages. We also want to ensure the sustainability of U.S. programming over time, and that requires early engagement and buy-in from all relevant sectors in the partner country, including government, civil society, and, of course, the private sector. It does the target community no good at all to have an infusion of assistance just to have it taper off after a matter of years with no framework to keep it going. So it's important to work on enhancing sustainability of these programs in at least two key ways. First, by ensuring that the programs are country-owned from the start, the partner country's national, regional, and local governments must be actively engaged in the earliest stages of programmatic, I should say, planning. The United States should encourage governments to make the legal and policy reforms that support the continuation of agricultural programs beyond the life of U.S. assistance programs. In developing programs for specific communities, assistance implementers and USAID should consult closely with local government officials. I'm sure this is happening already in a lot of places, but we need to emphasize it yet again. The goal is to develop these mechanisms so that as countries and communities graduate from the Feed the Future program, the gains are not lost. We should also be investing more in the development of the next generation of leaders in the agricultural sectors of developing countries. This should include farmers, extension agents, and even policy professionals that understand food security challenges themselves. American institutions of higher education are already engaged in capacity building programs in the Feed the Future programs, and we should seek to expand their efforts whenever possible. For example, Penn State University, just a little local reference here, is home to a Feed the Future Innovation Lab, which focuses on climate resilient beans. This team, which draws on expertise from U.S. universities as well as research institutions in Mozambique and Honduras, is looking at ways to ensure that beans, a staple protein source in many countries, can thrive even in poor growing conditions, like sandy soil or periods of drought. This is the kind of cooperative research that not only improves capacity in target countries, but plants the seed, so to speak, for innovative technologies that can profoundly improve crop yields. Thanks to modest grants from USAID, this kind of work is going on in universities around the United States. And more could be done to give emerging agricultural leaders access to the cutting edge technology and unparalleled educational opportunities that U.S. universities offer. Now, by expanding efforts to reach women and smallholder farmers, and by focusing on building the government and non-governmental structures that will sustain U.S. investments over time, we can improve the reach of our assistance programming. The next way the United States should exhibit leadership is by leveraging the unique expertise of different stakeholders. Just two examples. The first is access to expertise of private voluntary organizations, many of which are faith-based, which work with some of the most vulnerable communities in the world. These organizations have insight into the unique challenges facing families displaced by violence or by instability, or those living in the most resource-poor areas of the world. These are the communities that traditionally receive substantial amount of emergency food assistance from the U.S. and the international community. I'd like to see USAID engage these partners and others in an effort to focus on improving the resilience of these vulnerable communities so that they can transition away from the need for emergency food assistance. For example, I learned recently from Mercy Corps that the Pastoralist Resiliency Improvement and Market Expansion Program, acronym PRIME, the PRIME Program in Ethiopia, which is assisting communities in areas hit by drought and instability to improve resilience and move away from the need for the emergency food assistance in the long term. We should build on this type of experience to ensure that resilience is a key element of U.S. agricultural development programming. Second example is to leverage the experience and resources of private sector businesses in the U.S. and, of course, internationally. This has already begun through the New Alliance for Food Security and the Grow Africa Partnership, two multilateral initiatives designed to leverage public investment to expand responsible private sector investment and participation. Feed the Future has also established an online portal for private sector entities looking to engage with the U.S. government in a public-private partnership on food security. I'd also like to see the expansion of exchange programs designed to expose producers from Feed the Future countries to best practices in the U.S. agricultural sector. We should continually be exploring new ways to leverage the expertise and resources of the private sector to augment U.S. government efforts. The third area where the U.S. should demonstrate its leadership on food security issues is by ensuring that the good work that has already been done gains the legislative authorization to continue for at least the next five years. That's why I'm sponsoring a bipartisan bill with Senator John Isaacson from the State of Georgia, the Global Food Security Act of 2015. We're looking to reintroduce this legislation as early as this week, and we're not sure what day. If I knew the day, I would tell you. But Caitlin Gehran, who's done such good work with us, she's