As a constituent and on behalf of ONE I had the opportunity recently to meet with Peter Braid, Conservative Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.

Mr. Braid had recently returned from a trip to South Sudan as part of his role as the vice chair of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, the main purpose of which is to discuss trade, aid and strengthen ties with African parliamentarians. During this trip, and on previous trips to Africa, Mr. Braid has seen firsthand the benefits of Canadian foreign aid. We discussed my involvement in the Griot Project, and my recent trip to Washington this past December to participate in #ONErocksDC, a lobby day on Capitol Hill and the White House with ONE.

SEE ALSO: #ONErocksDC on Capitol Hill and in the White House

I provided Mr. Braid with a Living Proof brochure and ONE armband and shared some of the issues that ONE is very passionate about including encouraging the governments of both Canada and the US to NOT make any cuts to their foreign aid budgets, the benefits of childhood vaccinations and ensuring that no child is born with HIV/AIDS by 2015. I directed him to the recent petition on the ONE website in which Canadians are encouraged to ask Prime Minister Harper to protect the Canadian foreign aid budget –- you can sign the petition here.

I expressed my pride as a Canadian that my own government has been supportive of these issues as evidenced by the $1.1 billion in funding for the Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, in addition to pledging to maintain current funding levels of $1.75 billion over five years for similar initiatives. I expressed my concern for any threat to the foreign aid budget and my desire that Prime Minister Harper would honor his commitment to the world’s poor and most vulnerable and not make any cuts to these important programs. Mr. Braid was appreciative of the work of the ONE Campaign and expressed his support of our endeavors.

-Sarah Stone, ONE member

A homeless veteran in Boston asked President Obama why the US should be spending so much on foreign aid when so many Americans are hurting at home. Obama responded, “We only spend about 1 percent of our budget on foreign aid. But it pays off in a lot of ways.” It goes toward helping countries improve their economies and prevent famine, avoiding “some military crisis somewhere down the road that could be even more expensive.”

He goes on to say, “So, aside from it being the right thing to do, as a very wealthy country… it’s also important to make sure that people understand this is part of our overall security strategy.”

Listen to his quote here:

ONE members were asked last week to vote on a question on the beginning of the end of AIDS from ONE member and University of Florida student Liz, but it was not chosen for Obama’s Google+ event. We will continue to keep HIV/AIDS on the president’s radar at events like this one and beyond.

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Sliding in just before the holidays, the OECD-DAC released its final update to the 2010 data on official development assistance (ODA) flows. The DAC — or, Development Assistance Committee — is a grouping of the world’s wealthiest donor countries. It tracks donor spending on development finance and helps coordinate development policy globally to improve spending practices.

The adjusted numbers released in December 2011 reflect final spending by countries in 2010, updating the preliminary figures released in April, and what ONE used in the 2011 DATA Report monitoring the G7’s commitments to Africa. As such, we can look at these numbers as the final report for how the G7 countries met their 2005 Gleneagles commitments to increase development assistance to Africa.

Based on the preliminary figures, ONE’s DATA Report found that the G7 delivered 61 percent of the Gleneagles commitments for sub-Saharan Africa. The final figures show that in fact the G7 delivered 60 percent of their total promises. The difference was mostly due to Japan, Italy, the UK and the US all delivering lower amounts of ODA than they originally reported in April. However, despite the revised figures, there were no changes in whether or not a country met its Gleneagles commitments. Net of bilateral debt relief, the G7 delivered a total of $28.5 billion of ODA to sub-Saharan Africa in 2010.

Here’s a quick snapshot of how each of the G7 members fared.

Although the Gleneagles promises have now passed their due date, some countries (like those in the EU) have commitments to increasing development assistance that extend until 2015. For those countries we will continue to monitor how they deliver on their promises. And for countries that no longer have future targets, we will be pushing for greater commitments to help Africa achieve the millennium development goals by 2015.

At around just 2 percent of the annual federal budget, Canadian foreign aid is achieving real results in the lives of the world’s poor. From providing life-saving vaccines and treatment for deadly diseases, providing food aid to reduce starvation, to investing in agriculture and farming to fight poverty and hunger, it is making a massive difference.

