[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
THE FISCAL YEAR 2013 BUDGET: A REVIEW
OF U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE AMIDST
ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 20, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-157
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey--
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California deceased 3/6/12 deg.
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
RON PAUL, Texas ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
JOE WILSON, South Carolina RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
CONNIE MACK, Florida ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
DAVID RIVERA, Florida CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
ROBERT TURNER, New York
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESS
The Honorable Rajiv Shah, Administrator, U.S. Agency for
International Development...................................... 10
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Rajiv Shah: Prepared statement..................... 13
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 42
Hearing minutes.................................................. 43
Written responses from the Honorable Rajiv Shah to questions
submitted for the record by:...................................
The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Florida, and chairman, Committee on Foreign
Affairs: Prepared statement.................................. 45
The Honorable Howard L. Berman, a Representative in Congress
from the State of California................................. 119
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in
Congress from the State of New Jersey........................ 126
The Honorable Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative in Congress
from the State of California................................. 129
The Honorable Donald A. Manzullo, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Illinois................................... 131
The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress
from the State of California................................. 136
The Honorable Connie Mack, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Florida......................................... 141
The Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas: Letter from Members of Congress to His
Excellency the Minister of Trade, dated February 21, 2012...... 144
THE FISCAL YEAR 2013 BUDGET: A REVIEW OF U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE AMIDST
ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY
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TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2012
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o'clock a.m.,
in room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ileana Ros-
Lehtinen (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. The committee will come to order. I
will recognize myself and the ranking member, Mr. Berman, for 7
minutes each for our opening statements. We will then hear from
our witness before we move to questions and answers under the
5-minute rule. We are not giving members an opportunity to give
a 1-minute? Sure, we are.
Without objection, the witnesses' prepared statements will
be made a part of the record. And members may have 5 days to
insert statements and questions for the record.
The Chair now recognizes herself for 7 minutes.
Dr. Shah, welcome. We appreciate your being with us today.
Our hearing this morning is to discuss the foreign assistance
budget for Fiscal Year 2013. When we met last year, we
discussed the foreign aid budget against the backdrop of our
Nation's challenging fiscal situation, including our vast
annual deficit. Regrettably, as all of us know, little has
changed in that front. One year later, newspaper headlines
read, ``Nearly One in Six Americans in Poverty,'' ``Line Grows
Long for Free Meals at U.S. Schools,'' ``City Cost-Cutting
Leaves Residents in Dark.''
So our Nation continues to face a substantial deficit, with
35 cents of every dollar being borrowed. The Congressional
Budget Office predicted that our budget deficit will total a
staggering $1.08 trillion this year. CBO has also projected
that the jobless rate will rise to 8.9 by the end of 2012 and
to 9.2 the following year. Therefore, it is critical that we
continue to thoroughly scrutinize our Government spending, and
foreign assistance is no exception. Every dollar must be
justified.
It is a common argument that the foreign aid budget
represents 1 percent of the overall Federal budget.
However, within that 1 percent are billions of U.S.
taxpayer dollars that the American people have earned through
hard work and have generously provided to nations around the
world. It is our responsibility to ensure that these hard-
earned dollars are held to the highest standards of
transparency, are reaching the intended recipients, and are
advancing our national and security interests and foreign
policy priorities.
Our foreign aid is not an entitlement program. Countries
like Botswana, Chile, Thailand and South Korea have all used
U.S. foreign assistance to build their economies and eventually
graduate from U.S. foreign assistance. This should be the goal
for all countries that receive U.S. assistance.
Dr. Shah, in the previous remarks over the last year, you
stated that by 2015, USAID could help several countries move
away from U.S. assistance and, thus, close USAID missions.
However, the budget request that you have submitted does not
include any scheduled USAID mission closures in Fiscal Year
2013. So, Dr. Shah, what changes or reforms are you proposing
or implementing to ensure that U.S. foreign aid does not create
dependency but, rather, leads to empowerment and self-
sufficiency? What is USAID's strategy for moving countries
beyond foreign assistance so that they can stand on their own?
Modest progress was made in Fiscal Year 2012 to eliminate
unnecessary programs and missions. However, in reviewing the
Fiscal Year 2013 budget, it does not appear to reflect a
commitment in increased cost savings and elimination of U.S.
assistance to countries that no longer need our support.
Further, the administration's congressional budget
justification states that the budget proposal only requests
what is absolutely necessary. Yet, the administration is
seeking nearly $2.6 billion under this request for
international climate change programs, while humanitarian
assistance accounts are scaled back. I remain concerned that
funding of these programs is being provided at the expense of
good governance, democracy, and rule of law programs.
With limited resources, we must ask if this best meets our
U.S. national security interests. For example, U.S. foreign
assistance to the countries of the Western Hemisphere should
reflect our main concerns: Security and democracy in that area.
Under this request, funding for environmental programs to
Guatemala increases by $2.5 million, funding that could be put
to better use elsewhere for prevention programs that counter
narcotrafficking and promote security funding.
At a time when violent drug cartels are expanding their
influence and fundamental freedoms are under assault by the
ALBA tyrants, citizen security and democracy assistance must be
USAID's priority. This priority must be appropriately reflected
in the President's foreign assistance budget. The sharp cut in
democracy funds for Cuba and Venezuela sends the wrong message
to the internal opposition in these countries. Cuban dissidents
will question the United States' commitment to a free Cuba as
funding is decreased by $5 million.
And as the ALBA regimes move further down the path of
totalitarianism, this proposed budget rewards the dictatorship
of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua with an increase of
development assistance. In Nicaragua, the proposed budget
reveals a $3.1-million boost in funding for Fiscal Year 2013.
Yet, the unconstitutional reelection of Daniel Ortega and his
successful power grab demonstrates that USAID funds have not
been spent wisely to promote democracy or transparent
elections.
Even more worrisome, our current USAID programs in
Nicaragua support a handful of Sandinista mayors at the
municipal level. In Ecuador, Correa continues to intimidate the
private media and independent journalists, but the President's
budget request increases funding for development assistance to
Ecuador by $2 million. I also remain opposed to the increase in
money for family planning and reproductive health--especially
when all other global health accounts decline.
The administration's reversal of the Mexico City policy
allows U.S. Government funding to be allocated to foreign
nongovernmental organizations that support or promote abortion
as a method of family planning. An increase in family planning
and reproductive health would only provide further opportunity
for expanded funding for these organizations.
So I look forward to discussing with you the reforms you
have introduced to make the delivery of our foreign assistance
more effective and what steps USAID is currently taking to
break the welfare state relationship between U.S. foreign
assistance and dependent countries.
At this point I would like to turn to my friend and
colleague Congressman Berman, the ranking member of our
committee, for the opening statement that he would like to
make. Mr. Berman is recognized.
Mr. Berman. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chairman. And
I join you in welcoming Dr. Shah before the committee this
morning. I appreciate this opportunity to consider the
President's Fiscal Year 2013 budget request for humanitarian
and development assistance and to review efforts to reform the
way USAID does business.
As you yourself have noted, Madam Chairman, the total,
cumulative Fiscal Year 2013 International Affairs request of
$56.37 billion is $5.1 billion below last year's request, and
represents less of an increase over 2012 spending levels than
the current, annualized inflation rate.
Moreover, I would add, international affairs spending
represents only about 1 percent of our overall Federal budget.
And development and humanitarian spending is less than half of
that amount.
Despite these facts, there continues to be a widespread
misunderstanding about the size of our foreign aid program.
Polls show that most people think it is upwards of 20 percent
of the budget and that cutting foreign aid will somehow balance
the budget. What is interesting is that the amount people think
we should be spending on foreign aid is about ten times more
than we actually spending.
It bears repeating that we give humanitarian and
development aid not only because it is the right thing to do
but because it is the smart thing to do. Addressing hunger,
disease, and human misery abroad is a cost-effective way of
making Americans safer here at home. And it is infinitely
cheaper to address these with economic and technical assistance
now than to wait until fragile states collapse or conflicts
erupt in wide-scale violence and we have to resort to costly
emergency aid or even military action.
Reducing global poverty is not a partisan issue. Democrats
and Republicans alike want to usher in an AIDS-free generation,
expand access to clean water and sanitation, respond to natural
disasters, help countries hold free and fair elections, and
build new markets for U.S. exports. In fact, some of the
biggest contributions to global health and development were
spearheaded by Republican Presidents, such as PEPFAR and the
Millennium Challenge Corporation, which were both created by
President George W. Bush.
Still, in this difficult economic climate, we have a
special obligation to ensure that the funds are spent as
efficiently and as effectively as possible and that they best
serve our national interests. To do so, we must revise and
update the framework of foreign aid laws and procedures that
were designed for the last century and fail to reflect the many
lessons we have learned over the past 50 years.
For instance, we know that our programs have a much greater
impact in countries that devote significant resources to
improving the lives of their own people. Our dollars go much
further if we and other donors work along with host countries
in a coordinated way, instead of setting up parallel
institutions that are duplicative or leave gaps. But our system
of stovepiped accounts and earmarked funds makes it very
difficult to respond to local needs and priorities.
