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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Opening Dinner
Higher Education Summit for Global Development
Welcome:
Peter McPherson, President, NAUSLGC
Speakers:
Henrietta Fore, Administrator, USAID
Paul Kagame, President, Republic of Rwanda
April 29, 2008
 PETER MCPHERSON: Good evening. My name is Peter McPherson. I am the president of NASULGC, which is a large association of large public universities and land-grant schools. This is good. Does that work? (Applause.) Thank you.
My name is Peter McPherson. I am the president of the association of the big public universities and land-grant schools in this country, and for a good share of the 1980s, I had the privilege of being the administrator of AID. This conference in itself is a statement of great importance, in my mind. It's a statement for strong universities and colleges in developing countries, a statement about what universities can learn from each other. Universities in developing countries tell us that they want to strengthen and increase their faculty to meet the needs of their countries. They report that they want to use technology to increase quality and educate more students. And I am convinced, by the way, that the U.S. can learn a great deal through this process about how technology can do those things.
Developing country universities tell us that they want to increase their capacity to work in their societies and to solve problems there. And seeking to do all this, these universities tell us that they would like more partnerships with individual or small groups of U.S. universities. I am here to say that the U.S. universities are very enthusiastic about such partnerships. The U.S. has a long history, with AID help starting in a very large way in the 1950s going through the 1980s, of such partnerships and training a large number of graduate students from developing countries here in this country. All parties found those partnerships both enriching and very productive.
Such partnerships continue, but there has been a dramatic drop in the funding really in the last 15 years or so. We appreciate that this conference reaffirms the importance of universities working together. No doubt in the 21st century, funding and how the work is done, not just funding, how the work is done, is going to be different than it was in past days, but opportunities are certainly there. We congratulate Secretary Rice, a former provost at Stanford University I might point out, Secretary Spellings, and certainly Administrator Fore, as they have convened this conference. It in fact is my pleasure to introduce Henrietta Fore.
She has a distinguished career in the private sector and government. In the late '80s, early '90s, she was assistant administrator for AID for Asia and some other areas. She was director of the U.S. Mint, was undersecretary for management at the State Department, and now is the AID administrator and director of U.S. foreign assistance at the State Department. My former colleagues, as AID administrators and I, have formed a collective judgment about this lady. She works incredibly hard. She is deeply committed to helping the developing world grow and to reduce poverty. She knows that people in universities are critical to achieving those goals. And she's a lady of strength and real spirit. And it is my pleasure to introduce her here tonight. Henrietta? (Applause.)
HENRIETTA FORE: Thank you very much. And thank you very much, Peter. You know, you don't often get to have one of your predecessors around to counsel you and mentor you, but I have had a wonderful relationship for years and years with Peter McPherson, so it's delightful to see you here, Peter. And it's also delightful to see everyone here tonight. You've been in our minds, hoping to gather all of you from around the world, more than 100 of you from the United States and more than 90 of you from around the world. And we are just delighted to see you here. So thank you all very much for coming.
Secretary Rice sends her apologies that she is not here this evening, but she will see you tomorrow. As our guest of honor is here to my life, Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, but before I introduce him, let me welcome Chairwoman Nita Lowey. Chairwoman Lowey, it is good to see you here, a great colleague of ours in working on international development around the world, and particularly in education. And we also have Congressman Baird with us. Thank you, Congressman, for joining us. And Honorable Diane Jones, who is assistant secretary for education for post-secondary education at the United States Department of Education, here on behalf of Margaret Spellings, secretary of education, who will also be here tomorrow. And I am pleased to note that among the university presidents here tonight, we have many alumni of the United States government training and visitor programs.
President Kagame, I want to begin with a story about good news from your country. Last year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose president, Susan Hockfield, will be chairing a breakout session tomorrow, published a study on the use of mobile telephones in microenterprises in Rwanda's capital city of Kigali. Microenterprises are those defined as less than five employees, and the study illustrated the benefits of mobile phone technology by highlighting the story of one young man who operates a bread bakery in his home. After buying a mobile phone, his first phone of any kind, he increased his customer base and the timeliness and efficiency and his access to supplies. He estimates that his business has grown by 30 percent just because of the opportunities opened up by a mobile phone.
