USAID Impact Photo Credit: Nancy Leahy/USAID

Archives for UNGA

Video: USAID at the UN General Assembly

Posted by  on Friday, September 28th 2012     

Each Fall, world leaders from every sector descend on New York City for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).  The 67th session was no exception. From the official high-level meeting at the UN, to side events and multiple individual meetings, UNGA provides an opportunity for leaders to come together and achieve important outcomes. This was the third year at UNGA for USAID Administrator, Dr. Rajiv Shah. His focus was on food security and nutrition, child survival, maternal health, humanitarian assistance and the Agency’s commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

We had trouble keeping up with Dr. Shah as he delivered remarks at the Better Than Cash Alliance launch event, a global public-private partnership dedicated to supporting organizations’ transition away from cash to electronic payments; launched Women and Girls Lead Global, a public-private alliance focused on using the power of documentary film and new media to empower women and girls around the world; highlighted child survival, technology and innovation at the Social Good Summit; and co-hosted a high-level event with Rockefeller Foundation President Dr. Judith Rodin on the new international commitment to building resilience for vulnerable communities.

Is Dr. Shah’s words,  ”Our engagement at the end of the day makes the difference between a safer, more secure, more economically prosperous world and one that is less so.”

Addressing Malnutrition – Turning Commitments into Action

Posted by  on Thursday, September 27th 2012     

As the Olympics came to a close last month, British Prime Minister David Cameron opened the doors of 10 Downing Street to a small gathering of world leaders.  They met to announce new initiatives addressing the global challenge of malnutrition, which affects two billion people worldwide.  Perhaps the most promising pledge to emerge from this Hunger Summit was the commitment to greater cooperation between governments, civil society and business.


Mother feeding a child in Kenya. Photo credit: Sight and Life

While we share the same goal—healthy, well-nourished families and communities—too often, agencies, ministries, donors and businesses operate in silos, hindering action and missing key opportunities for collaboration that could improve the health and lives of millions.

We have made tremendous progress in the last five years in terms of prioritizing the issue, and we now have a number of global commitments to address malnutrition.  It would, therefore, seem that we are no longer lacking political will.  In addition, we now know just how cost effective it is to invest in nutrition: there is literally no greater investment we can make in health and development. The Copenhagen Consensus named micronutrient solutions the single smartest way to allocate global aid dollars, with every $1 spent generating $30 in benefits. The fact is combating malnutrition is at the top of the list because its impact can be felt across sectors—from health to agriculture to the economy. Improving nutrition is the most effective way to secure a better future.

Although conversations like the UK Hunger Summit are important in tackling malnutrition, preventing stunting and improving the life chances of millions of children, ultimately, we won’t have the impact we seek to achieve through conversations alone. Yes, we need to convene and collaborate—but the reality is we need to come away with concrete actions clearly outlining how we will all work together across sectors, and be held accountable for our commitments. Cameron and fellow host Michel Temer, Vice President of Brazil, urged the world to take decisive action on malnutrition before the 2016 Olympic Games inRio. That’s just four years away. Between now and then, partnerships between governments, civil society and business have to move from talk to action—that is, effective nutrition programs in countries.

This week, as world leaders gather at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), we have the opportunity to again meet as a global community under the banner of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, and to outline how we will strengthen current partnerships and explore new ones to accelerate implementation. Global convenings, like the Hunger Summit and UNGA, provide us with the space to create and sustain dialogue, and share knowledge. But then it’s up to each of us, as organizations and individuals, to carry the torch. Together, we can improve nutrition and give millions of children the opportunity to grow, thrive and reach their full potential.

Klaus Kraemer, Ph.D. is Director of Sight and Life, a not-for-profit nutrition think tank of DSM, which cares about the world’s most vulnerable populations and exists to help improve their nutritional status. Acting as their advocates, Sight and Life guides original nutrition research, disseminates its findings and facilitates dialogue to bring about positive change.

