7 Facts About Mark Green, USAID’s New Administrator

On August 7th, Mark Andrew Green became the 18th administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID is the part of the executive branch responsible for furthering international development.

As Administrator, Mark Green is responsible for leading this charge. His vision of international development has the potential to affect the lives of millions of the global poor. With that in mind, it’s important that we know who exactly he is. Here are the 7 most important things to know about Mark Green.

1. He used to be a member of Congress. Mark Green was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1999 through 2007. He represented Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District. This is good news. It means that Green understands the ins and outs of politics and advocacy.
2. He has a track record of supporting international aid. While serving as a representative, Mark Green voted consistently in support for international development. He was a member of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. And he co-sponsored the Hunger to Harvest bill, which aimed to reduce hunger in sub-Saharan Africa.
3. He has been an aid-worker himself. After graduating college, Mark Green and his wife taught English to rural Kenyans through WorldTeach. In his congressional testimony, Green reiterated how much this experience shaped his worldview, and how it will shape is work as an Administrator.
4. He was the Ambassador to Tanzania. After serving as a representative, Mark Green served as an Ambassador from 2007-2009. He oversaw President George W. Bush’s first visit to Tanzania. According to Mark Green himself, his tenure as Ambassador taught him “lessons too numerous to count.” His experience in the international makes his leadership as an Administrator trustworthy and reputable.
5. He’s worked in the private sector. After his ambassadorship, Mark Green remained involved in international development. Green served on the board of directors for Malaria No More and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Most recently, Green was president of the International Republican Institute. Notably, all the organizations Green has been a part of have one important thing in common. They focus on development with the end goal of making donor countries self-sufficient.
6. He has bipartisan support. Mark Green served as a Republican representative, but he has support from both sides of the aisle. Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, praised him during his confirmation hearing. “He has the deep personal passion and commitment to do this job as shown through years of work in advancing our common good on the international stage,” Senator Baldwin said. And Mark Green himself promised during his confirmation hearing to “work in [a] bipartisan spirit.”
7. He is knowledgeable about aid. Simply put, Mark Green understands what makes good aid policy. He consistently said that “the purpose of foreign assistance should be ending its need to exist.” In other words, Green’s goal at USAID is to end global poverty. Ensure that the world’s poor stop needing aid. And he has been clear in the steps he will take to steer USAID towards achieving this lofty goal. Specifically, he’s called for USAID to “incentivize reform, diversify our partner base,” and “foster local capacity-building” within partner countries.

You may never have heard of Mark Green. USAID doesn’t often make the front pages of newspapers. But that doesn’t make the work that Green and USAID are doing any less important. And under the leadership of Mark Green, USAID is sure to keep on helping millions of people.

– Adesuwa Agbonile

Photo: Google/span>

Mozambican Adaptation Project to Combat Climate Change

Mozambique has seen the capabilities of climate change first-hand. Rainwater from northern watersheds often cause massive floods that destroys the property of 22 million Mozambicans living on the coast. Seasonal rains, cyclones and tropical storms also pose threats to inhabitants of the coastline. Heavy rains often disrupt the energy supply in Northern Mozambique. Cyclones bring strong winds, torrential rains, and storms that cause landslides, coastal and inland erosion.

As a result of climate change, rainfall becomes unpredictable, and extreme weather occurrences like drought that occur every three to four years become more frequent. Flooding and cyclones threaten the health and economic stability of many Mozambicans. In 2015, flooding affected 160,000 people, displaced 50,000 and killed 159 in central and northern Mozambique. Furthermore, the country suffered great economic damage to infrastructure, as flooding collapsed roads and bridges.

Mozambique’s mangrove forest in Bon Sinais River, Icidua, Quelimane has completely flattened out as locals use the trees for building and fuel, and the clear space for harvesting salt. Mangroves protect communities that have improperly built homes that are incapable of withstanding strong winds.

