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International Violence Against Women Act of 2018 is Introduced

International Violence Against Women Act

On Feb. 15, 2018, Representative Janice Schakowsky of Illinois introduced the International Violence Against Women Act of 2018 to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The overarching goal of the bill is to stop violence against women, with a focus on women in other countries, particularly those who live in poverty.

Why the Bill is Necessary

The bill provides several alarming statistics to show that poverty and violence against women are closely intertwined, such as the fact that one out of three women around the world will face violence and abuse in her lifetime. Also, around 70 percent of women in other countries have said they have personally experienced gender-based violence in their life.

Violence, particularly sexual abuse toward adolescents and pre-adolescents, is significantly prevalent. Surveys in Swaziland, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Haiti showed that, on average, 28 to 38 percent of young girls and 9 to 18 percent of young boys said they had experienced sexual abuse before they were 18 years of age. Forced marriage of child brides is expected to occur to around 140,000,000 girls between 2011 and 2020. Furthermore, female genital mutilation/cutting has affected around 125,000,000 young girls and women alive today.

The Connection Between Violence and Poverty

However, these distressing statistics do not demonstrate the connection that exists between these forms of violence and poverty. The International Violence Against Women Act further notes that violence against women generally prevents women from engaging in their communities socially, economically and politically.

To be clear, the bill states that economies are affected because, around the world, women are often stuck working low-paying, insecure jobs where they are unable to have basic workers’ rights such as safe reporting systems, access to justice and legal and medical services. The subsequent lack of these rights and resources forces women in poverty to use dangerous methods in order to provide for themselves and their families, which often leads to them experiencing violence and abuse.

Furthermore, violence impacts a woman’s ability to work efficiently and be productive in the workplace and at home, which can hinder food production. As a result, this decreases food security and has the potential risk of subjecting women to more violence. The International Violence Against Women Act noted that research in India, Colombia, South Africa and Uganda found that women who have greater economic power and more control over economic assets are less likely to experience violence.

Strategies of the Bill

The bill aims to end violence against women in multiple ways. First, the bill will work through the continued implementation and monitoring of the United States Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally. This strategy was originally passed into law by President Obama in 2012 and was last updated in 2016. The strategy works in three ways:

  1. Prevention of gender-based violence through working closely with a country’s local organizations and civil society, which includes educating men about violence toward women.
  2. Protection for victims of violence by providing related services.
  3. Accountability to create justice for victims and improving legal and judicial systems so that aggressors face consequences for their crimes.

The second strategy described in the International Violence Against Women Act is adding amendments to The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, a law that affirms the U.S.’s goal of helping developing countries achieve security and stable economies. The bill adds amendments that specifically include gender-based violence into the law.

Lastly, the bill seeks the creation of the Office of Global Women’s Issues, to be added as a subset to the existing Secretary of State’s office in the Department of State. The role of the Office of Global Women’s Issues will be to generally promote gender equality and ensure that the status of women and girls around the world remains included in U.S. foreign policy.

– Jennifer Jones

Photo: Google

Why Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Quotes About Nonviolence Are Relevant

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s quotes about nonviolence
Although his main intent was to fight for the equality of African-Americans during the 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s quotes about nonviolence are still relevant today. As of 2017, Colombia, Yemen, El Salvador, Pakistan and Nigeria are the top five most dangerous countries in the world.

Colombia faces drug trafficking and frequent acts of terrorism. Pakistan is in the midst of a religious war in which innocent bystanders have become collateral damage. Nigeria is terrorized by two extremist groups, Boko Haram and ISIS of West Africa.

However, violence is not only a common trend in these countries but in a large percentage of the world. From the Caribbean to Africa and even parts of Asia, violence is an epidemic.

