What We’re Reading
Senate panel clears $52.1B foreign operations spending bill – The Senate Appropriations panel cleared a $52.1 billion spending bill for foreign aid and operations on Tuesday, passing 4-1, with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) objecting. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) “praised the bipartisan nature of the bill . . . in particular the funding for the State Department’s proposed $770 million incentive fund for the Middle East and North Africa.” The Senate bill is $2.6 billion below President Obama’s request and $1.2 billion below the fiscal 2012 level. (The Hill, Julian Pecquet)
Report uncovers funding gaps for food security – The Camp David Accountability Report indicates the “donors are big on pledges, but slow on disbursements.” Of the G8 countries, only Canada, the United Kingdom and Italy have fulfilled their financial pledges under the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative, and investment plans for countries with agriculture investment plans suffer from a 50 percent funding gap. (Devex, Jenny Lei Ravelo)
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Late for School After a Long Journey for a Drop to Drink – In Niger, “a sunbaked land where drought occurs with alarming frequency, a major impediment to education is thirst and the long trek required to quench it.” In the past ten years, there have been three serious food shortages in Niger related to low rainfall and insect attacks, and this year almost a third of the population is facing hunger. 80 percent of the population in Niger has no running water, and while everyone worries about the lack of water, it is the children, primarily girls, who are taken out of school to find it. (NYTimes, Adam Nossiter)
Meet the GUTS – The financial crisis has created a “two-speed West,” with four countries – Germany, South Korea, Turkey, and the United States actually increasing their international influence, while the remaining countries are stuck in a rut. Britain, France, Italy, and Japan are struggling to recover from the financial crisis, and unlike the rest of the “rising West . . . they have not compensated for economic weakness with bold advances in other areas.” Britain has the best chance to join the rising West, as “its leadership of the G-8 next year offers an opportunity to demonstrate some of its old flair for global leadership.” (Foreign Policy, Bruce Jones and Thomas Wright)
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The Next Asia is Africa: Inside the Continent’s Rapid Economic Growth – Africa’s population is expected to double by mid-century, and has become recognized as the world’s fastest growing continent. In the past ten years, “Africa’s overall [economic] growth rates have quietly approached those of Asia.” While the continent is famously resource rich, “the biggest drivers are far less customary for Africa, and far more encouraging for its future: wholesale and retail commerce, transportation, telecommunications, and manufacturing.” (The Atlantic, Howard W. French)
G8 pledges to lift 50 million Africans out of poverty – G8 leaders pledged on Saturday to “lift millions of Africans out of poverty by prompting investments in sustainable agriculture” as they launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition to “accelerate the flow of private capital to African agriculture, take to scale new technologies and other innovations that can increase sustainable agricultural productivity, and reduce the risk borne by vulnerable economies and communities.” The initiative will “be guided by ‘a collective commitment to invest in credible, comprehensive and country-owned plans.’” (AFP)
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The best story in development – According to a new World Bank study, “16 of the 20 African countries which have had detailed surveys of living conditions since 2005 reported falls in their child-mortality rates,” and the decline in African child mortality is still speeding up. Gabriel Demombynes, of the World Bank’s Nairobi office, explained that a “combination of broad economic growth and specific public-health policies, notably the increase in the use of insecticide-treated bed nets” to prevent malaria have been critical in reducing child-mortality. (The Economist)
Opinion: Promise Keepers – At the L’Aquila summit, Obama “rallied his fellow leaders of the world’s poorest nations to make a promise: If poor countries came up with good plans to help poor farmers grow more and earn more, rich countries would make it happen.” This approach ensured the delivery of aid in the more effective way possible and promoted country ownership and accountability. At Camp David, the G8 needs to “forge ahead . . . with specific, measurable funding and policy commitments.” (Foreign Policy, Raymond C. Offenheiser)
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Africa must end hunger to sustain growth – U.N. – The United Nations Development Program said on Tuesday that “Africa needs to boost agricultural productivity and address the debilitating hunger that affects 27 percent of its populations if it is to sustain its economic boom.” The report highlighted that “investment in agricultural productivity was important not only for reducing hunger but also in creating jobs for Africa’s rapidly growing population.” (Reuters, Katy Migiro)
Business, NGO leaders join hands to push progress on health goals – The MDG Health Alliance is a new private-sector led global effort to improve health in developing countries that will be launched on May 15. The organization was convened by the U.N. secretary-general’s special envoy for malaria, Raymond Chambers. The alliance “seeks to work with the United Nations, nonprofit organization and other stakeholders to support efforts to boost progress toward meeting health-related MDGs.” (Devex, Ivy Mungcal)
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18% Of Deaths Among Under 5s Caused By Pneumonia Globally – According to new research from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an international team of experts, “of the 7.6 million deaths worldwide among children under 5 years of age in 2010, 18% were caused by pneumonia, while 14% were the result of a complication of a preterm birth.” Senior author Robert Black, MD, MPH explained that “even though total deaths among under 5s worldwide dropped from 2000 to 2010, in order to reach the Millennium Development Goal, the decline will need to be steeper.” (Medical News Today, Christian Nordqvist)
Canada pledges $114M for Africa – The Canadian International Development Agency has pledged $114.2 million Canadian dollars in humanitarian aid to Africa. The funds will “be used to address food insecurity and malnutrition, and improve people’s livelihood and access to safe drinking water” and to meet the needs of refugees in the area. (Devex, Jenny Lei Ravelo)
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PM: DR Congo Can Cut Poverty in Half by Exploiting Agriculture – Prime Minister Matata Ponyo Mapon of the Democratic Republic of Congo says that “the country could halve its poverty rate in the next five years by exploiting its vast agricultural potential.” Prime Minister Ponyo explained that “if the agricultural sector could increase its growth rate to 6%, then the rate of absolute poverty in the country could be cut by 50 percent by 2017.” One of the conditions for achieving this growth rate will be the donors allowing the government to should its own responsibilities. (VOA, Nick Long)
Expanding the Focus from Relief to Resilience – Over the past year, 13.3 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia suffered from a crisis as a result of a severe drought in the Horn of Africa. The international community spent over $1.5 billion in aid that provided million with access to food, water and basic health services. Droughts can’t be prevented, but they “can be predicted and mitigated thanks to investments made in early warning systems, satellite technology and on-the-ground analysis,” but in order to give “help with lasting impact we must expand our focus from relief to resilience.” (Huffington Post, Dr. Kristalina Georgieva and Dr. Rajiv Shah)
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