But Canada’s spending on international development has been frozen for some time, and there are now discussions to cut that budget even more as the government looks for ways to reduce the deficit.

Please join me in calling on the Canadian government to protect critical international development funding.

The petition reads:

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

As you make what are difficult choices for the 2012-2013 federal budget, please protect critical international development funding that saves lives and helps the world’s poor pull themselves out of poverty.

Cuts to programs that fight global poverty won’t balance the budget, but they will risk slowing progress on Canada’s international development priorities and the success of existing programs that make a real difference to people in developing countries.

Please join me in taking action today.

Thanks for all you do.

During my 20 years in the Marine Corps reserves, including two tours in Iraq and one in Bosnia, I learned deep lessons about the awesome capabilities — and realistic limits — of American military power.

A strong military is key to American security, but military alone cannot solve all of our challenges. America needs stable friends and allies worldwide able to help us prevent and eliminate these threats.

The only way to gain and maintain such allies is through international development, and that’s why I’m proud to be a part of the Make US Strong campaign. International development stabilizes and secures nations. It makes them resilient to civil war, terrorism, disease and international trafficking of humans, drugs and guns. This lesson isn’t new though; it was first learned by the men and women of the Greatest Generation with the Marshall Plan. It’s never enough to fight wars and turn our backs. We must rebuild, strengthen our relations, generate goodwill and make collapsed states safe for democracy.

A few weeks ago, other veterans and I participated in ONE’s Advocacy Day on foreign assistance. We joined community, campus and business leaders from across the country to tell Congress that international development promotes stability and protects lives around the globe, and thereby keeps America safe from global threats. While meeting with my congressman, I was reminded of the time I recently spent in Uganda working as a civilian for the Pentagon. I met with a number of female Congolese human rights activists who had snuck hundreds of miles through the jungles and across the border into Uganda in the hope of meeting with a representative of the United States. They told me, “America is our only hope.” These activists certainly didn’t want American military intervention. They needed development programs to support building a stable, prosperous country, one that they could be proud of. America was the last and only hope for their fractured world.

Our leaders need to know and believe in these stories. When we live up to these expectations and hopes, it has positive consequences. When our development policies reflect our values, it makes America –- and the world -– strong.

Time and again, terrorist plots are foiled because of the cooperation of governments and societies in the world’s most desperate places that are strengthened by our investment in their stability and security. Help us spread this important message.

ONE is one of the few organizations that has the ability to unify voices from across the country in standing strong for international development. As a member of the Make US Strong campaign, thank you for allowing me to be a part of this important day.

-Jonathan Morgenstein, fellow, The Truman National Security Project

Positions and viewpoints are Jonathan’s alone and photos do not indicate endorsement of these views by the US Department of Defense or United States Marine Corps

This week, five former Secretaries of State, representing both Democrats and Republican administrations, sent a letter to Congress raising concerns about additional cuts to diplomacy and development programs in the FY12 appropriations. Former Secretaries Madeleine Albright, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz wrote they “have seen first‐hand how the International Affairs Budget is a strategic investment to advance America’s interests throughout the world” and urge members of Congress to oppose devastating cuts to these vital programs.

At a time when the State Department and USAID are taking on increased responsibilities in Iraq and Afghanistan as our troops come home, when new democracies are forming across North Africa and the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring, and as millions are suffering from hunger due to famine in the Horn of Africa, International Affairs programs represent a cost-effective investment to protecting US national security, boosting economic opportunity for US businesses, and promoting America’s humanitarian values.

Unfortunately, the International Affairs Budget has already shouldered deep cuts this year, and it remains vulnerable to further cuts in the FY12 conference negotiations. Although only 1.4 percent of the federal budget, International Affairs programs shouldered 17 percent of overall cuts to discretionary spending in FY11. If House FY12 levels are adopted, cuts to non-war related diplomacy and development programs would total 20 percent over two years — the steepest since the Cold War.

