The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has just issued a statement regarding Dr. Rajiv Shah, President Obama’s selection to be the next USAID Administrator. You can read ONE’s take on the pick here.

Gates Foundation statement:

The selection of Dr. Rajiv Shah as the next administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) demonstrates a commitment to providing strong, evidence-based, effective U.S. foreign assistance. We have worked closely with Raj for several years and know he will bring the same commitment, intelligence and visionary management style to USAID.

Raj was an important part of the foundation’s leadership and played a key role in our efforts on global health and agricultural development. In global health, he worked to promote the development and distribution of vaccines, which are the most cost-effective public health investments we can make. He also helped develop and implement a strategy aimed at breaking the cycle of hunger and poverty by providing small farmers in the developing world with the tools and opportunities to boost productivity, and build better lives for themselves and their families. We are confident that he will bring the same rigor, innovation and belief in the transformative power of foreign assistance and sustainable development to USAID, and we look forward to working with him.

The Obama administration today nominated Rajiv Shah, a medical doctor and current under secretary for research, education and economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to become the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The announcement ends months of speculation and frustration about the still-vacant development post and comes on the heels of a Senate resolution introduced by Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Ben Cardin (D-MD) to empower and strengthen USAID that passed last night by unanimous consent.

Senator Durbin said of the Increasing America’s Global Development Capacity Act (S.355), “Foreign development assistance is as critical to America’s standing in the world as diplomacy and defense.” He added that “as our development assistance grows, so does the need for an influential and transformative administrator at USAID.” Dr. Shah’s nomination helps answer who may at long last lead USAID. Nearly 300 days into the new administration, members of the development community had grown impatient that the White House had yet to appoint an administrator for USAID despite strong campaign commitments from Obama to “elevate, streamline and empower a 21st century U.S. development agency.”

Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lugar (R-IN), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had also sent a letter to President Obama in September underscoring the need to appoint a USAID administrator expeditiously. Representatives Gary Ackerman (D-NY), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) circulated a “Dear Colleague” letter to the entire House of Representatives calling for the naming of an United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator immediately. Members of the development community had even taken to voting on polls see here on who could fill the vacancy. Dr. Shah’s was confirmed by the Senate in May for his current position at USDA, which should help avoid further vetting or other delays on his way to being confirmed as USAID administrator.

Suffice to say, there is much applause for the long-awaited nomination of a USAID administrator. We are now eager to ensure there is a swift confirmation process so that the new administrator is in place as quickly as possible and able to inform and shape the host of global development and foreign aid policy efforts currently underway at the White House, State Department and in Congress. Senator Dodd, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said:

If U.S. development policy and, by extension, U.S. foreign policy is to succeed in the long run, USAID must be an independent body that can advocate for what it knows best—how to effectively deliver and implement U.S. foreign assistance. It must have a meaningful seat at the table…It has long been understood that international development is a critically important aspect of our foreign policy. It was high time we matched this reality with a real and meaningful commitment.

Having a USAID administrator in place is obviously a huge step in the right direction. Making sure that he has the tools, authority, and resources to meaningfully engage in the Presidential Study Directive on U.S. Global Development Policy, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the bipartisan Senate Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act of 2009, and the promised rewrite of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act by House Foreign Affairs Committee becomes the next task at hand.

See ONE’s press release with more reactions to the nomination.

Sources are saying that the Obama administration will nominate Rajiv Shah, a medical doctor and current under secretary for research, education and economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to become the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. The announcement would end months of speculation and frustration about the still-vacant position and comes on the heels of a Senate resolution introduced by Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Ben Cardin (D-MD) to empower and strengthen USAID that passed last night by unanimous consent.

We’re still waiting for the official White House announcement and will have more news then.

I just wanted to drop a quick update about USAID’s efforts to provide immediate relief to the ongoing food crisis in Ethiopia. As you may know, Ethiopia and other countries in the Horn of Africa have been hit especially hard by the rise in food and fuel prices and drought. In July, the UN warned that more than 14 million people in the region are in need of emergency food aid, with 10.3 million in Ethiopia alone. This new U.S. shipment is an important step in meeting Ethiopia’s urgent food needs and should be accompanied by new investments in agricultural productivity to target long-term food security and help Ethiopia become self-sufficient.