Another thing we have learned is that we need to be
strategic about our investments. That means not only having a
clear plan of what we are trying to achieve and specific
indicators to measure success, but also being more selective
and focused with our funding.
Despite the need for improvements, I think we have some
good stories to tell. Since its founding 50 years ago, USAID
has played a critical role in lowering child deaths by 12
million a year. It has helped gain global coverage of basic
childhood vaccines from 20 percent to 80 percent in most
countries. The money we have invested in agricultural research
led to the Green Revolution, which saved hundreds of millions
from hunger and famine. And just recently, the World Bank
announced that the first Millennium Development Goal, having
the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day, has been
reached ahead of schedule.
Unfortunately, this message is not the one that dominates
our headlines. After many years of providing aid, the public is
skeptical that aid really helps. They are concerned that the
problems are too big for us to be able to make a difference.
And they don't have a clear idea of how the aid is actually
used.
In order to ensure that our money is being effectively
spent and achieving the desired results, we need to collect
solid empirical data about what works, and we need to make it
available to the public. Without evidence that our programs are
having a significant positive impact, we will lose the support
and the confidence of the American people.
Some seem to think we can keep cutting back on staff and
salaries without hurting programs. Naturally no one wants to
waste money on unnecessary overhead costs. But it is time to
realize that development is a discipline, that our dedicated
aid professionals, Foreign and Civil Service alike, have
important skills and experience that we want to retain and
build upon. If we don't invest in our human resources, we will
pay dearly in the long run.
One thing that can be done to put our aid programs on a
sounder footing is to replace the Foreign Assistance Act of
1961 with legislation better geared to the needs of the twenty-
first century. Last September, I released a draft of the Global
Partnerships Act, which lays out a vision for how to make
foreign assistance serve our national interests more
efficiently and more effectively.
Dr. Shah, I hope by now you have had a chance to review
this draft. I would ask your staff to begin sitting down with
us to discuss how we can improve it.
Madam Chairman, I make the same offer to you and your staff
so that we can have the benefit of your views and suggestions
before introducing it later this year.
Before I close, I would just like to say a few words on
behalf of our late colleague, Don Payne, who devoted so much of
his career to serving the poor and downtrodden, particularly in
Africa. And, Dr. Shah, I welcome your recent launch of the
Donald Payne Fellowship Program, designed to attract
outstanding young people to careers in international
development.
I know that Don had been working with you for the last year
on your draft diversity and inclusion plan, and this will be an
important element of it. But I also want to bring to your
attention the last piece of legislation that Don introduced.
H.R. 4141, the Food Assistance Improvement Act of 2012, is
designed to improve the nutritional quality and cost-
effectiveness of United States food assistance, based on a
number of recommendations made by the GAO.
Don wanted to ensure that the food we provide is of the
right type, quality, and nutritional value, not just to prevent
starvation, but to maintain and restore health for the most
vulnerable populations. I think one of the best ways we can
honor Don's life and memory is to move this legislation through
the process in a cooperative and bipartisan manner.
Thank you, Dr. Shah, and I look forward to your testimony.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Mr. Berman.
And now we will hear from our members, who are recognized
to give 1-minute remarks, starting with Congressman Smith, the
chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and
Human Rights.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Welcome, Dr. Shah, to the committee, always great to see
you. You know, I would ask that you perhaps in your statement
and certainly in your work consider two issues that are largely
overlooked. In 1998, I began the national effort to combat
autism--wrote the law, Combatting Autism Act, which it was my
bill. It was just re-signed into law by President Obama,
providing money for research.
But on the international side, we had a hearing May 31st.
It is estimated that there are 67 million individuals with
autism and in Africa, it is tens of millions. And we had a
woman from Cote d'Ivoire who said in Africa, there are no
services. There are no diagnoses being made. And these children
are being abandoned, and many of them die.
Secondly, on the issue of hydrocephalic children, many of
whom get that way because of infection, we had a hearing on
that with CURE International on August 2nd. I have a bill that
I am going to be introducing, International Infant
Hydrocephalus Treatment and Training Act.
There is a simple shuntless intervention--and I saw it when
I was in Uganda and Kenya--that can save the lives of these
children, who otherwise die or are severely disabled. And I
would ask you. We need to put resources behind both CURE
International and their efforts and this effort on combatting
autism.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much.
Mr. Faleomavaega?
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank you for holding this hearing. And I want to
extend my personal welcome to Dr. Shah this morning at our
committee.
And I want to associate myself with the comments made
earlier by our ranking member, the gentleman from California,
Mr. Berman, especially to recognize the tremendous
contributions that our former colleague and a dear friend of
mine, Congressman Payne, who passed away. And I think it could
not be more fitting that we name this program after him for the
tremendous work that he has done for the continent of Africa,
just as much as we have worked together for the past 23 years
of being helpful to these 2 regions in Africa as well as in
Asia Pacific region.
I do have some questions I will ask Dr. Shah as we proceed
with the hearing. Thank you.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much.
Mr. Rohrabacher is recognized.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much.
We will miss Don Payne. And I will miss his aggressive
refutations of the points that I make, as he always did so as a
fine gentleman.
We have $5 trillion more in debt right now than we had 3
years ago, $5 trillion. Unless that is dealt with, our economy
will collapse. Currency will collapse. You are going to have to
convince us.
And I am sorry. I love my colleagues who have such great
hearts that they want to help autistic children in Africa and
elsewhere, but you are going to have to convince me of why it
is necessary to borrow more money from communist China in order
to give money to some other country or some other group of
people.
I submit for the record on top of that, Madam Chairman, at
this point I would submit for the record a list of perhaps
$100-million worth of aid that we are giving to China. And I
would like you to convince me of why it is necessary for us to
provide this type of aid to the world's worst human rights
abuser and a country that is governed by a clique that thinks
of the United States as their enemy.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
[Note: The information referred to is not reprinted here
but is available in committee records.]
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. Sires is recognized.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this
meeting. And I would like to associate myself with some of the
comments made here by my other members, especially in regards
to Don Payne.
And also I would like to associate myself with the $100
million that my good colleague Rohrabacher said that we are
giving China, but I am also more concerned about the Western
Hemisphere. It seems that some of the countries that need the
most to promote democracy, we're cutting it, especially when
you have countries like Iran moving into the region and
establishing a relationship with some of these countries that
are really out to end democracy in this area. So I am very
concerned.
All the cuts, especially when it comes to Cuba, there is a
crackdown going on now just before the Pope visits. And I don't
understand why this administration is so intent on cutting just
about anything that promotes democracy in this area when we
should really be putting more money into it. This business of
appeasing some of these countries is just I don't understand
it.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, Mr. Sires.
Judge Poe, Texas, is recognized.
Mr. Poe. Mr. Shah, it is like we talked about in December.
We can't reform foreign assistance without Congress and the
administration working together to do so. For example, your new
evaluation policy in my opinion is a step in the right
direction.
I commend you for that. On the congressional side, we are
trying to do some things here, too. I appreciate your support
for my foreign assistance reform bill, H.R. 3159. That is co-
sponsored by the ranking member, Mr. Berman.
We need the administration to establish guidelines for
monitoring and evaluation of America's money. We need those
guidelines implemented by all departments that deal in foreign
assistance so we can hold them accountable, learn from
mistakes, and make sure those programs are either funded or not
funded.
Now it is hard to tell the bad programs from the good ones
because we don't evaluate them. We should shut down programs
that don't reform and start doing what they promised when they
got our money. Instead, we should give that money to programs
that deliver.
After 50 years of doing foreign assistance, we don't
subject our aid to rigorous evaluation. Those days need to end
immediately and hold people accountable.
I yield back.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much.
Mr. Connolly of Virginia?
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Madam Chairman, but I think Mr.
Deutch may have been ahead of me.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Yes, you are so right. Mr. Deutch?
See, I am just trying to be friends with you in hopes I can get
some more of that chocolate. Mr. Deutch?
Mr. Connolly. It is on its way, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Mr. Deutch is recognized.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank
you to my friend and gentleman Mr. Connolly.
Thank you, Dr. Shah, for being with us today. Dr. Shah, I
would like to commend you on the progress that you have made
with the USAID Forward Program to streamline the agency and
make USAID more effective in this difficult budget climate.
I said many times before to this committee that the work
that is being done across the globe through our funding of
international assistance programs is absolutely critical to the
security of our own country, programs like the Global Health
Initiative, which works to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and
fund President Bush's PEPFAR Program, are vital to preventing
global pandemics. These are the kids of programs that work to
stabilize the most vulnerable regions in the world.
International assistance should be an area where we can
come together to support programs that save the lives of women
and children by providing access to reproductive health care so
that children don't have to lose their mothers during
childbirth, so that young women delivering their first child,
women whose growth is stunted because of poor nutrition or
childhood illness, women living in rural areas or those who use
traditional maternity care and deliver at home don't end up
ostracized from their community from the debilitating effects
of preventable conditions, like obstetric fistula.
Dr. Shah, we provide funding for international assistance
programs because they reflect our core American values. I look
forward to your testimony today.
And I yield back, Madam Chair.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much.
