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Posts Tagged ‘hunger’

Noteworthy News – 1.20

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
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This weekly posting includes key news stories and opinion pieces related to foreign assistance reform and the larger development community.

News on Haiti:

  • Why Haiti Matters (Newsweek-Barack Obama, January 15) In the months and years to come, as the tremors fade and Haiti no longer tops the headlines or leads the evening news, our mission will be to help the people of Haiti to continue on their path to a brighter future. The United States will be there with the Haitian government and the United Nations every step of the way.
  • To Help Haiti, End Foreign Aid (Wall Street Journal-Bret Stephens, January 19) For actual Haitians, however, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity. It will benefit the well-connected at the expense of the truly needy, divert resources from where they are needed most, and crowd out local enterprise. And it will foster the very culture of dependence the country so desperately needs to break.
  • If Haiti is to `build back better’ (Miami Herald-Paul Farmer, January 17)  Fourth, aid should be coordinated and conceived in a way that shores up Haitian capacity to respond. Some of this emergency response can be done with longer-range views in mind. Schools must be rebuilt, but in the interim, children must be back in school soon, and rebuilding the city’s housing stock will require a different kind of urban planning and a long-term commitment to respect for the Haitian people’s wishes.
  • The Underlying Tragedy (The New York Times-David Brooks, January 15) This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services. On Thursday, President Obama told the people of Haiti: “You will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten.” If he is going to remain faithful to that vow then he is going to have to use this tragedy as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty. He’s going to have to acknowledge a few difficult truths.

Other news we’re reading:

  • Clinton v. Kerry: The AID war begins (FP Blog-Josh Rogin, January 14) ”It is becoming an article of faith in the foreign policy community that development is a third pillar of U.S. national security, but in resources and stature, our assistance programs are poor cousins to diplomacy and defense,” says the Senate report.   The report goes into detail about what that means — a lot more detail than the State Department has offered about how it’s thinking about these issues.
  • Vilsack to evaluate Afghanistan farm aid (Agweek-Jerry Hagstrom, January 11) Vilsack, Shah and Holbrooke all avoided any mention of the concerns with the agencies or on Capitol Hill that USDA may be usurping USAID’s traditional development role and undertaking the Afghan reconstruction effort at the expense of the USDA Foreign Agriculture Service’s traditional mandate to sell U.S. products abroad.  Holbrooke said USDA and USAID personnel have been asked not to identify themselves as being employed by one agency or another. He said there is a senior official in charge of the agriculture effort, but that he could not remember which agency the official is from. Both USDA and USAID leaders report to Ambassador Tony Wayne, who is “the senior director of operations,” Holbrooke said.

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Best of 2009: MFAN in the News

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
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As part of our “Best of 2009” series, below are of some of the greatest media hits from MFAN and its partners.  The past year saw unprecedented momentum for foreign assistance reform, and MFAN’s members offered keen insight into the nuances of the issue, successfully reaching out to a broad audience and strengthening the development voice in policy discussions.   Keeping development and reform in the news answers Secretary Clinton’s call to make the case to the American taxpayer and prove that development is a “strategic, economic, and moral imperative” tied to advancing American interests at home and abroad.

