Ukraine has faced ferocious political turmoil and civilian unrest in recent years, marked by war and corruption. Currently, it is crucial for Ukraine to continue its path to democracy. Congress must recognize how the U.S. benefits from humanitarian aid to Ukraine now more than ever. In the wake of recent cuts to foreign assistance in the 2018 and 2019 budget proposal, Ukraine’s stability depends on its American partnership.
For more than two-thirds of the twentieth century, Ukraine endured the oppressiveness of the Soviet Union. In 1991, Ukraine gained its independence, but it was plagued by deep-seated political corruption. This stronghold-tainted governance in Ukraine resulted in the imprisonment of its first female prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in 2011 and the exiling of its fourth president Viktor Yanukovich in 2014.
Not only has Ukraine suffered instability and corruption in its political arena, but dirty politics have bled through its microeconomics as well. For example, patients may have access to medical treatment, but they oftentimes must bribe doctors in order to get the treatment they really need. This deep-rooted corruption that permeates all levels of society and government in Ukraine has historically threatened foreign aid and investment.
Unfortunately, foreign interest is tightening its grip on the power of the purse. In a recent breakthrough, Ukraine’s largest foreign backers, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (E.U.), announced they will not lend to Ukraine without serious progress on key reforms, including the fight against corruption. The IMF is comprised of 189 countries working to promote sustainable economic growth, trade and global poverty reduction.
The upside is that corruption levels have actually begun to decrease. In recent years, Ukraine has taken long-term steps to fight against corruption, including implementing anti-corruption agencies in the judiciary, public procurement and state-owned enterprises. These are some incentives that Congress can rely on when weighing in on how the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Ukraine.
The U.S. has been the world’s only superpower since the fall of the Soviet Union. America as a superpower holds great influence, characterized by its far-reaching ability to exert influence on a global scale. So what are the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Ukraine?
The U.S. has much to gain from coordinating with donors to Ukraine. Undeniably, foreign aid has been historically used in policymaking as a means to gain international leverage. Assisting Ukraine with humanitarian and foreign aid helps promote U.S. policy objectives. Ukraine is situated between Russia and the NATO-affiliated European countries, a geostrategic location for both the U.S. and the E.U.
Foreign aid to Ukraine will also support nuclear security, a strong interest to global safety, despite much of Ukraine’s energy resources now coming from Europe. Establishing Ukraine’s own energy supplies will prevent Russia from making weapons of Ukraine’s energy resources in the future.
Additionally, remedying Ukraine’s medical industry under the Global Health Initiative (GHI) will significantly improve disease containment. GHI aims to improve public health and strengthen U.S. national security through detecting, preventing and controlling global disease. Agencies such as PEPFAR provide direct service and assistance in Ukraine to maximize the medical quality and coverage of the national HIV/AIDS response.
Lastly, the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Ukraine by assisting Ukrainians who suffer from the War in Donbass. In March of 2014, Russia responded to Ukraine’s distressed political state by invading and annexing Crimea, an Eastern Ukrainian territory, which has caused war and hurt Ukraine’s economic growth. This has created political, economic and social conflict, and is a direct result of the War in Donbas, home to Ukraine’s major mining industry.
The Trump administration recently approved a sale of lethal weapons to Ukraine. Political analysts believe that the public will see the sales as a principled signal that the United States will support its allies. This type of political leverage is a clear way the U.S. can benefit from its support to Ukraine. The move was made in light of ongoing requests by Ukrainian advocates as a result of the War in Donbass and supported by the fact that Ukraine was not the aggressor.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid in Ukraine (OCHA) has calculated that nearly 4.4 million Ukrainians are affected by the conflict in Donbas and 3.4 million are in need of humanitarian aid and protection. Now, more than ever, Ukraine needs humanitarian aid.
Because funding for humanitarian aid has been cut in 2018 and is projected to be cut again in 2019, the World Food Bank can only assist those affected by the War in Donbass. Yet, the rest of Ukraine suffers, as 23 percent of households will go without adequate food. Despite this, people in Eastern Ukraine are suffering the most from displacement, lack of medical care and food and subjectivity to war.