Mr. Royce is recognized.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Madam Chair.
According to a recent study, when asked how to solve the
North Korea's chronic food shortage problem, 94 percent of
North Korean refugees said the government needed to be
reformed. Only 1.4 percent said the answer was more food aid.
They know that sending more food will only help the regime's
inner circle and keep it well fed.
We had one senior North Korean defector say, ``We must not
give food aid to North Korea. Doing so is the same as providing
funding for North Korea's nuclear program.'' And he argued that
it allows Kim Jong-un to divert resources toward its military
program, it allows the military to be well fed.
According to one South Korean parliamentarian, the north is
hoarding 1 million tons of rice, playing up the shortfall to
pressure us and others for aid. Many others suspect that the
north is hoarding food for the 100th anniversary of North
Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. Food aid, of course, would
subsidize that event. Consolidating the Kim dynasty is no
contribution to human rights.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Ms. Bass is recognized.
Ms. Bass. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Shah, thank you for your steadfast leadership and
commitment to foreign affairs and development. I commend the
women and men of USAID, some of whom work in extreme and high-
stress environments. You and your colleagues continue to share
the good will of the American people without our fail. For
this, we are very grateful.
I look forward to learning where you see real opportunity
to maximize U.S. development and diplomatic efforts. I imagine
the last several years have not been easy and you should be
commended for your resilient work to make a more efficient and
effective USAID, both abroad and here at home within the agency
itself.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much.
Mr. Connolly is recognized.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Madam Chairman. And I welcome Dr.
Shah to the committee again.
A great power must reject the false choice that we can deal
with our debt or we can deal with other obligations but we
cannot do both. A great power has obligations, and it has
interests that must be propounded and a modest bilateral and
multilateral aid program is a tool without which we commit
unilateral disarmament. If we are worried about the competition
coming from China, they are getting off airplanes and on
airplanes in every developing country in the world. And we are
retreating. And that is not a wise long-term policy for the
United States of America.
I am interested particularly in hearing about two things
today. One is advocacy. What do we know about what works in our
aid program over 40-50 years of experience now?
And, secondly, how are we best structured to make sure we
are deploying the assets and resources we have got from an
administrative point of view.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, sir.
Ms. Wilson is recognized.
Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Director Shah, for your presentation of the
President's Fiscal Year 2013 budget request for USAID to the
committee today. It is a pleasure, pleasing pleasure, to have
you.
America has long been seen as an example for the rest of
the world in democracy and diplomacy. And thank you for your
role in leading this charge.
The assistance of developing nations is integral in our
national security. In fact, you had not spent many days on the
job before the devastating earthquake ripped through Port au
Prince, Haiti, a day that I am sure you recall vividly. In
fact, the world recalls that day. That was a day that forever
changed the direction of Haiti and will not soon be forgotten
by many of my constituents in Miami, Dade County, Florida.
Many of them note and are grateful for the responsiveness
of USAID, both immediate and ongoing. I am encouraged by the
outreach that you and your staff have maintained with the South
Florida community.
When I traveled to Haiti, I was alarmed by the thousands
that remained homeless without any hope of finding work or
housing. I was disturbed by the living nightmare of women and
girls who are suffering from sexual and physical abuse. Upon my
return, it was the stories of rape by force and the visuals of
pregnant teens that haunted me.
I sponsored a resolution on gender-based violence in Haiti
to reassure the people of Haiti, particularly the women and
children, that the United States remains a committed partner in
the fight to end all forms of gender-based violence in Haiti.
I would like to encourage the administration through the
State Department and USAID to encourage the Haitian Government
to take proactive steps that are consistent with the
Interamerican Commission on Human Rights' recommendations on
sexual violence to eliminate gender-based violence.
It is my----
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Ms. Wilson. Oh, that is it?
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much.
Ms. Wilson. Thank you.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. Thank you to
all of our members for their opening statements.
And now the Chair is pleased to welcome our witness. Dr.
Shah serves as the Administrator of the United States Agency
for International Development. He was nominated by President
Obama and sworn in as the 16th USAID Administrator in December
2009.
Previously Dr. Shah served as Under Secretary for Research,
Education, and Economics and as chief scientist at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. He also served as director of
agricultural development in the Global Development Program at
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dr. Shah earned his medical degree from the University of
Pennsylvania Medical School and a master's degree in health
economics from the Wharton School of Business.
Dr. Shah, thank you for attending. Your entire statement
will be made a part of the record. And I realize that your
timer is not working. I will just fling the gavel at you when
the 5 minutes are up in a very subtle way. Dr. Shah, you are
recognized.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RAJIV SHAH, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S.
AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Dr. Shah. Thank you, Chairman Ros-Lehtinen and Ranking
Member Berman and members of the committee. It is an honor to
be here today to present and discuss the President's Fiscal
Year 2013 budget request for USAID.
I would like to take a moment as well to recognize the life
and work of your fellow committee member Don Payne. Congressman
Payne was, of course, well-known on these issues and deeply
respected and loved at our agency. He spent a considerable
amount of time with me and with out staff in traveling to visit
our programs. And we will continue to do what we can to honor
and carry forward his legacy.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Berman, each of you
has challenged our agency to be more businesslike in the way we
carry out our mission and to apply a laserlike focus on the
results we seek to achieve and to pursue them aggressively.
Madam Chairman, I have appreciated your continued emphasis
on the need for USAID to aggressively engage the private sector
to seek more leverage and more results in how we spend our
resources. And in response to that, we have expanded a number
of efforts to do just that.
Ranking Member Berman, I appreciate your efforts to pursue
a reform agenda for foreign assistance that prioritizes
monitoring and evaluation, focusing on results and
transparency. And we believe we have taken a number of
important steps to take that to the next level of performance.
Two years ago, President Obama and Secretary Clinton called
for elevating development as a key part of America's national
security and foreign policy. Recognizing that in frontline
states, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, in transition
countries in the Middle East and North Africa, in expanding our
engagements with the private sector to create markets of the
future and jobs at home, and in focusing on and achieving real
development results in moving people out of hunger and poverty,
saving children's lives, improving access to water and
education, responding to humanitarian crises effectively, and
promoting democracy rights in governance, in doing these tasks,
our work makes us safer and more secure over time.
The President's Fiscal Year 2013 budget request is designed
to do this. We have prioritized across our portfolio,
continuing the path of closing missions in places like
Montenegro, Panama, and Guyana. We are cutting programs. More
than 165 programs have been reduced or cut. So that today
USAID's China request, for example, is exclusively for only
those communities in Tibet and for some very small disease
control efforts to prevent the spread of international
communicable diseases.
We have eliminated health programs in Peru and Mexico,
eliminated food and agriculture programs in Kosovo, Serbia, and
Ukraine, all to refocus our efforts and our priorities in those
places where we can generate the most significant results.
The American Evaluation Association has referred to our
approach to monitoring and evaluation as a gold standard across
the Federal Government and encouraged other agencies to adopt
the approach we are trying to adopt everywhere we work.
And, perhaps most importantly, we are seeking to implement
a new model of partnership with faith-based institutions,
private sector entities, universities around this country and
the world and, most importantly, to get much more value for
money in the way we work with our existing NGO and contract
partners.
We do this work with great care, trying to invest more
directly in local institutions, to stretch the value of
American dollars and get better development results.
Our budget request includes a request to authorize a
working capital fund for USAID to help ensure that we have the
contracts, capacity, and oversight, and management capability
to continue to squeeze more value for money in how we seek to
achieve development results.
And this budget focuses on our core priorities. To support
the transitions in the Arab Spring, we are requesting a joint
State-AID account of $770 million in an incentive fund designed
to support a critical transition.
In our frontline states of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan,
we continue to fight for sustainable programs that are
delivering results. We have reduced the scale and scope of that
programming to ensure sustainability. And we are very cognizant
of the security risks and security management strategies we
have put in place in those environments.
Global health, at $7.9 billion, is the single largest item
in the foreign assistance request. This amount of resource will
allow us to meet the President's goal of increasing treatment
for HIV/AIDS patients from 4 million to 6 million people,
essentially saving 2 million additional lives.
It will allow us to maintain our commitment to fight for
and implement the end of AIDS by creating a generation born
without HIV/AIDS. It will allow us to continue to prioritize
the very efficient President's Malaria Initiative, which has
seen in many of its priority countries child death come down by
more than 30 percent due to effective and cost-effective
programs implemented well. And it allows us to capture some of
the new opportunities that technology and innovation have made
possible in terms of saving children's lives.
The budget includes a $1 billion request for our Feed the
Future partnership. We saw last year the worst drought in more
than six decades hit the Horn of Africa, placing 13.3 million
people at risk of hunger and starvation. USAID led an
international humanitarian response, helping to save thousands
of children's lives and feed more than 4.5 million individuals.
But food aid costs eight to ten times more than investing
in helping people produce and sustain their own futures through
agriculture. And we are starting to see real results in our
Feed the Future partnership, with countries in that program
experiencing a rate of agricultural productivity growth nearly
eight times the global average.
