GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
In this section:
CARE’s Hassan Believed Slain in Iraq
USAID Gets Second Clean Audit
Cuba Exchange Program Signed
AIDS Orphans Get $100M in Assistance
Agency Programs Helped Save Millions
USAID Helps Those Fleeing Fallujah
Water and Coastal Resources Funded
Agency Marking Evolved from Marshall Plan
CARE’s Hassan Believed Slain in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq—Margaret Hassan, CARE’s Country
Director in Iraq who had been kidnapped in October, was apparently
killed according to British officials and the humanitarian
organization CARE. A video tape that appeared to show her
execution surfaced in Iraq Nov. 17.
Hassan was kidnapped Oct. 19 while on her way to work. She
was the first woman kidnap victim to be slain.
CARE hailed Hassan for her “courage, tenacity and commitment.”
Though the organization ceased operations in Iraq shortly
after the kidnapping, CARE vowed its staff and volunteers
would continue battling poverty around the world.
During more than two decades of work in Iraq, Hassan, who
held British and Iraqi citizenship, assisted more than 17
million Iraqis, CARE said in a statement.
Since March 2003, USAID provided the group just over $9 million
for assistance to internally displaced persons, water and
sanitation projects, healthcare, and emergency relief in Iraq.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: “To kidnap
and kill anyone is inexcusable. But it is repugnant to commit
such a crime against a woman who has spent most of her life
working for the good of the people of Iraq.”
USAID Gets Second Clean Audit
USAID received an unqualified—or clean—audit opinion
in November on all five of its principal financial statements
for fiscal year 2004. Required by the Government Management
Reform Act of 1994, the Office of the Inspector General audit
resulted in a clean opinion for USAID for the second consecutive
year.
USAID is one of the 22 (of 24) major federal agencies that
met the Nov. 15 deadline for submission of the Performance
and Accountability Report (that includes audited financial
statements) to the Office of Management and Budget.
The new deadline is 45 days after the end of the fiscal year.
USAID continues its activities to improve financial systems
and processes and roll out its core accounting system to the
field missions worldwide. On Aug. 10, Phoenix, the Agency’s
core accounting system, began operations in five pilot mission
sites: Peru, Colombia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Egypt.
Cuba Exchange Program Signed
Chicago—USAID and Loyola University officials
signed a two-year agreement Oct. 25, with Rep. Henry J. Hyde
(R-IL) at their side, to develop an exchange program in Cuba.
The initiative, called the Henry Hyde Program of People-to-People
Development, will provide training, informational materials,
and other non-financial support to Cuban faith-based NGOs.
The Agency is investing $425,000 in the effort.
“A new birth of freedom will happen as the Cuban people
create their own civil society, and, of great importance,
their own faith-based communities that set the foundations
for democracy and respect for human rights,” said Hyde,
a Loyola alumnus, at the ceremony.
AIDS Orphans Get $100M in Assistance
Washington, D.C.—The Bush Administration announced
in late October the award of $100 million in new grants to
11 organizations to support orphans and vulnerable children
as a part of the President’s $15 billion, five-year Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief.
By 2010, it is estimated that more than 25 million children
will have lost at least one parent to AIDS. Among the groups
that got new grants are Africare, Christian Aid, Christian
Children’s Fund, HOPE Worldwide, Project Concern, and
Salvation Army World Services.
Agency Programs Helped Save Millions
Washington, D.C.—USAID played a major role in
five of 17 large-scale successes in global health, including
prevention of diarrhea through oral rehydration therapy in
Egypt, polio eradication in Latin America, river blindness
and guinea worm control in Africa, and family planning in
Bangladesh, according to findings to be released in December
in the book Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global
Health.
Published by the Center for Global Development’s Global
Health Policy Research Network, the book concludes that far-reaching
success is possible even in the poorest of countries, in the
face of grinding poverty and weak health systems.
The economic and social returns from successful health programs
far outweigh the outlays required, and aid has worked even
in difficult conditions.
USAID Helps Those Fleeing Fallujah
BAGHDAD, Iraq—The recent fighting between coalition
forces and insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq, has displaced up
to 249,000 people to surrounding villages. In response, USAID
provided food, tents, blankets, mattresses, plastic sheeting,
jerry cans, buckets, and hygiene kits to 12,000 of the displaced
people.
The Agency also contributed four health kits, each of which
will support 10,000 people for up to three months. The International
Organization for Migration and NGOs distributed these emergency
relief supplies and
Water and Coastal Resources Funded
Washington, D.C.—USAID announced Nov. 1 five
awards to support developing countries’ long-term goals
of managing water and coastal resources while protecting the
environment and maintaining ecological balance. The five awards—based
on full and open competition—fall under one umbrella,
called an Indefinite Quantity Contract and have a ceiling
of $2 billion.
Groups receiving the five awards are ARD, Chemonics International,
PA Government Services, Joint Venture of International Resources
Group and Tetra Tech, and DAI.
Agency Marking Evolved from Marshall Plan
Found in the most remote corners of the globe, the USAID
handclasp is one of the best known U.S. emblems throughout
the world. It has become a symbol of the United States’
long history of aiding those in need.
Labeling was first required during the Marshall Plan, when
Congress became concerned that the Soviet Union was taking
credit for the poorly marked U.S. foreign aid donations to
European countries.
The original 1948 design was adapted from the Great Seal of
the United States with the words “For European Recovery
Supplied by the United States of America” in the center.
It was translated into the languages of the recipient countries.
But the slogan became obsolete when military aid was added
to the economic program, and when some Near East and Asian
countries were added to the roster of recipients under President
Truman’s Point IV Program. In 1951, the slogan became
“Strength for the Free World from the United States of
America.”
In several countries, the slogan could not be translated
into local dialects, so different designs and slogans were
used. Moreover, the wide variety of containers needed made
it necessary to have a range of labels, decals, metal plates,
tags, and stencils in all sizes. As a result, the value of
the overall message was lost due to a lack of uniformity.
In 1953, Eleanor Gault, an employee in the Marking and Labeling
Office of the Mutual Security Agency—a USAID predecessor—revised
the emblem. During her research, Gault discovered that “clasped
hands” have been recognized as a sign of unity, goodwill,
and cooperation for centuries. She concluded that clasped
hands “could serve to identify the aid as part of the
mutual effort with mutual benefits shared by our country and
friends around the world.”
In the early 1990s, a completely new logo was developed.
It combined a modern image of the globe and U.S. flag, with
USAID prominently displayed. This image, however, was viewed
as too radical a change, and it was soon rejected.
The Agency returned to the shield in the mid-1990s as the
primary symbol of U.S. foreign assistance, but moved the stars
and stripes to the lower third of the design and added USAID
to the top. Color also was removed from the handclasp to ensure
no specific race was identified.
In 2001, “United States Agency for International Development,”
was added in a circle around the shield to ensure people understood
the assistance provided was from the United States government.
The logo was updated in 2004 to make it easier to read and
reproduce. The typeface was changed to a sans serif, and the
Agency name was repositioned around the shield to increase
clarity; the handclasp was redrawn to be gender neutral and
anatomically correct.
These minor updates improved the overall communication, yet
maintained the integrity and long heritage of this important
U.S. symbol. A brand name and tagline also were added to ensure
people understand the assistance is provided by U.S. taxpayers.
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