Ben Affleck is ''very very proud'' of Jennifer Garner.

The 42-year-old actor gushed about his wife's ''extraordinary'' work with the Save the Children foundation while speaking about aid in the Democratic Republic of Congo at a Senate Appropriations State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Subcommittee in Washington, D.C. on Thursday (26.03.15).

He said: ''In our family, my wife does extraordinary work with early childhood education in the United States and the Appalachians and West Virginia and Kentucky and the central valley of California is something she cares deeply about. She's extremely effective at it. And we're all very very proud of her and impressed.''

The Oscar winner took a moment to praise Jennifer, 42, after Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who worked on the push for foreign aid in Congo, acknowledged her and their nine-year-old daughter Violet's presence at the hearing, according to PEOPLE.com.

Nodding to the actress, she said: ''Jennifer and Violet are very proud. Very well done.''

'Gone Girl' star Ben, who is an outspoken human rights activist for the Congo and founded the Eastern Congo Initiative in 2010, added: ''I do work in the Congo. We see that as a microcosm of what this government can be. We can do both. We can do all of these things. We can apply our values to our relatives, to our neighbours be they outside our national borders or be they within. I believe that's what America is.''