U.S. Must Overhaul its Foreign Assistance Plan

A coalition of experts from think tanks, religious organizations, and anti-poverty campaigns has developed a campaign to overhaul the way the U.S. provides foreign aid. The reform initiative will be revealed by the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network. Currently, there are a billion people in the world who live on less than a dollar a day. The U.S.’s current system of foreign assistance is politicized, divided, and ineffective. It is split among 24 agencies and 50 programs, including the Defense Department, which in recent years has taken on an estimated 20 percent of U.S. foreign aid duties. U.S. aid has too often been given for short-term political benefits rather than for fostering long-term development. The reform advocates argue that extreme poverty and hunger could cause political instability in over 30 countries, thus directly relating back to US foreign policy. The reform initiative is aimed at presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain because the U.S.’s image on the world stage is greatly damaged, and repairing that is something in which the future president will be greatly interested. Reforming and streamlining the way in which the U.S. provides foreign assistance is a good way to start that process of reparations and a necessary way in which the U.S. must help those suffering from the current food crisis worldwide. According to Michael Signer, who served as foreign policy adviser to former North Carolina Democratic Sen. John Edwards’ unsuccessful presidential campaign, of which poverty was one of the central agenda items, “America’s need to restore our moral authority is the signature national security issue for the future.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/10968_Page2.html

The World Needs to Increase Food Production by 50% by 2030

UN Secretary-General calls for 50% increase in Food Output

Rome Summit, Tuesday June 3^rd

The UN Secretary General , Ban Ki-moon called for a 50% increase in food production by the year 2030. This statement was made in consideration of rising food and fuel costs, that are predicted to stay elevated, and because of the marked decrease in funding for agricultural development in Third World Countries from the US, the EU, Japan, Switzerland, and Canada. According to the FAO, in 2006 assistance for agricultural projects fell to 3% of total aid from 17% in the 1980s. In addition, the percentage of crops raised to support bio-fuels has risen, and will only continue to rise with further climate change. To solve the current world food crisis, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the creation of an independent body to regulate the food market and to divert funds spent on the military to boosting food production and subsidies for the poor.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=arUEgzKQ5.Ko&refer=europe