As the world’s only superpower since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which left Ukraine in disarray, the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Ukraine because it will help build confidence in the people suffering in Ukraine and promote the democracy Ukraine has struggled to achieve. When democracy is encouraged in the world, it is always an interest of the U.S.
– Alex Galante
Photo: Flickr
Global Citizen: Success Stories of the Global Poverty Project
Global Citizen has had success stories in these areas:
At the 2017 Global Citizen Festival, Accenture, Citi, Ernst & Young and Procter and Gamble committed to sourcing $100 million each through their supply chains from women-owned businesses, a majority based in developing countries.
In 2017, the Executive Director of the World Food Program (WFP), David Beasley, confirmed that $575 million of $990 million committed by Congress in May, helped by 49,291 actions taken by Global Citizen, was released to the WFP and others to immediately fight famine.
Over the past seven years, Global Citizen has taken 1.47 million actions to increase access to global health services, including HIV/AIDS treatment. These actions have led to 48 commitments by governments and are set to affect 626 million people by 2030.
In Feb. 2018, Global Citizen held the first Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Financing Conference hosted jointly by a G7 leader, French President Emmanuel Macron, and the president of a developing country, Macky Sall of the Republic of Senegal. The conference was held in Dakar, Senegal, to support $2.3 billion for education in developing countries. GPE’s global ambassador, Rihanna, was present and spoke as well.
At the Global Citizen Festival, Nigeria committed to getting 5.5 million people out of open defecation by the end of 2018.
In the wake of Hurricane Irma, the United Arab Emirates Minister of Climate Change and Environment committed $50 million on the Global Citizen Festival stage to fund renewable energy supplies and another $10 million toward humanitarian relief in Antigua and Barbuda.
Global Citizen partners with the private sector to further fight poverty. One of the biggest successes was at the Global Citizen Festival in 2015, where the European Commission committed to increase support for the refugee crisis by €500 million over the existing development aid budget of the European Commission.
In 2017, over three million Global Citizen supporters’ actions helped to drive $5.7 billion in 143 commitments by calling upon leaders as a collective power to step up for the world’s most vulnerable.
Because of its advocacy and supporters, Global Citizen will continue to reduce poverty significantly in the coming years.
– Julia Lee
Photo: Flickr
How the US Benefits from Foreign Aid to Ukraine
For more than two-thirds of the twentieth century, Ukraine endured the oppressiveness of the Soviet Union. In 1991, Ukraine gained its independence, but it was plagued by deep-seated political corruption. This stronghold-tainted governance in Ukraine resulted in the imprisonment of its first female prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in 2011 and the exiling of its fourth president Viktor Yanukovich in 2014.
Not only has Ukraine suffered instability and corruption in its political arena, but dirty politics have bled through its microeconomics as well. For example, patients may have access to medical treatment, but they oftentimes must bribe doctors in order to get the treatment they really need. This deep-rooted corruption that permeates all levels of society and government in Ukraine has historically threatened foreign aid and investment.
Unfortunately, foreign interest is tightening its grip on the power of the purse. In a recent breakthrough, Ukraine’s largest foreign backers, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (E.U.), announced they will not lend to Ukraine without serious progress on key reforms, including the fight against corruption. The IMF is comprised of 189 countries working to promote sustainable economic growth, trade and global poverty reduction.
The upside is that corruption levels have actually begun to decrease. In recent years, Ukraine has taken long-term steps to fight against corruption, including implementing anti-corruption agencies in the judiciary, public procurement and state-owned enterprises. These are some incentives that Congress can rely on when weighing in on how the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Ukraine.
The U.S. has been the world’s only superpower since the fall of the Soviet Union. America as a superpower holds great influence, characterized by its far-reaching ability to exert influence on a global scale. So what are the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Ukraine?
The U.S. has much to gain from coordinating with donors to Ukraine. Undeniably, foreign aid has been historically used in policymaking as a means to gain international leverage. Assisting Ukraine with humanitarian and foreign aid helps promote U.S. policy objectives. Ukraine is situated between Russia and the NATO-affiliated European countries, a geostrategic location for both the U.S. and the E.U.
Foreign aid to Ukraine will also support nuclear security, a strong interest to global safety, despite much of Ukraine’s energy resources now coming from Europe. Establishing Ukraine’s own energy supplies will prevent Russia from making weapons of Ukraine’s energy resources in the future.
