Anne-Marie Slaughter: Any Secretary of State ‘would be a fool to give up’ QDDR.

Summary

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CGD Podcast – Anne-Marie Slaughter: Any Secretary of State ‘would be a fool to give up’ QDDR

Date: May 5, 2015
Host: Rajesh Merchandani (Center for Global Development)
Guest: Anne-Marie Slaughter (President & CEO, New America)

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Overview

In this episode of the CGD Podcast, Rajesh Merchandani sits down with Anne-Marie Slaughter following her Richard Sabat Memorial Lecture, “Her Horizons and Boundaries: What Technology can do for Development and what It Cannot.” Slaughter shares her insights on the transformative power and limitations of technology in international development, the crucial role of policy and cooperation, the significance of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), and evolving opportunities for women and girls globally.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Limits and Promise of Technology for Development

• “More is not better” in data and information

  • Slaughter highlights the overwhelming amount of data humanity now produces, making the real challenge not collection but meaningful filtering and management.
    • “There was a prediction that the amount of digital data at the global level grew from 150 exabytes in 2005 to 1200 exabytes in 2010… That much data is useless. You might as well have none, right?” – Anne-Marie Slaughter [00:47]
  • The bottleneck today is attention, not information:
    • “The human mind really can't comprehend how much data is out there… Your capacity for absorption is finite. So more is not better.” – Anne-Marie Slaughter [02:18]

• Examples of technology’s positive impact on development

  • Solar power’s growing affordability and accessible mapping technology in crisis response (e.g., post-Nepal earthquake) are breakthroughs that exemplify the upsides of tech for development.
  • “That's like a Columbus moment… Now that map that we all carry around in our heads of where we are and where others are, we can actually make that representation.” – Anne-Marie Slaughter [04:01]
  • Open access to education (like MOOCs), global knowledge, and digital tracking of corruption and conservation present new opportunities.

• Policy and enforcement as the real constraints

  • Technology alone cannot drive inclusive benefits; sound policy and willingness to enforce it are essential.
    • “You can drop technology all over the place. What will happen is that the cleverest, the greediest, and probably some of the most criminal are likely to use it… Policy is government coming together and saying, here are the permitted areas... Equally importantly, there has to be the willingness then to engage people around the actual enforcement of that policy.” – Anne-Marie Slaughter [05:36]

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Global vs. Regional Cooperation & the SDGs

• Global cooperation is harder; regional and informal agreements may lead the way

  • Slaughter sees the era of big, binding global accords as fading:
    • “Once we got past a certain number of nations and superpowers… to a world of almost 200 nations where anyone can be a spoiler, I think the kinds of big global accords we’re going to get are going to be pretty vague.” [06:59]
  • She’s optimistic about the rise of regional coalitions and informal networks of government officials collaborating cross-border.

• On the SDGs and development finance: optimism with caveats

  • The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and now SDGs matter primarily as legitimate aspirations that empower domestic advocates, even if not formally enforced.
    • “What that really did was to empower energetic, well-intentioned government officials and civil society and even corporations to have a benchmark or an aspiration.” [08:25]
  • Future progress in development finance will hinge on unprecedented private sector involvement.

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The Importance and Legacy of the QDDR

• Second QDDR signals a new norm in US diplomacy and development

  • Slaughter initiated the first QDDR at the State Department; she emphasizes that the second review cements the process and practice.
    • “The thing I’m most thrilled about is that there is a second one. It’s hard to have a quadrennial review if it’s only one.” [09:57]
  • Focus of QDDR 2: practical skills, development at the center, partnerships beyond government, knowledge management, and data-driven innovation.

• QDDR as a crucial tool for future administrations

  • “I think any individual secretary would be a fool to give up that kind of a tool.” [11:04]
  • The QDDR offers each Secretary of State a chance to leave their mark and clarify priorities, even without legal mandate to continue.

• Shift in US view of development: self-interest, not just charity

  • Elevating development is not merely altruistic – it aligns with long-term US interests.
    • “It is in the United States self-interest to invest in countries’ prosperity and health and literacy and security. And that needs to be understood as what I call realism with a longer time frame.” [11:54]
  • Recognizing development as a strategic investment is essential for the US and global stability.

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Women, Girls, and the Evolving Gender Equality Agenda

• Great transformation in opportunities for women in developed countries

  • Slaughter is “a complete optimist” about progress in the US, recalling the rapid shift within her own lifetime.
    • “The opportunities for women and girls in the United States have been revolutionized in my lifetime… It was unimaginable that we would have had a woman Secretary of State, much less 3, when I was growing up.” [13:16]

• The focus in developed and developing countries now diverges

  • In the US, the emphasis should move from women per se to valuing the role of care for all, regardless of gender.
    • “We need to focus less on women and more on care, more on the value of caring for others, whether that is done by women or men.” [13:38]
  • In developing countries, the struggle remains fundamental: recognition and enforcement of basic rights.