Violence is an ongoing cycle that is hard to break, and no one seems to have understood this more than Dr. King. He preached of the power and strength of nonviolent actions. He understood that peaceful protest and other nonviolent protests could strike real change.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Top Quotes about Nonviolence

  1. “In spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.”
  2. “We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts.”
  3. “Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.”
  4. “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”
  5. “Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one’s whole being into the being of another.”
  6. “World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point.”
  7. “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”
  8. “I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action.”
  9. “I am convinced that even violent temperaments can be channeled through nonviolent discipline, if they can act constructively and express through an effective channel their very legitimate anger.”
  10. “In the nonviolent army, there is room for everyone who wants to join up. There is no color distinction. There is no examination, no pledge, except that, as a soldier in the armies of violence is expected to inspect his carbine and keep it clean, nonviolent soldiers are called upon to examine their greatest weapons: their heart, their conscience, their courage and sense of justice.”

From Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s quotes about nonviolence, many have been and continue to be given the power to envision peace. If humans across the globe could comprehend Dr. King’s lesson, the world would finally be able to achieve peace.

– Cassidy Dyce

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

 

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How the US Benefits From Foreign Aid to Cambodia

U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Cambodia
In light of recent political events and President Trump’s “America First” agenda, many politicians are considering cutting spending on U.S. foreign aid. However, there are a number of ways that the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Cambodia, making foreign aid a wise investment. United States foreign aid to Cambodia is a very complex issue and must be treated as such.

The United States, by providing aid to foreign countries, fosters stability, revitalization and cooperation all over the world. Many countries compete to gain diplomatic and political influence around the globe through foreign aid spending. The U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Cambodia include fighting global warming and preventing the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria. Not only are these efforts morally good, they protect United States citizens from epidemics and disasters while stabilizing the economies and governmental relations of many countries around the globe.

Cambodia has been ravaged by wars, corruption and poverty in recent years. United States foreign aid has been effective at stabilizing the country, and since economic conditions have normalized, the United States has become the largest purchaser of Cambodian exports in the world. In 2017, the United States spent $88.52 million in Cambodia on foreign aid for health, education, economic growth, security, environmental protection and governance. Through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), many improvements have been made in Cambodia through the disbursement of foreign aid.

The U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Cambodia have manifested in preventing the spread of diseases, reducing crime and fostering economic development. An example of a program run by USAID in Cambodia is the ASSIST Project, in which the United States provides funding and advisors from health-related professions, ensuring that business models and medical practices are effective.

USAID also funds other programs such as the Country Development Cooperation Strategy to utilize resources that provide education and resources for a more efficient democracy in Cambodia. By promoting a stable government, the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Cambodia by reducing the risk of war or other conflicts that could involve the U.S. military or put American citizens in danger.

U.S. foreign aid also helps build schools for children to learn other languages, increase government involvement and promote human rights and civil liberties in Cambodia. Cambodians have also seen improvements in their health services, a reduction in preventable deaths and a rise in literacy rates as a result of U.S. foreign aid. Because of these improvements, Cambodians are better able to participate in the economy, which allows U.S.-Cambodian trade to continue to grow.

In conclusion, while foreign aid may seem like an unnecessary expense in modern times, it may be one of the most needed expenses our government has today. The people of Cambodia not only rely upon the United States for foreign aid, but reward the U.S. with cooperation and trade in return. For the people of Cambodia and many other countries around the world, U.S. foreign aid is an investment on which they depend on and one which the United States cannot afford to overlook.

– Dalton Westfall

Photo: Flickr

Biodigesters Reduce Indoor Air Pollution in Burkina Faso

indoor air pollution in Burkina Faso

Indoor air pollution from burning biomass is one of the 10 most significant threats to public health worldwide. Burkina Faso is one of the 21 countries most affected by indoor pollution. The country’s government has rolled out the National Biogas Program as part of its green economy initiative to reduce indoor air pollution in Burkina Faso.

Globally, more than three billion people cook with wood or charcoal. Exposure to indoor smoke from burning biomass is linked to pneumonia in children and chronic respiratory diseases in adults.

