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 Guest Commentary
March 24, 2009
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No Nation Can Move Ahead If Half Its Citizens Are Left Behind
The Honorable Barbara Boxer
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Today, the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee meets to consider three nominees for important posts at the Department of State�Melanne Verveer to be Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues, Esther Brimmer to be the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, and Richard Verma to be Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs.
All three positions fall under the jurisdiction of a new Subcommittee I'm proud to chair covering International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy, and Global Women's Issues.
Shortly after the new Administration took office, I approached Senator Kerry, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, about making global women's issues one of the key focus areas of this Committee.
With the selection of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and Dr. Susan Rice as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, the time is now to lift up the lives of women and girls around the world.
Too often, we have ignored the unique challenges that confront women and girls everywhere. It is time to bring an end to the trafficking of women and girls, to the mass rape and utter brutalization of women that too often accompanies violent conflict, to forced child marriages, political marginalization, and the denial of education that women and girls face every day in too many countries.
In this century, no nation can move ahead if half its citizens are left behind. If we fail to give women and girls the tools and protections they need to succeed, we will never see the progress we want to see around the world. When we give our daughters opportunity, we also create a world that is more peaceful, more prosperous, and more secure.
That is why I am thrilled that we are considering the nomination of Melanne Verveer today, the President's nominee to be the Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues.
If confirmed, Ms. Verveer will be the first person to serve in this role.
For more than 15 years in both governmental and non-governmental roles, Ms. Verveer traveled to some 80 countries, learning first-hand the difficulties women face and the tools they need to overcome such challenges�first as an Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First Lady, where she worked to make women's issues an integral part of our foreign policy and helped create the President's Interagency Council on Women.
And for the last eight years, as Co-founder, Chairwoman, and Co-Chief Executive of Vital Voices, a non-governmental organization that identifies, trains, and empowers emerging women leaders and social entrepreneurs around the globe.
We are also considering another important nomination today�that of Esther Brimmer to be the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. If confirmed, Ms. Brimmer will be responsible for developing and implementing U.S. policy in the United Nations, its specialized agencies, and many other international intergovernmental organizations.
Ms. Brimmer is currently the Deputy Director and Director of Research at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies' Center for Transatlantic Relations.
After receiving her education at Pomona College in my State of California and later at Oxford University, Ms. Brimmer established herself as a prolific scholar of international affairs. She also worked at the State Department, serving in the Office of Policy Planning and in the Office of the Undersecretary for Political Affairs.
If confirmed, Ms. Brimmer will clearly have her work cut out for her. As I have said many times before, while I acknowledge that the United Nations is far from perfect, I support a strong U.S. leadership role there.
The world is simply too big, and its problems too vast to achieve progress on challenges like terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons; HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; development and security for displaced persons; climate change, and countless other issues without the United Nations.
And finally, we are considering the nomination of Richard Verma to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs. If confirmed, Mr. Verma will be responsible for the coordination of all legislative activity for the Department of State and all communication between the State Department and Congress.
Mr. Verma is currently a partner in the firm Steptoe and Johnson here in Washington D.C and recently served on the Obama-Biden Transition Team and the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.
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Barbara Boxer, a Democrat, is a U.S. Senator from California. The above commentary has been adapted from remarks Sen. Boxer delivered while chairing a hearing of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 24, 2009. To contact her, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
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