So I will conclude my statement with a thank you to our
staff. We have asked them to take on real risks in difficult
environments and to take on a significant and aggressive reform
agenda, which I call USAID Forward. They have done this in an
impressive manner.
And, while much work lies ahead, I appreciate your support
and your ideas and your consultation as we continue to work
together to improve our national security. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shah follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Dr. Shah. Thank
you for excellent testimony. And now we will begin our question
and answer period, 5 minutes per member.
I will ask a series of questions, Dr. Shah. You won't have
time to answer, but I respectfully request if I could get a
written response to these, that would be wonderful.
On Haiti, the President's Fiscal Year 2013 budget allocates
nearly $340 million in new assistance funds for Haiti. The
recent resignation of the Haitian Prime Minister and the
absence of the interim Haiti Recovery Commission raises serious
concerns about what oversight mechanisms are being employed to
guarantee accountability of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
So if you could respond in written form what action is the
U.S. Government undertaking in order to ensure proper
transparency of assistance funds into Haiti?
On funding for the Palestinian authority, Dr. Shah, the
administration is pressing Congress to release $147 million for
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Among the arguments, it
utilizes that Abu Mazen needs to be supported because he is all
we have. However, the administration is not demanding that Abu
Mazen return to the negotiation table with Israel without
preconditions, nor that he stops his unilateral statehood
scheme at the U.N. The administration also says we need to help
rebuild the Palestinian economy, this at a time when our
economy is facing serious challenges and Americans are
suffering.
Now, in the list of projects the administration wants to
fund with 147 million in taxpayer dollars, there are some that
are aimed at addressing humanitarian concerns, funding for
water programs, health, food aid, and support for USAID
programming. Congress and the administration can't find common
ground on these.
However, there are others that Congress finds difficult to
justify as advancing U.S. national security interests or in
assisting our ally and friend Israel. In this respect, if you
could justify $2.9 million for trade facilitation, $4.5 million
for tourism promotion, and $8.1 million for road construction?
Specifically, I would ask that you justify a total of $26.4
million in reconstruction and recovery for Hamas-run Gaza. That
includes cash for work programs? And, more broadly, how much
has the U.S. spent in total since 1993 in West Bank and Gaza?
And how much is the administration proposing we spend next
year? And how can we justify that?
Turning to Egypt, if you could respond to what mechanisms
you have developed to ensure that U.S. assistance to Egypt does
not directly or indirectly provide support or otherwise is
influenced by the Ministry for International Cooperation and
Development? And what is the justification for the provision of
any U.S. assistance to an Egypt Government potentially
dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood or affiliated extremists?
Do you agree that no U.S. assistance should be provided,
directly or indirectly, to the Muslim Brotherhood and
affiliated extremists?
And, lastly, to my native homeland of Cuba--and Mr. Sires
well spoke of that--the Obama administration has had a policy
of concession toward the Castro brothers, but it has not
yielded any measurable change for democracy. And I am deeply
concerned about the Department of State and USAID's growing
funding for programs that promote the Castro brothers' sham
economic reforms at the expense of funding for important
programs that do support Cuba's political prisoners and the
growing internal opposition.
Though this administration likes to point to Castro's so-
called economic reforms as a sign of change, the fact remains
that 11 million Cubans continue to suffer under brutal
conditions with the repressive Castro regime. And this new
focus on economic reforms will do nothing more than validate
the Castro regime and promote their radical anti-American
propaganda.
And so my question is, how does harnessing U.S. foreign
assistance to promote the Castro brothers' sham economic
reforms build the capacity for the internal opposition? And how
can we prioritize the funding for Cuba to strive for a free and
democratic Cuba by again funding the pro-democracy programs
there on the island?
So I thank you, Dr. Shah, for that written response
whenever you get to it. Thank you so much, sir. And now I would
like to turn to Mr. Berman.
Mr. Berman. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
Dr. Shah, I think under your leadership, a number of
important and exciting things are happening at USAID. You have
been leading the way to make our aid more efficient, more
effective, and more accountable. You have restarted the process
of doing country strategies so that we are clear about our
objectives and our measures of success.
You have established a new system of monitoring and
evaluation, as the gentleman from Texas mentioned earlier, to
ensure that funds are spent properly and achieve the desired
results. And you have launched procurement reforms to make it
easier to partner with small businesses and local NGOs, rather
than bundling everything into huge contracts that only the
biggest companies could hope to compete for.
When it comes to Afghanistan particularly, and perhaps
Pakistan as well, our largest recipients of ESF, these
considerations seem to go out the window. We don't seem to have
a clear idea of what success would look like in Afghanistan.
Each week there seems to be some new report about corruption
and misuse of funds with little good news attached.
We are spending a huge portion of our funding on security
costs, instead of on actual programs. And USAID has just
recommended limiting the use of cooperative agreements and
grants in Afghanistan, which means, in effect, ending our work
with NGOs and handing it all over to large companies.
Can you talk to us about what you would regard as success
in Afghanistan, how you are guarding against corruption, what
progress we have made so far, and why we are relying so heavily
on big contractors?
And let me just insert one other question if you have a
chance to answer that as well. This deals with Syria. Basically
world leaders have made an historic commitment to protect
populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and
crimes against humanity.
What can you tell us in open session about what the United
States is doing to uphold its responsibility to protect
civilians in Syria? Do we have any assessment of the needs? And
are we working with international humanitarian agencies to find
ways of meeting them? So Afghanistan more generally and Syria
that specific question. Thank you.
Dr. Shah. Thank you, Congressman. I appreciate your
comments about our overall reforms. And I would suggest that
they have also been implemented in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, we have seen over the last several years
significant and important results, 7 million kids in school, 64
percent health coverage leading to a report that came out in
December that showed the largest reductions in maternal and
neonatal mortality anywhere in the world have taken place in
Afghanistan.
We have also seen real economic performance, 10-11 percent
annualized growth rates for a number of years, and a more than
tripling of domestic revenue collection, which needs to
continue on that trend for the Afghans to increasingly take up
the responsibility of paying for their own public expenditures.
The challenge going forward and the challenge the President
has articulated is sustaining those gains in a challenging
environment and in an environment where we seek enough
stability for our troops to be able to come home on the
schedules the President has announced and supported.
In that context, we are doing a number of things
differently. We have formulated and implemented sustainability
guidance, reviewed all of our programs, found that some needed
to be restructured pretty dramatically in order to be able to
be sustained by Afghan revenues and by any legitimate future of
what assistance could look like for the Afghan people.
Second, we are working closely with international partners
to have a long-term strategy that is consistent with Afghan
priorities but also forces real prioritization and focuses on
specific and concrete results, things like tripling energy
access to businesses and to people in Afghanistan, which has
been achieved over the last 6 years.
We believe that we want to be working more with local
institutions, including in a way that monitors against
corruption, government, and NGOs. I will look into the specific
point about the cooperative agreements because that was only
intended to apply to large-scale infrastructure being developed
in complex security environments, but I will have to look into
that and come back to you more specifically.
On Syria, in particular, we have certainly been very active
in conducting and partnering with others to conduct
assessments. Syria actually has a strong international
community presence inside of Syria, in part due to their
support for Iraqi refugees over a longer period of time. Many
of them have conducted assessments and presented us with
opportunities to support specific humanitarian efforts with a
real focus on getting commodities and medical support and
trained medical personnel to immediately affected areas.
That said, any international humanitarian effort is
fundamentally constrained by the serious and very transparent
lack of access created by the Syrian Government's active
military campaign. And while I can't speak about this in much
more detail, I think it is safe to say that we should have
modest expectations of what humanitarian partners will be able
to achieve there, but we are working with them aggressively, as
aggressively as we can.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, Mr. Berman. And
thank you, Dr. Shah.
Mr. Smith is recognized.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Dr. Shah, when the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS
Relief, or PEPFAR, was marked up here in this room a decade
ago, I sponsored both the conscience clause amendment and the
anti-trafficking and prostitution amendment. Both were enacted
into law in 2003 and reauthorized again in 2008.
I have read the acquisition and assistance policy
directive, the AAPD 1204 issued on February 15th of 2012, which
replaces previous guidance on these matters. The policy
directive reiterates the law verbatim, ``An organization,
including a faith-based organization, shall not be required as
a condition of receiving assistance.'' And it goes on to list
it ``and that the organization has a religious or moral
objection. It shall not be discriminated against in the
solicitation or issuance of grants,'' and it goes on from
there.
Can you provide assurance, including a commitment to robust
monitoring, that grants contracts or cooperative agreements
haven't been, aren't now, nor will be written in such a way--
and I am thinking of integrated services--to diminish or to
even preclude organizations, including faith-based
organizations, from applying or receiving those funds?
Secondly, on the anti-sex trafficking prostitution law, the
DC Circuit Court of Appeals, as you know, held that USAID may
enforce the requirement that entities have a policy opposing
sex trafficking and prostitution while the U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of New York has ruled against it.
Your view on this proviso? And will the administration appeal
to the U.S. Supreme Court? I understand the filing deadline for
cert is May 2nd. So that date is fast arriving.