About 86 percent of Burkina Faso’s energy comes from burning biomass like firewood and charcoal. In rural areas, this percentage is often even higher. Approximately 16,500 deaths per year can be attributed to indoor air pollution in Burkina Faso.

The National Biogas Program has the potential to reduce indoor air pollution in Burkina Faso. The government of Burkina Faso, led by President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, is working in tandem with Dutch NGO Hivos and Dutch development organization SNV to install 40,000 biodigesters by 2024. The government of Burkina Faso subsidizes the biodigesters so that the technology is more affordable for poor households. 

Biodigesters are enclosed structures that break down animal dung and food waste into methane gas. The biogas can be piped into a stove for cooking. The nutrient-rich compost left over can be used as fertilizer. So far, 8,000 biodigesters have been installed.

Each biodigester creates 3.62 tons of CO2eq emission reduction per year. Transitioning to biodigesters is particularly impactful for women and children, who often spend hours collecting biomass to burn and who are typically responsible for household cooking. Biodigesters protect this vulnerable group from the harmful health effects of indoor air pollution in Burkina Faso.

Approximately 85 percent of Burkina Faso’s population lives in rural areas and works in agriculture. For these agrarian households, biodigesters produce economic benefits. Farmers with biodigesters produce natural, high-quality fertilizer, eliminating the need to buy chemical fertilizer. One 6m3 biodigester produces 20 tons of compost per year. 

Fields fertilized with slurry from biodigesters produce greater yields. The slurry also increases the soil’s capacity to hold rainwater, which is particularly important during droughts. 

Additionally, some regions of Burkina Faso have experienced wood scarcity. Biodigesters protect owners from increasing wood fuel prices.

Biodigesters also create tangible environmental benefits. About 46 percent of Burkina Faso’s territory suffers from soil degradation. Harvesting wood for energy has created a deforestation rate of 105,000 hectares per year. Biodigesters replace wood-burning stoves and thus reduce the amount of wood that must be harvested for energy each year. 

The U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism has issued the first carbon credits in Burkina Faso. The World Bank’s Carbon Initiative for Development (Ci-Dev) program is now purchasing carbon credits created by the biodigesters. Ci-Dev will purchase 540,000 certified emission reductions through 2024. This revenue stream is used to lower the price of biodigesters and to extend the warranty on the devices. With the numerous benefits of biodigesters, they are sure to have an impact not only on air pollution in Burkina Faso, but on may aspects of its people’s livs.

– Katherine Parks

Photo: Flickr

Working Through Disparate Economics of North Korea Poverty

North Korea poverty
Despite constant attempts by the North Korean government to delegitimize critics of the country’s severe living conditions and human rights violations, the dire status of its economy is one of the main causes of the consequent rise of North Korea poverty. Such steep levels of economic discomfort and overall hardship in everyday living stems from two main factors, namely the closeness of North Korean economy, and its strict and draconian political system.

A Closer Look

In a country where one in four children suffer from malnutrition, and episodes of defector citizens with parasites living in their stomach are reported, a closer look to the various economic sectors, industries and social relations can be very revealing. In terms of economic freedom, North Korea has been ranked 180th by the Heritage Foundation in 2018, preceded by Venezuela and followed by no one, effectively making it the least economically free country on the planet.

Moreover, there’s no detectable tax system since the government owns and directs virtually every aspect of the economy. As a result, a massive share of the GDP is in fact produced by the same entity that is supposed to tax it.

Regulatory pressure is also a crucial factor that contributes to increase North Korea poverty by tightening up the economy, which grew at an alarmingly slow rate in 2013 (1.1 percent) and in 2014 (1 percent), and decreased in 2015 (-1.1 percent).

Regulations and Shortages

Since private enterprise is virtually non-existent, strict regulations against any resemblance of a private sector are in place, a move thus rendering starting and managing a business practically impossible. The combination of all these factors makes North Korea very reluctant to produce wealth and increase its living standards, especially with the presence of continuous restrictions in international trade and economic sanctions.

