GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
In this section:
$23M to Protect Honduras Watersheds
India Fights HIV/AIDS
$500M to Fight Children’s Diseases
$23 Million for Palestinian Authority
First VfP Report Out
Child Deaths Not Abating, U.N. Says
Congo’s War Death Toll at 3.8 Million
Red Cross Focuses on Sudan, Iraq
$23M to Protect Honduras Watersheds
Washington—USAID/Honduras is sponsoring a four-year,
$23 million watershed resources management program, carried
out by International Resources Group, an international professional
services firm.
The program—Manejo Integrado de Recursos Ambientales
(MIRA) in Spanish—will work with the mission’s Office
of Trade, Environment, and Agriculture to help municipalities,
communities, and private organizations improve watershed resources
management and increase economic growth through improved management
of natural resources.
Deputy Mission Director Alex Dickie said: “Honduras’s
economic future depends on the application of sound natural
resources management policies and practices. Through the MIRA
Program, the mission is addressing these issues by linking
land use and environmental policy with good governance, disaster
preparedness, and sustainable enterprise initiatives.”
India Fights HIV/AIDS
NEW DELHI—India, which is second only to South
Africa for HIV infections worldwide, announced on World AIDS
Day Dec. 1 it will start a major health awareness campaign.
“We are going all out, and within six months the whole
country should know about HIV/AIDS and its implications,”
said Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss.
The campaign will include distribution of 1.5 billion condoms.
The announcement came at an Asian policymakers conference
in Islamabad, Pakistan, which worked on strategies to prevent
an African-style pandemic from hitting the region. The Asian
experts agreed to focus efforts on women.
$500M to Fight Children’s Diseases
Washington—USAID announced Dec. 8 a contract
for up to $500 million to prevent childhood deaths in the
developing world. The money will go to immunization; Vitamin
A; and treatment of diarrhea, pneumonia, and malaria.
“Nearly 11 million children die each year of preventable
diseases,” said Dr. E. Anne Peterson, Assistant Administrator
for Global Health. “We have a major opportunity and a
moral obligation to implement low-cost, lifesaving treatment
for children in the developing world.”
The award goes to the Partnership for Child Health Care
Inc., a joint venture of the Academy for Educational Development,
John Snow Inc., and Management Sciences for Health. The contract
bolsters USAID’s role as a leader in the global Child
Survival Partnership, a multidonor program established to
focus attention on the dire health needs of children in developing
countries, with the goal of saving 6 million children each
year by 2015.
$23 Million for Palestinian Authority
Washington—The Bush administration announced
Dec. 8 that it would provide $23.5 million in aid to the Palestinian
Authority (PA) to help conduct elections, establish security,
meet its payrolls, and upgrade infrastructure in Gaza.
It is the first direct U.S. payment to the PA since August
2003, when the administration, trying to encourage talks between
the Israelis and Palestinians, gave $20 million.
William J. Burns, Assistant Secretary of State for Near
Eastern affairs, said the aid reflected American confidence
in PA efforts to reform its finances and security services
in the weeks since the death of Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat Nov. 11 in Paris.
“Palestinians deserve credit for their careful management
of a difficult leadership transition and their commitment
to the electoral process,” Burns said, adding that Israel
had also been “commendably clear” in making a commitment
to facilitate elections to select Arafat’s successor
as Palestinian president, set for Jan. 9.
First VfP Report Out
Washington—Volunteers for Prosperity (VfP), President
Bush’s initiative promoting voluntary service by skilled
Americans to support the U.S. global health and prosperity
agenda, said in its first annual report that it recruited
nearly 200 nonprofit and for-profit organizations representing
at least 34,000 American professionals. Next year, these organizations
plan to deploy at least 8,000 volunteers worldwide.
Participating organizations are given priority for federal
funds in six foreign assistance initiatives: The President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Middle East Partnership Initiative,
Digital Freedom Initiative, Water for the Poor Initiative,
Trade for African Development and Enterprise, and the Millennium
Challenge Corporation.
Child Deaths Not Abating, U.N. Says
Geneva—The annual report on the State of the
World’s Children by UNICEF concludes that the goal of
reducing childhood deaths by two-thirds will not be met by
2015 as planned, but only in “the 22nd century.”
One of the eight U.N. millennium development goals commits
member states to cut the mortality rate for children under
5 by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. But the rate has fallen
only by 16 percent globally since 1990, and by just 7 percent
in sub-Saharan Africa, where conflict and HIV/AIDS are the
greatest threats.
In sub-Saharan Africa as well as in former Soviet republics,
the report says the best estimates indicate that the millennium
development goal will not be met “well into the 22nd
century.”
Around 29,000 children under age 5 die every day—10.6
million a year—including many from easily prevented causes,
such as diarrheal dehydration, acute respiratory infections,
measles, and malaria.
Congo’s War Death Toll at 3.8 Million
KINSHASA, Congo—Six years of continuing conflict
in the Congo have claimed 3.8 million lives, half of them
children, with most killed by disease and famine in the still
largely cut-off east, the International Rescue Committee (IRC)
said.
The IRC’s previous survey, released April 2003, estimated
3.3 million deaths. For years, the group has produced the
most widely used running estimate of deaths in Congo.
Since it erupted in 1998, the war has drawn in the armies
of five other African nations and, despite peace deals reached
by 2002, more than 31,000 civilians continue to die each month,
the group said.
Red Cross Focuses on Sudan, Iraq
Geneva—The International Committee of the Red
Cross has placed Sudan and Iraq at the top of its agenda in
the coming year.
ICRC is seeking more than $840 million for its 2005 operations
in 80 countries. Sudan and Iraq, it said, would get the lion’s
share of the funds: $112 million to the war-torn African country
and $43 million to the Middle East nation.
The number three focus for ICRC appeals will be $40 million
for programs in the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
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