Pres. Obama discusses foreign aid at Twitter town hall

Jul 6th, 2011 5:07 PM UTC
By Kara Arsenault

I just finished listening to the first White House Twitter Townhall — and guess what I heard? President Obama talk about the importance of smart aid! But don’t take it from me. Read what he had to say for yourself:

“I think it’s important for people to know that foreign aid accounts for less than 2% of our budget and if you define it narrowly as the kind of foreign aid to help feed people, and what we think of as classically as foreign aid, its probably closer to 1% so sometimes people have an exaggerated sense that we spend 25% of the federal budget on foreign aid. It’s a tiny amount that has a big impact. And I think America to be a leader in the world, to have influence, to help stabilize countries, create opportunity for people so that they don’t breed terrorists or create huge refugee populations flows Its smart for us to make a very modest investment in aid, it’s a forced multiplier and its something even in tough fiscal times its we need to do as part of our role as a global leader.”

A big thank you to everyone who submitted a tweet today. And don’t forget — tomorrow we’ve got another great chance to ask USAID Administrator Raj Shah some questions about youth and international development. We came up with a few tweets to help get the questions started (check them out below), but feel free to add your own!

@USAID how can we make our development efforts more cost-effective, sustainable?
@USAID how can we better connect African youth with American youth?
@USAID American aid has helped protect millions from AIDS, malaria, hunger. How can we share the good news?

TAGS: Barack Obama, ONE, ONE App, Technology, Twitter, White House