Administrator Samantha Power at a Swearing-in Ceremony for Sara Werth as Mission Director for Kyrgyz Republic

ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you so much, Michael [Schiffer], it's great to see such a full house as we are here at a time of the year where we don't always get full houses. And, I think it really speaks to how much, Sara, people really want to celebrate you and mark this occasion. Thank you so much, Ambassador [Lesslie] Viguerie. It's just great, almost, without the flags and all the accouterments, to just hear you speaking from the heart about a country you clearly care a huge amount about and to hear you talk about the depth of the partnership that the American people have through USAID with the people of the Kyrgyz Republic. Ambassador [Bakyt] Amanbaev, really saying to you, just the eloquence with which you can speak with no prepared remarks about, you know, the difference that we hope USAID has made over the years, but also, again, what the work that we do in the development sector symbolizes for a country that is on the move.

I had the privilege of attending President Biden's meeting in the UN General Assembly, which included, of course, your president. And, you know, what I think is very important, is thinking regionally about all the potential that can be unlocked, and USAID has the potential to work across countries in ways that I think can be useful in being catalytic in that regard. And, I myself traveled to the region and got to talk about connectivity among the countries.

But, even as we talk about Central Asia as a region that is of such importance, we never lose sight of, of course, the countries that constitute Central Asia, but, above all, the communities that constitute the countries in Central Asia. And so, that is, I think, our North Star at USAID. Yes, we work in a context, but bringing it down to the individual level, fundamentally is where we think we can get the most out of our partnership through USAID efforts.

I want to thank Sara's family. They're here in full force. Melanie is going to be resurrected soon, by all the praise I'm going to give your mom. I'm going to keep you awake one way or the other. But, we have in the house here Sara's father, Lee - so glad you could be with us; her brother, Ben, who flew in from Germany - thank you so much, Ben; her sister, Amanda, and her family; her stepson Paul; and Sara's granddaughter, Skylar.

We are also, as I indicated, joined by Sara's two daughters, Madeline and Melanie, who I had a chance to know. They're pretty pumped up about the fact that as lifelong skiers, they will finally be able to put their skis to use in the Kyrgyz Republic in a way that was not so possible in prior postings. And, I really want to extend gratitude to Scott, Melanie and Maddie's dad and Sara's partner. Scott is himself a public servant, having served as a Green Beret and been in the Army, actually, for 27 years.

I would like to also recognize Sara's mother, who's no longer with us, but would be incredibly proud of everything that Sara accomplished, I'm sure.

The truth is, nothing we do here at USAID - any of us, even those of us who work at headquarters - would be possible without the support we get from our families. And, again, the fact that you all flew from so far and brought your kids along, siblings, dad - you know, this is just an embodiment of what you have done throughout Sara's entire career - which is to have her back, to be there for her, to be her biggest cheerleader, but also be there in the hard times. And so, thank you for supporting her, and thanks to Melanie and Maddie for being willing to pick up, again, and head out on what I hope is going to be a new adventure. I asked them on a scale one to ten, level of excitement, anticipation. There was a divergence between the two daughters in terms of level of excitement, but when I see you next, I hope that you will both say "Ten, ten!" about the experience there. It really does, as the Ambassador said, sound like an incredible country, and an incredible place to be a family.

Sara was born in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Her dad was a philosophy professor, and her mother was a labor and delivery nurse. When Sara was four, apparently, the family traveled to Austria for one of her dad's professional conferences, and Sara said later that she decided right then and there, at age four, to pursue a career that would allow her to see the world. A few years later, her mom gave her a tabletop book filled with beautiful pictures of Central Asia. She loved that book, and flipped through it frequently, and apparently again began to crystallize a dream in her mind to see the images of the beauty captured in those pages firsthand. She told her mom, "One day, I want to go there."

Her love of travel was matched only by a love of music. And, to this day, Sara is an accomplished pianist and composer who spends her spare time playing waltzes by Chopin and concertos by Rachmaninoff - a hobby that is not all that easy to keep up with when you are moving around the world every few years. In fact, I've been told that Sara's career not only spans eight countries, but also four pianos: from a keyboard in Guatemala, to her current upright piano that is on its way to Bishkek right now.

