With Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Capitol Hill this week for hearings on President Trump’s budget proposal, 16 top retired generals and flag officers submitted joint testimony today in defense of America’s foreign aid budget.
“It is clear to us that strategic development assistance is not charity,” the military leaders write. “It is an essential, modern tool of U.S. national security.”
“American security is undermined by frail and failing nations where hope is non-existent,...
Aid and Development
Story and photos by Ray Mwareya
Rudo Mazhande, 32, stands smiling in a warehouse among several hundred huge bars of green soap. A crisp, clean scent wafts through the air. This is Rudo’s factory, where she now employs seven people. And once you hear her story, it’s easy to see why she might be happy.
Despite being a trained chemical engineer, Rudo struggled for years to use her skills. “I have never got a job in my field,” she says. “Because...
President Trump’s budget request for 2018 proposes cutting the foreign aid budget by more than a third! Those cuts would be disastrous for those living in extreme poverty. That’s why we’ve urged ONE members to contact elected officials from their states to urge them to oppose these proposed cuts. But aside from calling, there are lots of ways to contact your representatives and senators! Here are a few ways to get in touch and make your voice heard:
First, find...
Neglected tropical diseases, or NTDs, are parasitic and bacterial diseases that can cause severe pain and long-term disability. In 2015, more than 1.5 billion of the world’s poorest people needed treatment or care for NTDs. That’s more than HIV, TB, and malaria combined. They cause severe pain, long-term disability, and are the cause of death for more than 170,000 people per year.
In 2006, President George W. Bush launched an initiative to combat NTDs that was implemented by the U.S. Agency...
A famine has been declared in South Sudan for months now — the first time such an event has been announced anywhere in the world in the past six years. Nearly 100,000 people face starvation. Meanwhile, the people of Somalia, Nigeria, and Yemen are on the brink of famine as well, with nearly 20 million people total lacking access to enough food and water to survive.
This is a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions. But there are many organizations working to help...
This interview was conducted by Mario Calabresi, Lola Huete-Machado, and Thorsten Jungholt and originally appeared in WELT, La Republicca, Le Figaro, and El País, all of the Leading European Newspaper Alliance, or LENA.
One is wearing a tie and a suit, the other one a black t-shirt, boots, and earrings. One is the richest entrepreneur in the world, the other a rock superstar. They are sitting next to another; Bill Gates is drinking a Diet Coke and Bono a plain...
When the White House Office of Management and Budget released an outline of President Trump’s budget request for 2018, it proposed a cut of more than one-third to the budgets of the State Department and USAID. There’s been a lot of talk from elected officials, military officials, and faith leaders about why that’s not a good idea. But what exactly is foreign aid? There are a lot of misconceptions swirling around, so we decided to put together some noteworthy facts...
With the force of nearly 2 million ONE members in the U.S., ONE Vote ’16 set out to educate and mobilize voters to ensure that the next president and Congress would be committed to using the United States’ strategic power to help end extreme poverty and create a safer and more stable world.
We knew the next president and Congress would take office at a critical time when there are effective and affordable solutions available that save lives: providing AIDS...
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is a little-known but critical part of America’s poverty-fighting apparatus. During the closing days of the Obama Administration, I spoke with the agency’s outgoing chief executive officer, Dana J. Hyde, about her time at MCC and the future of the United States’ poverty-fighting work in Africa.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation is not like any other federal department or agency. Can you explain what MCC is, what it does, and how it fits into the United...
With President Barack Obama’s last full day in office drawing near, we wanted to take a look back at the times he — and First Lady Michelle Obama — were key figures in the fight against poverty and preventable disease. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) The Electrify Africa Act is signed into law The president helped 15 million more people get access to electricity with Power Africa and signed the Electrify Africa Act to continue...