USAID funded the Mozambican adaptation project by equipping five municipalities: Pemba, Quelimane, Nacala, Mozambique Island and Mocimboa de Praia. Throughout the next few years, the Coastal City Adaptation Project (CCAP) will see more than 200,000 mangrove trees planted on 37 acres in Icidua, resulting in decreased erosion and flood prevention and an increase in fishing.

Pemba, Mozambique has witnessed the heaviest rainfall in 40 years destroy the homes of its community. The Mozambican adaptation project will commence dune restoration and a phone-based early warning system that allows communities to quickly learn about and prepare for disaster. This emergency response system will prevent flooding damages that have previously destroyed the homes and taken the lives of many.

If the Mozambican adaptation project cannot combat climate change, by 2075 semi-arid and arid areas can expect a 2-3 percent increase in solar radiation and a 9-13 percent increase in evapotranspiration. Mozambique will see an overall 2-9 percent decrease in precipitation and a 5-15 percent decrease in precipitation during the rainy season from November to May.

– Tiffany Santos

Photo: Flickr

Efforts to Improve Maternal and Child Health in Haiti

Since the earthquake that shook the small country of Haiti in 2010, minimal research has been done that concerns maternal and child health in Haiti. Haiti has the highest infant and maternal mortality rate in the western hemisphere, with the infant mortality rate at 48.2 per 1,000 lives births and the maternal mortality rate at 359 per 10,000 live births. Only 34.5 percent of women in Haiti use any form of contraceptive.

Crushing poverty, poor health infrastructure and frequent natural disasters are some of the causes of the poor situation for maternal and child health in Haiti. Many people are still displaced from the 2010 earthquake. Women have a one in 80 chance of dying due to pregnancy and childbirth, and about 50 percent of the population has no access to basic health services at all.

The first study conducted by the NIH after the earthquake that looked at maternal and child health in Haiti and includes opinions of Haitian women and healthcare workers (HCWs) was conducted in 2015. This study found that Haiti was staffed with only 2.8 HCWs per 1,000 inhabitants, and only 1.8 nurses and one physician per 10,000 inhabitants.

The study outlined six major strategies for improving maternal and child health in Haiti:

1. Create a nurse-midwife program offering post-graduate certification for nurses.
2. Develop and implement maternal and child health training that focuses on morbidity and mortality prevention and is specifically designed for lay birth attendants.
3. Implement training for HCWs in obstetric and pediatric complications.
4. Develop relationships between lay birth attendants and nurse-midwives to work collaboratively.
5. Implement breastfeeding training programs for HCWs and mothers to increase exclusive breastfeeding to decrease infant diarrhea and malnutrition.
6. Develop women’s health programs to prevent intimate partner violence and increase condom use to prevent HIV.

The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) has been working with the health ministry and other partners on improving these issues on the ground by supporting “smile clinics.” Smile clinics are maternity hospitals and clinics that provide basic but life-saving emergency obstetric and neonatal care. They are among the most active clinics in the country and also offer family planning services, programs to combat gender-based violence and HIV treatment services.

Haiti has seen a 43 percent decrease in maternal mortality since 1990, and infant mortality is falling by three percent annually, but there is still more to be done. Because only 10 percent of midwifery needs are currently being met, UNFPA supported the construction of a new earthquake-resistant National Midwifery School after the previous one was flattened.

UNICEF is another organization working to improve conditions for maternal and child health in Haiti. UNICEF opened a clinic in 2012 in Marigot, a rural area with little access to health services. In addition to Basic Emergency Obstetric Care (BEmOC), the clinic provides training for matrons, traditional Haitian birth attendants who usually do not have any training. Most matrons use traditional childbirth practices that are passed down through generations. Transportation to clinics can be very difficult, and Haitians often trust and prefer local matrons to professionally trained midwives. For this reason, the clinic in Marigot emphasizes training matrons in basic obstetric care.