  • Ray-OffenheiserThe Advisors Obama Is Missing (ForeignPolicy.com-Ray Offenheiser, January) Despite his public commitments to elevate and strengthen U.S. global development efforts — those that alleviate poverty, fight disease, and create opportunity in developing nations while bolstering our security and prosperity at home — as a critical component of his foreign policy, he has yet to name even one senior official to be put in charge of bringing these critical changes to life.
  • Huffington PostThe U.S. Can (and Must) Do a Better Job Fighting Poverty, Disease, and Lack of Opportunity in the Developing World (Huffington Post-David Beckmann and Steve Radelet, March 17)  We support President Obama’s efforts to elevate development because the prosperity, health, and security of Americans are, now more than ever, inextricably linked to prosperity, health, and security of people in the developing world. We are urging foreign assistance reform because the economic and geopolitical realities of today, and the challenges of the future, demand that we use every dollar as effectively as possible to fight poverty and disease, increase prosperity, strengthen weak states, and further other U.S. strategic interests abroad.
  • lg_George-Ingram.jpgReorganization of USAID Is Focus of Senate Bill (CQ, July 29)  “There is clear, bipartisan momentum behind efforts to modernize the U.S. foreign assistance system to meet the diverse geopolitical and economic challenges we face,” George Ingram and David Beckmann, co-chairs of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, an umbrella group seeking a broad reorganization, said in a statement. “While there are many issues to be resolved, we are optimistic about success because both houses of Congress and the Obama Administration are making dynamic progress.”
  • Committees Plan to Take Foreign Assistance Back to the Drawing Board (CQ, August 3)  “Reducing duplication, mandating reporting and accountability, being able to track resource flows, reducing double counting — those are things that I would anticipate that the appropriators would embrace,” said Todd Shelton, senior director for public policy at InterAction, an umbrella group of aid organizations that contributed to the paper. But rewriting the Foreign Assistance Act is the most important step in an overhaul, said Sheila Herrling, senior policy associate at the Center for Global Development.
  • Washington Post logoLeadership Vacancy Raises Fears About USAID’s Future (The Washington Post, August 5) “Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have said how important development is. Increasingly, it’s a painful contrast between their rhetoric and the reality of having no leadership” at USAID, said Carol Lancaster, interim dean of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, who served as deputy administrator of the aid agency under President Bill Clinton.  While development groups and experts have welcomed Obama’s boosting of the assistance budget, many are “very, very disappointed” with the lack of progress in reforming the aid system, said Brian Atwood, who headed USAID in the 1990s.
  • Ritu SharmaClinton Puts Spotlight On Women’s Issues (The Washington Post, August 18) Ritu Sharma, president of the anti-poverty group Women Thrive Worldwide, said she already sees the results of Clinton’s efforts in the bureaucracy. When Sharma’s staff recently attended a meeting about a new agricultural aid program, she said, one State Department official joked, “We have to integrate women — or we’re going to be fired.”  Still, Sharma questioned whether the program would succeed in reaching poor women, especially given the weaknesses in U.S. foreign assistance.
  • 20061031_markgreen_2Reform the right should embrace (The Washington Times-Mark Green, August 20) At a time when our national-security and foreign-policy priorities have become increasingly dependent on effective development, our political leaders must act swiftly and put partisan politics aside in order to enact reforms that will make our foreign-aid programs more efficient, more effective and therefore more capable of supporting and advancing our national interests around the globe.
  • NPR logoExperts Concerned by Leaderless USAID (NPR “All Things Considered”-Ray Offenheiser and J. Brian Atwood, August 27) Mr. OFFENHEISER: The State Department has advanced this quadrennial diplomacy and development review under Secretary Clinton that’s ambitious and potentially visionary, but there isn’t a development voice at the table presently, and that’s what we’re all concerned about.  Mr. ATWOOD: It’s a mess. It’s not fair to the taxpayer, but I think more importantly, it’s not fair to the poor of the world that we’re not doing our bit.
  • It’s Time for Foreign Aid Reform (Huffington Post-David Beckmann, August 27) The Obama administration has now made ambitious pledges to increase foreign assistance and modernize the system. This is largely because of an unprecedented consensus around the need to make development a pillar of U.S. foreign policy amid the complex and interconnected challenges we face.
  • Kerry and Lugar Push Obama on USAID (CQ, September 22) In an effort to expedite the process, the senators encouraged the president to appoint someone who has already been vetted by the Senate for another post or is well-known on Capitol Hill. Neither mentioned any names, but the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, a coalition of development advocates, has organized their own unofficial poll on who should lead the agency.
  • Associated Press logoEx-Gates Foundation exec named foreign aid chief (AP, November 10) Given that speculation, and the delay in appointing an administrator, David Beckmann, co-chair of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, said the administration needs to move quickly in defining Shah’s responsibilities.  “They’re going to need to give him some clear signals that he has real power,” he said.
  • David-Beckmann-photo-small-2Administration Names Agriculture Official to Run U.S. Aid Agency, Ending Delays (The New York Times, November 11) “This administration has inherited a very weak and fragmented Usaid and aid infrastructure,” said David Beckmann, the president of Bread for the World, a Christian group that advocates for hunger relief. “By getting someone in that position, Mrs. Clinton has taken a step forward.”  Mr. Beckmann called for Mr. Obama to restore the agency’s profile by giving Dr. Shah a seat on the National Security Council, and for Mrs. Clinton to give back its independent budget and policy-making authority, which had been subsumed by the State Department.
  • Politico logoShah meets with Kerry (Politico-Laura Rozen, November 19) ”The fact that we have a nominee with huge potential — finally — is a good thing,” O’Brien continued. “But he’s coming late to the conversation. And there’s a real question as to whether he is going to be given the face and authority going forward. The problem isn’t him. The problem is, is development going to be given a real seat at the table.”
  • Bill FristRaj Shah and America’s Development Future (Roll Call-Bill Frist, December 17) Dr. Shah has what is needed to carry on President Bush’s global health legacy and fulfill President Obama’s extraordinary development vision. The Senate should confirm him, and the Obama administration should give him the political support and resources he needs to succeed. Millions of lives will be affected by this choice.