Additionally, remedying Ukraine’s medical industry under the Global Health Initiative (GHI) will significantly improve disease containment. GHI aims to improve public health and strengthen U.S. national security through detecting, preventing and controlling global disease. Agencies such as PEPFAR provide direct service and assistance in Ukraine to maximize the medical quality and coverage of the national HIV/AIDS response.
Lastly, the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Ukraine by assisting Ukrainians who suffer from the War in Donbass. In March of 2014, Russia responded to Ukraine’s distressed political state by invading and annexing Crimea, an Eastern Ukrainian territory, which has caused war and hurt Ukraine’s economic growth. This has created political, economic and social conflict, and is a direct result of the War in Donbas, home to Ukraine’s major mining industry.
The Trump administration recently approved a sale of lethal weapons to Ukraine. Political analysts believe that the public will see the sales as a principled signal that the United States will support its allies. This type of political leverage is a clear way the U.S. can benefit from its support to Ukraine. The move was made in light of ongoing requests by Ukrainian advocates as a result of the War in Donbass and supported by the fact that Ukraine was not the aggressor.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid in Ukraine (OCHA) has calculated that nearly 4.4 million Ukrainians are affected by the conflict in Donbas and 3.4 million are in need of humanitarian aid and protection. Now, more than ever, Ukraine needs humanitarian aid.
Because funding for humanitarian aid has been cut in 2018 and is projected to be cut again in 2019, the World Food Bank can only assist those affected by the War in Donbass. Yet, the rest of Ukraine suffers, as 23 percent of households will go without adequate food. Despite this, people in Eastern Ukraine are suffering the most from displacement, lack of medical care and food and subjectivity to war.
As the world’s only superpower since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which left Ukraine in disarray, the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Ukraine because it will help build confidence in the people suffering in Ukraine and promote the democracy Ukraine has struggled to achieve. When democracy is encouraged in the world, it is always an interest of the U.S.
– Alex Galante
Photo: Flickr
The Waterless Bath: A Solution to Sanitation-Related Illnesses
Inadequate access to clean water leads to devastating disease outbreaks like trachoma, which can lead to permanent blindness. The invention, called DryBath, is a waterless alternative to bathing that comes in the form of a cream and could help eliminate the threat of these water-borne diseases. By gaining the ability to bathe, people in poverty-stricken areas can drastically decrease the number of trachoma cases, which currently blind about 1.8 million people globally.
The South African student and inventor of DryBath, Ludwick Marishane of Limpopo, South Africa, created the alternative after a friend’s comment regarding bathing. Marishane eventually realized the potential for the waterless bath in developing areas. In his Ted Talk, Marishane elaborated on DryBath’s potential capabilities.
“Anyway, we realized that we could save 80 million liters of water on average each time they skipped a bath, and also we would save two hours a day for kids who are in rural areas, two hours more for school, two hours more for homework, two hours more to just be a kid,” Marishane said.
The effects of eliminating the need for bathing water has a wide array of positive results as Marishane mentioned. Not only does it decrease the risk of disease, but by removing the long walk for water that many children must embark on each day, DryBath allows children to spend more time on their education.
According to Business Insider, after Marishane’s first few marketing experiments, he realized that to reach people in developing areas, the waterless bath must be sold in smaller packets that cost about 50 cents per pack.
“One of the things we learned was that poor communities don’t buy products in bulk. They buy products on-demand,” Marishane said during his Ted Talk. “A person in Alex doesn’t buy a box of cigarettes. They buy one cigarette each day, even though it’s more expensive.”
With limited internet access, Marishane used his Nokia cell phone to research and write a 40-page business plan for his invention. The young entrepreneur was able to successfully create a product that made real progress to health in developing nations. While his initial intention was not so, he realized the potential and worked to develop the waterless bath.
“After seeing that global impact, we narrowed it down to our key value proposition, which was cleanliness and convenience. DryBath is a rich man’s convenience and a poor man’s lifesaver,” Marishane said.
