Page 203 - Leadership Secrets of Hillary Clinton

LEADERSHIP SECRETS OF HILLARY CLINTON

As a personal aside, I want to mention that President-
elect Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was a pioneer in
microfinance in Indonesia. In my own work on micro -
finance around the world—from Bangladesh to Chile to
Vietnam to South Africa and many other countries—I’ve
seen firsthand how small loans given to poor women to
start small businesses can raise standards of living and
transform local economies. President-elect Obama’s
mother had planned to attend a microfinance forum at the
Beijing women’s conference in 1995 that I participated in.
Unfortunately, she was very ill and couldn’t travel and sadly
passed away a few months later. But I think it’s fair to say
that her work in international development, the care and
concern she showed for women and for poor people around
the world, mattered greatly to her son, and certainly has
informed his views and his vision. We will be honored to
carry on Ann Dunham’s work in the months and years
ahead. I’ve discussed a few of our top priorities and I know
we’ll address many more in the question-and-answer ses-
sion. But I suspect that even this brief overview offers a
glimpse of the daunting, and crucial, challenges we face, as
well as the opportunities before us. President-elect Obama
and I pledge to work closely with this committee and the
Congress to forge a bipartisan, integrated, results-oriented,
sustainable foreign policy that will restore American lead-
ership to confront these challenges, serve our interests, and
advance our values.

x 192 z