And, finally, number three, according to the GAO report
issued on October 11, a USAID-funded award recipient, the
International Development Law Organization, or IDLO, advised
the Kenyan entity responsible for drafting the new Kenyan
Constitution, to include language in the Constitution that
would legalize abortion in that country.
The only reason we learned about this blatant violation of
U.S. law prohibiting the use of funds to lobby for or against
abortion is that IDLO itself informed GAO in response to GAO's
inquiry. The USAID's official responsible for managing the
grant informed GAO that she did not fully read IDLO's reports
until the USAID IG inquiry brought them to her attention in mid
2010. I would note my extreme disappointment that the USAID IG
did not reveal this violation in its report to Congress on
September 29th, 2010.
My question, please explain how this violation occurred;
why USAID did not properly monitor the grant so that the
violation could be immediately rectified; and what, if any,
measures have been taken to ensure that future grants that
potentially involved lobbying for abortion adhere to legal
funding restrictions.
Dr. Shah?
Dr. Shah. Thank you, Congressman. And thank you for your
partnership and work, especially on fighting for the health of
vulnerable populations around the world. We very much
appreciate that.
On your first point, faith-based institutions and
partnerships are absolutely critical to our ability to be
successful around the world. And one of the first things I did
was ask our faith-based office to do a systematic review of
both how we work with faith-based partners and to look in-depth
at our procurement and contracting to explore whether we could
do a better job of being more accessible and a better partner
overall and as an agency.
We have been steadily implementing many of the findings
that they have come up with. And I think we are doing a better
job by any number of metrics and in terms of our engagements
with the faith-based community and in terms of supporting the
fact that they sometimes generate better results because they
have a deeper, longer-standing, more sustainability-oriented
commitment to delivering services for very vulnerable
populations.
So the short answer, sir, to your first question is yes,
absolutely, we will be implementing the law as you read it. And
we will have a strict focus on making sure that is the case.
Mr. Smith. And I hope, again, that integrated services
would not become code for exclusion.
Dr. Shah. Integrated was one of the issues that came up in
the review. And we have come up with a few options that have
enabled us to work to ensure that that is not exclusionary for
faith-based partners. And we are now exploring a second tier
set of options that will go even further than that. So we
recognize that issue and have been working on that and I think
getting positive feedback from our faith-based colleagues and
partners on our steps in that space.
In terms of your point about the case that is with the
Solicitor General, I understand it is the Solicitor General's
decision and will be made soon. I can follow up with your
office in more detail, but I thank you for raising that.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, Dr. Shah. Thank
you, Mr. Smith.
Mr. Faleomavaega?
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Shah, approximately 20 years ago, the downfall of the
Soviet Union, one of the decisions our Government made was to
show no more presence of USAID in the Pacific region because of
limited resources. We have new countries coming out of East
Asia, South Asia, Central Asia. And for the last 100 years,
USAID is not around.
Now, I have got a little problem here because currently the
People's Republic of China currently has a $600-million
development aid program for the 16 island nations. And when I
looked around, the last thing we did was we sent a medical ship
full of doctors and nurses. They did inoculations, vaccinations
about 2 years ago.
And my question is, do we have to wait another 40 years to
sail another ship? And I am very concerned with the fact that
there is no presence. I think it has been 2 years now USAID has
been looking at whether or not it should justify itself in
coming to the Pacific region.
Where are we with this right now? Is there still a lack of
importance in this region, why USAID feels it shouldn't be
there?
I noticed also with interest--and please don't get me
wrong. Absolutely these countries need funding: The Western
Hemisphere, 3 countries, South Asia, 4 countries, Middle East,
5 countries, Asia Pacific region, 3 countries, Africa, 19
countries, and I am sure there will probably be assistance.
There is not one thing mentioned about Central Asia, nothing
mentioned about Eastern Europe, and absolutely zero for the
Pacific region. Can you comment on that?
Dr. Shah. Yes, sir. Thank you for the comment and your
point. The Pacific region is, in fact, a priority for this
administration. President Obama articulated as such on his trip
to the Pacific. And his comment on returning was that this is a
region where they welcome and seek active and greater
partnership in----
Mr. Faleomavaega. The problem I have with this, Dr. Shah,
is that in my humble opinion, the only foreign policy that we
have toward the Pacific region is really with Australia and New
Zealand. These island countries are only incidental to our
overall major interests in this region. And I am very concerned
about this.
If it is possible that China can provide a $600-million
economic development program for these countries? It tells me
that we are really not that interested.
Dr. Shah. So I would just argue, sir, that we have, in
fact, opened a new satellite office in Papua New Guinea. We are
putting in place regional programs for the Pacific islands. We
are doing so, as you mentioned, in partnership with New Zealand
and with Australia and focused on using new tools and
technology so we get as much leverage as is possible since this
is overall a very challenging fiscal environment.
And we are doing that with an eye toward some core
priorities for the region: Health, education, and regional
integration in terms of economics and resilience. We know that
two-thirds of the predicted disasters over the course of the
next decade will be Asia Pacific and in where they take place.
And so we have active risk reduction programs that are seen as
the best in the world.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I know my time is up, Dr. Shah. And I
have got to hit you up with one more question.
Dr. Shah. Sure.
Mr. Faleomavaega. One of the issues that is always dear to
my heart is the fact that you know the usual Chinese saying,
``Feed the man fish. He will live for 3 days. But if you teach
him how to fish, he will live forever.''
I honestly believe that one of the most important public
diplomacy issues that our country should really promote and
enhance, currently we have about 670,000 foreign students
attending our American colleges and universities. And I am
curious to know where is USAID putting its priority in
providing educational opportunities for foreign students?
Central Asia, countries that are really, really in need of
nuclear self-educated and professional people so they can
continue to do better in terms of how they can provide greater
transparency than they are giving governments. And I was just
wondering, is USAID serious they can provide the educational
opportunities for students from these countries that really
have a need?
Dr. Shah. Sir, we absolutely are. I would suggest we
prioritize at this point basic education and track outcomes so
that people can progress to secondary school. In secondary
education, we prioritize getting girls to complete and work
through secondary education.
And we have just launched a new series of expanded
partnerships to allow for twinning between U.S. higher
education institutions and counterparts around the world. Today
we know that it can often be cheaper and more effective to help
people gain higher education through any number of innovative
ways, including virtual learning and other tools. So we are
very cost-conscious and technology-informed in how we are
pursuing that goal, but we are pursuing that.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I have 100 more questions, I am sure, but
I am going to go.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Dr.
Shah.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher?
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
And, Mr. Administrator, I put in the record in my opening
statement a list----
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Without objection.
Mr. Rohrabacher. We already have that in the record, Madam
Chairman. Thank you.
In that list, you will see the list of items that are going
to China. And there are millions of dollars, perhaps $100
million that I have listed. Many of them are indeed for
environmental assistance to China to try to improve their
environment, but here are some of the others on the list. Here
are $150,000: For the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development for development assistance to China. Here is
$47,000 to Management Systems International for development
assistance, USAID to Rockefeller philanthropy advisers of $2.4
million for sustainable livelihoods in China; The Asia
Foundation, $1 million to improve disaster management in China.
There is, for example, to an undisclosed foreign contractor
$150,000 for development assistance in China and $450,000 to
The Asia Foundation for disaster management in China. It is
200, almost $300,000 to Bob Davis nongovernmental organization
for sustainable livelihoods in China.
Now, these things all add up to a considerable sum of
money. Can you tell me why when China at this moment is
expanding their military spending in a way that is threatening
to its neighbors and to the security of the United States at a
time when it is developing its space-based weapons systems and
rocket systems at a time when it is itself giving aid to rogue
states that hate the United States, whether it is Iran or North
Korea or Venezuela, why are we providing money to them?
Actually, why are we borrowing money from them in order to give
it back to them so that we can pay interest on the money that
we just gave to them? Something is screwy here. You may proceed
to try to answer that.
Dr. Shah. Okay. Sir, the Fiscal Year 2013 request for China
is $6.5 million. Almost all of that is exclusively for programs
to assist Tibetan communities to preserve their unique
livelihoods and with a small amount to focus on limiting the
transmission of infectious disease, which is a CDC partnership
with China that grew out of the SARS epidemic and today focuses
on top-level HIV/AIDS----
Mr. Rohrabacher. So you say that is $6 million going to
who?
Dr. Shah. $6.5 million going to programs to support Tibetan
communities.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Six million dollars going to Tibetan
communities.
Dr. Shah. But I believe the $6.5 million covers the Tibetan
communities and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control)
partnership with----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So we are helping them control their
health care needs for their people.
Dr. Shah. That is a program that grew out of the SARS
epidemic, which, of course,----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Dr. Shah [continuing]. Had global consequences. And it is a
technical program that helps them maintain focus.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes.
Dr. Shah. There are two other important points.
Mr. Rohrabacher. There are always global implications to
every outbreak of every communicable disease.
Dr. Shah. There are two other important point. The first is
on global health, China has traditionally been a recipient of
funding from the global funds for TB and malaria. This
administration has taken the position and used our Board seat
on that group to try to transition China to be a donor to that
group, as opposed to a recipient. And that would be if made a--
--
Mr. Rohrabacher. Let me ask you this. Have they donated
more than they have taken out?
