---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 12:36:09 -0800
From: charlotte utting <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [WASAN] FW: Bread for the World Progress Report
----------
From: <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: Bread for the World
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 17:13:51 -0500
To: "Friends of Africa" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Bread for the World Progress Report
Dear Friends of Africa:
The following is a brief progress report on the Africa: Hunger to Harvest
campaign and a look our strategy for 2002.
==
AFRICA: HUNGER TO HARVEST PROGRESS REPORT
Bread for the World’s Africa: Hunger to Harvest
campaign aims to win U.S. leadership for an international effort
to reduce hunger and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, including
an increase of $1 billion in annual U.S. funding for effective,
poverty-focused development assistance.
PROGRESS IN 2001
During 2001, Bread for the World members, churches, and
allied organizations sent an estimated 150,000 letters to
Congress in support of the campaign. We won editorial support
from newspapers across the country. Over one hundred
organizations endorsed Africa: Hunger to Harvest. Many
church bodies backed the campaign.
Bread for the World continues to be an active member
of the Partnership to Cut Hunger in Africa, which has forged a
broad coalition of universities, nongovernmental organizations,
U.S. government agencies, and African leaders. The goal of the
Partnership is to formulate a vision, strategy and action plan for
renewed U.S. efforts to help African partners cut hunger
significantly.
We focused on the Hunger to Harvest congressional
resolution, the budget and appropriations process, and lobbying
the Bush administration.
The resolution. Representatives Leach and Payne, and
Senators Leahy and Hagel, sponsored the Hunger to Harvest
congressional resolution (H. Con. Res. 102 and S. Con. Res.
53). It calls on President Bush to develop an international plan to
reduce hunger and poverty in Africa and promises that Congress
will approve the U.S. share of the necessary increase in poverty
focused development assistance. The resolution highlights the
importance of assistance for agriculture, health, education,
microfinance, and debt relief.
Thanks mainly to Bread for the World’s grassroots
network of active members, the Hunger to Harvest Resolution
quickly picked up 24 Senate cosponsors. It passed the Senate
by unanimous consent on July 19. The House version gained
156 cosponsors and passed on December 5, 400 to 9. On
December 14, the Senate accepted the House-approved
language.
Appropriations. At the end of 2001, Congress also
appropriated close to $400 million of the $1 billion Bread for the
World was seeking for Africa for FY 2002. They increased the
Child Survival and Development Assistance accounts by $ 345
million, and Africa should, based on the pattern of recent years,
receive between $120 and 138 million of this amount. The $400
million estimate also includes the $229 million Congress
approved for debt relief and about half of the $17 million
increase for IDA. It does not include a supplemental
appropriation of $200 million to the Global Health Fund.
The administration. The Bush administration has given
more high-level attention to Africa during its first year than any
previous administration. Secretary of State Colin Powell has
consistently stressed the importance of Africa to U.S. interests,
and Bread for the World and its allies have encouraged the
administration at every step. In the run-up to the G-8 Summit in
Genoa, President Bush gave a speech about world poverty. The
Summit devoted significant attention to the proposal Africa’s
heads of state have developed for a New Partnership with
Africa. In a July letter to Senator Bob Dole (a Bread for the
World board member), President Bush affirmed his support for
the goals of the Hunger to Harvest Resolution. At the US-Africa
Economic Forum in October, President Bush reaffirmed Africa’s
importance to the United States.
STRATEGY FOR 2002
Bread for the World is now lobbying the administration to
put their rhetoric into action as they develop their budget
proposal for FY 2003. The four original sponsors of the Hunger
to Harvest Resolution – Senators Leahy and Hagel and
Representatives Leach and Payne – sent a letter urging the
President to recommend an increase in poverty-focused
assistance for Africa. Bread for the World will monitor
USAID’s use of FY 2002 appropriations, to check that money
is not shifted from Africa to war-related aid for Central Asia.
Throughout 2002, Bread for the World activists across
the country will be lobbying Congress, especially the
appropriations committees, for a further increase of poverty-
focused development assistance to Africa in FY 2003. We are
seeking an increase of $1 billion over the FY 2001 level. We
will focus on specific accounts, probably Development
Assistance, Child Health, IDA, the Africa Fund, and debt relief.
The Hunger to Harvest Resolution calls for the President
to develop a five-year and a ten-year plan to reduce hunger and
poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Bread for the World also will try
to influence the Bush administration’s plan. Bread for the World
will work with allies in Africa and other G-8 countries to urge
President Bush and his colleagues at this June’s G-8 Summit in
Alberta, Canada, to adopt a concrete plan of action to support
the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, including a
major increase in G-8 funding for poverty-focused development
assistance to Africa. (1/9/2002)
==
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