Sara studied international relations at Cleveland State University before becoming a Peace Corps volunteer in Lithuania in 1997. She claims she has never been colder in her life. We are going to be following up with Sara after she spends the coming winter in Bishkek.

But, despite the cold back then, it was in Lithuania that Sara decided she wanted to make international development her career. She went on to earn a Master's in Social Change and Development and Economics at Johns Hopkins, before joining USAID back in 2006.

Throughout her career at this agency, Sara has always been able to connect deeply across teams and across communities, particularly with those who have traditionally been left out. And these connections have given her incredible insight into how we can make our programming better, often helping her to identify and to lead changes before others realized their importance. For example, today we talk about corruption as a chief priority. It's one of our top priorities at USAID. It's one of President Biden's top priorities globally. But, at USAID, that wasn't actually the case back when Sara joined the Agency, and certainly by the time she went out into the field.

To just take one example, she served in Honduras back in 2018. At that time, the Mission had no specific Mission funding for anti-corruption efforts. But, Sara got to know the communities of Honduras. She got to know our incredible Foreign Service Nationals - their experiences out in their communities - and heard firsthand how big a problem corruption was in daily life - never mind the kind of corruption that sets back economic macro progress. The endemic corruption in Honduras was keeping the Honduran people from truly benefiting from their country's resources and from benefiting fully from the development programs that USAID was spearheading.

So, Sara took the lead on developing a new anti corruption objective in Honduras. She brought in international partners, like the Organization of American States Anti-Corruption Mission, to help identify and prosecute corruption. By the time Sara left, the progress had uncovered 13 high-level corruption cases, all of which were prosecuted by the relevant authorities. She worked with staff to find and support local partners that were already investigating corruption activities.

Today, a local partner that Sara's team supported, called the Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity, is one of the most credible anti-corruption organizations in Honduras, with Secretary [Antony] Blinken recognizing its executive director as an Anti-Corruption Champion in 2021. Maria Rivera, a Foreign Service National in Honduras, who worked closely with Sara on this project, says, "Sara left a piece of her heart here in the work that she did."

Work like this helps set the stage for the major changes that we have tried to drive across the Agency, lifting up anti-corruption as a priority across all our missions and bureaus and launching the Anti-Corruption Task Force, and then the subsequent Anti-Corruption Center in our DRG Bureau - Bureau, Democracy, Rights, and Governance Bureau. That ability to connect with communities, to understand the need for important changes before others do, and then to help work the system to operationalize that vision, to put those changes into practice - these instincts are ones that Sara has shown since her very earliest postings.

Back in Colombia in 2008, Sara went out of her way to build relationships with indigenous and Afro-Colombian groups. She saw that the fact that so many of those groups were disconnected from public services and left out of important advocacy meant that USAID programming often didn't reach them, nor, of course, did government programming. So, Sara led three lines of effort to take on this problem. She ran fact finding missions that helped USAID understand the disadvantages that these groups faced specifically and how those disadvantages were holding them back. She held listening sessions where mission staff met directly with groups of Afro-Colombians and Indigenous populations. And, she started the process of designing programs directly responding to these needs and priorities.

This work - and I've seen this firsthand - was transformative for the mission. And Anu Rajaraman, someone who worked with Sara in Colombia years ago and is now the Mission Director of USAID Colombia, says: today, "Inclusion is the corazon - or the heart - of our strategy in Colombia. We are so grateful to Sara for planting this important seed." It's just an incredible legacy, really, Sara.

In Libya too, Sara recognized that marginalized groups like the Tebu, the Tuareg, and the Amazigh, were facing widespread discrimination that keeps them from participating fully in their communities and helping to drive their country's development. When she learned that Libyan textbooks were perpetuating bias and intolerance toward these groups, she mobilized democracy and governance teams to design inclusive civic education textbooks, which the Libyan Education Ministry adopted immediately. The team also supported training for teachers on how to better include Libya's traditionally marginalized groups in everyday classroom education.