• Reflections on “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” and societal changes ahead

  • The conversation revisits her pivotal 2012 article, clarifying her intent:
    • “The point… was to say, here are the changes we still need to make so that women can have the same opportunities men do.” [14:49]
  • True equality depends on recognition that “you cannot expect any human being, man or woman, to go all out on their career and raise children and take care of parents all at the same time. Men couldn’t do it, women can’t do it.” [15:06]
  • The path forward requires broader social transformation in how societies value both productive and caring roles.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On data overload:

  • “That much data is useless. You might as well have none, right?” – Anne-Marie Slaughter [00:47]

• On the data challenge:

  • “More is not better. Meaning for all this explosion of knowledge and information, the real work is, is the filtering, the managing, the searching, the interoperability of different systems so that we can tame all that data.” – Anne-Marie Slaughter [02:18]

• On technology’s limits:

  • “You can drop technology all over the place. What will happen is that the cleverest, the greediest, and probably… the most criminal are likely to use it.” – Anne-Marie Slaughter [05:36]

• On the SDGs’ real value:

  • “What that really did was to empower energetic, well intentioned government officials… to have a benchmark or to have an aspiration and to say, look, this has been legitimized we should do it.” – Anne-Marie Slaughter [08:25]

• On development as self-interest:

  • “It is in the United States self-interest to invest in countries’ prosperity and health and literacy and security. And that, that needs to be understood as what I call realism with a longer time frame.” – Anne-Marie Slaughter [11:54]

• On gender equality’s next phase:

  • “We’re all focused on breadwinning and we’re not focused on what it takes to actually care for each other, whether we’re young or old or sick or temporarily disabled.” – Anne-Marie Slaughter [13:38]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:47] – Explosion of digital data, the exabyte/petabyte illustration, and the challenge of data overload
• [02:18] – “More is not better”: limits of human attention, the challenge of information filtering
• [04:01] – Mapping technology as a “Columbus moment” for disaster relief and inclusion
• [05:36] – The necessity of policy and enforcement to direct technology for good
• [06:59] – Waning age of big global accords, rise of regional and informal cooperation
• [08:25] – The real impact of the SDGs: setting aspirational benchmarks
• [09:57] – Importance and future of the QDDR process at State Department
• [11:04] – The QDDR as a must-have tool for future Secretaries of State
• [11:54] – Reframing development as self-interest for the US
• [13:16] – Revolutionized opportunities for women in the US; context for gender progress
• [14:49] – Clarifying “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” and calling for societal change
• [15:06] – On the impossibility of “having it all” at once and the value of care

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Summary

Anne-Marie Slaughter argues passionately for a nuanced view of technology’s promise—underscoring the vital importance of smart policies, regional collaboration, and societal recognition of care as core to development. Whether discussing the symbolic and practical significance of the QDDR, the strategic necessity of putting development and diplomacy on equal footing with defense, or the ongoing struggle for real gender equality, Slaughter blends realism with optimism. In her words, “any Secretary of State would be a fool to give up” the QDDR or the broader project of making development central to both US foreign policy and global progress.

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Transcript

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

Foreign.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

Hello and welcome to another edition of the CGD podcast with me, Rajesh Merchandani. Here at the Centre, we have been hosting our annual Sabbat lecture in memory of Richard Sabat, a dear departed friend of the Center. And this year we've had the honor of having Ann Marie Slaughter as our speaker. She's the President and CEO of the New America foundation and her lecture was entitled Her Horizons and Boundaries. What Technology can do for Development and what It Cannot. In a moment we'll speak to Anne Marie, but first of all, let's revisit a little bit of her lecture.

[Sam]

More is not better.

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

I learned some new terms for this lecture.

[Sam]

I didn't know what an exabyte was and I didn't know what a petabyte was. But there was a prediction that the amount of digital data at the global level grew from 150 exabytes in 2005 to 1200 exabytes in 2010. And there's a projection that it will keep growing at 40% a year. So a petabyte is the equivalent. Think hard here. 20 million four door filing cabinets full of paper. So I'm thinking about my garage which has 10 filing cabinets, four of paper that no one's ever going to look into again. And I'm trying to imagine 20 million of those. And that is one petabyte and an exabyte is 1,000 of those. It's useless. That much data is useless. You might as well have none. Right?

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

So it's really going to.

