Indiana Religious Leaders Urge Clinton and Obama to Overhaul Foreign Aid
Click here to read the letter to the presidential candidates.
At least 425 US soldiers, 15 of them from Indiana, have died in Afghanistan and Pakistan, yet a recent study by Oxfam found that US aid to Afghanistan, provided by eight separate US agencies, is poorly coordinated, ineffective and wasteful.
"To honor our soldiers' service, we need to make sure the billions of dollars being provided for reconstruction there is spent wisely and helps lay the basis for peace," stated Rev. Lisa Marchal of Indianapolis.
In the letter released today, the religious leaders stated that US foreign aid has saved millions of lives around the world, yet it is executed by at least 12 departments, 25 different agencies, and almost 60 government offices, and this leads to confusion and competing agendas. They said US procedures undermine the sense of local ownership needed for development to succeed.
Indiana Senator, Dick Lugar, the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has also backed the call for better coordination. He recently stated: "A foreign assistance program that fights endemic poverty and helps build just, open and well-governed societies will go a long way toward loosening the lure of violent extremism. The commitment must be long-term, and we must be coordinated as a government if we intend to make a difference."
The letter from the religious leaders, also sent to Senator McCain, calls on the candidates for President to back the establishment of a Department of Global Development. Such a cabinet-level department would streamline the aid bureaucracy and ensure a focus on effective and sustainable poverty-reduction. Prominent religious leaders in Pennsylvania sent a similar letter just before the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.
"We wish to emphasize our full support for an approach to US foreign policy that is grounded in compassion and justice, in accordance with our faith traditions," the letter states. Signers include Sister Ann Oestreich IHM, Congregation Justice Coordinator, Sisters of the Holy Cross, Notre Dame, IN, and Dr. M. Kent Millard, Lead Pastor, St. Luke's United Methodist Church, Indianapolis, IN.
The Global AIDS Alliance strongly supports the creation of a Department of Global Development. "Our experience on HIV/AIDS has shown that, while effective aid is already saving millions of lives, often the response to such crises is not holistic," said Dr. Paul Zeitz, Executive Director of the Global AIDS Alliance.
"You wouldn't set up 20 different checking accounts to pay your household bills, but that's what we are doing in foreign aid; the time has come to put someone in charge of integrating programs and holding them to high standards," said Zeitz. "Without a complete overhaul, our efforts to respond boldly to the global food crisis, for example, will be much less successful."
On April 23, key members of Congress in charge of oversight of foreign aid issued a clear for reform. Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, stated: "It is painfully obvious to Congress, the Administration, foreign aid experts, and NGOs alike, that our foreign assistance program is fragmented and broken and in critical need of overhaul."
GAA and RESULTS have issued a set of five principles that the foreign aid reform process must observe to be fully successful. These principles are online at http://www.globalaidsalliance.org/index.php/922.