Shortage of food and energy need to be compensated by international parties such as China, to which North Korea has grown increasingly more dependent over the last few years. However, a report from the North Korean Economic Watch observed that rice prices, contrarily to what one might have anticipated, have been remarkably stable over the past year.

With economic sanctions in place, it is well conceivable to expect a significant rise in inflation, especially in an overall and continuously poor economy such as that of North Korea.

Such phenomena led experts to believe that the rise of black markets might be the missing link behind such oddities; this would have reinforced, though, the simple yet harsh truth that the extremely high rate of North Korea poverty is a direct result of an economy that simply isn’t strong enough to provide basic and minimal items such as rice to its citizens and their standards of living.

New Rules

All of these instances occur while the government allocates a large amount of its attention and financial resources to the military and missile and nuclear development. This focus leaves primary industries such as agriculture on their own in addition to the high poverty rate and child malnutrition that North Koreans have to face every day.

Since South Korea officially withdrew its provision of farming fertilizers in 2008, the government started a program that delineates farmers are to use their own feces as fertilizers since livestock has became scarce.

Crop failure is also exacerbated by frequent inclement weather, lack of arable land and poor quality of the soil. Between these hardships and the use of human feces as fertilizer, health hazards have increased to the levels of large parasites growing in people’s intestines as a result of poor health.

The hope is that a significant increase of awareness and improved political and anti-poverty policies will help alleviate the seemingly perennial hardship that North Korean citizens have come to experience as normal.

– Luca Di Fabio

Photo: Flickr

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The Relationship Between Social Justice and Economic Justice

social justice and economic justice
There is an enduring and powerful relationship between social justice and economic justice. Social justice has many definitions. The most common definition, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is: “Justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities and privileges within a society.”

The definitions that are most applicable to alleviating poverty, however, are:

  • The idea that every person should have equal rights to basic liberties and needs, and inequalities should be arranged to the greatest benefit for those considered lowest in society.
  • From the Huffington Post: “…promoting a just society by challenging injustice and valuing diversity. It exists when all people share a common humanity and therefore have a right to equitable treatment, support for their human rights and a fair allocation of community resources.”

However, the current functioning of global society violates each of these definitions almost completely, and therefore expresses the lack of and need for social justice in all areas of the world, especially developing nations.

The United Nations Development Programme reports shocking statistics from poverty elimination research, detailing that as of 2000, there were 323 million people living on less than $1 a day, 185 million people who were undernourished and 273 million people without access to improved water sources in sub-Saharan Africa, the most impoverished region overall.

These harrowing numbers from sub-Saharan Africa were accompanied by information stating that 44 million primary age children were not in school, 23 million primary age girls were not in school, five million children under five years old were dying each year and 299 million people were without access to adequate sanitation. These statistics demonstrate that simple economic failure and injustice is not an isolated issue, but rather closely parallelled by social failure and injustice as well.

In contrast, the statistics from central and eastern Europe are staggeringly different. Only 21 million people were living on less than on $1 a day, only 33 million people were undernourished, only 29 million people were without access to improved water sources, only three million primary age children were not in school, only one million primary age girls were not in school, less than a million children under five years old were dying each year and an insignificant amount of people were without access to adequate sanitation as of 2000, so low that it was not even reported numerically.

As can be clearly seen, there is a direct correlation between social justice and economic justice, and a very large gap between developed nations and impoverished countries. The more economically impoverished a nation remains, the more social injustice thrives and prevails. The greater the poverty, the fewer people are given fair and equal access to basic needs and rights.  

To start fighting such global, national and statistical chasms and deprivations, the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals have started targeting social justice, specifically to help achieve the goals of:

  • Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger
  • Promoting gender equality and empowering women
  • Ensuring environmental sustainability

The hope is that the new information and educational awareness of the relationship between social justice and economic justice will kickstart the alleviation of poverty by focusing on the social injustices in each region and developing country to foster a new approach for decreasing poverty overall.

