Praising his host country’s developmental journey, US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti said that anyone who wants to “see the future” should come to India. He called it a “great privilege” to head the US mission in India. In his address at the ‘Impact & Innovation: 25 Years of IPE Global Making Development a Ground Reality’ event in Delhi, Garcetti said that if anyone wants to work on the future, they should come to India.
Ambassador Garcetti said, “We have the most beautiful view, I think, of this ballroom, of the passion, of the belief, of the purpose, of the peace that you live in, the work that is done by IPE and the collaboration between so many of us that are lucky to call India our home for a period of our lives. I often say, if you want to see the future, come to India. If you want to feel the future, come to India. And if you want to work on the future, come to India. And I have the great privilege of being able to do that every single day as a leader of the United States mission.”
Garcetti said, “When I was studying Hindi as an 18-year-old, I learned a saying, ‘Alag Desh Alag Rivaaj’, it was kind of another country, another custom. And the saying we have this in many languages is, you know, do in Rome, as the Romans do. In other words, every place is different. And those customs are unique. And while that is true, certainly the customs of America are different than those of India.”
“Even within our countries, the custom from one town or city to the next is different, one state to the next is different. I think increasingly the work that we are doing here, that we are privileged to do is the American mission. We now feel more that it is do desh and there is ek Dil, one heart, that when we come together, it is no longer two different systems, but one vision,” he added.
Praising IPE for having gender equality at the panel discussion, he said, “We want to make sure that whenever we sponsor something and participate in something, we don’t just give lip service to the idea of gender equity, but we try to embody that. And IPE has done that so beautifully here today and stirred my heart in looking at the stories of the women that we are privileged to work with alongside you and the government of India, to further health equality, to further the idea that economic opportunity shouldn’t be defined by your gender or your gender geography or the wealth of your parents, but by the dreams in your heart.”
“Last thing I’ll say, because instead of going through all the programs that we have together, and we often talk about the four p’s, that peace, prosperity, our planet and our people define the work of the United States mission here, together with our partners across the globe, with fellow diplomats and missions that are here, and of course, led by the Indian government. We don’t come here to teach and preach. We come here to listen and to learn. And when asked to have the privilege to work alongside you, whether it’s in the digital domain, whether it’s in the climate action that we take, we know that the work we have is urgent and the success of it has to run through every girl and woman in this country and around the world, in every marginalized community.”