Ford Foundation Event Celebrates Premieres of Half the Sky and Women and Girls Lead Global

Posted by  on Thursday, September 27th 2012     

This post was originally featured on Beyond the Box

Amid the hubbub of the 67th session of the UN General Assembly in New York City, some 250 distinguished guests crowded the towering atrium of the Ford Foundation on Monday evening, September 24th.  The occasion: to celebrate the impending Independent Lens broadcast of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide and mark the official launch of Women and Girls Lead Global, a new three-year, 30-film partnership to put media to work for change in nine countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Moving into the subterranean auditorium, the assembled were welcomed by Ford Foundation Vice President Darren Walker and Corporation for Public Broadcasting President and CEO Patricia Harrison, both of whom spoke passionately about the combined power of storytelling, philanthropy, and change agents to save lives and create a more just and equitable world.  NBC News correspondent Ann Curry took the stage—wearing a dress boldly embossed with the word “LOVE”—to moderate a packed program of rapid-fire panels and film clips, starting with a conversation between U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer, Ford Foundation President Luis Ubiñas, and Nicholas D. Kristof, co-author with Sheryl WuDunn of the best-selling book Half the Sky.

“As journalists, we cover planes that crash,” said Kristof.  “Not planes that take off.”  His comments set the tone for an evening focused on the possibility of progress and success in the face of steep odds, highlighting the State Department’s efforts to integrate gender across all aspects of its work and the Ford Foundation’s focus on solutions in addressing poverty and specific issues like child marriage.

Ann Curry with USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. Photo credit: Ford Foundation, Hallie Easley

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah spoke one-on-one with Curry, making the case for investing in women and girls not only as a moral prerogative but as a evidence-based approach to fighting poverty and strengthening national security.  He was joined by CARE President and CEO Helene Gayle and ITVS President and CEO Sally Fifer, who described the “wave after wave of stories about women and girls” that independent filmmakers, commissioning editors, and ITVS call panelists continued to surface over the last few years—including the four-hour documentary version of Half the Sky.  With Women and Girls Lead Global, Fifer announced, ITVS will now put these stories to work on the ground in countries like Bangladesh, Kenya and Peru over the next three years, collaborating with Ford, USAID, and CARE to connect television broadcasts and engagement to the existing work of NGOs.

Having drawn the big picture of the strategic forces at play in using media for change, the evening turned to the images, sounds, and characters of Half the Sky.  The crowd went still and silent before film clips of American celebrity activist Gabrielle Union, Somaliland hospital founder Edna Adan, and Amie Kandeh, a champion against sexual violence in Sierra Leone. The three featured women then joined Kristof and Curry on-stage, bringing the crowd to a standing ovation with their impassioned testimonies of great hope and strength in the face of evil, death, and misfortune. The first step, said Union, is “You have to give a damn.”  Knowledge is more powerful than advanced equipment, Edan said.

The program concluded with Ford Foundation’s Orlando Bagwell, director of the JustFilms initiative, demonstrating the Half the Sky games and transmedia strategies with Half the Sky filmmaker Maro Chermayeff and Asi Burak of Games for Change.  The featured games included a Half the Sky game for Facebook that marries gameplay with real-world donations to NGOs, along with a suite of mobile games designed for audiences in Africa and Asia focused on health and family planning.

The final word went to Bagwell, who returned the focus to the power of media to inspire change and action.  “This is just the beginning of the conversation,” said Bagwell, before the assembled leaders of NGOs, foundations, and media outlets returned to the Ford atrium to do just that.

Live at UNGA – Day Three

Posted by  on Thursday, September 27th 2012     

To see the online conversation at UNGA, visit USAID's Storify Feed

Day three at UNGA included two marquee events spotlighting progress to date on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.  We also announced a new partnership to expand access to contraception for 27 million women and girls in low-income countries.

With only 15 months until the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline, USAID partnered on an event with the UK Department for International Development for a second year to draw attention to the importance of the global community working together to reach the MDG targets by 2015.  The event brought to life the enormous development advancements made on the way to achieving the MDGs and featured innovators from across the development community sharing transformative programs and policies.  The world has met two MDG targets ahead of the 2015 deadline – poverty has been cut by 50 percent globally and the proportion of people with no safe drinking water has been cut in half.