Dr. Shah. I don't know the----
Mr. Rohrabacher. I know the answer to that. I have
confronted the people before with this. And they are taking out
like ten times more than they are putting in. And you call that
a success?
Dr. Shah. No, no. We are actually trying to change that. We
are trying to make it so they----
Mr. Rohrabacher. I know you are trying to change it. That
is not a success. You have not been successful at changing
that. What you have been successful at is now trying to give
some money while it is taking out an enormous amount of other
money.
But what about all of these other things that I just pushed
in your direction? Development assistance? Disaster management?
Why are we paying China? Why are we borrowing money from China
to give it back to them like that when they are spending their
money on weapons aimed at the United States?
Dr. Shah. Sir, I would be happy to have my team look at the
list and come back to you specifically. I know with certainty
that the request for Fiscal Year 2013 explicitly focuses on
support for Tibetan communities and a small amount of technical
partnership to manage international disease control priorities.
Another point I would make, sir----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Madam Chairman, before my time has gone
out, let me just note I am opposed to free trade with
dictatorship, especially the world's worst human rights abuser.
But what I am more opposed to is giving aid to human rights
abusers and dictatorships. And we have got the worst in all
worlds in our relationship with China, which is the world's
worst human rights abuser.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. Deutch is recognized.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Shah, the President's budget requests $569 million for
family planning and reproductive health activities, including
$39 million for the U.N. population fund for international
organizations and programs that count and $530 million in
bilateral family planning funds from global health programs
account.
Can you explain, please, the types of programs that USAID
funds to provide access to reproductive health services that
has the potential to prevent 350,000 women from dying during
pregnancy or childbirth each year or prevent the horrific
effects from unsafe childbirth, like obstetric fistula?
Dr. Shah. Thank you, Congressman.
The family-planning program focuses on, as you are aware,
voluntary family-planning partnerships with countries. We do
not in any context support or encourage or in any way fund
abortion. In fact, the opposite is the case. By having better
birth spacing and by avoiding unintended consequences,
especially for very young girls, ages 12 to 16, we see much,
much, much reduced levels of abortions in the countries where
we work.
The other theme in this program has been transition to
local management and control and funding responsibility for
these efforts. Particularly in Latin America, we have seen over
the last 12-15 years. Many of these programs transition to
their own domestic management and their own domestic revenue
support.
And the reason countries choose to do that is they see that
as the number of births go down and the total fertility rate in
countries goes down, that that lays the basis for economic
growth, greater stability, greater ability to invest in
children and their access to school and education that has been
a core part of generating what we call in this field a
demographic dividend, which kickstarts development activities.
Mr. Deutch. Thanks, Dr. Shah.
Dr. Shah, changing gears, I just would ask if you would
provide some information to us, perhaps in writing, after the
hearing. It has been reported that USAID provides assistance,
possibly $2 million, to the Palestine Investment Fund,
particularly to its loan guarantee program, for technical
support is my understanding.
If you could provide us with information on that funding,
whether or not those reports are accurate, and the nature and
scope of any such contributions, that would be helpful.
Dr. Shah. We can do that.
Mr. Deutch. I appreciate it.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Deutch. And, then, finally, like the chairman and my
friend Congressman Wilson and other colleagues on this
committee, many of our constituents were deeply affected by the
devastating earthquake in Haiti that occurred now more than 2
years ago.
And one common refrain that I hear because of my
constituents is why the recovery process seems to be moving so
slowly and, of course, the widespread allegations of
corruption. The question I have, more specifically, is what is
USAID doing to work with the Haitian Government to address the
longstanding rampant corruption charges and provide support for
civil society to establish proper government institutions,
judicial processes, and uphold the rule of law.
Dr. Shah. Thank you.
I think it is important on Haiti to mention that there has
been very significant and critical progress. We have seen food
production go up significantly. Corn yields are up 300-plus
percent, rice yields 60 to 70 percent, more, better nutrition
outcomes. We have seen the effective control of the cholera
epidemic, which, of course, we need to stay vigilant about. The
access to clean water and safe sanitation has gone up compared
to pre-earthquake levels. And, most importantly, we are seeing
real private investment in an industrial park in the north that
is creating 60,000 jobs and new Marriott Hotel in Port-au-
Prince that will do something similar.
So there are signs of real progress that I think we all
looked to with real hope. There are also challenges. One of the
challenges has been that it has taken some time for a peaceful
transition in terms of democratic governance to lead to a fully
effective government. And, as was noted earlier, the prime
minister whom we were working very closely with on the
assistance program and coordination just recently left his role
after being placed in it quite late. And so we await progress
there.
We are in a constant and very deep, multi-level discussion
with our Haitian partners. We support civil society and, in
fact, have made a number of procurement changes to how we work
to support small businesses here to be part of the effort but
also to support Haitian civil society, NGOs, and local
businesses more directly. And, in fact, as we do larger
procurements for different types of projects, we have built in
very strict standards to ensure that there is an effective role
for those types of organizations.
On judicial reform, we have continued to partner with our
Haitian counterparts. As you know, President Martelly is
committed to effective judicial reform. And we could go into
that in some detail, but that has been an important part of the
dialogue because you are absolutely right that that lays the
basis for the rule of law that allows all of those earlier
gains in private investment and other things to really take
hold and expand.
Mr. Deutch. And, Madam Chairman, if I could just ask Dr.
Shah to provide the committee with some of the details on those
changes in the procurement process on the specific efforts with
civil society and----
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Mr. Deutch [continuing]. Most specifically, in our
community to make sure that our constituents understand----
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much.
Mr. Deutch [continuing]. The opportunities they have as
well.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. We will do that. Thank you.
Judge Poe is recognized.
Mr. Poe. Dr. Shah, two issues I want to talk about, one
that we have discussed before. That is American rice. As you
know, historically American rice, the best trading partners,
Iran, Iraq, and Cuba, those markets have sort of dried up over
the years. And American rice farmers are looking for markets. I
would just encourage you that when you have the opportunity in
USAID to be involved in shipments of rice to somebody that
American rice goes here.
I would like to have unanimous consent to put in the record
a letter, bipartisan letter, Madam Chair, to the Administrator
of Trade of Iraq.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Without objection.
Mr. Poe. And I will furnish you a copy of that, too.
On the issue of USAID helping out other countries, there
are 12 departments, 25 agencies, 60 Federal offices that run
foreign aid programs for the United States. Few have any sort
of evaluation policy, let alone a standardized evaluation
policy.
MCC is the only one with a strong policy. USAID's was weak
and just issued last year. State Department was issued in
February of this year and was even weaker. And the DOD doesn't
have anything in writing about evaluation of programs.
Do you believe a common set of guidelines on measurable
goals and monitoring of evaluation plans would be helpful?
Dr. Shah. Absolutely, sir. In fact, part of the President's
policy directive on development was calling for such an
approach. I would note when I took office and reviewed our own
performance here I thought we could do a lot better. I
criticized our current approach at that time and said that it
was a 2-2-2 approach with two consultants traveling for 2 weeks
writing reports that two people read and didn't really have the
statistical validation that I think you need in this field to
demonstrate whether or not your programs are working.
We put in place a new evaluation policy to ensure every
project we pursue has an independent third party evaluation
done by very rigorous standards that include measuring data,
collecting the right data, looking at a counterfactual, having
a baseline. And the result of that will be that before the end
of this year, we will post more than 250 independent
validations with no success story glossiness to them at all
straight to our Web site and put them in the public domain so
that we and everybody else can learn about the results of our
programs.
I will just say that because we have been able to improve
our evaluation, we know that, for example, the President's
malaria initiative has been reducing all-cause child mortality,
under 5 mortality, by 25-30 percent in country after country in
a very efficient way.
We know that our Feed the Future programs are starting to
really show results with agricultural productivity growth being
anywhere from seven to eight times that of the global average.
And we even are studying our more challenging democracy and
governance and rights programs to try to understand which
strategies, for instance, are most effective at helping kids
escape situations of trafficking and modern-day slavery. And I
believe this work and this area of endeavor ought to be treated
like a science and the evaluation policy is intended to help
move us in that direction.
Mr. Poe. Will you continue to work with us on H.R. 3159,
co-sponsored by the ranking member and myself, to try to have
an overall evaluation policy of foreign aid? And, as alluded to
by many members, Americans are frustrated by foreign aid for a
lot of reasons, but one of the frustrations, they are writing
checks and they don't know where that money ends up in whose
hands throughout the country. And I would suggest that a good
place to start is with the $1.6 billion that we give to Egypt,
especially during these times, that is co-sponsored by you and
the State Department.
Second question, I am glad to see that USAID is cutting
funding in some programs and putting more money for monitoring
and evaluation. Explain why you are doing this.
Dr. Shah. Well, you know, Representative, I certainly want
to also thank you for your leadership on monitoring and
evaluation. I think it is critical that we invest in collecting
data so that we know what we are achieving. And we are trying
to do that in every one of our efforts. In fact, we have had
more than 60 percent of our Foreign Service is now with the
agency within the last 5 years. And most of that is just
attrition rehiring and our demographics.
