Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) have introduced a resolution (S.Res.312) that calls for the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development to be named expeditiously as well as a strengthened and empowered USAID.
What we’re reading today: Dissent over aid for AfPak
In a recent piece on the Center for Global Development’s “Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance” blog, CGD Senior Policy Analyst and MFAN Principal Sheila Herrling comments on the growing trend of work-arounds of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as the agency lingers in its ninth month without an Administrator appointed by President Obama.
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.
MFAN Principal and Women Thrive Worldwide Co-Founder and President Ritu Sharma, who spoke at the event, argued, “The key thing that all these groups show about women benefiting from programs is intentionality: we have to design programs that take women into account, it does not happen on its own. Our foreign assistance programs should do the same.” She went on to say, “We have a once-in- a generation opportunity to reform U.S. foreign assistance and ensure that women, the poorest citizens of the world, benefit from it.”
Today the State Department released a consultation document on the Food Security Initiative. This paper expands upon the fact sheet released last week and includes the five guiding principles outlined by Secretary Clinton in a speech Friday at the Clinton Global Initiative.
WWF US President and CEO Carter Roberts, one of the world’s leading conservationists, has a unique view on foreign assistance reform. Today, he brought his message to Capitol Hill for a bi-cameral hearing on the innovative Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP).
As the only conservation leader among MFAN’s Principals, World Wildlife Fund US CEO Carter Roberts brings a unique point of view to the network’s foreign assistance reform efforts. Below, for the first time on the ModernizeAid blog, Roberts lays out the first in two parts on his conservationist’s argument for foreign assistance reform, which WWF first unveiled in its “Greenprint” for the Obama Administration in January 2009.
In a speech Friday at the Clinton Global Initiative, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled the framework for the Obama Administration’s Food Security Initiative, which could provide a new model of strategic coordination for U.S. development efforts. Referencing both the G-8 commitment of $20 billion for food security and the State Department Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), Clinton hailed a new U.S. commitment to the fight against global poverty and hunger, and pledged to transform U.S. development policy to improve transparency, monitoring and evaluation, and accountability for more effective long-term investments .
The State Department has released a fact sheet on its Global Food Security Initiative, the structure of which has long been anticipated as a harbinger of how the Administration will make U.S. foreign assistance programs more efficient and effective.