That afternoon, Administrator Shah co-hosted with other G8 members the New Alliance: Progress and the Way Forward event.  President Obama announced the New Alliance for Food Security & Nutrition earlier this year, in which G8 nations, African partner countries and private sector partners aim to help lift 50 million people in sub-Saharan Africa out of poverty in the next 10 years by supporting agricultural development. Initially launched in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania, at the event, representatives from the New Alliance, G8 countries and the private sector announced the expansion to other African countries, including Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, and Mozambique.

Finally, Administrator Shah took part in the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children. Prior to the meeting, Dr. Shah joined the Commission Co-Chairs, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway and President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria, alongside former President Bill Clinton, to launch a new partnership to make a safe, effective, long-acting, reversible method of contraception available to more than 27 million women in the world’s poorest nations. Under the agreement, Bayer is reducing by more than half the current 18 USD price of its long-acting, reversible method of contraception, Jadelle, in return for a commitment to assure funding for at least 27 million contraceptive devices over the next six years.  Dr. Shah stated, ”The US Agency for International Development is proud to have funded the development of this life-saving product. Today is a major step forward to making this product more accessible to millions of women, empowering them with the ability to make decisions about their health and family.”

As always, follow us live on Twitter to keep up with the latest developments!

Have a Coke and Some Life-Saving Medicine

Posted by  on Wednesday, September 26th 2012     

Lifesaving medicines are frustratingly unavailable to millions of women and children each year. Frank Naqvi, Photoshare

When was the last time you heard a woman say, “I went to the hospital to have my baby, but they sent me to the drug shop down the street to buy supplies?” Or a health worker say, “I knew what medicine my patient needed, but I haven’t had that medicine for months?”

If you live in the U.S. or any other developed country, you’ve probably never heard this, or would think this woman and health worker were joking. But for women, families, and providers in developing countries, these stories and others are all too common…and it’s definitely not a joke.  As my colleague, Mary Ellen Stanton, eloquently captures in her post earlier this week on Saving Mothers, Giving Life, lifesaving medicines are frustratingly unavailable to millions of women and children each year.  It is unimaginable that simple and affordable medicines could save millions of lives, yet are still so far out of reach for millions.

The medicine oxytocin is needed to prevent and treat severe bleeding after childbirth. Oral rehydration salts (ORS) and zinc are needed to prevent deaths from childhood diarrhea.  And family planning commodities are needed to ensure women and their families can decide when or whether to have children – all key factors in maternal and child survival.

Over the past few years, I’ve been working on access to maternal health medicines or commodities. During this time, I’ve learned that the issues related to lack of availability, access, and demand for maternal, newborn, and child health and family planning commodities have many causes, including lack of manufacturers; lack of quality control at many points in the supply chain; providers are unfamiliar with or untrained in newer medicines or equipment; supplies don’t reach the “last mile” to remote health centers; and people don’t know that treatments are available.

But I’ve also learned that these are not insurmountable challenges. Commodities of various types do reach distant and hard-to-reach areas. One often cited example is Coca-Cola, a beverage enjoyed by millions every day, which is both affordable and available even in the most remote villages. You can actually get a Coke in remote Tshikaji, DRC!

And now, we are seeing renewed commitment among donors, country governments, and other stakeholders to make lifesaving health commodities accessible, affordable and available to millions of women, children and families around the world.

Today, the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children released 10 bold recommendations which, if achieved, will ensure women and children will have access to 13 life-saving commodities.

USAID’s long term, strategic vision looks to integrate these life-saving commodities as part of the next steps to other key efforts, like the Child Survival Call to Action and London Summit on Family Planning, in order to increase the speed at which we scale-up in host countries. It is important that we learn from our experiences and successes in getting vaccines and malaria, HIV/AIDS, and family planning commodities into the hands and homes of those most in need. Additionally, we need to integrate systems across commodities to better and more efficiently serve women and children everywhere, and scale up programs to have nation-wide impact.