It has given us an opportunity to ask everyone to go
through rigorous training on evaluation. We have set up an
evaluation and monitoring service center in difficult
environments, like Afghanistan. We have tripled our staff
presence and gotten out more so that we can actually visit and
see programs and ensure there is more accountability. And that
allows us to report on results with much more credibility.
So I appreciate the focus on that. I think it is worth
investing in that activity because if you don't know the
results you are generating, you end up spending much, much,
much more money before you kill programs or close things that
don't work and you end up under-investing in those things that
have the potential to achieve dramatic results, like what we
are seeing in reducing child death, for example.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yield back.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much.
Mr. Connolly is recognized.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Dr. Shah, if I could sort of pick up on one of those last
points of my friend and colleague Ted Poe? I will use the word
``efficacy.'' It is not like foreign assistance is a new
concept. We have been doing it for a long time. Why don't we
have a more robust explanation and advocacy for what we have
been doing for half a century?
I mean, by this point, surely, we have some metrics we can
point to where we have done this, this, or this, or have
learned from this failure. And, yes, it took 30 years, but
agricultural productivity improved child mortality,
dramatically improved. Fertility rates went down because of our
intervention or not. I guess it has always puzzled me that
there is not a much more assertive and aggressive attempt by
our development assistance agency to propound that.
And the down side of not doing that is there is very little
constituency, as Judge Poe indicated, frankly, for foreign aid
in America.
Dr. Shah. Well, thank you, Congressman. I agree with your
basic premise that, in fact, when Americans see the value in
the results that are generated through these efforts, they
suggest that we should be spending up to 10 percent of our
public budget in this space. And, as you know, we spend less
than a tenth of that.
The reality is we know what works at this point. And we
know what the priorities ought to be. We have focused in our
humanitarian work on building resilience to avoid humanitarian
requirements in the first place. And we know that that can be
very successful.
We focus our efforts on creating what I spoke about
earlier, demographic dividends for countries, because by
managing the rate of childbirth and birth spacing and by
supporting child survival to age five and ensuring kids get
into school, we know that is the pathway out of poverty and
that generates more results and outcomes than other activities.
We are refocusing on and Ranking Member Berman mentioned in
his opening statement----
Mr. Connolly. My time is going to be limited. And I
appreciate your response, but I am not making that point. I
want to see a more robust documentation so that the narrative,
the story is out there that is a good story. And I think we are
missing an opportunity and have historically. And we are always
on the defensive as a result. And I, for one, am kind of tired
of it after 30 years.
I would like to see us, frankly, on the attack. Here is
what we have accomplished. And it seems to me it would be nice
to have an AID Administrator who actually did that, instead of
being here, not you, defensive, trying to, you know, support an
unpopular program. Well, it is unpopular because we don't tell
the story of success. And if we got successes--and I know we
do, some of them very dramatic--let's tell it and let's
document it. Let's get it out there. And I would strongly urge
you to do so as part of your legacy.
Coordination and structure. One of the things that has
concerned me--and I think I told you this the first time we
met--is that, for good or ill, the diffusion of aid programs--
you know, we get a Millennium Challenge, and we get an AIDS
Africa Initiative, and we get other things being coordinated by
other agencies. And, as a result, we don't really have quite
the lead development agency we should have in my opinion, where
the focus is and we bring to bear the deployment of resources
in a very structured and coordinated way.
As the AID Administrator, of course, you are a loyal member
of the administration, but can you share with us any of your
reflections on how we might better structure ourselves to not
only improve the lead role of AID but, more importantly, to
make sure that the deployment of resources is an effective one?
Dr. Shah. Well, I appreciate that point as well, sir. I
think that we have tried to do a number of things, such as our
Partnership for Growth Effort, which helps to bring agencies
together and ensures both coordination and USAID leadership to
ensure that we are aligned in places where we are working
together with, for example, MCC and Ghana and Tanzania and El
Salvador, and that increasingly we are demanding policy reforms
be made in the countries where we work so that we know that the
gains we have will sustain and be more significant. And we will
get more value for how we invest our dollars.
I will just reflect on the fact that coming to the U.S.
Government from a different type of institution, I am struck by
the amount of energy that that coordination requires. And I am
sure there are things that could be done in the future that
would help make it a bit easier to do that. This is a very
large and diffuse government, but it is led and populated in
this administration, I think even in prior administrations, in
this space by people who do really want to see those results.
We all need to do a better job of communicating them, but
we are committed to that outcome and would be happy to work
with you on some ideas to make that coordination easy.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Madam Chairman, my time is up.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much.
Mr. Royce?
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Let me, if I could, Ambassador Shah, go to the issue of the
agreement that the United States had with North Korea on
February 29th. The administration announced its plan to provide
240,000 tons in food aid. And it took North Korea about 2 weeks
before it broke that Leap Day agreement. So I understand the
food aid issue now might be in abeyance, but I wanted to ask
you about that in light of the ballistic missile launch that
they are preparing and also reference the sort of growing
skepticism that we have here in the House about the concept of
food aid to North Korea given our experiences in the past, the
hearings that we have had in which we have had testimony about
the diversion of that food aid.
And I had an amendment prohibiting food aid to North Korea
that passed the House last year. There were some changes made
in the Senate so that the final provision said that you could
not offer food aid if it were diverted for unauthorized use.
And I think our problem is that that is sort of the North
Koreans' specialty in this, is diverting it for unauthorized
use.
So I would ask, is this something the administration is
still considering with respect to food aid? And how would you
ensure that the law would not be overstepped?
Dr. Shah. Thank you.
You know, it is something we are considering. We have been
in, as has been made public, a series of negotiations to ensure
that credible controls are in place and that in any potential
effort, the focus is on saving kids' lives, mitigating risks
related to diversion.
We saw in the past that when diversion took place, the
program was shut down as a voluntary decision made by the
United States and our agency. Going forward, the program we had
been constructing was designed to get Plumpy Nut and other
types of very specialized high nutrition feeding products for
very vulnerable kids. Those are not the types of things that
are as amenable to diversion. That is why we were not including
things like rice or other large-scale grain commodities, which
are more vulnerable.
Nevertheless, we are in an active discussion and would only
go forward if certain conditions are in place with respect to
our ability to ensure and protect against some of the risks you
have identified.
Mr. Royce. If I were to go back to 2008 and some of the
provisions that that administration attempted to put into play,
I remember the North Korean regime balked at the idea of having
Korean-speaking inspectors on the ground.
The French NGOs have testified here in the past that one of
the reasons they balk at that is because there is a real
advantage to them being able to collect and sell whatever the
product is on the food exchanges in Pyongyang for hard
currency. And it is the ability to get their hands on that hard
currency that gives us pause.
I opened this session with my observations just about the
quotes from a senior defector saying that it was pretty much
the equivalent if we give them food aid because of their
ability to convert it with giving them hard currency for their
military program. And this seems to drive the attention of the
North Koreans because this is where in the past we have heard
testimony that they just lack the currency. In one case, we had
a defector tell us they were trying to buy a piece of equipment
they needed for their missile and on the black market.
And this gyroscope, this Japanese-made gyroscope, was hard
to come by, and it was expensive. But they had to shut down the
whole missile line until they could get the hard currency. They
don't really have much that North Korea manufactures other than
things done in a clandestine way, you know, meth, different
drugs that they sell illegally on the world market, missile
parts. But this was part of the modus operandi to get their
hands on hard currency.
So, again, I would just stress that, that this has been
their past practice. They were very adept at it. And, having
broken this last agreement in the span of 14 days, I think we
are beginning to see here that this new regime in North Korea
is not different. The grandson is not too different from the
father and not too different from the grandfather in terms of
the way we are played.
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Royce.
Mr. Sherman is recognized.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
Administrator Shah, we are almost at the end. Take a
breath. Almost everything of a broad nature that could be said
has already been said. So I am going to talk about a couple of
very narrow topics, confident that my colleagues have not
brought them up, namely the regions of Javakheti and Sindh.
Before I do, let me express the obvious. And that is that the
needs in the world for U.S. development will always exceed the
resources available.
And so the constraint is not a lack of good donor
opportunities. The constraint is a lack of public support for
foreign aid, which is the most controversial part of our
budget.
There is very substantial support in America for aid to
Armenia. And I hope that your budgetary request will be greater
in the future and will at least start with the congressional
appropriations of the prior year and work your way up from
there, as you do in most of the rest of your budget.
Now, as to the Javakheti region of the Republic of Georgia,
your request for Georgia's total is $68.7 million. The Georgian
Ambassador publicly stated that--because this is something that
we have had to review with the Georgian Ambassador. And that
is, should the United States target its aid at this particular
region in southern Georgia? And would the Georgians take
offense that you are going with one region, instead of another?
So I am glad to bring your attention that the Embassy of
Georgia stated that in support of our Government's material
commitment to the economic development for our citizens in the
Samtske-Javakheti--I have no idea if I pronounced that
correctly--region and throughout our republic looks forward to
working with our friends in the U.S. Congress and the
administration and with all American civil society
stakeholders, including, of course, the Armenian American
community,--and here is the key phrase--in encouraging the
targeting of U.S. assistance to meet Samtske-Javakheti's urgent
need for job creation, infrastructure, technical, and
humanitarian needs.
