Last night, President Obama spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting.  During his address, he reiterated the Administration’s commitment to development as a core pillar of U.S. foreign policy.  Key excerpt below:

“We’re making substantial increases in foreign assistance. But we still need civil society to help host nations deliver aid without corruption. Because foreign assistance is not an end in itself. The purpose of aid must be to create the conditions where it is no longer needed — where we help build the capacity for transformational change in a society.

We’re pursuing a comprehensive global health strategy — building on successes in the fight against HIV/AIDS and working to end deaths from malaria and TB and to end polio. But these efforts will only be sustained if we improve the capacity of public health systems to deliver care, especially for mothers and children.

We’re making major new investments in food security. But this can’t simply be hand-outs of American food. We need to share new methods and technologies so that countries and communities can become more self-sufficient.

In short, we’re renewing development as a key element of American foreign policy — not by lecturing and imposing our ideas, but by listening and working together; by seeking more exchanges between students and experts; new collaborations among scientists to promote technological development; partnerships between businesses, entrepreneurs to advance prosperity and opportunity for people everywhere.

That’s how we’ll confront the challenges of our time. This is how we will seize the promise of this moment in history. Standing together. Working together. And building together.”