Every Thursday, MFAN will post a list of upcoming events for the following week. For more information about each event and to RSVP, click on the links below.
Leaders and activists around the world gathered today to celebrate progress and call for renewed commitments in the fight against AIDS. In honor of World AIDS Day, MFAN Partner ONE hosted and event with former Presidents Bush and Clinton, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), and President Obama, who announced a new target … Continue reading News Roundup: World AIDS Day
MFAN Partner the Truman National Security Project recently launched the Make US Strong Campaign, making the case that international development contributes to our nation’s security. See below for a post from Liz McKenna, Advocacy Programs Associate at the Truman Project, and a powerful new video. This post originally appeared on the Make US Strong blog. … Continue reading Truman Project Launches Make US Strong Campaign
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. will join the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) at the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan yesterday. In her keynote address at the opening session, Secretary Clinton called for coordination to maximize development outcomes, pointing to country ownership, untied aid, and greater flexibility as … Continue reading Secretary Clinton Calls for Renewed Commitments to Aid Effectiveness in Busan
Today, leaders from around the world gathered in Busan, Korea to kick off the fourth OECD High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. Over the next two days, some 2,000 delegates will review global progress toward improving the impact and value of development aid and make new commitments to further ensure that aid helps reduce poverty and supports progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
MFAN partner Bread for the World Institute released a briefing paper, ‘Making Development Assistance Work Better’, as the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness gets underway today. Faustine Wabwire, Foreign Assistance Policy Analyst at the Institute, highlights opportunities for Busan in the context of past forums, prior commitments, and progress achieved so far. With … Continue reading Bread for the World Releases Aid Effectiveness Paper
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea. The United States is attending with a particularly high power delegation, led by Secretary Clinton, to underscore U.S. leadership abroad on technical and political aspects of development policy. The U.S. government heads into the forum with a handful of priority themes, including country ownership, partnerships with the private business community and philanthropists, and transparency, sustainability and results. The United States seeks to be a leader in these areas and has the rhetoric to match, but much more needs to be done to connect the language of commitment to the reality of U.S. development activities. With the right balance of pressure and political space, the Busan forum may present the opportunity for the United States to step up its game, especially on transparency and results.
Nevertheless, the tool is only as useful as the information it stores, and currently, it stores very little. Sure it includes both State and USAID foreign assistance request and appropriations data, but this information was made available at the original release of the Dashboard nearly a year ago, and both agencies have yet to publish data for obligations and spent resources.
Last week Sarah Margon, MFAN partner and associate director of the Sustainable Security and Peacebuilding Initiative at the Center for American Progress (CAP), published a report titled “Unintended Roadblocks: How U.S. Terrorism Restrictions make it harder to Save Lives.” The report found that over the past decade the work of a number of foreign aid groups has been restricted by U.S. counterterrorism processes. Margon argues these humanitarian groups are in no way trying to support terrorism, but with the ambiguously defined laws they are subjected to under U.S. regulations, it makes it extremely difficult to provide assistance to areas such as Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As we look forward to Thanksgiving celebrations, IREX President Ambassador W. Robert Pearson reminds Congress to appreciate the importance of foreign assistance. This entry originally appeared in the Voices of IREX blog. The Thanksgiving holiday in America gives us all a chance to reflect on gratitude, on generosity, and on reaching out to those in … Continue reading Thanksgiving and the American Mind
