At the Camp David Summit, G8 leaders recognized the important progress that has been achieved in a number of countries undergoing transition and committed to maintaining their support for these transitions in four key priority areas: stabilization, job creation, participation/governance, and integration.

The Leaders of the Group of Eight, met at Camp David on May 18 and 19, 2012 to address major global economic and political challenges.

This week's wrap-up of happenings on Capitol Hill includes an analysis of the Senate Appropriations Committee's subcommittee allocations for FY2013, a list of upcoming hearings and a list of recommended articles. 

This week's Update includes a hearing summary around U.S. foreign assistance priorities in Latin America and a list of recommended articles.

This week's Weekly Update includes analysis of the House budget resolution, a notification of a Sudan resolution, a list of upcoming hearings, a list of articles of interest, and summaries of hearings on U.S. policy in Iraq, the USAID FY2013 budget request and U.S. contributions to the UN budget.

Summaries of five different hearings on Capitol Hill this week, an analysis of two hearings by USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on the agency's FY2013 budget priorities, a list of upcoming hearings for next week, and a selection of articles of interest.

The Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) program of the University of Texas, in partnership with AidData, released an interactive mapping dashboard of climate change vulnerability and conflict events in Africa,

With the completion of the U.S. military mission in Iraq, an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis remain displaced within their own country and continue to face serious challenges in restarting their lives. The overall security situation remains unstable, with several violent attacks in recent months.

This week's Update includes an analysis of a little-noticed provision in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Given the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (or “supercommittee”) to come to an agreement in November, the provision revises the “security” and “non-security” categories to which the discretionary spending caps apply.

Today, Congress is passing and sending to the president the final conference agreement on the nine remaining spending measures for fiscal 2012.

Country ownership empowers and supports effective states and citizens to take responsibility for their own development, using local systems and resources to build capacity and create change in communities that they are committed to sustaining.

InterAction News Release

The Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation is the outcome document of the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held November 29 - December 1, 2011 in Busan, South Korea.

After a week of rumor and innuendo, amendments and points of order, the FY2012 Senate State, Foreign Operations (SFOps) bill appears headed for inclusion in a nine-bill omnibus that leadership will attempt to push through by mid-December.

Late last week, the Obama administration announced that it has sent a “small number of U.S. military advisors” to central Africa to assist forces in the region that are pursuing the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Did you know…
… that together, InterAction members and U.S. corporations manage an estimated $19.4 billion in international development program funds? Together, we represent more than half of the total U.S. private investment in developing countries.*

A recent survey of InterAction member CEOs, presidents and executive directors revealed:

Humanitarian groups are increasingly worried about the looming budget cuts in U.S. foreign assistance. They argue that lives are at stake in places like the Horn of Africa, which is suffering its worst drought in decades.

Raising public and private money for that crisis been a challenge in the current economic environment.

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations finally released their FY2012 report, available here.

The budget table details account levels for international poverty-focused and humanitarian assistance as well as other pertinent accounts within the U.S. International Affairs Budget (Function 150) that InterAction tracks and analyzes for its members.

This week the House Appropriations Committee unveiled the Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2012, a stopgap measur

Steinberg's remarks are titled, "Delivering Effectivev Development Assistance in a Changing Global Landscape."

Recent developments in the aid strategy of the United States — such as reversing a previous reduction in technical experts, and promoting more country-driven, outcome-oriented systems — have been endorsed by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic

This week, the House State, Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee unveiled its draft bill for FY2012, which contained substantial cuts for humanitarian and poverty-focused development assistance.

Legislation that would sharply cut U.S. foreign aid programs and slash support for family planning advanced on Wednesday in the Republican-controlled House, drawing protests from State Department officials and relief agencies.

InterAction Statement: Proposed cuts included in the State Department and foreign operations appropriations bill in the House of Representatives would have devastating consequences for the world's most vulnerable populations and gut core development and humanitarian spending accounts, said InterAction, the biggest alliance of U.S.-based international NGOs on Wednesday.

On Capitol Hill next week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is holding a markup hearing of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2012 on Wednesday, July 20 at 10:00am in room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Check for other upcoming hearings in the Update below.