As is often the case with efforts to take on discrimination, not everyone loved this work, and at one point, a Ministry of Education official stepped in and stopped the training. But, Sara dug in, eventually broaching the topic with the Minister of Education. The Minister immediately reassigned the person responsible for cutting the training short, resumed the program of training, and even expanded the efforts. In large part, thanks to Sara and her team and their stick-to-it-iveness, over 1 million students received curriculum and education that instilled these values of tolerance and respect for all.

Sara's commitment to building community and advocating for marginalized groups extends to a dedication to inclusion and empowerment on her own teams. In Nigeria, as chair of the DEIA committee, Sara worked to make sure that same sex couples on the staff of USAID/Nigeria - a country that criminalizes LGBTQI+ individuals - were able to receive the same workplace benefits as their peers. She made a concerted effort to support our Foreign Service Nationals, consistently deferring to local Nigerian staff to provide their input on high-level decisions. And, I should say, at our FSN regional conference, we heard this firsthand from our Nigerian staff. She chaired what is famously known as the Fun Committee, creating events that brought teams and families in the mission together. Pamela Godot, an FSN from Nigeria, said, "After 15 years of USAID, I've met a few people. Sara is someone who has made a huge impression on me." Commenting on Sara's selection as Mission Director in the Kyrgyz Republic, she said, "You have the right person. You have a kind person."

Indeed, there is no better person than Sara to take up the helm at USAID's Mission in the Kyrgyz Republic. Nestled in the heart of Central Asia, the Kyrgyz Republic is often hailed for its breathtaking landscapes - the very landscapes that Sara became enamored by as a child looking through those books. But, beyond its picturesque mountains and its lakes, the country is a central part of an important region that is making strides to boost connectivity among neighbors and spark greater economic growth that benefits more people within the country. USAID has been working alongside the people of the Kyrgyz Republic since its independence in 1992.

Together, we have helped to drive remarkable progress supporting the Kyrgyz people who took it away and drove progress for themselves. Our public health programming, for example, has helped reduce the rate of tuberculosis by 30 percent. Our education programs have helped nearly half a million Kyrgyz students gain access to curriculum to help them improve their reading and their math skills. It was really impressive to hear from the Ambassador, and to read in the brief for this wonderful occasion, about the jobs being created, since jobs are top of mind for young people all over the world. But, for 11 percent of jobs - for USAID to have had some catalytic role in helping create those jobs - that is mission critical.

It is essential to continue this progress today, as the Kyrgyz Republic stands at an important moment. The country has been a leader in strengthening democracy in the region. In fact, its 2017 presidential election marked the first peaceful transition of power in post-Soviet Central Asia. We know that to build the future that the Kyrgyz people want, we will have to continue to support those who are addressing the challenges of corruption, unequal representation in political processes, and targeting of independent media and civil society.

So, we are working with the Kyrgyz people to increase transparency, nurture the political participation of its youth and its women, and support the media and civil society groups that are so essential for accountable governance - so essential, in fact, for service delivery and for knowing that services are being delivered as reformist officials intend them to be. The United States has made clear - and the Ambassador did as well today - our concerns about developments such as the "Foreign Representatives" law, which has the potential to undermine the long-term development and economic prosperity that we are so committed to supporting in the Kyrgyz Republic, and we really hope that care will be taken with implementation to avoid those perverse effects on Kyrgyz democracy and the Kyrgyz economy.

At the same time, the C5+1 initiative is helping boost trade, economic independence, and market linkages in the region. But, as you heard from the Ambassador, almost a third of the country's GDP consists of remittances sent back by Kyrgyz migrants who go to Russia to find work. With an overwhelmingly young population eager to find opportunities, USAID, again, is committed to supporting the Kyrgyz Republic and helping their young people fulfill the vast potential at home rather than abroad, connecting businesses with export markets to help them grow, creating good jobs, and supporting the Kyrgyz Republic's efforts alongside their neighbors to spur a more robust and interconnected regional economy.

It is incredible, Sara, to think of you and your family heading back to that place that you dreamed about as a child - this time to help others fulfill their dreams.

Thank you so much for taking this on, thanks to your whole family, and congratulations.

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