Development Aid key to Terrorism Fight: Clinton

US security depends on a new approach to international aid, so Washington must consult more and dictate less as it dispenses billions of dollars in assistance, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
Hillary Clinton’s speech at Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington marked the Obama administration’s latest effort to persuade the US public that development aid is a foreign policy tool as important as defense and diplomacy. Clinton said aid efforts in places such as Afghanistan and Yemen, where she conceded the odds of success were long and critical components of security strategy. We cannot stop terrorism or defeat the ideologies of violent extremism when hundreds of millions of young people see a future with no jobs, no hope, and no way ever to catch up to the developed world, she said. US aid programs will also focus on programs to assist women and girls in order to eliminate terrorism as women and girls are one of the world’s greatest untapped resources.