From Micro-Credit to Global Affairs

Until Maria Otero moved to Washington D.C. at age 12, she had lived in La Paz, Bolivia her whole life. One of nine children, the swift uprooting caused her to have what she describes as an “identity crisis.” High school became a desperate process seeking her place in a new culture—one she would ultimately learn to navigate with ease.

Otero, now 59, became the highest ranking Latina in U.S. State Department history when she was sworn in as Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs in August. She coordinates an extensive team of bureaus within the State Department, covering such diverse issues as democracy, human rights, the environment, refugees and human trafficking. During her confirmation hearings, Otero noted “The common thread that unites this vast portfolio is that the people who are most directly affected by these issues are those who are among the world’s most vulnerable populations.”

Since 1986 Otero worked with ACCION International—one of the first and largest non-profit microfinance organizations. During her 23-year career she led the organization’s lending program in Honduras, then opened the Washington office in 1989 (she left Honduras in 1988 after her husband, Methodist Minister and human rights activist Joseph Eldridge, was charged with defaming the Honduran military for writing a critical editorial in the Los Angeles Times). Otero was later appointed President and CEO of ACCION.

Under her leadership, the number of poor entrepreneurs served by the ACCION network who received loans as low as $50 rose from 460,000 to 3.7 million, signifying a growth of $3.3 billion in total portfolio (97 percent of the loans were repaid). Otero also extended the organization’s presence from Latin America to Africa and Asia, and increased staff by more than 300 percent.

When Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton was First Lady, Otero traveled as part of her delegation to Bolivia for a summit. Otero took Clinton to visit Banco Sol, a commercial bank ACCION had created. Last year, when Clinton began to build her team at the State Department she called upon Otero.
On a snowed-in Monday in December, Otero—a cup of warm apple cider in her hand—opened the door of her unpretentious Washington home to speak to PODER.

[Poder Enterprise] How did you end up in this job after so many years outside of government?
[Maria Otero] I think the Obama administration presents a very important opportunity to redefine the role that the United States plays in the world. Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton refer to it as “smart diplomacy” or “smart power.” Secretary Clinton in particular gives enormous emphasis to the incorporation of what you can call “soft” areas into diplomacy, and into the way in which we help developing countries. Perhaps one of the most important ones is the emphasis on making sure you are reaching women, because the status of women often has a lot to say about how a country is developing. If you don’t make an effort to reach women and to make sure they have access to education, healthcare and economic opportunity, you hold the whole country back.

[PE] You oversee issues of environment, human rights, migration, and human trafficking. What are your priorities?
[MO] One of the areas that I’ve been looking at and where I can take the lead is the issue of water. There are billions of people who don’t have access to safe drinking water. So addressing the issue of water, both from the policy perspective all the way to how do you put safe drinking water in the hands of a community or of a village, is one area where I can make good contributions. Because of my position I have strong convening power. I can speak to the Congress, and I can engage other agencies in the United States or from other countries, to help advance this topic even more. The other important way of looking at water is as a security issue. In areas of conflict around the world we’re going to see more and more how water, and access to water, can create conflict. It already does in some places. But I think as we see climate change affecting sources of water it’s going to be an increasingly more important topic.

[PE] You attended the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen. What do you think its legacy will be?
[MO] I wouldn’t see Copenhagen as an event that requires a legacy as much as part of a process of having governments, who see things very differently depending on where they sit, come to terms with climate change and take on the responsibility of cutting back emissions, of developing clean energy, and of adapting their own countries to carry this out. The issues are very complex; they require enormous readjustments in every imaginable way—from power plants to the fuel efficiency of cars. And in countries that are still developing and trying to bring populations out of poverty—principally China and India—cutting back emissions and shifting over to clean energy, while at the same time trying to provide electricity to another 100 million people, is very difficult to do.
Just how to go about cutting back emissions to a temperature increase that we can all survive with—which is about two degrees Celsius—is the direction we are moving in. I think in Copenhagen, even though it was very difficult to do, we did reach some initial agreements that are going to lead, we hope, to legally binding agreements. What did happen in Copenhagen is that the developed countries, and the United States took a big lead in this, will provide considerable resources—$100 billion —by 2020 to the developing countries to help them use technology in a different way.

[PE] Was the issue between developed and developing countries, or was it more an arm-wrestling match between the United States and China?
[MO One of the things that is important to remember is that the major emitters of greenhouse gases in the coming decades are going to be the developing countries. So one of the things you have to come to terms with is every country on the planet has to decide to cut its emissions by a certain percentage. This is no longer a problem of a few select countries that have been perhaps the major carbon emitters in the past.
I think another thing is that not all countries agree to a peer review to see if in fact you are reducing your emission the way you have committed yourself to. This has been the most problematic part for China, which did not want outside verification of its carbon emissions. Trying to come to terms with all of these things no longer makes it just a north-south or east-west problem. All the different countries can see this differently, but of course the Group of 77 [developing countries], which included China and India, had positions that they held together until the last couple of days until some agreements were made.

[PE] In your confirmation hearings you mentioned the balance the U.S. must have between its development initiatives and its promotion of human rights and democracy. How will you do that?
[MO] The Secretary has talked about the importance of having a position of “principled pragmatism,” where you engage the countries that you work with addressing issues related to human rights and addressing issues related to the freedoms of its people. Engaging in all of these is part and parcel of the way we interact with a country, but you don’t need to do one, and not the other. You certainly can engage with a country doing both things at one time. That doesn’t mean that you have to have a confrontational discussion about human rights for the whole world to see. You can have private diplomacy and many different ways of working on these issues with the different governments.

[PE] But after the coup in Honduras the U.S. cut its aid, and in Cuba the U.S. is taking baby steps towards normalization, so there is some sort of threshold. How do you define that threshold where issues of democracy outweigh development concerns?
[MO] In the case of Honduras, they underwent a coup and the U.S. has talked about it quite openly as a coup. As part of the disagreement over what happened the U.S. withdrew its aid. Clearly, when you have situations that take away entirely from the democratic process it’s very hard to be combining some of the development aid that the U.S. gives. With Cuba you see some initial advancements in having a free flow of communication and of having a bit more possibility for people to travel. A lot would need to happen before one could think about the U.S. being engaged in any kind of development program in a country like Cuba.