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Presidential Initiatives not reported through USAID's reporting system
These Presidential Initiatives listed below are tracked and reported through mechanisms other than USAID's consolidated reporting system
Global Climate Change
In February 2002, President Bush highlighted the critical importance of developing-country participation in any effective global response to climate change. The administration's policy states, "USAID serves as a critical vehicle for transferring American energy and sequestration technologies to developing countries to promote sustainable development and minimize their greenhouse gas emissions growth."
The goal of USAID's Climate Change Program is to promote climate-friendly economic development and improve resilience of vulnerable populations and ecosystems to potential climate impacts. The program operates in more than 40 developing and transition countries-through bilateral field missions, regional programs, and central offices-to implement projects that meet development objectives while also providing climate benefits. It supports technology cooperation in renewable energy and energy efficiency, improved urban transportation measures, quantification and monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration through improved land management, activities to increase adaptability to potential climate impacts, and capacity building to help countries meet their responsibilities under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Results for FY 2003 show that USAID helped avoid emissions of more than 4 million metric tons carbon-dioxide equivalent, added activities to protect carbon stocks that now total over 147 million hectares, and supported more than
3,400 climate-related capacity building activities in developing and transition countries. Results for FY 2004 will be collected through the Agency's annual reporting system and will be available only after the completion of this report.
Middle East Partnership Initiative
Launched in November 2002, the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) establishes a framework for realigning U.S. assistance programs to the Middle East and North Africa. MEPI seeks to work cooperatively with governments and people in the region to promote key economic, political, and educational reform issues and reduce barriers to women's full participation in society. MEPI is one of the administration's primary development tools to support the U.S. Forward Strategy for Freedom in the Middle East.
MEPI is managed by the State Department in close collaboration with other U.S. Government agencies. USAID administers a variety of activities across the MEPI's program areas. In FY 2002, USAID administered 76 percent of the total $29 million MEPI program. In FY 2003, USAID administered 46 percent of the MEPI $100 million program portfolio.
FY 2004 results under this initiative included the following:
- In the political reform area, USAID supported the development of campaign training schools for women activists in the region, and organized a regional judicial forum and followup for legal professionals that provided the foundation for a regional MEPI rule of law program focused on judicial independence, procedure, and training.
- In the education reform area, USAID helped to establish U.S.-Middle East university partnerships to strengthen programs in such areas as education, business and economics, journalism, and information and communications technology.
- In the economic reform area, USAID provided technical assistance and training to improve commercial banks' capacity to provide credit and other critical financial services, as well as strengthen central bank supervision and regulation.
For more information see:
Millennium Challenge Account
In March 2002, in Monterrey, Mexico, President Bush called for a "new compact for global development" that would link greater contributions from developed nations to greater responsibility from developing nations. The President proposed a concrete mechanism to implement this compact, the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). MCA provides development assistance to those countries that rule justly, invest in their people, and encourage economic freedom.
The key principles of MCA are to reduce poverty through economic growth, reward good policy, operate in partnership, and focus on results. MCA is administered by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a new government corporation designed to support innovative strategies and to ensure accountability for measurable results.
The MCA draws on lessons learned about development over the past 50 years:
- Aid is most effective when it reinforces the sound political, economic, and social policies that are critical to encouraging the inflows of private capital and increased trade, which are the real engines of economic growth.
- Development plans supported by a broad range of stakeholders and for which countries have primary responsibility engender country ownership and are more likely to succeed.
- Integrating monitoring and evaluation into the design of activities boosts effectiveness, accountability, and the transparency with which taxpayer resources are used.
In May 2004, the MCC board of directors selected 16 countries eligible to apply for MCA assistance in FY 2004: Armenia, Benin, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Vanuatu.