Other notable stories from 2009 include: The Kojo Nnamdi Show with MFAN Principal Sheila Herrling, Center for Global Development, and member Paul O’Brien, Oxfam America; Huffington Post op-ed by MFAN Principal Noam Unger, Brookings Institute; USA Today with quotes by MFAN Principal Carol Lancaster,  Montara Center for International Studies, and member Paul O’Brien; All Africa op-ed by Ray Offenheiser, Oxfam America; Huffington Post op-ed by J. Brian Atwood, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs; and Huffington Post op-ed by Ritu Sharma, Women Thrive Worldwide.

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Secretary Clinton: “…democracy and development are not three separate goals”

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
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At Georgetown University on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech about human rights, in which she outlined the President’s agenda for a new century.  She connected such universal rights to development, noting that hunger, poverty, and education are all freedoms that everyone worldwide should have access to.  Key excerpts below:

Clinton at Georgtown

“Our human rights agenda for the 21st century is to make human rights a human reality, and the first step is to see human rights in a broad context. Of course, people must be free from the oppression of tyranny, from torture, from discrimination, from the fear of leaders who will imprison or “disappear” them. But they also must be free from the oppression of want – want of food, want of health, want of education, and want of equality in law and in fact.”

“To fulfill their potential, people must be free to choose laws and leaders; to share and access information, to speak, criticize, and debate. They must be free to worship, associate, and to love in the way that they choose. And they must be free to pursue the dignity that comes with self-improvement and self-reliance, to build their minds and their skills, to bring their goods to the marketplace, and participate in the process of innovation. Human rights have both negative and positive requirements. People should be free from tyranny in whatever form, and they should also be free to seize the opportunities of a full life. That is why supporting democracy and fostering development are cornerstones of our 21st century human rights agenda.”

**

“At the same time, human development must also be part of our human rights agenda. Because basic levels of well-being – food, shelter, health, and education – and of public common goods like environmental sustainability, protection against pandemic disease, provisions for refugees – are necessary for people to exercise their rights, and because human development and democracy are mutually reinforcing. Democratic governments are not likely to survive long if their citizens do not have the basic necessities of life. The desperation caused by poverty and disease often leads to violence that further imperils the rights of people and threatens the stability of governments. Democracies that deliver on rights, opportunities, and development for their people are stable, strong, and most likely to enable people to live up to their potential.”

“So human rights, democracy, and development are not three separate goals with three separate agendas. That view doesn’t reflect the reality we face. To make a real and long-term difference in people’s lives, we have to tackle all three simultaneously with a commitment that is smart, strategic, determined, and long-term. We should measure our success by asking this question: Are more people in more places better able to exercise their universal rights and live up to their potential because of our actions?”

**

“Across our diplomacy and development efforts, we keep striving for innovative ways to achieve results. That’s why I commissioned the first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review to develop a forward-looking strategy built on analysis of our objectives, our challenges, our tools, and our capacities to achieve America’s foreign policy and national security objectives. And make no mistake, issues of Democracy and Governance – D&G as they are called at USAID – are central to this review.”

“To build success for the long run, our development assistance needs to be as effective as possible at delivering results and paving the way for broad-based growth and long-term self-reliance. Beyond giving people the capacity to meet their material needs for today, economic empowerment should give them a stake in securing their own futures, in seeing their societies become the kind of democracies that protect rights and govern fairly. So we will pursue a rights-respecting approach to development – consulting with local communities, ensuring transparency, midwife-ing accountable institutions – so our development activities act in concert with our efforts to support democratic governance. That is the pressing challenge we face in Afghanistan and Pakistan today.”

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MFAN Partners Bread for the World and CARE Testify on Obama Administration’s Global Food Security Initiative

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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David Beckmann photo On October 29th, Bread for the World President and MFAN Co-Chair Rev. David Beckmann testified at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on “A Call to Action on Food Security: The Administration’s Global Strategy.”

Also on the panel were: Dr. Helene Gayle, President and Chief Executive Officer of MFAN partner organization CARE; Thomas Melito, Director, International Affairs and Trade Team at the U.S. Government Accountability Office; Julie Howard, Executive Director of the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa; and Richard Leach, Senior Advisor for Public Policy at Friends of the World Food Program.

