USAID currently has nearly 8,000 employees worldwide, which is half the number the agency had at its peak in the 1970s.
The FY 2011 foreign assistance (USAID and State) budget request is just 1.4% of the budget for the entire Federal government.
A USAID-funded scientist, Gebisa Ejeta, won the 2009 World Food Prize for developing drought and striga resistant sorghum.
In 2009 PEPFAR directly supported prevention of mother-to-child transmission programs that allowed nearly 100,000 babies of HIV-positive mothers to be born HIV-free.
The first woman to win the Nobel Prize for economics, Elinor Ostrom, credits USAID with launching her career in development research.
In 2010, a USAID-supported study provided the first-ever proof that the use of an antiretroviral-based microbicide gel (1% Tenofovir) can significantly reduce the risk of HIV infection in women.
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