sitting in the front row, maybe able to tell you the estimate of hours, but we believe it will be this week. And I want to say, parenthetically, how good it's been to work with John Isaacson, someone I've worked with a long time on a number of issues, health care issues and other issues that confront our states and confront the country. I've worked, as Kimberly noted earlier, I began my work on this issue back in 2008 with Senator Dick Luger, who was representing the State of Indiana and a wonderful man and a great senator. Then I worked with Senator Mike Johans before he left the Senate, so I'm on my third Republican partner, and the third time will be the charm. But I'm grateful, and I also appreciate not just Senator Isaacson's dedication to this, but his long experience, of course, in the continent of Africa. He and I run the Foreign Relations Committee, and he spent so much of his time working in and leading that subcommittee. I guess most of his time was in the minority as a ranking member, but we're grateful for his commitment. We know that every year the Congress appropriates the funding that the President has requested for Feed the Future, and we continually have expressed our support for these life-saving initiatives in other ways. However, it's time for a legislative push to give Feed the Future the authorization, the authorization it needs to continue on for years to come. We've done this with other major global health programs like PEPFAR, Remarkable Success, and I firmly believe that this is an appropriate and overdue step for Feed the Future. Let me talk a little bit about it. I'm on my last set of sentences here in remarks before we go to questions, but here's what the bill does in a very brief summary. It emphasizes, I should say, that the Administration must have a comprehensive strategy to fight food and nutrition insecurity, which pulls from multiple agencies. We require that the Administration consult with a number of important stakeholders, many of whom are represented here today, and we're grateful for your presence here today. We also enshrine some important mechanisms to improve transparency into the way that U.S. taxpayer dollars are spent on these programs. I have to add a personal side here. I spent 10 years in State government, 8 of them as the Auditor General, the person who shows up at a State agency or school district, and does the audit, either review of the financial statements more of a dry kind of audit but necessary for accountability. But often we would show up and do performance audits, which meant that you were focusing on the effectiveness of the program or the economy and efficiency of it or both. And I believe, sometimes I guess Democrats don't say this enough, I believe that we need to subject more programs to that kind of review. We can't just simply say it's working, take our word for us, give us more tax money. That's not going to work too well over time. We need to be able to prove to demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of every government program and certainly one that has impact around the world. If we do that consistently, we will not just maintain credibility and support for the program, we will be able to have the sustainability that I talked about earlier in terms of the funding over time and the support over time. It makes it a lot less likely that an initiative like this and legislation like this and a program like this would become a political football in Washington if we do the job of making sure it's accountable. So we talk about the requirement for review of the program to make sure the taxpayers are getting their money's worth and that the dollars are reaching the intended recipients. One of the ways to do that is to push as we did for the inclusion of a GAO study, Government Accountability Office, independent assessment of the administration's implementation of the Global Food Security Strategy, and I mean every administration, including asking for details about what percentage of assistance funding goes to contracts, grants and cooperative agreements. These elements will help ensure that these taxpayer dollars are being used wisely and efficiently to achieve our objectives. The bill has significant bipartisan support and I'm glad to have the help of Senator Isakson and others on this. In the House, representatives Smith and McCollum and we know we have more work to do to sign up some others in the Senate. When we can find an issue, especially a foreign policy issue on which both sides of the aisle agree, it's important that we capitalize on that increasingly rare opportunity. I'm optimistic that the Global Food Security Act will pass this Congress and I want to thank all of you who have helped us get to this point and helped us improve the bill and are continuing, I should say, to seeing it delivered to the President's desk. Advancing inclusive agricultural sector growth and improving the nutritional outcomes for women and children who are often most vulnerable to fluctuations in food prices and as I said earlier lack adequate or lack access to resources needed to be successful, both of these are goals worthy of a great nation. Leading the world as the U.S. does and will continue to do if we do our job, leading the world to combat the scourge of food insecurity and the real pain and the darkness and death that follows. The United States of America has been and should continue to be that shaft of light in that awful darkness. Let it be said of us in our time that we met this challenge head on, that we did our job to lessen substantially the food insecurity endured by so many