His income growth allowed him to buy a bigger home for his family. And the MIT study concludes with an observation that users such as the baker in Kigali were not the intended market for mobile phones. The take-up of the mobile phone technology by the developing world has exceeded all expectations and has resulted in significant new investments in infrastructure, in marketing, in RND to serve a surprising demand. This evolution is strong evidence for the power of the user in the technology adoption process. And that's the end of the quote from the MIT study.
And the story of the young baker in Rwanda illustrates how innovation is a driver of economic growth. Thousands of innovations, large and small across societies, happen to create prosperity for mankind. While this may seem to be a simple statement of common sense, it has a far-reaching impact on our work in international development. USAID has just recently released an economic growth strategy, which states capital accumulation and productivity both result from independent efforts of millions of individual producers constantly working to create new, better, and less costly goods and services through ingenuity and investment.
Governance can help to create the environment for growth and can make investments in order to accelerate development. But innovation comes from many places, and those of you in this room, the leaders of universities and companies and foundations and NGOs and budding entrepreneurs in your communities play a crucial role in this process. The world is changing and we need more innovation to help meet the needs of food and water and health and energy. We need innovation to help us with the current food crisis. In the short, medium, and long term we need to improve the productivity of agriculture, doubling productivity and production of food staples in key countries, and more efficient and effective means of transporting food, and enhancing the operation of markets, doubling regional trade in key markets in Africa and Asia. And each of these is a significant challenge.
What actions must we take to create an environment which supports the innovation which will meet these challenges? I will suggest three: first, we must recognize that higher education is the foundation of development. This is something that, as Peter mentioned, we at USAID have long recognized and have found a steady partner in United States universities. Over the past few years, we have supported programs with more than 140 universities, colleges, community colleges in the United States, partnering with an equal or greater number of higher-education institutions overseas. These are spread across a number of sectors, in education and agriculture and health, et cetera.
For example, our higher education for development program alone has implemented more than 300 partnerships between higher-education institutions in the United States and 67 countries worldwide. And each of these offers a variety of partners: public and private and NGO and higher-education - pardon me - institutions. In addition, university and private sector contributions to these efforts have matched USAID investments on a nearly one-to-one basis.
Second, we must explore and adapt to evolving new models of higher education. As the modern research university enters its third century, we must consider how this model, which has served us so well, can best operate in more global world and in a wide variety of environments. I believe that a great deal of this has to do with partnerships, all kinds of models are being tried: international campuses and partnerships with existing universities, distance learning, shared research, shared curriculum, and much more. I believe that this surge in innovation will serve us well. The Internet and other electronic media will allow new participants to resonate in what I call the global development commons.
As the name indicates, the global development commons is not a government program, nor a business enterprise in a traditional sense, nor strictly a non-profit activity. As a commons, it is a community of real-time, continuous exchange, of collaboration, of partnership, and action between public and private donors, agencies, NGOs, businesses, higher education, community, and governments and civil society at the intersection where our interests overlap. Just as the learning environment for higher education is no longer limited to bricks and mortar classrooms, so too the environment for information, thought, and action, for global, economic, and social development, is now increasingly in electronic and instantaneous cyberspace.
And just as the young baker and microentrepreneurs in Rwanda, planners and policy-makers, investors and technology creators are getting surprising and beneficial feedback by demonstrating the power of the user. So one of the global development commons efforts that USAID supports is called the communication initiative network, found at commonet.net. And this website aggregates the best practices and innovative use of communication and media in development. Within weeks, we will convene a meeting of the communications initiative network and similar networks to build an alliance with universities, private sector partners, NGOs, and others to broaden development knowledge.
It is knowledge sharing around the world that we are focusing on. May I ask each of you in this room to partner with us and to create and expand communities of practice in education, in health, in agriculture, in transportation, and other vital sectors so that together we may foster innovation that we need to face the 21st century challenges of a developing world? And over the next two days, I hope you will discuss your ideas and indicate your willingness to participate. And you can send us an e-mail at gdc@usaid.gov or you can catch one of us during the summit.
