On November 4, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, presided over by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Ranking Member Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), held the confirmation hearing for Daniel Yohannes, nominee for CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Yohannes began his testimony by praising MCC efforts; the MCC, he said, “lays innovative foundations” to address the problems of global poverty.

Senators Menendez and Lugar both questioned the place of the MCC within the larger development agenda: Lugar asked if the MCC should remain a separate agency while Menendez stressed that it should be complementary to other aid initiatives, rather than replace them. Yohannes agreed, noting that the MCC has been created from the best practices learned from past endeavors and therefore extremely effective, but that it cannot be successful alone. It is imperative to work with other agencies such as USAID and groups on the ground, he said, to take a coordinated approach and prevent duplicity.

Menendez also praised the country-ownership aspect of the MCC and asked Yohannes how he would ensure that governments are working with a broad cross-section of civil society organizations (CSO), including those who are often not consulted, such as women. Yohannes emphasized he would make CSO input a priority, making certain that a variety of groups and CSOs are consulted.

Lugar encouraged Yohannes to highlight the impacts of the MCC, lamenting that it sometimes takes years to develop projects, compacts and see results, frustrating Congress and others. Yohannes agreed that it was time to show the American people concrete results and emphasized that the U.S. can be proud of its efforts to eradicate deep-seated poverty around the world. Yohannes promised to continue the MCC’s efforts to partner with others to create a “global culture of opportunity.”

“The issues that we face today- from chronic poverty and hunger to violent acts of terrorism- require that we work seamlessly toward identifiable goals.” Senator Richard Lugar opened with a strong statement on the importance of aid reform yesterday at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that I attended called The Case for Reform: Foreign Aid and Development in a New Era. Witnesses at the hearing included Peter McPherson, President of Public and Land Grant Universities and former administrator of USAID, Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Rev. David Beckmann, President of ONE partner organization, Bread for the World and Co-Chair of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network.

The hearing highlighted a bill written by Senators Kerry, Corker, Menendez and Lugar that seeks to strengthen USAID and thereby strengthen the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance. The bill has three main facets:

• To strengthen the monitoring and evaluation program of USAID by creating an “internal evaluation and knowledge center” and reinforce the partnership between USAID and the State Department to make sound decisions relating to development.
• To coordinate all U.S. agencies that have a role in foreign assistance by promoting information sharing and appointing a Mission Director at USAID to coordinate all development and humanitarian assistance within all countries where the U.S. works.
• To create a high-level task force at USAID and increase training within USAID and other U.S. development programs to alleviate the disorganization that has arisen with increased funding and decreased staffing at USAID.

McPherson, Sachs and Beckmann spoke very highly of this bill and were in agreement with the idea that the U.S. must increase their capacity in foreign assistance through higher level leadership and monitoring and evaluation. If these steps are taken, USAID will become an effective long-term development agency rather than the short-term disaster relief organization, which it has evolved to in recent years according to Senator Kerry.

Jeffrey Sachs had many strong words of advice to the United States development community. He stated that the framework of development assistance should focus on agriculture, healthcare, education, infrastructure, small business development and climate change, emphasizing that progress on these issues will promote resources which would in turn reestablish law and order in countries like Kenya where it is lacking.

Rev. Beckmann mentioned that the American people value aid reform and increased resources to developing countries, even in hard economic times. He praised ONE along with other NGOs for reaching out to members to voice these opinions and encourage their representatives to support initiatives such as the Water for the World Act and the Global Food Security Act.

- Leah Moriarty

Late last week, hundreds of ONE members called to urge Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee to ask questions about global poverty during Hillary Clinton’s Secretary of State confirmation hearing.

Some of those senators didn’t even get a chance, because Secretary-designate Clinton answered their questions before they could be asked. Her opening statement featured a long section on the two billion people worldwide living on less than $2 a day. She emphasized that the plight of the poor is “not marginal to our foreign policy but integral to accomplishing our goals.”

Opening remarks by Senator John Kerry (Massachusetts) also included a strong statement about the ongoing global hunger crisis. “The United States is uniquely situated to help the world feed itself and has the opportunities to recast its image by making the eradication of hunger a centerpiece of United States foreign policy,” he said.

In the subsequent question-and-answer period, ten out of fifteen of the Foreign Relations Committee Senators raised issues related to ONE issues, including these:

- Senator Bob Corker (Tennessee) asked about reforming and modernizing U.S. foreign aid, referring to the “maze of aid efforts that are underway” and the need for the State Department to examine and streamline these efforts.

- Senator Barbara Boxer (California) stated that “HIV, AIDS, tuberculosis — Africa, Asia, Latin America need our attention,” and went on to describe the persecution of women in the developing world.

Clinton responded with this assurance: “I want to pledge to you that as Secretary of State I view these issues as central to our foreign policy, not as adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser than all of the other issues that we have to confront.”

- Senator George Voinovich (Ohio) inquired about how “smart power” — (more…)

Great report back from Ross of SetonHall University of ONE students and members lobbying Senator Robert Menendez last Monday.

“Last week the luck of the Irish was with the ONE Campaign. New Jersey members of ONE and our partner organization CARE met with Senator Robert Menendez to discuss his support for several anti-poverty bills going through Congress. For my part in the meeting I thanked the senator for co-sponsoring and voting for the Biden/Lugar amendment to the FY09 international affairs budget which, as many of you might know, restored $4.1 billion dollars…”

Read the rest on the ONE Campus Challenge Blog.