people around the world. Thank you very much for your time and look forward to your questions. Thank you. Those were great remarks. I think I'd like to start with a question. I know as a senator you know this well that Americans are often a little resistant to foreign funding. Many of them think that we spend a lot when as you know we spend less than 1%. So I'd like you to talk about why you believe that food security and nutrition is an important American investment. Why is it important to our country? Well I think it's essential for a couple of reasons. Number one is the, I think it's an issue of great moral gravity and I think people get that, they understand that. I think it's the challenge of it in terms of making the case on a regular basis is a failure of government. It's not that the American people have changed their view I don't think. There's still in I think in the soul of America the willingness to help just as we did going back generations, the Marshall Plan or all of the international support we've provided to countries especially at the time of a crisis or an emergency. So I think that soul is still embedded in the American being or the American psyche. It's those of us who fight for these initiatives sometimes who don't do a good job of communicating it. How important it is and I don't think it's inappropriate to talk about it as a moral issue. That's number one in a real commitment to justice. Number two there's a national security imperative and I use that word purposefully. It is an imperative. I mean I really believe on some bills like this and I'm not just saying this because it's my bill. But if this were a book, the Global Food Security Act, one of the subtitles you could fill in other subtitles but one of the subtitles would be the terrorism reducer program or the terrorism reduction program. That sounds a little better. I literally believe that these efforts are consistent with not just our broad national security objectives but the ongoing and unfortunately the fight for the ages will be against terrorism. Terrorism will find fertile ground where people don't have the agriculture capacities that they need. Where women are not able to feed their children, where they lack access to education so they can be literate and be able to hold down a job and do what so many women around the world do in a miraculous fashion already but we need to help them. So whether it's on the moral commitment or whether it's on national security I think we can make the case. And then also I think we can make the case that we get it when people say that there's waste in government and we need to be responsive to rooting out that waste and first of all acknowledging the problem. But I think most Americans if they're given the information about results, about effectiveness, about efficiency, understand and get that this is very important not only to the world but to their own lives. I do think that of late and I'll end with this it's become probably more difficult because of the expenditure of treasure and soldiers and the remarkable contribution of our military and their families to conflicts and I think they tend to be fused together. Once in a while I hear people say even people I know fairly well say why are we spending all this money over there why don't we keep it home and build bridges and all that. The good news is if we get it right and we haven't gotten it right we can and should do both. We need to rebuild our infrastructure we also need to be engaged in the world and help the most vulnerable. But I do think that the conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan especially Iraq I think have made it harder to make the commitment on something that may not have a direct military connection but is a major foreign investment and often at the end of that people don't see a quantifiable result. Here we can highlight and reiterate the numbers on the literally now double figure millions of people being positively impacted. Absolutely. So moral imperative security imperative talk a little bit more or expand on the economic factor you know having fostering financial security is a big party for you and so you know how do you when you talk about Pennsylvania and all the hard working farmers there you know why should they care about farmers in Bangladesh or Tanzania and proving their lives. Yeah good question. I think it's one is markets. I mean it does develop more markets and also I think that there's a there's a basic understanding that we live any farmers understand I think anybody who has a significant stake in the economy knows that that we live in an interdependent world. Our economy can't exist on its own. We can't simply hope that that these places around the world will figure out a way out of the darkness. We have to use our our expertise and our experience to help them and we should emphasize especially for taxpayers that we want to do such a good job on this. I think the administration can say they're on the way to doing this that we can win these countries off this. We don't we don't want this to be a permanent initiative in one country for the next 50 or 100 years. We want them to be to use that biblical reference to be you know their own fishermen and to teach a man to fish and increasingly it's our folks are teaching women how to fish and we know it works. One final question before we turn to the audiences. You know as we both mentioned you've been working on this since 2008. So I'd love to hear what's the personal side for you. You know why is this important to you on a personal level to spend this kind of energy commitment to