The White House Summit on Global Development

Watch President Obama's remarks

Since taking office, President Obama has sought to define "global development" as more than mere charity, but as a comprehensive investment in initiatives, and people, that will create real outcomes for communities around the globe. As he said to the United Nations in 2010, "In our global economy, progress in even the poorest countries can advance the prosperity and security of people far beyond their borders, including my fellow Americans."

Over the last eight years, the Obama Administration has confronted some of the most daunting development and humanitarian challenges in modern history. The President has helped reshape the U.S. approach to development by partnering with countries, global coalitions and the engines of American innovation: corporations, foundations, universities, NGOs, and faith-based communities. From Feed the Future to the Open Government Partnership, the Obama Administration's signature initiatives and development partnerships have dramatically reduced poverty, malnutrition, and infant and maternal mortality, while spurring entrepreneurship and economic growth, increasing the number of adolescent girls in school, and helping to build more stable, accountable, and inclusive societies.

Even as we celebrate these gains and reflect on shared progress, we are reminded that billions of our fellow human beings still face poverty, violence, and disease every day. Despite the advances we’ve made, the circumstances in developing nations around the world demand creative and sustained global action.

On July 20, President Obama is joining entrepreneurs, diplomats, civil society members, public and private sector financing partners, and development leaders at the White House Summit on Global Development to mark our global progress and find ways to catalyze further development efforts that will improve real lives and deliver real outcomes in six key areas: energy, food security, global health, governance, partnership, and youth.

Energy

Sustainable development and energy security are fundamental to economic prosperity, no matter what country you live in. For many communities around the world, a lack of access to energy is crippling much-needed economic growth. In sub-Saharan Africa, that lack of access is a problem that affects nearly two-thirds of the continent.

In 2013, President Obama launched Power Africa, an initiative that takes a new approach to increasing access to energy by providing a range of financial, technical, and policy tools to overcome the obstacles facing energy access. The U.S. made an initial commitment of $7 billion, which has since leveraged more than $3 billion from private sector and foreign government partners. Today, Power Africa has supported 4,300 megawatts worth of projects that are expected to generate over five million new connections to electricity. This year, Power Africa announced a path to increasing access by 30,000 megawatts and adding 60 million new electrical connects by 2030.

Food Security

When President Obama took office the world was witnessing a spike in food prices across the globe; soon after he called for a global food security initiative. The world answered, by tripling donor assistance to agricultural development, renewing investments in research, and committing to invest in the comprehensive country plans designed by developing countries. The President’s leadership and the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future initiative have placed food security high on the world’s agenda, with significant results. In 2015, Feed the Future:

• Helped over nine million smallholder farmers, food producers, and rural families adopt innovations to improve productivity, helping boost incomes by more than $800 million.
• Reached nearly 18 million children with vital nutrition interventions, helping drop childhood stunting by 12-32 percent and poverty by 12-26 percent in areas where the initiative is at work.

In July 2016, President Obama signed the Global Food Security Act into law, legislation that institutionalizes Feed the Future and helps put the end of global poverty and hunger within reach in our lifetime.

Global Health

Under President Obama, the U.S. has nearly tripled our investments in global health, leading to significant and important outcomes:

• An AIDS-free generation is now in sight: Since 2009, the number of people receiving life-saving treatment through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has increased from nearly 2.5 million to 9.5 million at the end of 2015; 1.5 million babies have been born AIDS-free to mothers infected with HIV/AIDS, and the United States is positioned to realize President Obama’s commitment to meet the bold new target of 12.9 million people on treatment by 2017 and to reduce new HIV infections among adolescent girls.
• We’ve ramped up our fight against malaria: The U.S. Government is now the largest donor to global malaria efforts worldwide. Over the past 15 years, through U.S. Government investments in the President’s Malaria Initiative, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and other partnerships, an estimated 6.2 million malaria deaths have been averted.
• We are ending preventable child and maternal deaths and are close to eradicating polio: The Obama Administration has challenged the world to end preventable child and maternal deaths, and since 2008 helped save the lives of 4.6 million children and 200,000 mothers. U.S. contributions to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, have helped to immunize more than 500 million kids and prevent more than seven million deaths. With a relentless focus on neglected tropical diseases, the United States has leveraged more than $11 billion in donated medicines, reaching nearly 700 million people with life-saving treatments. We have made tremendous progress in the fight to eradicate polio, and we are close to wiping this disease off the face of the earth, forever.
• We launched the Global Health Security Agenda: A full year before the first cases of Ebola came to light in West Africa, President Obama launched the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) to drive a worldwide effort to ensure that all countries can prevent, detect and respond to health threats. The United States has committed to assist at least 31 countries in achieving the GHSA targets and to build national, regional, and international capability to address infectious disease threats, and G-7 leaders have now matched this commitment by collectively pledging to assist 76 countries and regions.

Governance

The ground-breaking inclusion and adoption of Sustainable Development Goal 16 on peace and governance shows universal agreement that combating corruption, access to justice, peace and security, good governance and human rights are fundamental for advancing development globally and vital to ending poverty and fighting inequality. On his first day in office, President Obama signed a memorandum describing what good governance is, both in the United States and abroad. A government should be transparent and accountable, participatory and accessible to its citizens, and collaborative with all sectors to create real progress and tangible outcomes. Since then, we have:

• Launched ForeignAssistance.gov to track the $30 billion in U.S. foreign assistance across U.S. agencies that implement it.
• Joined seven other heads of state to launch the Open Government Partnership, a global partnership between governments and civil society in 70 countries to advance transparency and accountability, bolster citizen engagement, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.
• Established the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, a network of over 150 members of government, civil society, business, international organizations, and academia to help countries employ data to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
• Bolstered our commitment to Stand with Civil Society, by providing technical, financial, and logistical support to promote and protect the right of citizens and civil society to freely associate, meaningfully engage with government, and constructively participate in processes to improve the well-being of their countries.

Partnership

President Obama has piloted a new approach in global development, leveraging an expanding array of new and non-traditional partners, harnessing cutting-edge technologies, accelerating research, and scaling innovations to support sustainable development. Over the past seven years, the U.S. Government mobilized more than $100 billion from the private sector to help lift developing nations out of poverty. In 2015 alone, USAID has maintained over 360 active public-private partnerships that, over their active lifetimes, have leveraged more than $5.9 billion from private sector and other partners. After USAID launched the Grand Challenges for Development, eight projects are underway that range from developing off-grid energy solutions to designing creative ways to combat the Zika virus.

The President also established the Global Development Council in an effort to engage the private sector, academia, philanthropic institutions, and more to engage external expertise in emerging global development issues.

Youth

The next generation of leaders will ultimately be responsible for their countries' success. With global youth populations concentrated in the least developed countries in the world, providing young people with the tools they need to succeed—education, leadership training, entrepreneurial values—is a sustainable development solution. That is why President Obama has focused on fostering young leaders around the globe. The President's Young Leadership initiatives—in Africa (YALI), Southeast Asia (YSEALI), the Americas (YLAI), and most recently Europe (YTILI)—help the next generation of young leaders develop the skills and opportunities to advance their countries and regions through government leadership, strengthening civil society, and business and entrepreneurship.

The President also joined First Lady Michelle Obama to launch the Let Girls Learn initiative. Let Girls Learn expands education opportunities for girls, including in areas of conflict and crisis. By leveraging public-private partnerships and commitments from multilateral organizations such as the World Bank, Let Girls Learn improves the lives of adolescent girls worldwide. Let Girls Learn extends its partnership to foreign governments, including Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom, who have collectively pledged nearly $600 million towards girls' education globally.