WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Development and foreign aid will be a "central pillar" of American foreign policy, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday.
Speaking at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, Clinton asserted the time is right to "elevate development as a central pillar of all that we do in our foreign policy."
Saying the United States can't truly be secure until poverty-stricken parts of the world are helped to become more prosperous, Clinton said, "We cannot stop terrorism or defeat the ideologies of violent extremism when hundreds of millions of young people see a future with no jobs, no hope, and no way ever to catch up to the developed world."
Pledging to beef up the U.S. Agency for International Development, the secretary of state said "it is past time to rebuild USAID into the world's premier development agency."
Clinton also said the State Department under her leadership is focusing more on developing the potential of women and girls, whom she said are "critical to advancing social, economic, and political progress. Women and girls are one of the world's greatest untapped resources."
