American Foreign Service Organizations, inc

President Bush’s total request for the FY-2007 budget is $2.77 trillion dollars. Out of this, $23.7 billion is for foreign operations (consists mostly of helping poorer nations and national security interests). This number is eclipsed by the $439.3 billion for the Department of Defense.

FY-2007 started on October 1st and Congress has not yet passed the necessary funding bills for our foreign affairs programs. These include our preventive diplomacy efforts to safeguard American security carried out by the Department of Sate. These key programs include many anti-terrorism, illicit drugs, non-proliferation and arms control efforts, as well as helping Americans abroad, international diplomatic reporting and negotiations as well as contributions to vital international organizations like the UN and NATO.

The total funding for these foreign affairs programs is about 1% of the federal budget. This includes our assistance to the poorer countries, support the Peace Corps, dealing with natural disasters, protection of refugees, and supporting international environmental projects. It provides resources for our public diplomacy effort including international visitor, educational and cultural exchanges.

Congress in their pending bills proposes to cut the President's request by over $2 billion dollars. These cuts will weaken our ability to carry out our international responsibilities and protect American security. USAID receives less than 1% of federal budget funding for development assistance to help those in need. We promised we would not cut our mainline development programs while increasing our Millennium Challenge Account funding, which itself has been cut by Congress, and most of which has not been dispersed.

For FY-2007, the State Department requested $289 million for international organizations and programs, down from $326.16 million in FY-06.

Foreign affairs spending is still far below recent historical levels. "Average annual spending over the 1981 - 1995 period was $26.5 billion in constant 2001 dollars, whereas the highest level in the Bush budget is $23.7 billion in constant 2001 dollars, 10.3 percent below the 1981 - 1995 average."

Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Budget Hearing (2/15/06) with Secretary Rice: "The Defense Budget [during the 1990s] was cut substantially, but in percentage terms, the much smaller foreign affairs budget suffered even more. During the six-year period from 1992 to 1998, the 150 Account was cut every single year. As a percentage of GDP, this six-year slide represented a 38 percent decrease in foreign affairs programs. In the post-Cold War days, cutting the 150 Account seemed logical to many. But by the time we confronted the tragedy of September 11, 2001, many of our foreign policy capabilities were in disrepair. Embassy security upgrades were behind schedule, we lacked adequate numbers of diplomats with key language skills…Our diplomatic capabilities have made progress under President Bush, but much work is left to be done.
Get the full text of Senator Lugar's statement:
http://lugar.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=251550

Since 1961, more than 168,000 Americans have served in the Peace Corps and it has won acclaim on both sides of aisle. Yet, while the President asked for a 9% increase in FY-2006 for funding, Congress reduced that to a 1% increase.

The United States contributes only 0.15% of its gross national income (GNI) toward development assistance, the lowest proportion of almost any developed nation. Norway, the number one donor as a percentage of GNI gives 0.92%. The UN has set 0.7% as the goal for minimum level of spending.

U.N. peacekeeping cost about $5.03 billion in 2006 but it prevents untold costs in lives, property and regional stability. This number represents 0.5% of global defense spending, and yet is often more effective in terms of aiding international security goals.

In FY-2005, the US allocated $547 million for peacekeeping operations. In FY-2006, that number was reduced to $173 million, and the current request level form the State Department for FY-07 is $200.5 million.

For FY-2007 President Bush has requested $474 million for educational and cultural exchange programs. In order to sustain and strengthen current programs, it is estimated that $500 million is needed. Civic/NGO contributors provide added leverage to federal funds.

The Fulbright Exchange Program established by Congress five decades ago, has brought over 150,000 foreigners to the USA and sent nearly 100,000 Americans abroad, effectively improving our awareness of other cultures and the world’s perception of us.

Over the next 10 years, more than 41 million children will die before their fifth birthday from the most readily curable of all diseases—poverty.

800 million people in the world lack basic literacy skills.

It costs 19 cents per day to feed a child in the developing world. That adds up to $34 per year–for less than the cost of 2 DVDs in the USA, you can save a child’s life.

More than 850 million people, including one in three preschool children, are still trapped in a brutal cycle of malnutrition and its detrimental health effects.

More than 1 billion people lack access to safe water and 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation.

Most of Sub-Saharan Africa is in the World Bank’s lowest income category of less than $765 Gross National Income (GNI) per person per year. Ethiopia and Burundi have just $90 GNI per capita. The world’s rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.

