Administrator Samantha Power and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Verma Following a Meeting with President João Lourenço

ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Good morning, everybody. I'm here with Deputy Secretary [Richard] Verma, our Ambassador [Tulinabo Mushingi], who you know well. We just had the chance to have a very engaging and productive meeting with the President [João] Lourenço.

I have the privilege of being the first USAID Administrator to visit Angola since 2002.

And myself and Deputy Secretary Verma are very privileged to be here, following in the footsteps of Secretary [Antony] Blinken, Secretary [Llyod] Austin our defense secretary. And of course, in the wake of the very, very successful meeting between President Biden and President Lourenço at the White House.

USAID has, of course, worked in Angola for many, many years. Over the last five years alone, we've invested around $255 million. But what is extremely exciting about this moment, is that because of the efforts to fight corruption, there is a whole new set of possibilities of bringing in private sector investment and spurring not only economic growth, but inclusive economic growth, for the people of Angola.

Like all other agencies of the U.S. government, we are particularly excited about the work with the Angolan people and the government on the Lobito Corridor. What USAID will do very specifically is focused on the livelihoods of the Angolan people who stand to benefit greatly from improvements in transportation infrastructure.

So, we are going to travel tomorrow to Benguela in order to look to see what more we can do, for example, to support small-scale farmers who can benefit from being able to transport their goods along the refurbished railway.

We are also looking for example, at health commodities. We have worked for a long time in combating malaria here in this country. This railroad can be absolutely critical in moving commodities like malaria bed nets more quickly to families who need them.

We are very, very hopeful that the benefits from the work on the Lobito Corridor are going to be benefits felt broadly by the Angolan people. And this is particularly important given the difficult economic times.

So here in Luanda, and in Benguela, we will have the chance to convey what President Biden conveyed in person to President Lourenço at the White House, which is that this partnership between the United States and Angola is more important and more impactful than ever.

Deputy Secretary.

DEPUTY SECRETARY RICHARD VERMA: Thank you. It's a real honor to be here following up on Secretary Blinken's visit. It's a great honor to be here with Ambassador Power and our Ambassador. As, as she just mentioned, this relationship is strong and getting stronger every day.

As the Deputy Secretary of State in charge of resources, I'm especially excited to be here to see how we can unlock additional cooperation in key areas - in health, in infrastructure, in education, in all aspects of development. And we're especially excited about unlocking additional private sector investment and the billions of dollars in deals that are potential, going forward in the months and years ahead.

I'm also very proud of our U.S. Embassy team, our USAID team and our whole of government approach that we brought to bear in this relationship. This is really unlike any other partnership that we have. When I see our entire U.S. government, it is to this relationship. And I am really, really excited about where we can go into the future. And again, very, very grateful to be here.

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