those living in developing countries. Well part of it is how you approach your work in government. How you prioritize issues or priorities. I've always had a try to put a high or a quarter high priority to children and women families. So it comes naturally to me. But I guess the origins of it is probably pretty simple. My parents and the Jesuits. That's probably the best way to describe it. I went to a Jesuit high school and a Jesuit college and then was a Jesuit volunteer for a year in the inner city. So they like to say that if you go through that process especially if you go as far as volunteering they say you're ruined for life. So since I did Peace Corps twice I'm doubly run. But it ruined in a good way. But I think that's the basic origin. But I do think that there's a foundation in both parties. So we just haven't done enough work yet to marshal those areas of solidarity to get the job done. On the bill I mean not the future. Right. So we want to take some audience questions and I'm going to ask that you please give your name your affiliation and keep it brief since we have a limited amount of time. We have microphone runners. Come on up. We'll do take Paul here in the front. Thank you Senator. Paul Gannett. I'm with ACDI VOCA. I liked your phrase that the fight for the ages is against terrorism. And particularly here at CSIS we've heard some good logic connecting global food insecurity with security. That I'd like your comments on how effective that argument might be to build that necessary bipartisan support. Well I look I'm a believer that believer in the basic premise that you gather support for a bill or an initiative or a program over time in any way that you can. And if there are folks out there who will only be persuaded by that argument I'm ready to make it. The good news is it's credible. We don't have to try to design some talking points here. We know that it's we know that it has the tour directly connected. And I think that that it might be as difficult as it's been in this period because of what's happened in on kind of the military side of this with our commitment of Americans and dollars. I do hear a lot of my constituents saying less about why we're sending money over to this country that country but but more about my goodness we can't we can't solve these problems. You know the Sunni Shia conflict has been around for so long and how are we going to solve it and no one's been able to solve it. So why do we even try. It's kind of the basic question they ask me. I don't have a great answer for that. Why should we even try. I think we have to try. I think we have to remain engaged. But when it when it gets to that basic question about how do how do we invest our time in our resources. I do think people have a basic sense that we have capacity here. We have expertise here that other countries don't have. And being able to make the case not just on the broader national security argument but also making the case that this lessens the likelihood that we have to be involved in different places is also I think a feature of the argument we should we should emphasize. And of course I'd be I'd be wrong to try to oversell it. You know having great success on feed the future or our legislation I think connected to that is not going to solve the Sunni Shia divide. But certainly in some some countries where it's not part of that conflict. It's kind of a local or regional conflict. This certainly will help. Good morning senator ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much senator for your wonderful presentation. My name is Rosemary Seguero. I'm a president of an organization called Hope for Tomorrow. I'm based here in the U.S. and Washington D.C. and I come from Kenya. Thank you so much for talking about women and children. I was born in Africa in Kenya and raised in Kenya on a farm. I wrote an executive summary at the U.S. African Summit last year on agriculture. I'll send you a copy of what I wrote. It's only agriculture that can get Africa out of poverty in the rural area is where we have farms and those farms the African women are very hardworking like me. They just need to push. They don't need science or anything big. This is where there is poverty fighting in the rural areas. We need to collaborate with the government U.S.I.D. Senate. I've known Senator Isakson for so long. We've been talking about the same story on agriculture. So how you know how do we partner that collaboration getting together working things together. We don't know what the future has. The future has few countries. Africa has 54 countries and as you say vulnerable people we have poverty there and conflicts, violence, what causes poverty and to get out of that people come to town. It's where the two terrorism and but if we had a way of developing rural areas where there is agriculture, industrialization and others. So how do we partner and work together with everybody talking about agriculture. There are participants and the people are on the ground and nothing reaches them. Nothing is happening there. So we want to work together with them to make sure what country and what is working and what is not working. Thank you so much and I'll be sharing with you more information and you need to accompany us at President Obama summit in July in Kenya so that I take you to the rural area of Kenya. Thank you so much. Well thanks very much. Did you say that you did farming? Sounds like where I live. Women are doing most of the hard work. When I said at the beginning I expressed some humility when approaching these topics because of the knowledge and experience and expertise