USAID’s Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) is another agency working to improve maternal and child health in Haiti. Beginning in April 2014, MCSP has been working in Haiti with Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Deaths (EPCMD) and Services de Sante de Qualite pour Haïti-Nord (SSQH-Nord) to provide technical assistance directly to the Ministry of Health in policies, guidelines and protocols in line with global standards.

In the project’s first year, it opened three National Training Centers with 19 staff trained as trainers in Maternal and Newborn Health skills standardization and high-impact interventions. MCSP also mapped and profiled 36 civil society organizations engaged in community health. The project will continue through September 2017.

With efforts such as these, maternal and child health in Haiti is sure to continue improving in the future.

– Phoebe Cohen

Photo: Google

Strengthening Communities to Curb Gang Violence in Honduras

San Pedro Sula, Honduras is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Thus, organizations and local leaders are combating gang violence in Honduras by helping young people find and make their own families.One teenager skateboards with friends he considers brothers. Another works on diagramming a family tree. Others join in soccer

One teenager skateboards with friends he considers brothers. Another works on diagramming a family tree. Others join in soccer games, or hang out at recreation centers. These activities have the same goal: to prevent gang violence from becoming a way of life for the next generation.

In a country where the maras, or gangs, recruit kids as young as 12, it becomes of vital importance that teens and youth find love and support elsewhere.  They want these kids to find support in their friends, families, and neighborhoods.

In the interest of halting gang violence in Honduras, USAID has partnered with local citizens to open nearly 50 outreach centers. Teens can go there to learn computer skills, play musical instruments, and participate in sports. Some outreach centers, like Casa de la Esperanza (House of Hope), organize movie nights and other events. The U.S. has also supported the clearing and revitalizing of 10 abandoned soccer fields to prevent gang violence in Honduras.

Fun activities, when combined with a confident leader, can form stable, even familial, bonds. The best example of this may be Jesse Recinos, who founded the club Skate Brothers. Recinos was nearly killed at the age of 16 after being wrongly accused of stealing from a member of a rival gang. In the aftermath of the experience, he decided to change his own life, and the lives of others, by bringing at-risk youth together to do skateboarding, BMX, rollerblading and breakdancing.

The club is about more than just busting tricks, and Recinos is more than just an instructor. He invites the kids to his house for meals and meets with their school teachers. Recinos is intent on keeping “his guys” away from gang violence and crime. He is at once a teacher, parent, and big brother.

Some programs focus on strengthening trust and communication inside the home, such as Proponte Mas, which offers counseling sessions to teens and young adults who are at risk for joining gangs.

Over the course of a year, the counselors work to reconnect the youth with separated family members. The separations typically occur either because violence has ruptured lines of communication or because relatives have migrated elsewhere.  Extended families draw closer together, offering the youth a strong support system to fall back on.

Being part of a family, the teens learn, also means being accountable. They are encouraged to do their schoolwork and to ask permission before leaving the house. Activities like the family tree diagram help spark an interest in family history. They learn to identify themselves as part of their family before any other group.

Sometimes, accountability to a family goes hand-in-hand with being able to provide for a spouse and children. Proyecto METAS, a program sponsored by the Education Development Center, was founded to provide unemployed young people, particularly at-risk youth or those who had left gangs, with skills they can use in the workforce. By March of 2017, the program had reached 56,000 youth and created 4,000 jobs and internships.

Tragedy still strikes frequently. Children die. Families flee. Moreover, the killers continue to walk away with impunity.  Honduras has one of the highest murder rates in the world: 60 out of 100,000 residents become homicide victims. Rampant corruption among the police and the government means that only 4 percent of these crimes result in convictions.

The American Justice Society (AJS), a Christian nonprofit association, is committed to halting gang violence in Honduras by putting these murderers behind bars. Its teams consist of a lawyer, an investigator and a psychologist, and they assist the government in building homicide and sexual abuse cases. AJS connects victims and witnesses to officials who are trustworthy.

