Last week, we gave a recap of our recent event with the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC) on leveraging innovative research for development. Now, GHTC has posted a series of clips from the event on their YouTube channel. See below for MFAN Principal and President and CEO of the Global Health Council Jeff Sturchio’s opening remarks, and watch the rest of the event by clicking here:
Archive for the ‘MFAN News’ Category
MFAN Co-Chair Beckmann: “Rhetorical Rubber Meets the Road” on Aid Reform
Friday, August 6th, 2010
MFAN Co-Chair David Beckmann, World Food Prize laureate and President of Bread for the World, has a new piece on foreign assistance reform, offering two steps President Obama should take now to put the U.S. on a path to more efficient, effective aid — the same two action steps listed in MFAN’s Open Letter, published yesterday. The op-ed first appeared in The Huffington Post, but find full text of the piece after the jump:
MFAN Partner Analyzes MDG Strategy from Aid Transparency Angle
Friday, August 6th, 2010
See the guest blog post below from MFAN Partner Publish What You Fund, one of the 200 signatories to the Open Letter.
Obama Administration Starts Delivering on Aid Transparency
18 months in, the Obama administration is starting to deliver on its commitment to transparency within U.S. foreign assistance programs and policy. On July 30, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah unveiled the new U.S. strategy for meeting the Millennium Development Goals “Celebrate, Innovate, and Sustain: Toward 2015 and Beyond”. We applaud the announcement, which includes launching an ‘aid transparency initiative,’ and look forward to seeing concrete timelines, detailed plans and robust policy that will ensure the potential of this initiative is brought to life.
The Strategy commits to “improving the transparency of aid flows”[i] to address “data shortages, comparability problems [as] large lag times weaken [U.S.] ability to measure progress toward the Goals”[ii]:
MFAN-GHTC Event Highlights Research and Innovation
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
“Even the way we change is changing,” Thomas Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), told attendees at the July 28 congressional briefing co-hosted by MFAN and the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC). Nearly 90 individuals from congressional offices, US government agencies, and the development and global health communities participated in a discussion about how research and innovation can be leveraged to advance the nation’s foreign assistance goals.
Panelists in the briefing highlighted the crucial role that science and innovation play in foreign aid, with a focus on past successes and future opportunities in global health research. The event, “Innovation to catalyze development: Leveraging research in US foreign assistance,” was moderated by Susan Dentzer, Editor-in-Chief of Health Affairs, and included Mr. Kalil; Dr. Jeffrey Sturchio, MFAN Principal and President and CEO of the Global Health Council; Dr. Maura O’Neill, Senior Counselor to the Administrator and Chief Innovation Officer at USAID; and Dr. Corey Casper, Director of the Uganda Program on Cancer and Infectious Diseases (UPCID) at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
In order to maximize the US investment in science and technology and deliver effective assistance, panelists stressed a whole-of-government approach to foreign aid. It is “essential” that the United States has a “coordinated, multidisciplinary” approach to international development, Dr. Casper said. For example, panelists highlighted a study conducted among nearly 900 women at two sites in South Africa that showed a notable reduction in the risk of HIV infection associated with an experimental HIV prevention gel, called a microbicide. The research benefited enormously from interagency partnership—the study was supported, in large part, by USAID, as well as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—and demonstrates the type of success possible when US agencies collaborate effectively.
Jeff Sturchio specifically argued that the US needs a global development strategy that is whole-of-government, coherent, and responsive to local needs. Such a strategy should also be built on transparency and accountability and partnership with civil society, donors, and other governments. Sturchio then put forward the notion of a whole-of-society approach, which the other panelists picked up on throughout the remainder of the discussion.
200 + Signatories on MFAN’s Open Letter
Monday, August 2nd, 2010
MFAN’s Open Letter to the President on the U.S. Commitment to Global Development will be featured in a print ad this Thursday and you don’t want to miss it. Thanks to your hard work and dedicated efforts, we garnered an unprecedented amount of support for reforming U.S. development from businesses, NGOs, think tanks, prominent individuals, and implementing partners. Our hope is that the broad and diverse collection of signatories will demonstrate to President Obama and policymakers in Washington that wide, far-reaching support exists for the creation of America’s first-ever Global Development Strategy and a rewrite of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.
On behalf of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, thank you to the following organizations and individuals who endorsed MFAN’s Open Letter to President Obama:
