Afghanistan

Yesterday Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues in the State Department, testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss the role of women in Afghanistan, touting Afghan women as “agents of democracy and change” (a term she used at least a couple times).

In her testimony, Verveer said:

To combat barriers to women’s political empowerment, the United States has launched a broad grassroots effort to train women at local levels and to build their capacity to take on leadership roles. We are also working with women and men in law enforcement and in the judicial system to diminish the impunity that allows the threats, intimidation and violence to continue that keep women out of public life.

Freeing women to participate in public life also frees them to participate in the economic activity of their nation. Jobs creation is among our most urgent goals, and agricultural development in Afghanistan is a top U.S. priority. The key to increasing agricultural productivity is to increase skilled human capital – and an efficient way to accomplish that is by training women.

To further build Afghanistan’s skilled workforce, as well as to extend the many other benefits of education, the United States has promoted programs that rebuild the education infrastructure to enable more girls to go to school and women to achieve literacy. We are also working to rebuild Afghanistan’s healthcare services, and particularly to change its maternal mortality rate, which is one of the worst in the world.

Here’s the video:

Nicholas Kristof has a column in today’s New York Times with commentary regarding President Obama’s recent announcement to deploy 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. In the column he builds a case for the need to expand education opportunities in the region.

You can read the full piece here, excerpts below:

For the cost of deploying one soldier for one year, it is possible to build about 20 schools.

Another program that is enjoying great success in undermining the Taliban is the National Solidarity Program, or N.S.P., which helps villages build projects that they choose — typically schools, clinics, irrigation projects, bridges. This is widely regarded as one of the most successful and least corrupt initiatives in Afghanistan.

“It’s a terrific program,” said George Rupp, the president of the International Rescue Committee. “But it’s underfunded. And it takes very little: for the cost of one U.S. soldier for a year, you could have the N.S.P. in 20 more villages.”

These kinds of projects — including girls’ schools — are often possible even in Taliban areas. One aid group says that the Taliban allowed it to build a girls’ school as long as the teachers were women and as long as the textbooks did not include photos of President Hamid Karzai. And the Taliban usually don’t mess with projects that have strong local support. (That’s why they haven’t burned any of Mr. Mortenson’s schools.)

America’s military spending in Afghanistan alone next year will now exceed the entire official military budget of every other country in the world.

Over time, education has been the single greatest force to stabilize societies. It’s no magic bullet, but it reduces birth rates, raises living standards and subdues civil conflict and terrorism. That’s why as a candidate Mr. Obama proposed a $2 billion global education fund — a promise he seems to have forgot.

A post from former ONE regional field organizer Annisa Wanat, who’s now in Afghanistan

When I was in high school, every April the principal would get on the PA and give his annual speech about “rams butting heads” – which was his way of telling the boys to keep their tempers under control. Fights always seemed to peak in the springtime. Fifteen years after I first heard the speech, I found myself living in the Balkans. The speech would always be in the back of my head when I spoke with my colleagues about how we hoped for a late winter thaw to minimize the potential for springtime fighting. Today, I find myself in Afghanistan.

Right after I arrived – just around the time that Josh Peck started sending emails about the global food crisis and ONE members could help – the demonstrations began in Afghanistan about the skyrocketing food prices. At the time, I was admittedly too busy trying to get used to a new job, making new friends, and adjusting to the altitude to do more research about how extreme poverty affects the Afghan people. But over the last couple months, I have talked to more people and a picture has begun to form.

25 years of war. Landlocked country with extreme summers and extreme winters. Low water tables. Dilapidated, bombed out, under-funded, or non-existent schools. Ditto for health clinics. 70% illiteracy rate – as a population – female literacy rates are the lowest in the world. TB. 40% of the population has access to clean water. Malaria. 53% of the population lives below the poverty line. Highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Unexploded land mines. 40% official unemployment. Life expectancy of 43. The opium trade and the resulting crime. Internally displaced persons.