And third, we are encouraging public-private partnerships across all disciplines and institutions. For example, in Mexico USAID supports a broad public-private sector alliance known as Training Internships Exchanges and Scholarships, the TIES Initiative. This alliance has driven the formation of 60 partnerships between U.S. and Mexican universities. United States government funding for partnerships is awarded through a competitive solicitation process that explicitly requests university collaboration with public and private sector partners. And as a result, the proposed partnership addresses critical development needs and problems identified by Mexican higher education institutions and their public and private sector partners.
So for example, the partners indicated a need to business development programs. And in partnership with the University of Texas at San Antonio and the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara was developed as support for entrepreneurship and it spread a model of small business development councils throughout Mexico. Other partnerships meets the needs to build a capacity in areas such as microfinance and health, in software engineering, in environmental protection, and in civil society development. What is particularly remarkable about this program is the extent to which the university and public and private partners not only collaborate on problem definition, but they also contribute their respective resources and expertise to problem solution.
And finally in Rwanda, President Kagame, we have a partnership linking Michigan State University, Texas A&M University, and the National University of Rwanda and USAID to help promote economic development and reconciliation. The partnership created a network of coffee grower cooperatives throughout the country and fostered development of high-grade coffee beans for the international gourmet market and generated significant employment. The project introduced Rwandan coffee growers to United States and European buyers of specialty coffee, including Sustainable Harvest Coffee of Portland, Oregon, Intelligentsia Coffee of Chicago, Vermont Green Mountain Coffee, whose customers include McDonald's, and as President Kagame will be happy to confirm, the international taste testers proclaim that Rwandan Maraba coffee grown through this partnership is one of the best in the world. (Applause.) (Chuckles.)
Over the next two days, we have an ambitious agenda planned. As our summit meeting unfolds, I would ask that you think about these three actions and the role that you can play in carrying out each of them. The first is that development is one of the most exciting areas in the world today. So how could you encourage and accelerate the work of development at your university or institution?
Second, are you pioneering distance learning and shared research that you can share with others? And third, how might your university, your businesses, and others in this room bring skills and expertise to the abilities of your students, of your professors, and of your institutions to share knowledge around the world?
May I ask that you at least consider two new partnerships with institutions in this room? It would be tempting to think that, looking at today's headlines, that we are entering a time of limited possibilities. But deeper consideration would make us realize that we are living in a time of immense possibility. Economist Paul Romer said something that I keep in mind, which is, "Every generation has perceived the limits to growth that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were discovered. And every generation has underestimated the potential of finding new recipes and ideas. We consistently fail to grasp how many ideas remain to be discovered. The difficulty is the same one we have with compounding. Possibilities do not merely add up; they multiply."
So for new recipes and ideas, it is exactly the point that the MIT research illustrated. The mobile telephone industry had a great product and its own idea of how to use it. But the young baker in Kigali, Rwanda, found new ideas and new recipes for the technology. My hope is that the partnerships we create and compound here, the innovation and the reduction of poverty that happens as a result will be a part of millions of success stories like the one of the baker in Kigali, and the multiplication can begin here.
Again, my warmest welcome, and I thank you all for participating in this summit. I now have the privilege to introduce His Excellency Paul Kagame, president of the Republic of Rwanda. He won the office in 2003, in the first-ever democratically elected multi-party elections in his country. President Kagame has been credited with constitutional and social reforms fostering reconciliation and renewal in a country that had suffered some of the worst civil violence, indeed genocide, in modern times. In 2003, he received the Global Leadership Award from the Young President's Organization in recognition of his role in reconciling his countrymen.
President Kagame has also been recognized by universities for his leadership. In the United States, the University of the Pacific and Oklahoma Christian University have awarded him honorary doctorates. Last year, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow in Scotland and Sir Muir Russell, the principal of the University of Glasgow said, "Paul Kagame is the central figure in the rebirth of Rwanda and he is one of the most impressive leaders in Africa. He preaches a doctrine of security, guided reconciliation, anti-corruption, and above all a drive toward self-reliance that he hopes will free his country from its heavy dependence on foreign aid." I believe these words of a distinguished university head best summarize the honored reputation of our speaker. So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome His Excellency President Paul Kagame. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT PAUL KAGAME: Thank you very much, Ms. Henrietta Fore, U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, distinguished leaders from government, academia, business, and the foundations, summit participants from overseas, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. I thank you very much, Ms. Fore, for those kind and instructive remarks. Indeed, the pleasure is all mine, and I appreciate very much the opportunity to contribute to this important summit that has brought together leaders from academia, government, business, and the foundations not only from the United States, but also from around the world.