Excerpt below, full piece here.

The shipment includes 9,390 MT of split yellow peas, 6,150 MT of vegetable oil, 6,320 MT of corn soy blend, and 1,400 MT of wheat flour, the agency said in a statement.

“This is only one of multiple strategies USAID is implementing to alleviate impacts of the world food crisis in that region and elsewhere around the world”, it said.

Accordingly, USAID’s Office of Food for Peace plans to provide over 1 million MT of food, valued at more than $857 million, to Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti in fiscal year 2008 in response to the drought emergency affecting the Horn of Africa.

-Chris Scott

The United States has recently given $91 million in emergency food funds and $21 million in humanitarian aid to Ethiopia, one of the countries hardest hit by the food crisis.

From AllAfrica.com:

According to press statement from the US embassy in Addis Ababa , the donation was in response to Ethiopian government’s revised June 2008 Humanitarian Requirement Report.

This new donation coupled with last month’s announcement of $80 million in emergency assistance brings the total US assistance in response to the drought to [nearly] $200.

“The donations have come in response to continuing humanitarian needs in Ethiopia, where poor end erratic rainfall distribution, high food prices, ongoing conflict, arid limited humanitarian access have negatively impacted food, water, and pasture availability, resulting in increased malnutrition rates, food and water shortage, and heavy loss of livestock,” the statement said.

A majority of the funds will be divided between non-governmental organizations already performing on-the-ground relief work, such as UNICEF and the International Rescue Committee. Through their work, the funds are expected to help over 1 million people, including over 50,000 malnourished children.

-Betsy Avila

Last week the World Food Program held talks to discuss how to ration critical international food aid, this week, the USAID is doing the same.

The soaring price of basic foods – like wheat, corn, rice and other cereals – over the past half year is creating a funding deficit likely to reach $200 million by the end of 2009. USAID currently provides food to almost 40 countries and areas – including Ethiopia, Iraq, Somalia, Honduras and Sudan’s Darfur region. Now the agency must decide how and where to scale back.

From this weekend’s Washington Post:

“USAID officials said the administration, facing a tight budget year, was not planning to request funds to cover the projected $200 million shortfall from the price increases. USAID purchases grains in the same domestic commodities market as the U.S. companies that serve up Wonder bread or Big Macs, meaning they pay the same high market rates. As a result, officials said, the program cuts are necessary. “At this point, this is the administration’s request,” Borns said yesterday…

Frank Orzechowski, an adviser for Catholic Relief Services, said his organization has calculated that U.S. food aid would drop from 2.6 million tons last year to about 2.2 million this year. “That is going to be a pretty big hit for the people who can afford it the least,” he said.

“The biggest concern is that there are going to be more people being pushed into food insecurity in poor countries because they don’t have the purchasing power to cover higher costs, and we will be less rather than more prepared to cope with that. Higher commodity prices is not a situation that the U.S. is to blame for, but we are going to need to see it step up now and decide to make a greater contribution anyway.”

The full article here.

-Virginia Simmons

When I started working for the ONE Campaign in 2005 I had just come back from a year in Ghana, working on small-scale economic community development projects. Working for ONE, and advocating for ONE’s core issues, it was very real to me that we were working to help families support themselves through life-saving medicines, important clean water and hygiene programs, and through creating economic opportunities by making trade more fair – the kinds of things that people in Ghana desperately needed.

Now, I am back in Africa – Nigeria, this time, and again working on a community development project – the Gwaimen Center, a community-based sustainability center to support widows and orphans in Kwoi, Nigeria. Now that things have come full circle, I am now seeing the fruits of ONE’s arduous labors.

During my first week here, we stopped at a clinic in Kagoro to visit a friend. One of the first things that I noticed was this sign. “USAID had been here – from the American people.”

I suddenly had the clearest image of members of ONE’s amazing dedicated staff (whom I miss greatly!), ONE volunteers from around the country, and the 2.4 million ONE supporters, calling their leaders and asking them to support important initiatives like this. ONE is on the front lines – fighting for things that make a difference in the lives of people in other countries – from the American people.

I’ve only been here two weeks, so will continue to send stories from the ground!

-Anne Batchelder, ONE member, former ONE Deputy Field Director, and founder of the Gwaimen Center in Kwoi, Nigeria