The MCC Threshold Country Program (TCP) has been established to assist a limited number of countries that did not qualify for FY 2004 MCA assistance, but were close and have demonstrated a significant commitment to achieving the eligibility criteria. The TCP provides added incentive to countries committed to reform, and will be used to assist such countries to move toward future eligibility. Unlike the core MCA programs, the TCP will not focus directly on poverty reduction and economic growth; rather, it will support countries that have demonstrated a significant commitment to improving performance on the MCA indicators on which they are underperforming. The primary means of improving performance is for countries to make policy reforms and/or institutional changes in areas in which they fall short on eligibility requirements. Assistance funded under the TCP is intended to help the countries make such changes effectively. The indicators a country needs to improve will depend on where a country fails a category or has scored substantially below the median on one or more indicators.
The MCA board of directors authorized $40 million from U.S. FY 2004 funds for threshold programs. If the quality of threshold proposals justifies it, the MCC chief executive officer may request additional funding. MCC and USAID wish to focus these resources on a limited number of countries that have the best prospects for closing performance gaps on the MCA indicators.
In FY 2004, seven countries were invited to submit TCP concept papers: Albania, East Timor, Kenya, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tanzania, Uganda, and Yemen.
For more information see http://www.mca.gov.
President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief
President Bush has made fighting the international HIV/AIDS pandemic a U.S. priority. Announced in January 2003, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is the largest commitment ever by a single nation toward an international health initiative-a five-year, $15 billion, multifaceted approach to combating the disease. Through the President's Emergency Plan, the U.S. Government is working with international, national, and local leaders worldwide to promote integrated prevention, treatment, and care programs, with an urgent focus on 15 countries that are among the most afflicted by the disease.
Across the world, the U.S. Government is encouraging bold leadership at every level to fight HIV/AIDS; applying best practices within its bilateral programs in concert with host governments' national HIV/AIDS strategies; and encouraging all partners to coordinate, adhere to sound management practices, and harmonize monitoring and evaluation efforts.
In the 15 severely affected focus countries, the U.S. Government is supporting treatment for 2 million HIV-infected people; preventing 7 million new HIV infections; and supporting care for 10 million people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, including orphans and vulnerable children.
FY 2004 results under this initiative included the following:
Five-year strategy. In 2004, the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator developed and began to implement a U.S. five-year global HIV/AIDS strategy. For the first time, a single strategy is guiding the varied activities of the many U.S. agencies combating HIV/AIDS on a global basis.
Mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The President's Emergency Plan is providing drug therapy and intensive counseling to women so that they can have HIV-free children. In FY 2004, the United States supported services to prevent mother-to-child transmission for over 1.2 million women in 15 focus nations.
Antiretroviral drug procurement policy. In May 2004, the Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS/FDA) announced an expedited review process for HIV/AIDS medicines. At the same time, the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator announced that any HIV/AIDS drug that received tentative approval from HHS/FDA would be eligible for purchase by the President's Emergency Plan. The United States is speeding drugs to the global AIDS fight with assurances that those drugs are safe, effective, and high quality.
Antiretroviral therapy rollout. In early 2004, the World Health Organization estimated that approximately 150,000 patients were receiving lifesaving antiretroviral therapy in all of sub-Saharan Africa-a fraction of the number who need to be treated. By the end of September 2004, after only eight months of implementation, the President's Emergency Plan was supporting antiretroviral therapy for approximately 155,000 HIV-infected persons in 15 focus nations. That number is growing rapidly as each U.S.-supported site continues to enroll new patients into therapy.
For more information see http://www.state.gov/s/gac/.
Fact Sheet: The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
President's Initiative Against Illegal Logging
The primary objective of the President's Initiative Against Illegal Logging (PIAIL), launched in July 2003 and led by the State Department, is to assist developing countries in their efforts to combat illegal logging-including the sale and export of illegally harvested timber-and corruption in the forest sector. USAID provided its valuable technical and field experience to help shape PIAIL, and USAID activities made up $13.7 million, or 92 percent of the overall FY 2003 and FY 2004 budgets. PIAIL focuses on three critical regions: the Congo Basin, the Amazon Basin and Central America, and South and Southeast Asia.