Today's edition of the Weekly Update includes news on the debt limit deadline and the Senate Budget Committee’s long-awaited draft FY2012 budget resolution. It also includes the regular menu of upcoming hearings, hearing summaries (including the contentious Senate Foreign Relations hearing on U.S. involvement in Libya), and articles of interest.

This presentation will share the preliminary results of a mini-campaign Mercy Corps is doing on hunger. The model we are using is a "low threshold" model suitable for organizations with limited resources to devote to campaigning, but with a desire to more fully engag

InterAction watched with interest this week President Obama’s speech on troop levels in Afghanistan. With much of the attention centered on the aspects of the security transition, the face of long-term development in Afghanistan remains to be seen. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that the U.S.

Robust foreign assistance helps governments in developing countries build more stable, prosperous societies, and can be a catalyst in pulling a country out of poverty.

InterAction News Release: Members of Congress and U.S. NGOs announce the need to integrate global development and environmental policies with the launch of InterAction's new policy paper titled "The Nature of Development," which calls for alignment of the two issues in order to improve the effectiveness of U.S. foreign policy investments.

This week, the House of Representatives (the Senate was in recess) held a couple of hearings of interest to development and humanitarian community. On Wednesday, the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia heard testimony from administration officials regarding the upcoming U.S.

InterAction News Release: The official G8 “Deauville Accountability Report” released today underscores the need for the world’s richest nations to be fully accountable and follow through on previous public promises to deliver aid in key areas like food security and global health.

May 13, 2011 InterAction News Release: InterAction President and CEO Samuel A. Worthington said on Friday he was very disappointed with the latest cuts made by U.S. House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) in the  2012 foreign operations budget.

Although Congress is in recess this week, there were several pertinent hearings from last week whose summaries we did not include in the April 15 edition of the Weekly Update. Among these are an April 11 Commission on Wartime Contracting hearing regarding NGOs and Provincial Reconstruction Teams operating in Afghanistan.

On April 14, 2011, InterAction President and CEO Samuel A. Worthington testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. His testimony, below, championed the importance and value of the poverty-focused development and humanitarian accounts administered by USAID and the State Department.

InterAction's G8/G20 Task Force applauds the work of the G20 leaders to enhance financial inclusion by increasing access to financial services by low-income people. Improving the range and quality of financial services available to previously excluded individuals strengthens their ability to secure and increase their financial assets.

InterAction is continuing to monitor the humanitarian situation in West Africa resulting from post-electoral violence in the Ivory Coast.

Last week, General David Petraeus and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michéle Flournoy testified before the Armed Services Committee in both chambers about recent developments in Afghanistan. Find a summary of these hearings below, as well as information about legislation on Haiti recently introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and a list of upcoming hearings and articles of interest.

Policy brief from InterAction partner MFAN that makes the case for foreign assistance reform in this challenging budget environment.

Op-ed in The Christian Science Monitor by Ken Hackett, president of InterAction member Catholic Relief Services, on the choice faced by U.S. lawmakers about whether to cut foreign assistance in the FY2011 federal budget.

Congress is doing its part by preparing to cut the international affairs budget by close to 20 percent, a move that could undermine national security, defy military leaders’ advice and endanger U.S. interests and core values. Worst of all, these cuts would be disastrous for women and children—the majority of the world’s poor.

This is final list of what happened to the amendments to the House Continuing Resolution (CR) Extension. The final bill  passed at 4:40 a.m. Saturday morning, with all but three Republicans voting for it and all 186 Democrats voting against.

Article in The Washington Post on the cuts to the foreign assistance accounts in the federal FY2011 budget. Staff from InterAction members World Food Program USA, World Vision and ONE are interviewed.

Why it is worth investing in defense, diplomacy and development.

House of Representatives’ "Continuing Resolution (CR) Extension" bill for the rest of fiscal year 2011ignores the recommendations of military and business leaders and prioritizes relatively miniscule short-term budget savings over long-term security, prosperity and fiscal health.

President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget calls for a modest increase—1 percent—in spending on foreign affairs and development.

InterAction member CARE's statement on the FY2011 Continuing Resolution.

Offers line-by-line details on how InterAction is crunching the 2012 International Affairs Budget numbers. 