Afghanistan is a country full of vulnerable groups – widows, orphans, victims of war, IDPs, youth, woman. But there is one vulnerable group that doesn’t get mentioned enough – military-aged males. Boys who are just becoming men and about to make pivotal decisions about their futures. Do they choose the “straight and narrow” path – full of the struggles outlined above – unemployment, food insecurity, lack of access to health care and education for their families? Or do they choose the “easy” way out and join with one of the criminal and anti-government elements so prevalent through the country?

ONE members know the OV08 tag-line – “Saving lives, securing our future” – but increased funding for international development is not just a talking point. Although I see examples of the positive impacts of international development daily in Kabul, I have been thinking about the “securing our future” portion a lot of the last couple days as international news sources carried stories of the prison break in Kandahar. Many of them began with a phrase like “the summer violence in Afghanistan starts with a bang.” Again, I was reminded of my high school principal and his springtime speech. And then I thought of all the military-aged males here who are trying to decide what to do with their futures.

Poverty breeds instability.

As ONE members step up their engagements with presidential candidates this summer and fall – keep these boys in mind when you band the candidates. The “saving lives” part is easy to remember – providing basic medicines, increasing access to education, supplying clean water. But remember that its not just securing Americans’ futures. Giving choices to teenage boys is securing everyone’s future – so the boys then don’t have to resort to “butting heads” every spring to provide for their families.

-Annisa Wanat

• The U.S. scientific community is rethinking its approach to developing an AIDS vaccine after a much-touted vaccine that was tested in half a dozen countries not only failed to benefit people who received it, but also may have actually increased their chance of becoming infected with HIV.

  Washington Post: AIDS Vaccine Testing at Crossroads

• Forty aid agencies urged the world today to focus attention on Somalia’s catastrophic humanitarian crisis where hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from war, drought and food shortages.

  Reuters: Aid agencies urge world not to forget Somali crisis

• Western countries have failed to deliver $10 billion of nonmilitary assistance pledged to Afghanistan over the last six years, and two-thirds that has been delivered has bypassed the Afghan government and failed to do enough to relieve the poverty of the Afghan people, a new report claims.

  NY Times: Afghans Lack $10 Billion in Aid, Report Says

-Steve Wilson

Although many of us know that water is a scarce resource in our world, few people know that more than 5,000 children under the age of 5 die each day due to lack of access to clean and safe drinking water. That’s nearly 2 million children each year. On World Water Day, we need to remember these children and their families.

Although I have worked in healthcare for more than 30 years, I didn’t know the depth of the crisis of poor sanitation and dangerous water. I was shocked at these statistics when I came to the US Coalition for Child Survival in 2006.

In 2005, I paid a visit to the Children’s Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan has one of the worst infant, child and maternal mortality statistics in the developing world. Although improvements have been made in the last few years, there continues to be a crisis there. When I visited Children’s Hospital of Kabul, I found that each day nearly 1,000 children come to the clinic seeking help. The hospital, at that time, didn’t have clean water or working sanitation. Babies were sharing incubators and the food was horrible. Many children showed up due to malnutrition, dehydration and illnesses related to unsafe drinking water.

I saw so much pain in the faces of the children and families during my two weeks in Kabul.

Creating safe drinking water and making it accessible to children and families is not rocket science. We’re not waiting for any new inventions or technology. The cost is low and the results are truly life-saving. Access to clean water and sanitation can help prevent Diarrheal Disease, one of the leading causes of death among children under 5. Read our fact sheet and learn more about the causes, solutions and success stories. Download our fact sheet at here.

You can make a difference and the support of the ONE Campaign has already generated more than 200,000 letters to Congress to support the Global Child Survival Act. Our website has all the information and details on the causes and solutions to the global child survival crisis.

You can also learn more about safe drinking water here. Watch the flash program and get all the facts!

-Andrew Barrer, Executive Director, US Coalition for Child Survival