– Austin Stoltzfus
Photo: Flickr
Nine Ways Poverty Is Sexist
How Poverty is Sexist
These are only a handful of the many ways in which poverty is sexist. The need for further study of the relationship between poverty and sexism is vital to level the playing field between men and women in the progression of economic and social opportunities.
– Sydney Lacey
Photo: Flickr
10 Facts About Nelson Mandela’s Childhood
Top 10 Facts about Nelson Mandela’s Childhood
The Xhosa culture is the second-largest cultural group in South Africa. They are smaller only than the Zulu, who are their long-term rivals despite numerous cultural similarities. The Xhosa are known for being a peaceful people and live mainly in the southern part of the country.
Mandela was born in 1918 to the Madiba clan, part of the Xhosa people, as a member of the tribe’s royal family. His father served as chief of the village he grew up in, and when he died, Mandela was groomed by a tribal regent to take a leadership position at a later age.
Nelson Mandela’s mother was the third of his father’s four wives. The chief is expected to take multiple wives from different families within the tribe. Through them, Mandela had nine sisters and three brothers.
One of the more surprising facts about Nelson Mandela’s childhood is that Mandela’s given name at birth was Rolihlahla. In Xhosa, this means “pulling the branch off the tree” or “troublemaker”. The English name Nelson was given to Mandela by a schoolteacher. This was a common practice among black South Africans.
Although born into a family of importance, Mandela was the first to gain a formal education. He received this as part of his grooming for future leadership.
Nelson Mandela’s childhood was filled with training and education. He attended a local missionary school, a boarding school and then a Methodist secondary school.
While attending a Methodist secondary school, Mandela was a multi-sport athlete. He was involved in boxing as well as track and excelled at both.
Mandela went on to college at the University of Fort Hare. This was an elite South African school that was the only “Western-style” higher education available to black citizens in the country.
While at Fort Hare, Mandela and other students were sent home for boycotting certain university policies. He also later left school to avoid an arranged marriage and completed his bachelor’s degree by correspondence in Johannesburg.
Mandela studied law at the University of Witwatersrand, where he earned a degree and became involved in the fight against racial discrimination that made him famous.
Nelson Mandela may seem like a larger than life figure, but he was still just a man. His experiences influenced who he would become and how he would come to view the world. These facts about Nelson Mandela’s childhood help us to understand who he was as both a leader and a man.
– Megan Burtis
Photo: Flickr
The Accomplishments of ONE Include Legislation and Education Access
Four of the major accomplishments of ONE include:
ONE highlights 17 global goals for sustainable development including quality education, gender equality and more.
Through the Promising Practices in Refugee Education initiative, a partnership of Save the Children, Pearson and UNHCR, ONE shows how the global community can improve access to education for refugee girls in three ways:
ONE’s focus is to develop a curriculum that includes female role models, encourages children to pursue non-traditional professions and supports teachers to increase their awareness on gender inequality.
Digital skills need to be taught in the classroom and training programs in online research and popular software programs are necessary to supporting refugee youth’s education.
By expanding this program, private sponsorship will allow more people to be resettled at lower costs for national governments.
The accomplishments of ONE are seen in their efforts to empower girls, women, refugees and people in poverty through education, legislation and advocacy. Their goals, policies and programs are a key part of the global fight to end poverty.
– Julia Lee
Photo: Flickr
Foreign Aid Is Getting Better
Data Science
The first step in solving a problem is identifying it. This cliche is rarely more relevant than in the world of foreign aid, where economists and data scientists have spent years trying to measure, model and tailor solutions to the world’s most intractable problems. Good data are essential for development initiatives to establish baselines, set goals and targets, track progress and evaluate results.
Since the Marrakech Action Plan for Statistics was agreed to in 2004, more than 86 percent of International Development Association countries have completed or begun developing national strategies for gathering statistics. To carry this progress forward, organizations like the World Bank and the Committee on Data of the International Council for Science offer training on data practices to members of developing countries.
The science continues to improve. In 2014, Jesse Berns, a veteran of war and disaster zones, developed the Dharma Platform, an innovative new software designed for the rapid collection, sharing, and analysis of data in chaotic situations. Already adopted by Doctors Without Borders in 22 countries, Dharma is one example of how foreign aid is getting better.