Country leadership is also a vital component to successfully addressing many of the Commission’s recommendations.  Getting pallets of commodities in warehouses is just one step.  Medicines and drugs must reach people, and health care workers have to be present and skilled to administer them.

With our host country partners in the lead, we are working to strengthen supply chains for commodities, which include use of mHealth solutions; support local market shaping; improve the quality of medicines; and increase demand by mothers for necessary medicines.  This needs to happen if we are to ensure the poorest and most vulnerable women and children have the commodities they need.

These two themes, integration and country ownership, form the cornerstones of our work. My hope is that someday soon, I’ll walk past a market in a remote part of Africa with fully stocked shelves of Coke, and into a health clinic fully stocked with life-saving commodities and medicines.

El Salvador Makes the Grade in Universal Primary Education

Posted by  on Wednesday, September 26th 2012     

Jorge Renderos (left), Principal of the Oscar Arnulfo Romero School, and Oscar Armando Cruz (right), math teacher, celebrate finishing the day's school work with their fourth grade students. Photo credit: Karen Azucena, USAID

I live in the Zaragoza region, one of the poorest areas in central El Salvador.  We have limited economic development opportunities for our people, yet one of the highest rates of population density in the country.  While grappling with poverty, our municipality must also deal with gang activity and school violence.

In order to respond to this situation, my school joined with 12 other schools to form a cluster under the Ministry of Education’s Integrated System for Full Time School (SI-EITP, its acronym in Spanish).  SI-EITP is supported by USAID/El Salvador’s Strengthening Basic Education Program.

We share limited resources so that we can equitably offer educational and extracurricular services to all students, especially those who are at risk of joining a gang or dropping out of school.  For example, my school shares its sports auditorium with all 1,670 students coming from those 12 schools.  The group of schools provides extracurricular activities in areas such as technology, baking, dressmaking skills, school gardens, art, culture, sports and recreation.  Because of these activities, our students are more excited to attend school and learn new skills.

Teachers are also using new resources, materials, and techniques like more group work that allow students to more actively participate in their lessons.  The response from students has been very positive.  The lessons have been so successful that students from the Barillo school, who previously had spotty attendance, said that they were excited to go to school each day.

And this integrated system doesn’t end at the school gate. Parents, teachers and school principals all participate in the school cluster.  For instance, parents are walking to school with their children every day, as they need to cross dangerous areas where gangs are prevalent.

School principals are also working together in new ways.  Because of SI-EITP, the principals of the Corralito and Canton Guadalupe schools collaborated to improve transportation for their students.  As a result, 56 students who finished sixth grade, but did not have a secondary school close to their home, are now able to travel to neighboring secondary schools and continue their education.

With the support of the Ministry, USAID and its implementers, we have made a lot of progress but we must acknowledge the leadership of the students.  When the educators were worried about gang clashes, the student governments mitigated our concerns. They formed a “Peace Band” with participants from all of the schools.  Today the Peace Band has 300 members whose purpose is to promote healthy living and a culture of peace. We are proud to say that, not only are the student working hard to reach their own potential, they are showing real leadership skills and giving back to the community.

MDG Countdown: Working to Fulfill A Global Promise

Posted by  on Wednesday, September 26th 2012     

Susan Reichle is the Assistant to the Administrator for USAID's Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning. Credit: USAID

We all have a deadline in 2015 that can be easily lost amid our busy day-to-days and crowded lists of to-dos.

In 2000,189 nations made a promise to free people from extreme poverty and to extend hope and opportunity to millions across the developing world – all by 2015.  Under the United Nation’s umbrella of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the 189 countries committed to eight development goals that were  ambitious in scale and yet vital.

That’s why this week, USAID and our counterparts at the UK Department for International Development are once again drawing attention to the MDGs at an event in New York,during the UN General Assembly.

The good news is that great progress is being made towards achieving the MDGs, and the global community can be inspired by the innovations and successes we are seeing around the world.