I congratulated the secretaries of state and education and the USAID administrator for convening this timely summit on high education. I need not emphasize the critical role this sector plays by creating knowledge assets upon which ultimately socioeconomic transformation is best. As I will shortly illustrate, however, high education is not always accorded its due importance. Summits such as this one restore the proper perspective on this sector by putting it back where it belongs among global development priorities.
Once again, I commend the organizers of this summit for their foresight. My goal this evening is to share with you Africa's and Rwanda's high-education circumstances: What particular hindrances are we in Africa and Rwanda facing in building a more relevant and dynamic high-education sector that address our development needs? What are our prospects of removing these obstacles and what lessons can we draw from countries such as the United States of America? And, finally, how can we strength global collaborative efforts for better results in building more viable high-education institutions on our continent?
Distinguished colleagues and friends, I am of the view that Americans will likely be the most understanding with regards to Africa's and Rwanda's quest for a relevant and a dynamic education sector to drive our own progress. This is because high education played an indisputable role in transforming this country into modern agriculture, industry, economy, and, subsequently, to lead the knowledge, innovation, and the savviest (?) economy worldwide.
Particular mention should be given to the crucial role played by the land-grant system. I'm told that prior to the establishment of the public university system in the 1860s, higher education in the United States comprised of private institutions with prohibitive tuition fee structures that severely restricted access to most people. The land-grant systems changed all that by drastically increasing access to relevant knowledge and skills in the critical fields, especially in agriculture and the related research extension services - engineering and economics - in every state of this country.
And here is the most critical lesson for us in Africa: America's form of high education combines formal university education (and ?) formal education training, research, and information dissemination. This integrated approach has a far-reaching impact across all sectors of American society in that it ensures that many, not few, are part of the learning process. Clearly, this system of higher education is anchored at various levels from communities to the state, the federal government, the business sector, and private foundations.
The impressive and vast knowledge, innovation and skill assets in America that originates from the combined dynamism of private and public universities together with the government funding for research as well as the ever-presence of industries that absorb the knowledge capital is undoubtedly the crucial cornerstone to America's remarkable development trajectory.
Distinguished conference participants, as we reposition Africa's high-education system to power our own development, we face a number of anomalies and challenges. The first challenge is to recover from the false start at the end of colony rule in 1960s. At the time of independence, high education in Africa ranged from nonexistence in some countries to mediocre in the many others. There were a few elitist universities and training institutions in Africa, but these were reserved for the very few. Subsequent conflicts, socioeconomic instability, bad leadership, and poor governance during Africa's lost decades of 1970s through the early 1990s had a devastating impact on the high-education sector leading to a vicious cycle that we have struggled to end.
The net effect of all this was the mass migration of African professionals to overseas markets - the so-called brain drain which crucially also included our top academics, scientists, researchers, and sector specialists. This led to further decline of the already-weak higher learning institutions. A significant number of graduates from these institutions still leave Africa, including students who do not return upon completion of their overseas studies. And so, the vicious cycle continues.
For example, it is estimated that over 250,000 professionals currently leave Africa or have left Africa and transferred their skills and talents mainly to developed countries, especially the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and Australia. These countries eagerly and rightly absorb this human capital into their economies. Someone has remarked that this outflow of African professionals is in fact our continent's form of developmental assistance to wealthier, Western nations.
In my judgment, not even the financial remittances by these professionals to their home countries, which rose from 7 billion U.S. dollars in the year 2000 to $13 billion in 2005 can offset the adverse effects of this skilled migration. We only need to look at the severe skill shortages in most of the major sectors critical to Africa's development in such fields as energy, agriculture, health, education, and training of science, technology, and engineering.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, the second challenge revolves around Africa's over reliance on short-term solutions to fill capacity gaps. As is widely known, our continent resorts to the donor technical (?) assistance that is generally best on expensive, but not necessarily effective, short-term and ad-hoc consultancies. These consultants are estimated to number over 100,000 per year at the cost of $5 billion in the form of loans and grants to African countries.