President Bush has asked for $1.28 billion in funds for development assistance, which is $226 million below the FY-06 enacted level. In the upcoming federal budget, many countries will see decreases in the amount of development assistance available to them, with the exception of programs targeted to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Providing clean water to the developing world will cost an approximate $180 billion annually. Right now, current total funds per annum add up to about $70 billion. Access to clean drinking water provides innumerable benefits such as lowered risk of water-borne diseases.

AIDS is a major threat to development, global health and security. The number of people living with HIV has continued to increase in all but one region in the past 2 years, reaching 38.6 million infected people in 2005, 95% of whom are in developing countries.

For $17 a month, you can save a life from AIDS in Uganda.

Scaling up available prevention strategies in 125 low and middle income countries would avoid an estimated 28 million new HIV infections between 2005 and 2015, and would save US$24 billion in associated treatment costs.

HIV/AIDS leaves behind a path of destruction wherever it strikes. Approximately 15 million children worldwide have been orphaned by AIDS, approximately the number of children living in Germany.

63% of people living with AIDS are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2005, an estimated global total of US$8.3 billion was available for AIDS funding; this is estimated to rise to $8.9 billion in 2006 and $10 billion in 2007. But it is much less than what is needed–$14.9 billion in 2006, $18.1 billion in 2007 and $22.1 billion in 2008.

Every 30 seconds an African child dies of malaria.

1.2 million people die from malaria each year, most of whom are children in Africa. However, the disease strikes people of all ages in places around the world.

President Bush announced $1.2 billion of additional funding in June 2005 that the U.S. Government will invest over five years to fight malaria in 15 sub-Saharan African countries.

The appropriations bill for FY-07 includes $3.4 billion of global assistance to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, equal to the President’s requested amount.

Current (US FY-2006) funding for The Global Fund includes $417 million to fight malaria in 23 countries, $469 million to fight HIV/AIDS, and $153 million to fight tuberculosis.

"Efforts to make sure patients complete their treatment reach less than a third of TB victims. New drugs are needed to replace current ones, which are all at least 40 years old. The World Bank spent only $3.5 million directly on TB in Africa in 2005." (NY Times Editorial- 9/14/06)

The US, through USAID, spent $93 million in FY-2005 on international TB efforts, yet the administration has asked for cuts to many key programs that help the world’s poorest, and Congress has further cut key programs or restricted their effectiveness. Cuts include lower levels of funding for foreign aid, not including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Spending on malaria by the UN Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria is just $450 million a year.

The risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes ranges from 1 in 18 in Nigeria to 1 in 8,700 in Canada.

"A report released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization last year says nearly six million children around the world die each year due to hunger and malnutrition. The majority of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia."

The death toll in Darfur has reached up to 400,000 people since February 2003.

More than 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes.

As many as 1 million civilians could die in Darfur from lack of food and from disease within the coming months of 2006.

UN aid agency World Food Program (WFP) on Friday [September 29, 2006] appealed for 350 million dollars to fed people in Sudan. ‘Hunger adds fuel to the fire and food aid is vital to stability in Darfur,’ said WFP spokesman Simon Pluess.

More than 3.3 million people have died in the Congo in the last five years alone from the reverberations from civil war.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP has decline from $342 billion to $315 billion in 1997 to 2001 while foreign aid per capita has decreased from $24 to $21. Moreover, Africa still staggers under $217 billion in foreign debt.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, children under five are now 26 times more likely to die than children under five in developed nations, up from 19 times in the early 1990s.

India has experienced a slowdown in the rate of reduction of child mortality since the 1980s.

In Nepal, less than 60% of children who dropped out after grade three can read a simple sentence.

In Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, use of maternal health services is low among young women. In rural Pakistan especially, it is increasingly difficult for young women to seek health services in time to correct a problem.

The FY 2007 budget request includes $349 million for international disasters and famine assistance—a decrease of $12 million from last year’s level—compounding an already existing shortfall for humanitarian needs created by cuts in the FY-2006 enacted level.

James Morris, executive director of the UN WFP: "Today we are 80-85 percent engaged in responding to natural disasters. And so this limited pot of money that is available has been heavily skewed to saving lives in an immediate set of circumstances as opposed to investing in programs around the world that long term, once again, has a huge payoff. Ultimately, the responsibility for addressing what we’re talking about is a country responsibility, and our job is to be there, to be helpful."