In his testimony, Beckmann praised the Consultation Document that has been released by the State Department on the U.S. Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative, calling it “a thoughtful, coherent, comprehensive approach to hunger and malnutrition.”  He added that it “includes several core principles that form a blueprint for broader reform of U.S. foreign assistance that Bread for the World and the other organizations in MFAN subscribe to: investing in country-led plans; enhancing strategic coordination both within the U.S. government and among international institutions, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and civil society; leveraging the assets and tools of existing multilateral actors; and establishing benchmarks and targets as part of transparent and accountable evaluation systems.”

Beckmann made an impassioned plea for an empowered, distinct U.S. development agency: “When we try to achieve defense and diplomatic goals with development dollars, aid is much less effective in reducing poverty.  In my mind, that’s the basic reason we need a strong development agency, with its own capacity to plan and carry out programs.  These programs should be coordinated with other foreign policy purposes, but distinct from them.”

He further called for the Coordinator of the administration’s food security initiative to be based out of the U.S. government’s lead development agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID): “Despite the fact that USAID continues to languish without an administrator, I strongly believe that the coordinator of the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative should reside at USAID. Agriculture production in poor countries is fundamentally a development issue and should be led by our chief development agency. For far too long, we have usurped the critical responsibility of USAID to lead on the key development issues of the day through the proliferation of new entities and work-arounds. This has led to a fragmentation of our development policies so severe that it has perpetuated a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more we farm out USAID’s authority, the more incoherent and convoluted our development assistance apparatus becomes.”

“We cannot afford to continue on this road. President Obama and Secretary Clinton are committed to elevating development as a coequal pillar of U.S. foreign policy alongside defense and diplomacy. To do so successfully, the U.S. government needs to have a strong and distinct development voice at the policy discussion table that can speak on behalf of development issues in a credible way. The new USAID Administrator should designate a high-level representative to coordinate the interagency efforts of the global food security initiative.”

In his other points, Beckmann urged that improved nutrition be a primary indicator of success, stating that “focusing our agriculture and food security investments on improving the nutrition of women and children will shape better, more targeted programs that have a lasting development impact… And, because nutrition is affected by other factors such as access to basic health care services and the protection of women and girls, measuring the impact of U.S. investments on the nutritional status of women and children will also tell us how well our overall development efforts are working.”

He also pushed for more consultation with civil society and governments in developing countries: “The United States should insist that the process of developing and implementing country-led food security plans include the network of local institutions focused on alleviating hunger and poverty.  By including local civil society organizations, faith groups, farmer cooperatives, private voluntary organizations, and local advocacy groups in identifying problems and solutions to hunger and undernutrition, the effectiveness of U.S. investments will increase.  Inclusive participation will also increase commitment at all levels, making the grants the U.S. provides more sustainable over time.”

Beckmann concluded his testimony by underscoring the historic opportunity the U.S. for foreign assistance reform: “The appetite for meaningful reform of our food security efforts – and more broadly our foreign assistance programs – is large right now. But the window of opportunity for enacting reform is small. We must collectively capitalize on this rare moment in history to help poor people around the world… To ensure its overall success, it is imperative that…the Initiative serve as a building block for lasting foreign assistance reform.”

In her testimony, Dr. Gayle called for the following elements of a successfulhelenegayle2008_thm food security initiative: 1) flexible approaches to food assistance; 2) moving away from the practice of monetization as part of modernizing our food assistance system; 3) gender integration and women’s empowerment; and 4) the creation of social safety net systems that prevent people on the margins from falling into extreme poverty.

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MFAN Co-Chair Urges Action on Global Hunger and Aid Reform to Honor Dr. Borlaug’s Legacy

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
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David Beckmann photo

Rev. David Beckmann, co-chair of MFAN and president of the faith-based hunger group Bread for the World, will deliver a eulogy today on the campus of Texas A&M University at the memorial service for 1970 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and so-called father of the “Green Revolution” Dr. Norman Borlaug, the plant scientist who died on Sept. 12 at the age of 95.

Borlaug is widely credited with helping to teach the world to feed itself through the discovery of high-yield wheat grains, thus saving hundreds of millions of lives in developing countries.  In an op-ed published by the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Beckmann says the time end world hunger is now and that “nothing could pay greater homage to the life’s work of […] Norman Borlaug and his Green Revolution.”

He goes on to say: “Lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced bills that would improve food security through agricultural development and reform our sorely outdated and inefficient foreign aid system. The State Department has been leading an interagency task force to put together the administration’s world hunger initiative and has ordered a review of all its development and diplomacy programs. And the White House has ordered an evaluation of the way in which the U.S. administers and delivers foreign aid.

“These actions constitute a circle of awareness. Congress and the Obama administration acknowledge the need for investments in country-owned and country-led strategies to strengthen agricultural development as part of an effective global development strategy.”

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