One of the biggest challenges in prosecuting homicides is getting witnesses to appear in court. Witnesses who speak out, particularly against gang members, risk becoming murder victims themselves. The organization says that it can take anywhere from four to 15 visits to convince a witness to testify.

Psychologists provide emotional support for the victims and witnesses and their families. They go over testimony with the witnesses and give them exercises to calm their fears. In cases of sexual abuse, the psychologists continue to work with victims and their families even after the trial is over.

As criminals are put behind bars, halting gang violence in Honduras is, even more, dependent on the country’s youth. For things to truly improve, programs must expand their scope and work with youth who are already gang members.

Those who fight for the protection of human rights must also be kept safe. The U.N. has recently opened a new human rights office in Honduras, and is working to improve relations between human rights workers and the government.

Journalist Sonia Nazario, in a Sunday opinion column for the New York Times, urged the U.S. to put pressure on Honduras to spend more of its budget on violence prevention. She also brought up the problem that much of the aid that the U.S. sets aside for Honduras becomes caught up in U.S. bureaucracy and does not reach the nonprofits and local citizens who need it. There is still work to do. However, at least for now, progress has been made.

– Emilia Otte
Photo: Flickr

How to Help People in Central African Republic

The Central African Republic (CAR) is ranked 188 out of 188 countries in the 2016 United Nation’s Human Development Index. Its ranking is determined by markers of income inequality and life expectancy. Its rank speaks largely to the estimated 2.7 million citizens in need of immediate humanitarian assistance, its half a million citizens internally and externally displaced resulting from years of civil conflict and violence and the absence of basic infrastructure.

Bearing in mind CAR’s long road towards social, political and economic recovery, many ask the question: how to help people in Central African Republic? Three agencies worth considering are the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and International Rescue Committee (IRC).

1. U.N. World Food Programme
   The WFP strives to strengthen communities within CAR with short-term and long-term approaches. In the short-term, the WFP distributes food for the internally displaced in shelter communities and local populations. In the long-term, the WFP has a quid pro quo approach in that the organization will supply food for the participation of local populations in rebuilding and repairing community infrastructure. It is estimated that through food, cash and vouchers the WFP has reached up to 305,000 people in the CAR, with plans to reach at least 700,000 by the end of this year. Specialized nutrition packages for pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children, as well as management of the U.N. Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS), also fall under the scope of the WFP.
2. United States Agency for International Aid
   Earlier in July it was announced that the World Food Programme received a $11 million donation from the USAID in assisting the growing hunger issue in Central African Republic. Reportedly, this aid will help bring food supplies to approximately 550,000 people through CAR. Importantly, the U.S. Fiscal Year 2017 published that in response to CAR a total of $57,580,923 would be made available.
3. International Rescue Committee
   Since 2006, the IRC has been assisting in Central African Republic by providing emergency funds, rebuilding educational infrastructure for children and working to recover clean water sources for communities. Amongst many other forms of assistance, the IRC has outlined its priorities until 2020 to achieve its short-term and long-term goals in CAR. Currently, its primary goals are to achieve widespread health, safety, education, economic sustainability and helping the displaced regain their decision-making agency. Moreover, its gendered approach to its solutions sets the IRC apart from many agencies, as the IRC has a special focus on underscoring its dedication to gender equality in its relief programs.

These three standout organizations have made great efforts to mitigate the humanitarian crisis in Central African Republic. In asking how to help people in Central African Republic, civil society members can volunteer their time, donate money or help connect businesses that are willing to help with these international agencies. Undoubtedly, pulling CAR out of its long plight is no easy feat, one that requires the attention of the public and private sector. Yet, with these agencies and the CAR’s problems gaining international traction, there shows to be steady progression being made. How to help people in Central African Republic largely relies on a steady influx of international aid and successful mechanism of peacebuilding.

– Sydney Nam