[Sam]

More is not better, less is better. And a lot of the work that we're going to all be doing is the filter. Filtering is the reducing, is the figuring out what people really need to do. In fact, I was thinking that looking for a needle in a haystack is now really we should say looking for a bite in a data archive.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

Anne Marie Slaughter, great to have you here on the CGD podcast. Thank you very much for joining us.

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

My pleasure.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

You described yourself as a techno optimist, not a techno utopian. And you say when it comes to technology, more is not better. What do you mean by that?

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

Well, more, when I was talking about more is not better, I was talking specifically about information and the just unimaginable quantities of information that we are producing, data about our behavior, data, our own speech, so that now 6 billion people in the world can in theory broadcast their every move and put it on various social media platforms as well as more official data. The human mind really can't comprehend how much Data is out there. And even if you just think about how, you know, can you follow Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr and Medium? No, you're gonna. Your capacity for absorption is finite. So more is not better. Meaning for all this explosion of knowledge and information, the real work is, is the filtering, the managing, the searching, the interoperability of different systems so that we can tame all that data.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

This is called the paradox of plenty, isn't it? The idea that we have so much information, but what we don't have is the attention span or the ability to filter it. But in terms of technology's role in development, though, there are hard and fast examples that we see every day. Just the other day I was reading about, you know, solar power batteries in people's homes as a non prohibitively expensive reality. And then also we're seeing the use of technology, mapping technology in helping to find people in the aftermath of that awful tragedy in Nepal. So see that these are some of the kind of the horizons of your talk.

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

Yes, yes. So on the good side, the idea that we can now actually locate human beings after disasters, before extreme weather events, that they can locate each other, that's extraordinary. That's like a Columbus moment in the world where we went from a notion that the world was flat, obviously Galileo, to a world that was round and you could sail around it and you could map it and you could identify where people were. Now that map that we all carry around in our heads of where we are and we imagine where other people are, we can actually make that representation. So there's no question that that's enormous, enormous progress. I think also the simple availability of the world's knowledge and education to those many, many, many enormously talented individuals who had no opportunity is undeniable progress.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

So this is things like MOOCs, we've talked about the ability to kind of map, if you like, or track corruption, pollution, deforestation, animals to safeguard them, people ourselves. These are all positive aspects of technology in development. But isn't the real issue, the real limit to how technology can be used in development is policy, isn't it? The technology can do everything it likes, but without the policy behind it, without the right policies in place, it's, it's almost useless?

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

Well, I would say the policy and the human willingness to enforce that policy. So absolutely, I mean, you can drop technology all over the place. What will happen is that the cleverest, the greediest, and probably in many ways some of the most criminal are likely to use it. I mean, the technology itself can be used for Good or ill, the ways in which we insist that any technology, take an automobile or a plane or a book for that matter, is used for good is possible. Policy is government coming together and saying, here are the permitted areas, you can use this thing and here are the forbidden areas. But equally importantly, there has to be the willingness then to engage people around the actual enforcement of that policy. And that requires trust, it requires civil society, it requires a basic social contract. Technology can help, but it can't actually get us there.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

And as a scholar of the intersection between international law and international rights and cooperation, you've written a lot about this. But what's really missing, especially thinking this year in the big development moments we have, is that global cooperation, isn't it? Or do you feel optimistic that that global cooperation will actually happen when it comes to agreeing the SDGs, how to pay for the SDGs and the Paris Climate Accords?

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

So I think that the age of big global accords is receding. I'm not saying we won't have any others, but effectively, once we got past a certain number of nations and then a certain number of superpowers, to a world of almost 200 nations where anybody can be a spoiler, I think the kinds of big global accords we're going to get are going to be pretty vague. On the other hand, I do think there's a lot of possibility for regional cooperation. So in many ways, what you once might have expected out of the UN, you might expect out of the African Union or the Organization of West African States or South African states. So I do think there's much more possibility there that states can come together and help each other. And I also think there's a huge value in informal cooperation networks of government officials who are coming together, who are trying to create a greater economic, economic opportunity or to reduce poaching or deforestation or increase energy resources. So they're informal ways that will achieve, I think, what once required a treaty or a formal agreement to achieve.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

Do you feel optimistic about the big moments ahead of us this year on that kind of informal agreement, actually achieving something concrete on the SDGs, on financing for development?

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

Yeah. So on the SDGs I am. I mean, I think the MDGs and were very important, but they weren't important because they were enforced. They were important because we did come together and set a goal. What that really did was to empower energetic, well intentioned government officials and civil society and even corporations to have a benchmark or to have an aspiration and to say, look, this has been legitimized we should do it. So we effectively gave people a powerful chip on their side in domestic political bargaining. And I think the SDGs will do the same. Development finance. That's going to be very interesting. If we achieve something big, it's going to be because the private sector is contributing in a way it never has before. It will not just be government finance. It will have to be the large asset managers agreeing that they have a stake in a more stable and prosperous and well governed world and they're willing to make money available.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

You talked about a stable, prosperous and well governed world when you were at the State Department. Amongst a long list of accomplishments, you inaugurated the first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the qddr. The second one has just come out and it puts development at the heart of foreign policy. Hooray, we would say here at cgd. About time. Great that it's there. What's your reaction to the second one? Do you know much about what's in it and what do you think it'? Achieved?