Technology
The Dharma platform, made possible by the ubiquity of mobile phones, dovetails with another accelerator of foreign aid efficacy, technology. Recognizing the need to harness new technologies in order to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, in 2014, USAID established the U.S. Global Development Lab (USGDL) “to produce breakthrough development innovations by sourcing, testing and scaling proven solutions to reach hundreds of millions of people.” USGDL is comprised of scientists and experts from a range of private-sector partners and works with labs in universities across the country. Leadership has set ambitious goals, hoping to provide digitized agricultural data by mobile phone to 42 million small farmers in Africa within five years and standalone energy solutions to 40 million people.
While most of the impact of technological innovation occurs outside of the context of development assistance, the USGDL illustrates an essential way that foreign aid is getting better, by harnessing technology as an indispensable development tool. Since 2012, the program has expanded internet access to approximately 20 million new mobile and internet users around the globe, and directly supported USAID health and education programs by connecting 56 schools and 39 hospitals to the web.
Foreign Aid Is Getting Better by Shifting Its Approach
While improving the material lives of recipients is an essential goal of foreign aid, material donations have a limited to negative impact when they are misaligned with a country’s development needs. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development‘s Working Party on Aid Effectiveness recognized at the beginning of the 21st century that “promoting widespread and sustainable development was not only about amounts of aid given, but also about how aid was given.” Learning from the lessons of decades of misalignment and waste, foreign aid organizations are shifting away from dollars-and-cents inputs to an emphasis on self-sufficiency and building donor-recipient coordination.
Foreign aid is a young enterprise. Most of the organizations that come to mind with respect to foreign aid did not exist until the second half of the 20th century. While much progress has been made in improving foreign aid initiatives, from improving accountability to investing in sustainable, bottom-up solutions, foreign aid is getting better. Providing effective assistance to those in need is undeniably difficult, but it is getting easier.
– Whiting Tennis
Photo: Flickr
Higher Education in Vietnam Shows Steady Improvement
While Vietnam has seen a gradual boost in young Vietnamese citizens attending college, the numbers for higher education in Vietnam have been irregular from year to year. In 2017, Vietnam partnered with the World Bank in order to create plans to improve its educational status for students wishing to attend college and vocational training establishments.
College enrollment in Vietnam has amplified significantly since the late 1990s and early 2000s. Vietnam’s higher education enrollment went from just 10 percent in 2000 to 16 percent in 2005, rising even higher to 25 percent in 2013. Vietnam saw its highest college enrollment status for both sexes in 2014, at a whopping 30 percent. However, in 2015, the rate for tertiary school attendance fell to 28 percent.
Vietnam has produced durable objectives for a college education by creating the Education Development Strategic Plan for the years 2008 to 2020, as well as the Higher Education Reform Agenda. USAID has partnered with Vietnamese universities and private divisions to invigorate higher education in Vietnam.
USAID collaborates with Harvard Medical School, Harvard Ash Center and Arizona State University, along with three universities in each region of Vietnam to restore the health personnel, STEM curriculums and any ongoing or subsequent demands that the higher educational system faces. Through these plans, Vietnam has seen quality advances in educational performance, literacy and opportunities for educational growth.
The country has also seen an immense request for more vocational and job training options. ICEF Monitor reports that in order for Vietnam to see economic growth, it needs to boost its employment ability rates by at least 50 percent. Industrial employment opportunities are growing in Vietnam as the country continues to build its technical job options in infrastructure. The Asian Development Bank is acknowledging Vietnam’s struggles in job training and is providing reform projects and contributing building resources.
In May 2017, the World Bank approved $155 million in financing to bolster research, teaching and the institutional quantity of three sovereign collegiate academies. The funding will help to improve Vietnam’s higher learning institutes. According to the World Bank’s website, the plan will have a positive impact on over 150,000 students and 3,900 faculty representatives.
The schools receiving the funding are Vietnam’s National University of Agriculture, the University of Science & Technology and the Industry University of Ho Chi Minh City. Aside from these three prominent institutions, around 600,000 students and 27,000 administrators and professors from other colleges will have the chance to expand their learning assets by being granted access to digital learning environments and libraries through the National Economics University.
