Archive for February, 2009
Associated Press: Obama budget: Mammoth deficits but headed lower
An overview of the U.S. President’s budget that was released yesterday. The budget indicates that the President intends to keep the U.S. on a path to double foreign aid.
Globe and Mail: Nations near bankruptcy, but IMF too poor to help
A report released yesterday by the International Monetary Fund yesterday warned that the government is on the edge of financial collapse. Romania’s central bank chief said the country may need IMF aid to stabilize its deteriorating finances and several other countries showed widening cracks stemming from the rising tide of financial and economic woes swamping the globe.
Reuters: US business urges Obama to chart new Doha course
Leading U.S. business groups urged President Barack Obama to push for a change in the overall direction of long-running world trade talks and said it was more urgent now to stop the spread of protectionist measures than to finish a deal.
This Day (Nigeria) Africa: Food Crisis Over, Say Experts
Interestingly, experts on agriculture drawn from the Asian and African continents yesterday declared that global food crisis that rocked the world last year was effectively over. One of the experts, Marco Woopereis, Deputy Director-General, Research, Africa Rice Center, Cotonou, Benin Republic revealed that a whopping $800million was expended by the Federal Government last year alone to combat the food crisis but warned that the trend may come back unless there is an aggressive rice plantation and production.
-Chandler Smith
On Tuesday, a broad-based coalition that includes several of ONE’s partners launched A Roadmap to End Global Hunger – a comprehensive strategy for addressing global hunger through short, medium, and long-term initiatives and reaching the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving hunger by 2015. Representatives Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) joined the co-sponsoring NGOs* at Tuesday’s release on Capitol Hill, and new bipartisan legislation that incorporates the key points of the Roadmap to End Global Hunger is expected to be introduced in the coming weeks.
The Roadmap pitches several strategies for addressing the dire situation of global hunger. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 963 million people are hungry around the world, the majority of whom live in developing countries. As the document notes, despite previous U.S. commitments to end global hunger, the number of hungry people continues to rise as global hunger is exacerbated by continued higher than average food prices and the global economic downturn. The Roadmap calls for a total of approximately $50 billion in U.S. funding for agriculture and food security initiatives over five years.
The document details the need for a faster, more efficient response to food emergencies and emphasizes the importance of flexibility in the provision of emergency food assistance, including options for buying food locally and regionally, and implementing voucher programs where food is available but families are too poor to afford it. The plan calls for donated food aid, like bags of rice or maize, as well as cash assistance that can provide timely and appropriate emergency assistance. The plan also calls for additional funding for safety-net programs – like cash-for-work and school feeding programs – to prevent the most vulnerable populations from descending further into hunger. It also stresses the importance of establishing and expanding early childhood nutrition programs.
In order to promote the development of the agricultural sector in the developing world and break the cycle of hunger and poverty, the Roadmap suggests a more than quadruple investment in market-based agriculture and market development. The suggested $1.38 billion over five years would be aimed at initiatives supporting low-income, smallholder farmers – particularly women. Considering that agriculture employs nearly two-thirds of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa, programs that assist farmers in producing more goods, and helping farmers access markets in which to sell these goods, could have a wide-spread, positive impact on household income and food security.
The Roadmap calls for the (more…)
Today, President Obama submitted a broad blueprint of his first budget request to Congress. This marks the start of an important process that will ultimately decide how federal dollars are spent and directed in fiscal year 2010, including funding for America’s efforts to fight global poverty and end deaths from preventable diseases like AIDS and malaria.
In the weeks and months ahead, ONE members will have the chance to play an important role during a critical stage of the budget process. And in the end, if we are successful, we can make sure that more people with HIV/AIDS have access to lifesaving medication, that more bed nets are provided to protect families from malaria, and that more kids living in the poorest regions are given the chance to attend school for the first time.
The President’s budget has designated $51.7 billion for the State Department and other International Affairs Programs. This number represents a $4.5 billion increase over the $47.2 billion that was passed for fiscal year 2009. However, because today’s outline only provided top line figures, we do not yet know how much of it will represent an increase for global poverty reduction programs. ONE is seeking a $4 billion increase for poverty reduction accounts as a positive start in setting a spending trajectory that will enable President Obama to fulfill his historic anti-poverty commitments, which ONE members helped secure during the presidential campaign, including his commitment to double foreign assistance. Since those campaign commitments, the President has continued to articulate the importance of addressing global poverty, including in his Inaugural Address and most recently in his speech to Congress. In the next couple weeks, ONE will work to make sure that these commitments and sentiments are fully reflected in the nuts and bolts of the President’s budget request, which we’ll learn more about in April.
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Reuters: African Development Bank praises Zimbabwe plan
Zimbabwe has made an impressive start on an economic recovery plan which warrants support from the international community, African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka said on Thursday.