As of August 2004, results under this initiative include the following:
- In the Congo Basin, USAID grantees held a workshop for key forest stakeholders to design a forest concession monitoring system. The monitoring system will independently document the industry's logging practices in the region. Participants agreed to be monitored on more than 30 performance measures that will be used to track their logging practices, including legality.
- In Peru, USAID is supporting national efforts to enforce laws and regulations related to protected areas, and is assisting communities to manage forests to qualify for forest certification under a scheme of their choice. USAID helped the Government of Peru establish a committee on illegal logging, which has resulted in confiscations of illegal timber, as well as to implement a transparent public bidding process for legal private forestry concessions.
- In Indonesia, USAID partners have been successful in their negotiations with logging concessionaires in East Kalimantan. Concessionaires have agreed to set aside large tracts of their concession areas for conservation and to practice low impact logging techniques in remaining areas to minimize the impact on habitat and wild orangutan populations.
Selected lessons learned reported by the initiative include the following:
- Illegal logging is a very complex issue that is difficult to quantify and assess.
- Many forests are difficult to monitor because they are located in remote, sparsely populated regions.
- Addressing illegal logging will require actions by both producing and consuming countries, with clear roles for communities and civil society.
Trafficking In Persons
At the 2003 UN General Assembly, President Bush announced a new $50 million initiative to assist women and children who have been trafficked. This initiative supplements existing U.S. Government efforts to combat trafficking through prevention, protection, and prosecution. Initiative projects, to be implemented by NGOs and U.S. agencies working abroad, will focus primarily on fighting sex slavery, the fastest growing category of trafficking, by increasing criminal prosecutions while rescuing, rehabilitating, and reintegrating trafficking victims. The goal is to build NGO capacity and to work in partnership with governments in each country.
In July 2004, the President announced the eight countries selected to receive $50 million in strategic antitrafficking in persons assistance: Brazil, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Moldova, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania.
In FY 2004, Congress supported the administration's proposal to fund the initiative using $25 million from existing funds. USAID programmed over $10 million dollars in five countries during FY 2004.
Women's Justice and Empowerment in Africa
President Bush announced approximately $55 million to support women's justice and empowerment in Africa. This initiative will work to assist the existing efforts of four African countries to combat sexual violence and abuse against women, and empower them in society. As the programs in these four nations develop, their successes will produce a ripple effect through other countries in their regions.
Protecting and Empowering Women
- The $55 million will be used to bolster women's justice and empowerment in Africa by:
- Strengthening the capacity of the legal system to protect women and punish violators by training police, prosecutors, and judges in sexual violence and abuse cases against women, and developing or strengthening laws which protect women and empower their role in society.
- Rehabilitating, reintegrating, and empowering former victims in society by bolstering the capacity of shelters and counseling programs, and addressing health care needs of women.
- Increasing awareness of the need for women's justice and empowerment, through high-level engagement, conferences, public awareness, and education.
- Women's Justice and the Link to HIV/AIDS: The $55 million announced today would complement America's ongoing efforts to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS and fight human trafficking.
- In January 2003, the President announced the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a five-year, $15-billion initiative to combat the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Prostitution, trafficking of individuals into prostitution, sexual violence, and sexual victimization of women and children are considered factors in the spread of HIV/AIDS. During last year's G-8 focus on HIV and tuberculosis, G-8 members also acknowledged how sexual violence against women and girls has contributed significantly to the spread of the HIV virus.
- Empowerment of Women through the Legal System: Many African nations have already taken steps to improve legal rights for women, including new sexual offenses laws, higher penalties for sexually violent offenses against women, anti-trafficking and prostitution legislation, and laws which grant women greater rights to property and inheritance.
- The four target countries identified for this program have all taken some steps, but require additional support and technical assistance for adequate implementation including: police, investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial training and assistance; the development of DNA labs and other specialized equipment; the establishment of Hotline numbers for reporting rape or violence; the development of laws criminalizing violence and abuse against women and new evidentiary rules to protect the identity of women; and the development of women's empowerment laws.
Accelerating the Fight Against Malaria
Factsheets:
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