During Wednesday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) questioned State Department officials about the goals of State Department reorganization.
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00:00Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you to our witnesses for being here. I'm
00:04actually really glad we're convening this hearing today. I'll be honest when
00:07I worked at the State Department I was incredibly frustrated with the longtime
00:12career diplomats who were very resistant to change and I think that that
00:16mentality has contributed to the department's ineffectiveness over the
00:20years. I think reform is absolutely needed in the State Department. In fact I
00:24passed bipartisan legislation to help address risk aversion and the bunker
00:28mentality at our embassies and other reforms to how we do security
00:32assistance, how we do foreign assistance. So that's why I am so disappointed that
00:37this reorganization effort has become a partisan exercise marred by chaos and
00:42without regard to the law. Between the leaked proposal we've seen to slash the
00:46department's budget in half, the commitments to cut staff by 15% despite
00:52the department now having to take on what is left of USAID programming, and reports
00:57that the department will significantly downsize its diplomatic presence abroad.
01:01Taken together I actually don't think these reforms will lead to a more
01:06effective State Department which is what we really want. The reality is we do need
01:11to think more strategically about what our national security priorities and
01:15interests are in a multi-polar world, but Chairman Mast I just fundamentally
01:21disagree with you that human rights and our values aren't part of that because I
01:24think our power is derived from our ability to build international
01:28coalitions and to do that we need to address our values and build our
01:33coalitions around that. So first I want to focus on an area of ongoing reform that I
01:39think we can learn from. Chairman Emeritus McCall and I, my good friend,
01:44introduced our reauthorization for the Global Fragility Act. This focuses on
01:48important reforms for how we get to align policy and programs, more robust monitoring and
01:53evaluation, but Secretary Rubio's reorganization proposal which shut down
01:58the Conflict and Stabilization Operations Bureau, which I actually worked at, which is
02:02leading the implementation. And look we can have a separate debate on the best way
02:06to house the kind of conflict expertise in the department. We led a GAO review of CSO
02:11under the Biden administration, but Secretary Zea, as Undersecretary of J, you
02:17oversaw the work of CSO and the Global Fragility Act. Can you discuss the
02:21importance of maintaining the Global Fragility Act team led by an assistant
02:25secretary as required by law to actually implement GFA and meet its statutory
02:29obligations? Thank you, Representative Jacobs, and thanks to you and
02:34Representative McCall for your bipartisan leadership in the Global Fragility Act.
02:38This is exactly the kind of state modernization that I think we should
02:42rally bipartisan support for, and I saw this firsthand in my role as Undersecretary
02:47Committee, visiting GFA partner countries, Mozambique, Côte d'Ivoire, as well as Haiti.
02:55And what I saw on the ground was a shift away from open-ended assistance
03:01commitments, you know, where implementation is defined as spending money and really
03:06focusing on measuring results, evidence-based approaches, and course
03:12corrections. And it is very sad to me that this effort is now being potentially
03:19extinguished just two years in when it's starting to bear fruit. It's about
03:24integrating State Department efforts with our colleagues at DOD, with USAID, but
03:30also with international partners who have followed our lead, particularly in
03:35coastal West Africa, where we have four embassies working together in an
03:39integrated way. I have never seen, but you've got the international financial
03:43institutions, the EU, and the Brits coming in behind to focus on the same areas.
03:49And I do want to make a point about human rights and security and hard security.
03:54Representative Wilson mentioned his visit to Syria. I was a human rights officer in
03:59Syria under Hafez al-Assad. At this point, our support for pluralism, for inclusion of women
04:08in Syria's transitional government and process, that is absolutely a guarantor of security.
04:15And Syria is a diverse country of many faiths. We cannot allow it to fall into a majoritarian
04:22system that oppresses so many of Syria's people after the immense suffering they've had. That's also
04:29why accountability is so important. So we can finally achieve accountability for the Assad regime's
04:37horrific crimes. Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I think one of the really innovative
04:43reforms in the Global Fragility Act is being able to assess the effectiveness of U.S. policy
04:49in a single country across all of our activities done by all different agencies. And I know that
04:53sounds simple, but actually GFA is the only capability we've ever had to assess whether or not
04:59our policy, whole of government in a country, is actually achieving its goals. So I do hope that
05:03Secretary Rubio will maintain that function. And Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you,
05:08Representative Jacobs. We now recognize Representative Smith from New Jersey. Thank you.