Note: Last updated June 27, 2011.

Americans think they give far more aid than they actually do, and are clamorring to cut it. But aid isn't just about compassion, it serves our security and economic interests too.

The term “budget process,” when applied to the federal government, actually refers to a number of processes that have evolved separately and that occur with varying degrees of coordination.

 A new poll shows Americans continue to vastly overestimate the amount of foreign assistance given by the United States. Conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, the November poll finds the median estimate of the percentage of the federal budget most Americans think is spent on foreign aid is 25%.

Global development assistance efforts are experiencing a critical moment of change. This moment is not a week or month but a several-year period in which political scales are tipping, rationales and underlying assumptions are being reexamined, and new systems and approaches are emerging.

"If you don't want to use military force any more than you have to, count me in. State Department, USAID, all of these programs, in their own way, help win this struggle against radical Islam. The unsung heroes of this war are the State Department officials, the [Department of Justice] officials, and the agricultural people who are going out there."

“We estimate that between 2005 and 2010, nearly half a billion people escaped extreme hardship, as the total number of the world's poor fell to 878 million people. Never before in history have so many people been lifted out of poverty in such a short period.”

Transcript of an interview of InterAction's president and CEO, Sam Worthington, and the State Department's Special Coordinator for Haiti, Thomas Adams, on the way forward in Haiti after the one year anniversary of the earthquake on January 12, 2010.

Agence France Presse (AFP) article in the Montreal Gazette exploring both sides of the debate on NGOs in Haiti.

InterAction member Oxfam's one year progress report on Haiti since the January 12, 2010, earthquake. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled the final report of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). The report provides a blueprint for elevating American "civilian power" to better advance national interests and to be a better partner to the U.S. military.

John Ruthrauff,  InterAction’s International Advocacy Director, is quoted in this article about World Bank reforms to increase lending to low-income countries.

Sam Worthington quoted in Devex.com's report out on the QDDR.

InterAction members continue to respond to the cholera outbreak in Haiti. Find more information on our crisis response page.

InterAction members continue to respond to the cholera outbreak in Haiti. The international humanitarian community and Haiti’s government are acting quickly and coordinating efforts to respond to the outbreak and prevent further spread of the disease.

The Department of State, after consultation with the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), submitted this report detailing planned uses of certain funds appropriated for Haiti in the FY 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Bill passed by Congress on July 27, 2010 and signed by President Obama on July 29, 2010 (HR 4899).

InterAction President and CEO Samuel A. Worthington testifies before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere on Thursday, July 29, 2010.

Six months after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, there is still much to be done, however, the communities Plant With Purpose works with have made significant progress by planting trees, constructing soil conservation barriers, and providing incomes to support their families through our “Cash for Work” program.

 In 2005, in Gleneagles, Scotland, G8 nations committed to “act with resolve and urgency” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Almost a year since more than three million people fled fighting in Pakistan’s Swat valley and surrounding areas, the crisis is far from over. Over a million people are displaced, more are being forced into displacement every day, and two million are struggling to rebuild their lives after returning to their homes to find their villages destroyed.

The world’s poorest countries had no hand in creating the global economic crisis and yet continue to bear the brunt of its ricochet effects.

 Notes from the "Consultation with the Global NGO Community on Building Back Better in Haiti" which occurred on March 25, 2010 in New York City.  The event was co-hosted by the European Union, InterAction, and the U.N. Office of the Special Envoy to Haiti.  

Letter from InterAction's President & CEO Samuel A. Worthington to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate State, Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittees on InterAction's recommendations for the anticipated FY2010 supplemental funding measure.

This brief, published by Save the Children in 2010, explores issues for policymakers and practitioners to consider as part of a renewed emphasis on stakeholder participation in development programs. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit on Thursday, December 17, 2009. 

Latest draft text (on December 15, 2009) from the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA), a  key working group under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).   In 2012, the Kyoto Protocol expires and it is assumed that this six page paper may be the framework for a new global agreement to combat climate change.

An InterAction Viewpoint on the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit.

Response to discussion in the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) rewrite process with ten proposed reforms and other responses/suggestions from the InterAction community.

See also: HFAC Discussion Paper #1