US needs to harness its power for progress: Rice

Newly appointed National Security Advisor Susan Rice has said that the US needs to harness its power for progress and put it to work improving the lives of people around the world.
"We live in an era of furious change and unlimited technological potential. So we can't just keep doing the same things the way they've been done before," Rice said in her maiden public speech as the top national security advisor.
"We need to harness our power for progress and put it to work improving the lives of people around the world. That's the spirit the Obama Administration has brought to all of our development work," she said in her address to the USAID's Saving Lives at Birth Event.

She said that the US leads the world when it comes to providing humanitarian assistance, "but we've also shifted our efforts towards empowering countries to lead their own development. That is how to break the cycle of poverty and dependence that still holds so many nations back."
"That's why American initiatives like Feed the Future and the New Alliance for Food Security aren't just about bringing food to hungry people. They're about building stronger agricultural systems so that countries can feed themselves," 48-year-old Rice said.
"President Barack Obama's Global Health Initiative is working with an increasing number of partners and countries who have stepped up to join with us as equals, sharing the responsibility for building stronger, self-sustaining health systems," she said.

"Our 1,000 Days partnership seeks to improve maternal and child nutrition during that critical window from conception through a child's second birthday, because we know that early interventions can impact a child's growth and development for the rest of her life," she said.

Rice said the US has put a priority on ending preventable child and maternal deaths.
"For the first time since the AIDS epidemic began ravaging populations all around the world, the treatments and interventions that we've employed-including preventing mother- to-child transmission have put the dream of an AIDS-free world and an AIDS-free generation within our grasp," she said.

"Hunger and disease, poverty and desperation- these do more than destroy individual lives. They erode our common humanity, even as they threaten the security of our interconnected world. On the other hand, when we give more people the tools to succeed on their own, we're investing in a secure and prosperous future for all, at home and abroad," Rice said.