in the room. I guess I was talking to you. I've never done farming so I'm going to have to learn from you about better ways that we can be helpful. And I don't profess to have all the answers on that engagement either between and among folks in a farming community and in our aid organizations or our government. But I do think we've made significant progress under Feed the Future and part of what we're trying to do with the legislation is not to start over but to build on some of the progress. But I'm also mindful that legislation is just that. It's language on a page and you still have to implement it well and even as you're implementing it well you'll make mistakes or the premise upon which you went in this direction versus that direction may be faulty. So we may find that even the improvements that we seek to make with our bill may need further revision or adjustment or improvement. So I'd love to have the opportunity to spend more time with you to kind of walk through where you think we're missing our opportunity or missing an element of this that would make it work better. So I'd be anxious to do that. Maybe Caitlin and I can figure out a way to connect with you. I should learn a lot more about farming. And I guess I'll learn a good bit when we talk. Thank you. I'm Lori Rowley with the Luger Center. I want to thank you for your fine comments and kind comments. Yes it is. Yes. So thank you very much on behalf of the Senate for continuing the fine work that you built together beginning in 2008. I wanted to ask you about the current situation with regard to your upcoming bill and the House bill as well and the engagement with the administration and the urgency as the administration begins to wind down about moving this program from an initiative to something that's a commitment between the legislative and the executive branch. Yeah we've got we've got a lot of urgency not just because of the administration kind of moving into their last 18 months but the urgency of the the challenges is what I think motivates most of us. And I don't I don't have a account necessarily yet. I mean most of the most of the efforts we've undertaken this calendar since Mike Joann's left was to get that lead Republican sponsor and then and then of course Caitlin does all the difficult work after that. Caitlin and her team make it taking suggestions and trying to negotiate or work through those proposed those proposed changes. I have to say and I know that we don't yet have Dr. Shah Raj Shah's replacement confirmed Yale but we will continue to work to make sure that happens. But I'd say Raj was very effective. I'll call him a lobbyist even though he's not technically one of those. He was he did an excellent job engaging with individual senators in both parties and not just a phone call here and there. I mean literally visiting them calling them visiting them again calling me really worked it. And I think I know not think I know in the process developed a foundation of respect and admiration that that allowed us to move forward with more support. So I know he's in another chapter of his life. But maybe I'll call him back and figure out a way to plant him in our office for a while. But but he was he was especially especially effective because he had that that passionate commitment to move in this forward. So any other ideas that you were the Luger Center have we could certainly use the help as we wrap up. I'm going to take three questions. So he can summarize and take. Let's take one right here in the corner in the back. His hand raised there and right here. I'm the National Chairman for the Congress for Democratic Change the main opposition party in Liberia in the United States. Mr. Honorable Casey. I appreciated your discussion in terms of accountability for the Feed the Future program. But from a program at a standpoint and objectives that is set in regards to diversity diversifying value chains and enabling people from a technology you know production level and also the sustainable environment. I don't believe that those objectives have been achieved. I appreciate you requiring transparency. But maybe we should also look at program objectives. Where were we when we set the baseline at the beginning of the program in 2011 to where we are in 2015 in achieving those objectives. So we hope that lessons can be seriously learned from that in terms of who manages the process. How to integrate the stakeholders to achieve the objectives of the process. And you know so that I can really benefit people because the whole Ibolacid issue exposed the lack of full security in Liberia. And it's extremely significant that with 72 percent of the population focus on subsistence farming and we have not moved from subsistence to some kind of mechanization in our farming processes. It really limits our ability to ever achieve full security in Liberia. So hope you can address that. Thank you. Well thanks. I think what would be helpful for us is if we can take and almost side by side take the reported results and how the program is working so far along with our bill. And if you could take a look at both and if you have some suggestion we'd love to hear them. We need to get this right. And I have this wild theory that all knowledge and wisdom doesn't reside in the capital. There's actually smart people outside the capital. On some days a lot more people outside the capital are smarter. But if you could if you if you don't mind maybe you've already walked through this. If you can undertake that as a as kind of your own project and maybe you've already done this but just kind of look at the two of