You will agree with me that this is not a viable solution as it creates a revolving door of consultants coming and going, leaving the capacity situation more or less as they found it. The irony should not be lost here. We are exporting skills, skilled African professionals by default and importing their replacement by design at a higher financial cost and in an unsustainable fashion. These economics simply make no sense and have costly implications for Africa's and Rwanda's development prospects and future.
The third challenge relates to the mindset of some of our partners in the developed world that has added considerable confusion with regard to the role of high education in Africa. When, for example, the World Bank claimed in the mid-1980s that high education was a luxury Africa could not afford, international support for the sector quite literally collapsed. Most multilateral and bilateral agencies as well as major private foundations abandoned the sector.
The World Bank has since made a U-turn as demonstrated by its two publications, "High Education in Developing Countries" - the titles of the book - and "Peril and Promise" in 2000, and "Constructing Knowledge Societies" in 2002. Both of these reaffirmed the vital role of higher education in socioeconomic transformation. While this policy reversal is welcome, unfortunately the misunderstanding among those partners on this issue remains a fact of life.
Preference for investment and support in primary education over higher education still looms large in the donor community. This, in fact, is a false debate because primary and high education are both necessary and important. And so, there is no need to single out either of them for more attention. In Rwanda, we are providing fee-free education to all children in the primary schools and up to the first three years of secondary education, but it hardly needs a second thought to realize that primary education is not an end in itself. It is part of the knowledge-value chain and therefore a critical foundation for higher education and development in general.
Distinguished summit participants, if I may bring all of these closer to home, high education in Rwanda did not exist before 1963 when the National University of Rwanda was established at the end of colonial rule. Even then, due to bad governance and the related social, economic, and political upheavals throughout much of Rwanda's post-colonial history, this university did not acquire the capabilities necessary to develop adequate human capital.
Shockingly, in the 30 years that followed, only 2,000 students graduated from our National University, barely enough to meet the needs of any one sector, let alone those of the country as a whole. We are trying to make up for the lost time and opportunity.
The national university has expanded to graduate over 3,000 students a year, alongside a new public and private universities established in the last several years. But these institutions are not yet in a position to adequately address our skill shortages, both in terms of quantity and quality. It is in this context that together with our American partners and friends in the business and academic community, we are keenly executing strategy of utilizing institutional and human capacity from the United States. The objective is to have individuals join us on a medium-term basis and get the job done while transferring skills to Rwandan institutions and individuals.
Key segments of American society, from which to mobilize skills and talents, include the half-timers, retiring baby boomers, faith-based professionals, and academic institutions. We are also nurturing a critical mass of young Rwandan talents in vital fields through national university scholarships, a strategy that involves several universities in the United States, some of which have been mentioned and other countries.
In another scenario, we are establishing world-class science and information-technology training institutions in collaboration with leading American universities, which will serve Rwanda and the entire region. It is in this context, once again, that I commend this summit for encouraging the creation of global university network for building capacity in science, technology, and engineering in developing countries. This effort will most certainly add considerable value to our own effort of building a strong and relevant higher education sector.
Distinguished colleagues and friends, let me end by revisiting higher education system in the United States and the lessons we can draw from it to enable us to confront our own development challenges in Africa and in Rwanda in particular. The principal lesson is that an effective education system is always anchored in the needs of society and must become accessible to all. From this, it follows that a higher educational system that propels a society forward can only emerge if it is a product of a shared purpose between communities, government, and most especially business focused on delivering essential and relevant knowledge, skills, and talents.
We are determined to learn from this approach and wisdom. I conclude by thanking American institutions and individuals that are really supporting Africa and Rwanda's development endeavors. Rwanda hopes to develop partnerships with more of you and others in our own continent. I trust that the deliberations of this global summit will provide practical pathways for increased cooperation between higher education institutions in the developed and developing countries. We look forward to your call for action and time-sensitive strategies for building a dynamic global higher education sector. And I assure you that we in Rwanda are ready to play our part in realizing and benefiting from this vision. I thank you very much.
(Applause.)
MS. FORE: We'll ask President Kagame to retake his seat. He'll have a chance for a bit of dessert. And if anyone would like to come by and say hello, I know he'll be here for a few more minutes. And then, please continue to enjoy the evening. The summit begins at 8:00 sharp in the morning. Thank you.
(Applause.)
(END)
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