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

Well, the thing I'm most thrilled about is that there is a second one. It's hard to have a quadrennial review if it's only one. So now it's happened twice after four years and every time that happens we can assume that there will be one four years later because it is not legislated. The one for the Defense Department is actually legislated that they have to do it every four years. This is voluntary, but. So I'm thrilled there is a second one. I'm delighted that they are focusing on development. I'm delighted that they're focusing on partnerships beyond government. That was something we, we focused on a lot. They are also talking about knowledge management and big data and competitions to improve the State Department's ability to do that. So for what I know, from what I know, I'm very, very pleased with the result. It's less grand in some ways, but that makes sense because it is the second and it's building on the first and it's very focused on practical skills.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

Are you hopeful that a future administration, whatever color that may be, will maintain the QDDR now that it's had a second outing?

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

I am. And the reason I think it will is that it's a great opportunity for whoever the Secretary of State is to put his or her mark on the building and to be. And it concentrates the mind in terms of, well, what are my goals? And it isn't just up to the Secretary, but I think any individual secretary would Be a fool to give up that kind of a tool.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

And symbolically, the fact that it's happened twice now, as you say, means that there is a series of them. There is a series of unique quadrennial detail indeed.

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

And I'm grateful to Secretary Kerry for wanting to carry it forward.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

How much of a symbol is that in terms of a shift in the US view of development as being a win win for both the US and developing countries? How important is it that the next administration understands that?

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

Very. I mean, so what Secretary Clinton built on some of the work done by Secretary Rice. But really Secretary Clinton came to power saying, I am going to elevate development. This is my goal above all. And I'm going to make the three Ds development, defense and diplomacy. But in the civilian side, development and diplomacy. That attitude has to continue that this is not, it's not charity, it's not a moral obligation. It is in the United States self interest to invest in countries prosperity and health and literacy and security. And that, that needs to be understood as what I call realism with a longer time frame. You know, realism is all about power and interest. Well, having developed prosperous, healthy, literate countries in the world is profoundly in the US interest. It's just that it takes, you know, a decade or decades and you have to invest for the long haul.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

One of the things that a lot of the development events are focusing on this year, one of the things that Secretary Clinton focused on was empowering women and girls.

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

Yes.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

Do you feel optimistic that that has changed? And the reason I ask you is obviously 2012, you wrote a very controvers. I wondered if your thoughts had changed on that.

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

Well, so my view was, you know, the opportunities for women and girls in the United States have been revolutionized in my lifetime. So I'm a complete optimist here. It was unimaginable that we would have had a woman Secretary of state, much less 3 when I was growing up. And you know, I was really just on the cusp. I'm the pioneer generation of women were 10 years ahead of me. But by the time I got to law school in the early 1980s, I'd never seen a female doctor or an engineer or a judge. So it's been huge. I think the opportunities for women are enormous. The global opportunities. This in many ways will be the century of finally unleashing all of human potential, not just male human potential. And I'm optimistic in the United States. I think in the United States and in developed countries we need to focus less on women. And more on care, more on the value of caring for others, whether that is done by women or men. Because what's happened is we're all focused on breadwinning and we're not focused on what it takes to actually care for each other, whether we're young or old or sick or temporarily disabled. In developing countries, it's still a matter of more basic rights because really women still need to be recognized as fully equal human beings. So I'm optimistic, but I think they're different. We're at very different phases of the struggle.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

So would you say that your thinking has kind of moved on from saying that women can't have it all?

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

So the title of the article was why Women still can't have it All. And the point, even though it was not widely understood as that, was to say, here are the changes we still need to make so that women can have the same opportunities men do.

[Rajesh Merchandani]

And those changes you see and those.

[Anne-Marie Slaughter]

Changes are coming, that we still got a long way to go. And I think it is, it's a society wide change that needs to happen. You cannot expect any human being, man or woman, to go all out on their career and raise children and take care of parents all at the same time. It just can't happen. Men couldn't do it, women can't do it. So if we're all going to, if we're really going to get to equality, then we have to all take account of what it takes to invest in the next generation, to honor our elders, to care for each other and, and to have great careers. And it's perfectly possible to do both, but not really at the same time all the time.

[Sam]

Sam.