Poverty has been cut by 50 percent globally and the proportion of people with no safe drinking water has been cut in half, ahead of the 2015 deadline..   

As evidenced at the New York event this week, USAID is also making a significant contribution to meet the MDG’s:

  • In El Salvador, we work with the Salvadoran Ministry of Education to not only improve the quality of teaching and learning, but also partner with local communities to keep students in school and to recruit children who were not attending classes.  (MDG 2)
  • In Afghanistan, we work with the Government to build capacity in its Ministry of Health, among midwives, and in local hospitals, and have helped to increase health coverage from eight percent to over 60 percent of the people over ten years and helped the country realize an incredible drop in infant, child and maternal mortality rates.   (MDG 4 and 5)
  • In Indonesia, where only 40 percent of citizens receive water from a household tap, we worked to vastly improve the water and sanitation systems.  While our effort has scaled down, the program legacy lives on in private and public sectors’ support for clean water and sanitation, and proof that local and the central governments are willing to commit funds to the utilities to improve performance and expand services if a clear and compelling justification is presented.  (MDG 7)

Still, with only 15 months until the deadline we still have the other six goals to meet.  USAID is applying its resources more strategically than ever to enable countries to achieve the MDGs.  As outlined in USAID’s County Development Coordination Strategies, we are implementing the President’s Policy Directive on Global Development by focusing on those development imperatives that are priorities for the host country and USAID investment can make a difference.  These strategies are informed by evidence, rather than anecdote and lead to stronger projects designed in cooperation with host country counterparts, including government and civil society.

The challenges involved in meeting the MDGs by 2015 remain daunting, yet USAID along with our global partners are making significant strides.  Using breakthrough innovations, integrated approaches, and strategic partnerships we can achieve unprecedented progress in the years to come.

The Journey Towards “Cash Light”

Posted by  on Tuesday, September 25th 2012     

Around the world, 2.5 billion people lack access to formal financial services. As a result, most poor households live almost entirely in a cash economy. The Better Than Cash Alliance, a global public-private partnership dedicated to accelerating the use of electronic payments in place of physical cash.  USAID convened the Alliance, which includes forward-thinking partners like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Citi, the Ford Foundation, Omidyar Network, Visa Inc., and the U.N Capital Development Fund, to move the world toward a more transparent, efficient, inclusive, cash-light society.

Shifting to electronic distribution of social benefits, humanitarian aid or payroll payments can advance financial inclusion and help poor people build savings while achieving cost savings, efficiency and transparency.  The Alliance provides expertise and resources needed to make the transition from cash to digital payments to achieve the shared goals of empowering people and growing emerging economies.

Visit Betterthancash.org for more information.

From Conflict to Coping

Posted by  on Tuesday, September 25th 2012     

Tisda, Mercy Corps Program Officer, in Ethiopia. Photo Credit: Erin Gray, Mercy Corps

Last summer, amidst the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in generations, Mercy Corps received encouraging news from local officials in the Somali-Oromiya region of Ethiopia.  In this area – long known for conflict, scarce resources and harsh conditions – communities that had participated in USAID-supported Mercy Corps peacebuilding efforts were reportedly coping better than they had during less severe droughts in the past.

We were intrigued, so we sent out a research team—and the findings were striking: when local conflict had been addressed, people were far better equipped to survive the drought.

To understand why, put yourself in the position of an Ethiopian herder.  When a drought hits, you can cope in several ways.  First, you will sell the weakest animals in your herd, raising cash to meet your family’s short-term needs while reducing grazing pressure on a water-scare environment. You may migrate with the remaining herd to areas where the grazing potential is better.  Along the way, you will rely on sharing access to scarce remaining water resources wherever you go.

Yet conflict can make these coping mechanisms impossible – blocking market access, freedom of movement, and access to shared resources like water. In this part of Ethiopia, population pressure and climate change had strained resources, spurring violence that in 2008-09 resulted in massive loss of lives and assets. In response to that conflict, Mercy Corps initiated a peacebuilding process in 2009 with support from USAID.  We helped participating communities focus on establishing peaceful relations, economic linkages, and joint management of natural resources.

