President-elect Obama’s campaign brought together some 1.5 million volunteers from across America. With so many Americans engaged in the recent election and excited about government, great development benefits could be garnered by channeling this energy towards U.S. development goals.

President-elect Obama’s goals include giving every child the chance to go to primary school (currently 75 million children do not get that chance), eliminating deaths from malaria, and helping those in the developing world to improve their own ability to grow food. Skilled workers are critical to implementing all of these goals. Americans with experience in teaching, agriculture, medicine, trade or a variety of other sectors can help to train practitioners in their fields in other countries.

In ONE’s briefing to President-elect Obama‘s transition team, ONE asks the incoming administration to fulfill two of their campaign commitments to increase human capacity by doubling the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011 and creating a Civilian Assistance Corps that would recruit highly skilled volunteers from the United States to work towards development goals including both direct service provision and training of local capacity.

There is more information on both of these proposals and our briefings to the incoming Administration here.

-Rena Pacheco-Theard and Josh Lozman