– Lydia Lamm

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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The Ways That the US Benefits From Foreign Aid to Chad

Relations with the United States and Chad began in 1960 following its independence from France. Over the past few decades, Chad has emerged from a half-century of regional conflicts and internal turmoil to pursue better governance and development. The U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Chad by recognizing the significant steps the country has taken after decades of instability.

The United States and Chad

The U.S. has supported the Chadian government in committing to more regional stability and security, and promoting human rights and the rule of law. The U.S. government hopes to pursue these goals through the State Department, diplomatic engagement and multilateral, regional and bilateral assistance programs.

Today, over half of Chad’s population lives in poverty and has experienced decades of conflict and instability. Chadians face one of the highest rates of maternal mortality, high infant mortality and life expectancies of fewer than 50 years in the world. Many of Chadians are food-insecure, meaning they do not have consistent access to the food they need for basic nutrition.

To address these issues, USAID has partnered with the U.N. World Food Program to distribute food to those in need. Also, the organization aids in providing money to hungry families and aid farmers by getting the seeds they need to produce more food.

U.S. Benefits from Foreign Aid to Chad

According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Chad by being its 95th largest goods trading partner with $931 million in total goods in 2016, and goods exported totaling $33 million. Chad was the United States’ 176th largest goods export, and top export categories included vehicles, machinery and electrical machinery.

U.S. total exports of agricultural products to Chad totaled $1 million, and Chad was the U.S.’s 78th largest supplier of goods imports in 2016; interestingly, U.S. goods imports from Chad totaled $899 million in 2016, down 31.1 percent from 2015. The U.S does not have an investment treaty or bilateral tax agreement with Chad, which is a partnership that could lead to better U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Chad in the future.

Uncertain Partnership

Recently, the Trump administration included Chad in Presidential Proclamation 9645 restricting travel from Chadians. The decision to include Chad in the “travel ban” occurred over the objections of the Pentagon and State Department.

Chad has been one of America’s more reliable counterterrorism allies in Africa. Chad has battled Islamic terrorists in the region, including offshoots of Al Qaeda and Boko Haram. Chad’s military has worked closely with Americans, playing host to exercises conducted by the United States.

Over the past decades, many top U.S military officials have talked about the importance of foreign aid and how it strengthens relations with countries around the world and national security. In 2011, senior Pentagon officials — including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Director of the CIA — argued before Congress in halting proposed cuts to America’s foreign aid budget.

The U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Chad by having a reliable ally in Africa to fight terrorism in the region and a strong trade partner to increase both nations’ economies. It remains to be seen how relations between Chad and the United States continue, but whatever the outcome, peaceful conversations are always preferable.

– Zak Ott

Photo: Flickr

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Ways to Get Involved: Eight Impactful Types of Advocacy Work

types of advocacy work
Advocacy can be done and acknowledged in many different forms. In simple terms, advocacy is the public support for particular causes and policies. The following list delineates eight types of advocacy work to help people worldwide, and some you can help with right from the comfort of your home. To support these programs and groups to continue their advocacy work, you can share their websites on social media, as well as donate and volunteer to their cause.