A “resilience” approach to aid focuses on understanding, and improving, how communities cope with drought and other shocks.  Instead of just providing assistance that meets immediate material needs, a resilience approach also focuses on factors that affect a community’s ability to cope.  As Mercy Corps found last summer in Ethiopia, this often means focusing on factors that fall well outside the traditional assistance toolkit.

The program had focused on reducing violence – but our researchers found that it also built resilience along the way. Communities that participated in Mercy Corps’ program reported greater freedom of movement and fewer barriers to accessing resources, markets and public services than did non-participating communities. They identified greater freedom of movement as the single most important factor contributing to their ability to cope and adapt to the severe drought conditions. As one herder from the Wachile community said, “It is very difficult to use or access dry reserves (grazing areas) located in contending communities in a situation where there is no peace…the peace dialogues in the area have improved community interaction and helped us to access these resources.”

Our research report – titled Conflict to Coping – confirmed the important link between conflict and resilience in this region, and demonstrated that effective peacebuilding interventions help build resilience to crises.  Participating communities showed less reliance on distressful coping strategies, especially depletion of productive assets, than other communities. Importantly, the increased peace and security has allowed participating communities to employ more effective livelihood coping strategies, enabling them to better cope with extreme droughts.

Live from UNGA: Day One

Posted by  on Tuesday, September 25th 2012     

Follow the online conversation on our Storify Feed

This week, Administrator Shah and other Agency leaders are participating in several events taking place during and around the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Sunday evening we kicked off our week here in New York at the Social Good Summit, a three-day conference where big ideas meet new media to create innovative solutions. This Summit unites a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve our greatest challenges. The most innovative technologists, influential minds and passionate activists will come together with one shared goal: to unlock the potential of new media and technology to make the world a better place, and then to translate that potential into action.

USAID’s chief innovation officer, Maura O’Neil launched the mWomen Design Challenge with partners GSMA, Qtel Group, AusAID, to help improve mobile access for women in developing nations by improving the user experience. She addressed the technical literacy barrier of women’s mobile phone access and ownership. The event included a live design demo and discussions on improving mobile design to make it more intuitive for illiterate populations and the importance of collaborating with the private sector to drive change at scale.

Administrator Shah also appeared at the Social Good Summit yesterday where he spoke on a panel organized by UNICEF called  A Promise Renewed. The event highlighted child survival, technology and innovation for change. Dr. Shah spoke on a panel moderated by CNN anchor Zain Verjee, along with Tony Lake, UNICEF, Clay Shirky and Ethiopian Health Minister Tedros.

Yesterday we also launched two incredible partnerships.

Administrator Shah co-hosted the launch event for the Better than Cash Alliance, a global public-private partnership dedicated to supporting organizations’ transition away from cash to electronic payments. USAID convened the founders of the Alliance, which include The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Citi, Ford Foundation, Omidyar Network, U.N. Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and Visa Inc. The Alliance will call on governments, the development community and the private sector to adopt the use of electronic payments for programs that support people living in poverty and provide resources to those who commit to make the transition. Watch the  video.

And finally, Administrator Shah concluded the evening by joining New York Times Journalist Nicholas Kristof and others in commemorating Half the Sky, the best-selling book and multimedia initiative which tell the stories of women in the developing world on issues of family planning, health, girl’s education, sex trafficking, women’s economic empowerment, and domestic violence. USAID  supported the development of eighteen educational and advocacy videos, and three mobile phone games on health and gender equity, developed by Show of Force partner, Games for Change, which will be launched in the early fall for use in East Africa and India.  At the event, Dr. Shah launched Women and Girls Lead Global, a public-private alliance with Independent Television Service (ITVS) and Ford Foundation, in cooperation with CARE, focused on using the power of documentary film and new media to empower women and girls around the world.

To keep up with our team live at #UNGA, Follow @USAID, the Administrator @rajshah, Assistant Administrator for Afghanistan and Pakistan @Thieristan or Chief Innovator @MauraATUSAID.

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