Also in the case of Georgia, you are dealing with a
republic with many regions with different ethnicities. Some
have a claim that Russia has exploited these differences in
Abkhazia and Ossetia.
And here you have an opportunity to help this predominantly
Armenian area of Georgia, not in defiance of Tblisi but,
rather, the economic aid that will help make sure that this
region is a source of stability and prosperity for the overall
Republic of Georgia. And I hope that you will have a robust
program in the Javakheti region.
Second is the area of Sindh. You have requested $2.4
billion. Sindh is, as you know, in southern Pakistan, an area
influenced by a moderate form of Islam and Sufism. This is an
area that was particularly hit by the floods. And I would hope
that, rather than just rely on Islamabad to set our priorities,
we would make the development and recovery of Sindh an
important priority.
I wonder if you could respond to that or whether you would
prefer to just respond for the record?
Dr. Shah. I may briefly address those. We appreciate your
points. On Georgia and specifically the Samtske-Javakheti
region that you were referring to, we have been working with
specific programs that work on agricultural modernization,
social development, maternal health, and certain health and
education infrastructure efforts, as well as support for civil
society groups.
We have increasingly tried to do that work in consultation
with Armenian American communities and with an eye toward
launching specific public-private partnerships with those
communities. So if there are partner entities that you are
aware that have interest in that region, we would welcome being
put in touch with them and would seek an opportunity to have
that dialogue.
Mr. Sherman. I will make sure to put them in touch with
you. Thank you.
Dr. Shah. And, with respect to Sindh, I would just note
overall the budget for Pakistan for USAID programmatic efforts
is $900-and-some million. So that $2.6 billion, I'm not exactly
sure what that refers to.
And we have tried to focus the programs there. That is
obviously a very complex working environment. We have,
nevertheless, tried to focus on delivering concrete results.
For example, in energy, we put 900 megawatts of energy on the
grid as a result of our investments. In education, we are able
to reach a number of kids and get them into educational
opportunities that are more secular and broader.
In the context of that particular region, our response to
the floods and our efforts to distribute wheat seed in response
to the floods really did help save the winter wheat harvest and
improve the overall balance of payment situation for a country
where that is critical to their own stability and, therefore,
critical to our national security. So I appreciate your raising
that.
We constantly seek consultation in that program but have
tried to be results-oriented, even in a very difficult
environment.
Mr. Sherman. I will try to provide you with specific
information there. Thank you very much.
Dr. Shah. Thank you.
Mr. Johnson [presiding]. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Fortenberry.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Administrator Shah, it is a pleasure to see you again.
First, at the outset, let me say I do really deeply appreciate
your professionalism and your dedication, your innovation, as
well as your heartfelt concern for the world's most vulnerable,
which has truly marked your tenure at USAID.
I also want to thank you for taking time to address the
concerns about the potential stewardship of U.S. foreign
assistance dollars, particularly given the fiscal situation
that continues to alarm many Americans as well as--and it
weighs heavily upon us here.
I do frequently hear from constituents who express serious
concerns about the disposition of their taxpayer dollars,
particularly those going to foreign aid, even--and I emphasize
this--even as they take rightful pride in knowing that the
United States is the world's leading provider of meaningful
humanitarian outreach.
I am also glad that you mentioned our colleague Don Payne.
His life and dedicated efforts on behalf of the poor we
recently honored. Mr. Payne and I were co-chairs of the Malaria
Caucus. And we were--and we will continue to do so, but we were
attempting to make further bipartisan progress on this
important fight against malaria, which was a preventable
disease but harmed so many.
I appreciate you raising this testimony, in your written
testimony. I appreciate you raising the issue. But I would like
you to address something that is of concern to me. Address the
issue of effectively balancing our resources between the
President's Malaria Initiative and all other multilateral
malaria prevention efforts.
It seems to me that an outstanding review of the
President's Malaria Initiative would support a relatively
stronger weighting of this initiative relative to other
multilateral activities that are less transparent or they are
difficult to basically monitor for accountability and results.
Let me give you an example. In your budget, there are
substantial increases for population control initiatives and
the Global Health Initiative, as well as substantial increases
in the Global Fund, which the United States does not fully
control. This suggests an ideological priority there that is
inconsistent with our efforts to monitor costs while meeting
basic humanitarian goals that we all agree upon. So I would
like you to address that concern, please.
Dr. Shah. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you for
your specific leadership in this area and for helping us find
opportunities, such as with the University of Nebraska, to
essentially bring more excellence to areas of work, like water
and stewardship in that space.
I also appreciate your mention of the Malaria Caucus, which
has done very important work to establish support for this
program. As you noted, it has been externally evaluated and
shown to be incredibly effective.
Those evaluations also discussed a more recent evaluation
by Boston University, which looked at the processes of the PMI,
also found that it was an effective venue for bringing the
interagency together and coordinating U.S. Government efforts.
And it was effective at supporting partners like the Global
Fund for AIDS to be in malaria and the World Bank and helping
them do their work more efficiently. So when commodities get
stocked out, we were able to step in and solve supply chain
issues a number of times in order to keep malaria control
programs focused on results and effectiveness.
It is really in that context of building a stronger
partnership between PMI and the multilaterals explicitly for
the purpose of driving more of other people's resources to what
we think of as prioritized areas where we can get results, like
malaria, that we have proposed the budget the way we have
proposed it.
And, as you know, the Global Fund had to cancel round 11 of
its funding. And that was intended to be the malaria round. In
fact, countries had been encouraged to develop malaria plans.
PMI had worked with countries to do that in a way that was
coordinated with our own efforts. And we would have seen for
every dollar we spent $3 of other countries' resources going
toward support for those plans.
The same is true at the World Bank, where we worked to
create World Bank funding plans in countries where we work so
we can get more partnership.
If it were up to me, you know, I would love to see larger
budgets across the board for things like malaria that we know
save kids' lives. We made a number of very difficult trade-offs
in order to present a budget that we think meets our fiscal
constraints and prioritizes all of our potential efforts to get
others on board with our task of ending child deaths from
malaria, which is an achievable task.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you.
Let me insert this, though. But since we have prioritized
raising funds for the Global Health Initiative as well as the
Global Fund itself, that suggests that we are prioritizing
population control initiatives, even though some of the
increase in funding may be leverage for PMI and other malaria
control outcomes. Is that true?
Dr. Shah. The only thing I would take issue with is the
Global Health Initiative overall actually experiences a small,
very modest but small, aggregate decrease in funding. And so it
is not that, but there is a significant increase in order to
meet our 4-year pledge that was made to the Global Fund. And we
think it is a critical time to make that commitment and a
critical time to keep the global consensus that has created an
instrument that has brought in billions of other people's
dollars to support global health.
Global health is an area that, without funding from other
countries, the U.S. will end up taking a bigger and bigger
share of global funding. And that won't be a pathway to
sustainability or success. So we are very focused on crowding
in other donors' efforts.
Mr. Fortenberry. My time is done, but I may need to write
you further on what type of balance there is in terms of
increasing population control measures versus other widely
agreed upon humanitarian controls. We need to discuss that
further.
Dr. Shah. Absolutely. Thank you.
Mr. Johnson. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
Administrator Shah, with a $10 trillion economy, we need to
start treating China like a developed country. That means
serious examination of the aid that we give to China. For
instance, there is no reason in my opinion that we should be
giving China money through USAID to become energy-efficient and
compete more aggressively and effectively against U.S.
businesses to strip jobs from American workers here at home.
The USAID budget states that it plans to expand efforts in
innovation, science and technology, and evaluation with regards
to climate change, which the significant increase in funding
for the Global Climate Change Initiative indicates. Previous
funds have been allocated to China to help develop its clean
energy sector, carbon evaluations, technology innovation, and
educational awareness.
So specifically within USAID's DA budget, how much will be
directed toward programs in China, especially in terms of clean
energy and economic growth education programs?
Dr. Shah. Thank you, sir, for the question.
The specific answer to your question is with respect to the
Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, zero. The budget request is
$6.5 million for China. And of that, the great majority is
support for communities in Tibet and support for those Tibetan
civil society groups and organizations.
There is a small amount of support to continue a
partnership between the U.S., its Centers for Disease Control,
and their Chinese counterpart that originally grew out of the
SARS epidemic and is now focused on a broader set of
activities, including HIV/AIDS, and ensuring that communicable
disease threats doesn't spill out of China. But that is a small
technical assistance effort. And the rest is focused on
communities in Tibet.
Mr. Johnson. So you are saying that none of the USAID's DA
budget in the 2013 budget will go toward green energy, clean
energy initiatives, and economic growth education programs?
Dr. Shah. Correct. That is right.
Mr. Johnson. I am glad that we got that cut off because
that was one that I was very concerned about.
I see no further members here to ask questions. With that,
Administrator Shah, thank you very much for being before us
today, for answering our questions. With that, this committee
hearing will be adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing RecordNotice deg.
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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