We at the US Global Leadership Coalition are deeply concerned about the effects of these potential cuts on America’s global engagement. The cuts facing the International Affairs Budget represent potentially devastating consequences this country cannot afford. As the five former Secretaries of State write, “Now is not the time for America to retreat from the world, which is why we need a strong and effective International Affairs Budget. This is one area where leaders of both parties can find common ground and come together to ensure a better, safer world and a more prosperous future.”

Molly Lester is the Government Relations Associate at the US Global Leadership Coalition.

When the ONE intern team went to Capitol Hill a couple of weeks ago to deliver your signatures from our petitions to the Senate, I know that we were all struck by the power that your names can have on decisions made by Congress.

With this in mind -– and with foreign aid currently at risk of devastating cuts –- we began to think of ways to remind our senators that with just 1 percent of the federal budget, the US can save millions of lives every year. Soon enough, we had our event: ONE Photo for Foreign Aid. Partnered with the ONE Campus Challenge (OCC) chapter at George Washington University here in DC, we had the chance to talk about the importance of preserving foreign aid and offered complimentary hot cocoa (complete with whipped cream and marshmallows, of course!) to everyone willing to stop and take a picture in our photo booth in support of our petition.

Thrilled by the great response we received from everyone involved, we took more than 120 photos of students and staff against the cuts in just three hours, and discussed ONE’s work in fighting extreme poverty with many more.

To generate an even greater buzz, we also gave other OCC chapters across the country the opportunity to run their own photo booth petitions as part of their third challenge of the semester. As with all their projects, the enthusiastic responses of campus leaders from Michigan to Florida to Wisconsin have been fantastic, reminding us all that with our members’ support, there is so much we can achieve.

Take a second to check out all our photos from the event on our ONE Photo Booth Flickr account. And be sure to stay tuned for more updates -– we’ll be delivering all our photos to Congress before they vote on the budget next week.

“I believe in the moral argument for aid…that we have obligations to the poorest in the world but I also believe that it is in our national interest. Isn’t it better to help stop countries disintegrating – rather than end up dealing with the consequences for our own country: immigration, asylum, terrorism? Aid can help us avoid crises before they explode into violence, requiring immense military spending. And the answer to the legitimate concern that too much aid money gets wasted – isn’t to walk away. It’s to change the way we do development. By 2015 UK aid will secure schooling for more children than we educate in the UK but at one-fortieth of the cost. And we will help vaccinate more children against preventable diseases than there are people in the whole of England. That’s the kind of aid I believe in…”

ONE Europe Director Adrian Lovett welcomed the speech last night. He said:

“The Prime Minister is right to place aid at the heart of modern British foreign policy. Aid costs just over a penny in each pound of government spending — a tiny proportion of what is spent on things like the NHS and benefits. Well spent aid is obviously in the interests of people living in extreme poverty, but it’s very much in Britain’s national interest too. The UK is a world leader on international development. Now it needs to use its muscle to bring other countries up to the mark too.”

Next week, the Senate will consider the State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs appropriations bill which funds the State Department and US foreign assistance programs. Our senators have the opportunity to reaffirm American leadership in fighting poverty and preventable diseases around the world by protecting the Senate funding levels contained in the bill against any amendments which would cut such funding.

ONE members and staff have been out in Washington and across the nation meeting with their senators and staff, urging them to fund life-saving programs at the highest level possible. Although the Senate bill funds these programs at levels below the President’s ask, it would allow the critical programs we champion to continue saving lives and ensuring American leadership around the globe.

While ONE’s government affairs team has been actively building support for the bill in the Senate, we cannot succeed without the help of every ONE member, their families and friends. We have to mobilize right away to stop the cutting of amendments which are expected to be offered. Please stay tuned to ONE.org to find out how you can help protect this bill in the coming days.

If you have any questions, please email me at ted.brennan@one.org or call me right away at 202-495-2762.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

On the first clip, Rev. Wallis and Dr. Land talk about how they agree on maintaining America’s commitment to beat back extreme poverty and voice their support for treatable, preventable disease. Then in much of the second clip, both Rev. Wallis and Dr. Land get specific about protecting malaria funding, AIDS funding like PEPFAR, as well as the Millennium Challenge. Joe even gets in on the conversation and connects all these things to the Bible. It’s good stuff and worth a look.