Deputy Administrator Isobel Coleman at Transforming Global Humanitarian Response for the 21st Century

DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR ISOBEL COLEMAN: Thank you, Secretary [Antony] Blinken, Foreign Secretary [David] Lammy, Mr. [Ilan] Goldfajn, and Mr. [Børge] Brende for bringing us together today.

As you all have emphasized, every year, global humanitarian needs reach record highs. Today, more than 80 percent of the countries where USAID works, encompassing roughly two billion people, are fragile or conflict-affected states.

Our humanitarian assistance spending in response to crises has tripled in the last decade, while development assistance has been flat.

In other words, we're dedicating more and more of our resources to responding to crises - instead of investing in long-term efforts to prevent them.

This is not sustainable.

The solution requires all of us - humanitarian, development, and peace practitioners, governments, and the private sector - to more effectively meet the staggering global humanitarian needs while continuing to drive development gains.

This is why, in January, USAID launched an Agency-wide initiative to align our humanitarian, development, and peace efforts across our policy, planning, and programming - so that even while responding to crises, we are also making critical investments in long term stability and prevention.

We are taking practical steps to change the way we work, such as conducting an information campaign to increase the use of existing award flexibilities, aligning our humanitarian and development strategic planning processes, and co-hosting a global forum with the UK, Germany, the World Bank, UNICEF, and WFP on social protection in fragility and conflict.

USAID is also leveraging funding from the Global Fragility Act to facilitate the kinds of private investment that can be so pivotal to preventing and more sustainably addressing global humanitarian needs.

Today, I am pleased to announce that we have partnered with the US Development Finance Corporation to create a new specialized unit to focus on identifying promising investment opportunities in fragile environments - where investments are often more complicated, riskier, and time-consuming.

We are eager to partner with you in catalyzing these critical investments, which align with so many of the goals we've discussed today.

I commend this group for your commitment to breaking down silos and identifying more sustainable and cost-effective ways to address the staggering global humanitarian needs we face today.

USAID is committed to advancing this agenda with you.

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