Eight Types of Advocacy Work

  1. Eastern Congo Initiative (ECI)
    Founded by Ben Affleck in 2010 the ECI works within the bounds of advocacy and public and private partnerships to help the people of the Eastern Congo. Its goals are to raise public awareness, promote policy change through the U.S. government, and help communities locally. Some of the types of advocacy work that ECI does daily are helping improve maternal and newborn health care, aiding the DRC security sector and creating more economic opportunities in the Eastern Congo.
  2. International Child Resource Institute (ICRI)
    ICRI is working to help improve the lives of children and families globally through education, empowerment, health care, children’s rights and community development. ECRI offers travel goals anyone can take so you can travel with a purpose. You can go to places such as The Great Wall of China, the Kakadu National Park in Australia and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and help fundraise for IRCI along the way; everything raised through the trips goes directly to the organization’s programs.
  3. ONE
    ONE is an advocacy group that fights and alleviates extreme poverty and preventable disease through public awareness. Due to ONE’s specific type of advocacy work, the group has been able to help over 110 million people; ONE takes on issues in disease, agriculture, energy, maternal and child health, water and education.
  4. Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF)
    AHF a nonprofit organization that helps people in over 39 countries fight against HIV/AIDS. Some of the types of advocacy work that AHF does include testing one billion people every year for HIV/AIDS, finding new cutting-edge medicine and discovering new ways to educate, treat and prevent further spread of the disease.
  5. Global Citizen
    Global Citizen is a movement that started in 2012 that aims to help fix the world’s most significant every-day challenges. Due to their types of advocacy work, Global Citizen has gotten over $30 billion in financial aid to help over one billion people worldwide; in addition, the organization gained 130 commitments and policy announcements from world leaders. Their ultimate goal is to end extreme poverty by 2030.
  6. Survival International
    Survival International works towards the global movement for tribal people’s rights. The goal is to help defend tribal people’s lives, protect their lands and allow them the autonomy to determine the course of their own futures.
  7. UNICEF: For every child
    UNICEF works in over 190 countries to help save children’s lives and defend their rights. The types of advocacy work UNICEF focuses on are education, child survival, child protection, equality for women and girls and innovation.
  8. Intern for The Borgen Project
    The Borgen Project offers five different types of internships which can be done right from home. The internships available are Public Relations/Marketing, HR, Writing, Journalism and Political Affairs. All of these internships can further help show the types of advocacy work both The Borgen Project and one intern can do.

With just these eight options, everyone has the opportunity to get and stay involved. Increased awareness and action can change the world, it’s just a matter of picking the cause you want to fight for.

– Amber Duffus

Photo: Flickr

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Increasing the Amount of French Foreign Aid in Africa

French Foreign Aid in Africa
France’s intimate relationship with Africa began in the 17th Century and, like other major European nations, ended after two consecutive World Wars. However, France stubbornly held on to territory in Morocco for years after the end of the wars; it was not until 1964, after a war nearly a decade long, that France relinquished its claim to the North African territory.

France’s Goals in Africa

Now, like other formal colonial powers, France has changed its goals in Africa. French foreign aid in Africa is now meant to help develop the world it left behind. In 2015, a representative from Oxfam France defended France’s bias to helping its former colonies “because the former French colonies in Africa are de facto the poorest countries in the world. There is a consistency in that decision.”

In 2009, France was the second largest donor of foreign aid in the world, only behind the United States. French foreign aid during these years was focused to two main areas — the Mediterranean Basin and Sub-Saharan Africa. French foreign aid in Africa was focused in five sectors: health, education, sustainable development, food security, and economic growth. In 2010, France was the third largest foreign aid donor.

It is also important to note that unlike other nations, France does not have one departement or governmental agency dedicated to the distribution of foreign aid; it instead relies on a multi-agency board to oversee its distribution.

Online Foreign Aid Resources

Due to the lack of a central agency to track French foreign aid in Africa, France launched a website to help citizens track projects. The website separates aid into eight different areas: environment and natural resources, agriculture and food security, outside sectors CICID, water and sanitation, education, productive sector, health and the fight against AIDS, infrastructure and urban development.

There is also an interactive map that allows anybody curious enough to look at projects in each of the 16 priority nations: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros Islands, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

French Agency for Development and Africa

An example of French foreign aid in Africa at work is the aid project currently underway in Madagascar. The French Agency for Development (AFD) has worked since 2013 in Madagascar to help locals live in harmony with the environment.

Slash-and-burn agriculture is still the most prominent technique for clearing forest, and the goal of this project is to help people learn other farming techniques to preserve the rainforest since using slash-and-burn agriculture in a society with a large population is not sustainable. Since December 2017, over 1.9 million euros have been spent on this particular project.