them and see if there's we're still missing a piece or for kind of head in the wrong direction. That'd be great. Yeah. I'll make sure we can get Katelyn get you the bill and of course the feed the feed. I mean obviously that's on the feed the future website. We can walk walk through that. And in particular in the context of Liberia be helpful for us to learn that. Sure. Well no I have not been there. There were a couple I know that Senator Coons was there more than once actually I think he was more than once. I'm not sure. I know there were others. Not many but but Senator Coons. He's the the the ranking member of the meeting the lead Democrat on the subcommittee for Africa. And I'm overdue to visit Africa. I haven't you're going to come with me. That's right. Kimberley already made the plan. I hope so. Yes. So actually for timing we're just going to take one more question. So apologies for that. Paul Randolph with GRM Futures Group just wanted to thank CSIS for this event this morning the discussion and Senator thanks for your diligent work on the Club of Food Security Act. I really took note of your emphasis on empowerment of small holders women children and also the link to local government and how that is the foundation of where farmers start their engagement in the economy and improving their lives and access. Interesting that in mentioning that I wanted to know if in your in your authorization bill that you talk about actual funding on governance issues to me empowerment local government that is resides in governance. And if you look at the trend from US government investments in the last four years since 2010 in democracy rights and governance work there's been over 40 percent decline in budget and investment in those areas. And so as we invest more in food security is there going to be some mention and emphasis on increasing that investment on the governance side of this. I know on the policy there's there is a focus but when you break it down down to the lowest levels there seems to be some gaps in that. And just on the side I grew up in Iowa Farm Boy and we've known for years that it's the women that are working harder than. That's an important aside you just put on the record. But in terms of the something very specific about governance Caitlin I don't know if there's something in that speaks directly to that both governance and the appropriation or funding for it because we're going to be. As I said spent 10 years in state government a little easier back then where we're in state governments your budget is both the authorization the appropriation together. You have one documents called the budget. Here we have a budget resolution which doesn't have the effect of law and then the authorization process and then the appropriations process. So it's the alignment of those or the the progress you can make on each of those can be difficult to to get right sometimes but I'm not aware. Caitlin is there one particular part of it. And then and obviously the appropriations process will be will be a separate process. I'm not an appropriator some not allowed to pretend some days I'd like to pretend I am but we'll have to engage getting the authorization. I think is essential first to kind of get the the policy and the authority to execute on over time but the appropriation process is going to be a whole other. I think we'll get good support but it may be that in that process is a way to target more specifically but that's a that's a good question. We should we should examine just not broadly on governance. I know there are a lot of people in this room who know the the governance challenges faced by countries around the world better than I do. But one of the most interesting example or insights I'll call it that I got was on this issue was years ago so much we take for granted right here in the United States. We we complain about our government and governance I guess but but it's it's still the envy of the world. But I was at a presentation by an individual who's I think back back in the world of think tanks but at that time had just left a major military post and was about to come back into government. But this was a military man through and through. I mean his whole life was the military but a very very committed and capable person on other issues and very bright. But he gave a presentation. I had to leave early. It was at one of our lunches way back in 2008 I guess it was. So I missed a lot of what he said and I caught up to him in the capital later and he was talking about Afghanistan in 2008. And I said to this military man expecting a military answer. I said you know what I missed most of your presentation today had to run out to a meeting and I missed it. What do you think is the most important thing we should focus on here. And I thought he'd say well this is what we got to do militarily or we this is the money we have to spend. I thought it'd be much more directed than that. He said the justice system in the courts. He said it's a mess or he said it's a real problem and there still are challenges in Afghanistan. And it struck me how fortunate we are to have a system of justice which doesn't always work as we've seen more most recently. But but but is in place now for all these generations. And these countries just often don't have any comparable to that. And the more that we can make progress on governance the better the overall strategy will be. So sorry for that little story but that's OK. I'm at that age. I'm telling more stories now. That's OK. Thank you for this. Thank you for the leadership that you've given on this issue. Thanks for your work.