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.
Last night UK Prime Minister David Cameron issued a strong defense of UK aid and development policy during his Mansion House speech on foreign policy. In a wide-ranging address on “Foreign Policy in the National Interest” Cameron took on the “pessimists” who have called for Britain to pull back from its aid commitments:
“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…”
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.
So many of us in DC are beginning to get a little too used to the grinding partisanship and divides that we often miss good news when it comes through. Yesterday morning, Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners and member of President Obama’s White House faith advisory committee, and Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention and former supporter of President George W. Bush, sat down on on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program to talk about the moral issues facing the 2012 election. Joe Scarborough opens up with a joke, expecting Rev. Wallis and Dr. Land to come into the studio wearing boxing gloves, since they disagree about a lot. But when it comes to fighting global poverty, both Wallis and Land agree: We must maintain our commitments to the world’s poorest people.
As shown by constantly improving infographics, social media updates and countless other innovative methods of reporting from the ground that have grown over the past few years, the nature of tracking development funding and foreign aid transparency is rapidly improving.
We often see our money at work; however, though we have previously used maps to track a number of other factors related to Africa’s development, visualizing the towns, villages and schools for which aid is destined often remains difficult. Without the opportunity to see exactly where our money ends up, it is harder to fully grasp the magnitude of need, as well as the impact that certain projects can have on communities in real time. However, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and AidData have recently published an interactive map that successfully combats this issue.
Please give a warm welcome to Suzane Muhereza, one of our new fall interns. She is working at the ONE office in London and will be assisting the policy team.
People taking control of their own development?
To coincide with its Annual Meetings, the World Bank recently published a report on Open Development, an idea whose time has come. The idea is best captured in the contribution by Rakesh Rajani –- a member of ONE’s Africa Policy Advisory Board and the head of Twaweza -– who explains that “the purpose of development should be not to create and apply expert solutions, but rather to help enrich the conditions in which people can do more of what they already do well. By making it easier to get, compare and share information; learn from each other and from outsiders how they have made things work; search, experiment with and craft solutions; and team up to get things done.” (See also Rakesh Rajani’s inspirational comments at the launch of the Open Government Partnership -– 52 minutes into the video. Or, see a transcript of the talk here.) I explore the concept of Open Development by answering three key questions.
Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Last week, the Senate voted on an amendment sponsored by Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., that proposed a nearly $7 billion cut from both State Department and USAID accounts to offset domestic disaster relief funding. Voted on within hours of its introduction, the amendment was a short-sighted attempt to address a funding problem, and would have undermined America’s support for helping those in need both at home and abroad.
Right now, some of the world's biggest oil companies are fighting to keep some of their deals with foreign governments secret. Let's tell big oil we won't be bullied.
Cuts to poverty-fighting programs won't balance the budget, but they will set back progress on Canada's development priorities and risk jeopardizing existing investments.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
People taking control of their own development?