Higher education in Vietnam is on the right track to continue providing opportunities and job training for its citizens that wish to create a better country through optimistic and thriving learning environments. Vietnam still has a long road ahead of it to provide higher educational access to everyone, but the current programs and resources provided to college students show a positive change for Vietnam’s future college scholars.
– Rebecca Lee
Photo: Flickr
Are Natural Disasters Getting Worse?
By definition, natural disasters are any form of catastrophic events induced by nature or natural activities of the Earth. Some examples include earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, droughts, tsunamis and tornadoes. The severity of such disasters is typically measured by the number of deaths, economic loss and the nation’s capacity to rebuild.
Many natural disasters are beyond human control. The constant motion of Earth’s tectonic plates initiates earthquakes and tsunamis. Fluctuation in solar radiation infiltrating the atmosphere and oceans give rise to storms in the summer and blizzards in the winter.
However, sometimes natural disasters aren’t so natural and are caused by humanity’s interference with the Earth’s system.
For example, as environmental pollution increases, humans are contributing more energy to the system; which strengthens the likelihood of repeated hazards such as flash floods, bushfires, heatwaves and tropical cyclones.
So are natural disasters getting worse? The answer is yes. The number of geophysical disasters on Earth’s surface, like earthquakes, landslides and volcano eruptions, have remained steady since the 1970s. But the number of climate-related catastrophes has vastly increased. The amount of damage done to the economy due to these catastrophes has seen a steady upsurge.
There were triple the number of natural disasters between 2000 to 2009 as the number that occurred between 1980 to 1989. A large majority, 80 percent, of this growth is caused by climate-related happenings.
It may no longer be important to ask: Are natural disasters getting worse? But instead: Why are natural catastrophes getting worse?
The scale of disasters has swelled due to higher rates of urbanization, deforestation, environmental degradation and escalating climatic elements like high temperatures, extreme rain and snow and more brutal wind and water storms.
Dangerous events do not need to result in a tragedy. Limiting vulnerability and increasing the ability to respond to these disasters can save lives. Additionally, the continuous evolution of science and technology is making it more possible to anticipate disasters, provide aid quicker and allow for the rebuilding of cities in safer areas.
– Zainab Adebayo
Photo: Flickr
Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2017 Passes in Senate
Syria’s ongoing conflict has lasted over six years as of the year 2017. The war crimes committed in the nation have caused over 4,900,000 citizens to flee to neighboring countries, with another 600,000 living under siege. Evidence has been collected by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) declaring that the Syrian government has “committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, murder, rape or other forms of sexual violence, torture, imprisonment, enforce disappearance and other inhuman acts.”
Furthermore, a report from 2016 stated that the Syrian government forces used chemicals in an attack in Idlib in 2015 in violation of a pact. The United States and Russia made an agreement requiring Syria to dispose of all chemical weapons to prevent further harm to the Syrian people. Because of these accounts, at least 12 other countries have requested assistance in investigating the ongoing conflict in Syria in order to prevent further war crimes.
Congress has taken initiative, urging all parties in the conflict to halt attacks on civilians and provide the necessary humanitarian and medical assistance in order to end the siege on all peoples. This is a result of another document reporting that, in February alone, the Syrian government prevented 80,000 medical treatment items from going into besieged areas. Syrian citizens now rely on interference from the United States to help provide for humanitarian needs.
Although Congress cannot prevent these sieges from affecting the Syrian people as of right now, the United States has taken action by accepting approximately 12,500 refugees from Syria with the goal of resettlement. This number exceeds the Obama administration’s goal of resettling 10,000 Syrians, a huge accomplishment in itself.
The Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2017 would ensure a report is submitted to the appropriate congressional committees reporting on the war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria, and would not cease until the Secretary of State determined that the violence in Syria has ceased. It would also ensure that USAID, the Department of Defense and other programs within the government are held accountable for their participation in the war crimes that are occurring in Syria.
The United States is the world’s largest donor to the Syrian humanitarian response, donating a total of $5.9 billion. However, the passing of this bill would allow the United States to assist much more in the well-being of the Syrian people. The next step for the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2017, since it has already passed the Senate, is to pass through the House of Representatives.
– Adrienne Tauscheck
Photo: Flickr