Progress Against Poverty Week

Extraordinary Work During Challenging Times  

This year has been a difficult one for many, including a number of organizations within the InterAction alliance. Once possessing the resources to collectively work with local communities in 200 countries to build agricultural, educational, financial and health care capacities, many InterAction member organizations have been forced to shutter programs and furlough staff at a time when donor country assistance has either decreased or disappeared due to the global economic crisis.

During this year’s Progress Against Poverty Week, InterAction will salute the dedication of its members who are facing challenging times, but continue to work as best they can on the ground in the developing world to end global poverty, and discuss next steps for the alliance.

InterAction Viewpoints

• Climate Change Poised to Undo Two Decades of Progress Against Poverty [1]
  "Climate change...has reduced access to water in poverty-stricken rural communities, which has reduced crop yields, leading to a lack of reliable access to food, involuntary migration and the breakup of families, hunger and malnourishment, and an overall increase in vulnerability." Read More >>> [1]

• Trade and Investment in Developing Countries Key to Making Progress Against Poverty [2]
  "The poorest 49 countries of the world currently represent 10% of the global population but only 0.4% of world trade. These less developed countries have been hit particularly hard by the global economic crisis. While many rich nations are already beginning to see signs of recovery, the less resilient economies of the world’s poorest countries are unable to pull themselves out of the crisis..."
  Read More >>> [2]

• Lack of Leadership at USAID Limits Effectiveness of U.S. Foreign Assistance [3]
  "President Obama has yet to appoint anyone to lead the agency. The absence of a USAID administrator has severely hindered U.S. humanitarian and development assistance during the past eight months. Not having this key position filled in time for the Afghanistan-Pakistan policy review or planning for the aftermath of the Gaza crisis was... "
  Read More >>> [3]

Congress Talks About Importance of U.S. Participation in Fight Against Global Poverty

Members and Partners Doing Extraordinary Work
 

• Throughout the month of October, ChildFund International's "31 in 31" blog series [8] is highlighting each of the countries where they are at work, sharing insights and introducing readers to some of the children they help through firsthand accounts from staff and beneficiaries.
• The Living Proof Project [9] is a multimedia initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation intended to highlight successes of U.S.-funded global health initiatives. By reporting success stories back to the people who funded them - American taxpayers and their representatives - we hope to reframe the current global health conversation.
• Credit with Education Program [10]is Freedom from Hunger's worldwide strategy to bring self-help solutions to the fight against hunger--one family at a time. The program, first launched in West Africa in 1988, combines microcredit loans to very poor women with vital health and business education and has become recognized as a powerful and proven approach to helping families become food-secure. Freedom from Hunger's Impact of the Credit with Education Program [11] prove that credit with education has an impact on the health and nutrition of the children.
• In Guatemala, Bread for the World is Building More Than a School [12]
• The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) places great emphasis on achieving and measuring results [13] in both its Compact programs and Threshold programs. MCC maintains this focus throughout these programs, concentrating on
  • identifying activities that have the greatest promise of poverty reduction through growth,
  • measuring progress during implementation, and
  • learning from its experiences.
• The International Food Policy Research Institute's 2009 Global Hunger Index [14] (GHI), below, shows that worldwide progress in reducing hunger remains slow. The 2009 global GHI, with a focus on the financial crisis and gender equality, has fallen by only one quarter from the 1990 GHI.

For more information on Progress Against Poverty Week, please contact Tawana Jacobs [15].