By simply clicking the water and sanitation tab, a user can find information about all French aid projects under this category. Of the 148 water and sanitation projects underway or completed, just over 120 of these projects are located in sub-saharan Africa. Projects range from improving water- and sanitation-provision infrastructure, to building entirely new systems. Maintaining old infrastructure is important as well, since poorly-kept human waste management systems can taint clean drinking water.

The Website

French foreign aid in Africa and around the world can be traced on the website. The map differentiates between three French foreign aid agencies, or societies, as they are referred to on the website. The largest is the aforementioned French Agency for Development, who leads the majority of these projects around the world.

According to the website, this organization is involved in over 2,500 projects in 108 different countries around the world. In 2016, the AFD hit the milestone of effectively using $9 million euros on over 600 different aid projects.

Due to political and public pressure, though, France slowly began fall behind on the list of the world’s top donors. In an act of compromise, France’s new President, Emmanuel Macron, has decided to once again increase France’s soft power footprint. In July of 2017, he announced that by 2022, .55 percent of the French GDP will be spent on foreign aid. This announcement was a U-turn on previous promises made by the President as a candidate.

GDP to Foreign Aid

OECD set a 0.7 percent of GDP goal for well-developed nations, and these countries are expected to reach this benchmark by 2030. According the the President, France is on the way to reach this goal. As more and more countries regain independent influence in the world, it will be important for France to show that it can compete if the nation wants to remain relevant on the international stage.

– Nick DeMarco

Photo: Flickr

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Global Food Security Reauthorization Act of 2018 Introduced to House

Global Food Security Reauthorization Act of 2018 Introduced to House Committee on Foreign Affairs
On February 27th 2018, Representative Chris Smith introduced a bill to reauthorize the Global Food Security Act for four years from 2018 through 2021.

The Original Law

The original Global Food Security Act, also introduced by Rep. Chris Smith, became a law in 2016. The law only lasted a year, and has since encountered difficulty being reintroduced.

The law sought to outline a clear approach for the United States’ foreign assistance, so that its role was not just to increase food security in developing countries (as the name of the bill suggests), but to also provide economic growth through sustainable agricultural means, increase nutrition and resilience, help women and children particularly to receive that nutrition and fight against hunger and poverty in general.

The bill became law in 2016 under then-President Obama, who said of the law at the White House Summit on Global Development: “No society can flourish, children can’t flourish if they’re going hungry. We can’t ask a child to feed her mind when she can barely feed her stomach.”

Senator Robert P. Casey Jr. attempted to reintroduce the law in 2017. The law was read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in December of that year, but never made it to a vote.

New Changes

Rep. Chris Smith’s Global Food Security Reauthorization Act of 2018 would add several amendments to the old law. The first change would be to one of the goals in the Statement of Policy Objectives. The new objective focuses on providing adequate nutrition to women and children, and increasing maternal and child health.

Aside from the goal of improving nutrition and encouraging more diverse diets, the 2018 version of the act would add a new emphasis on deworming programs. The second amendment includes The Inter-American Foundation in the list of relevant federal departments and agencies for the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act.

The last three changes update the language of the bill so that the act will extend from September of 2018 through 2021.

Foreign Assistance Act of 1961

Another addition to the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act of 2018 is that it amends the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to reflect the extension of the years to 2021.

The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 is a law that was originally signed by President John F. Kennedy in November of that same year. Its goal was to promote the United States’ general welfare, security and foreign policy through helping developing countries achieve security and a stable economy.

The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act of 2018 are both important not just for the benefit of developing countries, but also for achieving the best national security interest for the U.S. The original 2016 act states that helping developing countries by encouraging economic growth based on agriculture is an important step to end global poverty and hunger.

So far, the Global Food Security Reauthorization Act of 2018 has been referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. To help get this bill signed into law, you can use the Borgen Project’s website to contact your representative and encourage them to support it.

– Jennifer Jones

Photo: Flickr