AFP—UN talks with Mugabe ‘positive’: aid official
A top U.N. aid official said she had held positive talks yesterday with Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe about finding ways to combat a raging cholera epidemic and food shortages. Catherine Bragg, the assistant secretary general for humanitarian affairs, met Monday with Mugabe and new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the long-time opposition leader who joined a unity government this month. She said her five-member team was focusing on the cholera epidemic that has so far killed 3,806 people and spilled into neighboring countries.
Reuters—Zimbabwe PM Tsvangirai calls for reconciliation
Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai called for national reconciliation and forgiveness this weekend, saying that the time had come to address poverty and hunger head on in the country. “This nation needs national healing. It has endured so much violence. Let’s forgive those who have transgressed against us,” Tsvangirai said. Zimbabwe’s new government urgently needs to find a solution to the country’s economic meltdown that has led to the world’s highest inflation and a worthless currency.
-Steve Wilson & Chandler Smith
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We just witnessed a historic election that has the possibility of transforming American politics and our world for the better. President Obama has already committed to cutting domestic poverty by half in ten years and achieving the Millennium Development goals that will dramatically reduce extreme global poverty. But as people of faith and conscience our work is not over.
Even the most committed president will face incredible pressures and obstacles in making domestic and global poverty reduction a priority, particularly during this economic crisis. As active supporters of ONE’s important efforts to end global poverty and treatable diseases, I’d like to invite you this April to The Mobilization to End Poverty – a gathering where thousands of faith-based and other anti-poverty leaders will engage in a transformative experience of education, worship, community, and activism in Washington, D.C.
With the support from ONE and other sponsors ranging from World Vision and Convoy of Hope to Oxfam, this initiative is shaping up to be one of the largest and most diverse anti-poverty coalitions. Together we’ll call on President Obama and the new Congress to make overcoming global poverty a political priority and to develop a national plan that addresses this moral and spiritual crisis. Obama has been invited to speak among other leaders.
The Mobilization to End Poverty is just the beginning of an ongoing initiative dedicated to transforming the spiritual will of committed people into the political will of our government that ends extreme poverty. And we need you to be there, every step of the way.
I hope you’ll take the time to check out www.sojo.net/mobilization for more information and support this movement by registering.
-Jim Wallis
Jim Wallis is the founder and president of Sojourners, the largest network of progressive Christians in the United States focused on the biblical call to social justice. Wallis is also author of the New York Times bestseller God’s Politics, which electrified Americans hungry for a new kind of politics in America. His latest New York Times bestseller is The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post–Religious Right America.
Five months into the new fiscal year, Congress is set to vote on nine remaining appropriation bills for FY2009, including funds for global poverty reduction, health, and assistance to Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. Levels agreed upon by House and Senate negotiators offer some welcome news as well as a few areas of concern. ONE’s own Larry Nowels takes an expert look at the numbers behind the FY2009 appropriation bills and what they mean for ONE’s issues:
The best outcome overall is that in the face of the financial crisis and recent approval of a nearly $800 billion economic stimulus package, Congress did not cut the total amount allocated for foreign policy and development programs from levels set in mid-2008. Reducing the commitment to the world’s poor would have been a troubling outcome and a signal of challenges ahead in the next budget debate for FY2010 that begins next month.
In total, the appropriation includes about $18 billion for programs that most directly impact the lives of poor people around the world, an increase of 4%. The largest component — $6.85 billion – supports global HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria, 7.5% higher than last year. Other global health programs also fare well. Child survival and maternal health receive $497 million (+10%) and family planning/reproductive health grows to $545 million (+18%). The appropriation further allocates $50 million for the U.N. Population Fund, an organization that had been determined ineligible for U.S. support for the past eight years due to its programs in China.
Spending for other bilateral development programs is set at $1.8 billion, a 10% increase, with special attention focused on global food security and agriculture. Amounts for clean water, basic education, biodiversity, and microcredit remain at levels provided in FY2008.
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President Obama’s 2010 budget outline, which was just released, indicates a reaffirming of Obama’s commitment to double foreign assistance during his time in office.
Key excerpts from the just-released budget outline:
By increasing foreign assistance the United States will reach out to the global community and renew its role as a leader in global development and diplomacy. Through increased foreign assistance funding, the United States will embark on several new initiatives that will give children in the poorest countries access to education ensuring they can participate in the global marketplace; foster global food security through sustainable agriculture; expand goodwill and inspire service by increasing the size of the Peace Corps; and stabilize post-conflict states, creating room for them to plant the seeds of democracy.
The full details of the 2010 budget aren’t known yet, but we’ll keep you posted with further analysis.
-Chris Scott
