Remarks by USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah at Mississippi State University

The following is an excerpt from a speech by USAID’s Administrator Shah to students at Mississippi State University. Read Shah’s full remarks on USAID.gov.

And although drought cannot be prevented, it can be confronted. Today, we have the tools and the knowledge to realize a sustainable and lasting end to food insecurity and all its devastating corollaries—from hunger and malnutrition to regional instability.

But getting there will require us to work differently.  Instead of pursuing top-down, institutionally driven approaches, we have to build a new model that opens traditional development to problem-solvers everywhere. [We are] including corporate firms like Citi and DuPont; communities of faith; and perhaps most importantly, our universities and colleges.

Through Feed the Future, President Obama’s food security initiative, we’re bringing many of these partners together to help developing countries transform their agricultural sectors.

In the last three years, we have more than doubled our agricultural research investments—building new bridges between American universities and their counterparts in the developing world.

In fact, a major new Request for Application is about to hit the street in a week or two. It is one of the first to be aligned with our FTF research strategy—focusing on specific regions and crops we believe will have the highest impact on reducing poverty and hunger. And it will include a host of exciting new opportunities for students and researchers—both here and abroad. It’s still largely under wraps, so I can’t tell you much. But I can tell you that it will expand our workon climate-resilient cereals and legumes—as well as small-scale irrigation systems that can provide resilience in the face of drought or high temperatures. And it will create new partnerships with the university community on soy—a crop that is powering a livestock revolution and better nutrition.

We helped launch a significant new partnership between private sector companies and developing countries to expand investment opportunities in African agriculture; and supported African governments to undertake market-oriented reforms.

For instance, Tanzania committed to overturn export ban on staple commodities, strengthen land tenure rights for poor farmers, and open the local seed market to greater private sector competition.

At the same time, worked closely with local and global private sector firms to introduce them to new opportunities. So far, more than 45 companies have committed to investing more than $4.5 billion. This willhelp lift 50 million people in sub-Sahara Africa out of poverty in a decade.