| January-February 2006
Development Assistance & Foreign Aid|
Health, HIV/AIDS & Infectious Diseases | Humanitarian Assistance
DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE AND FOREIGN AID
H1 - Why Poor Countries Are Poor
Harford, Tim
Reason, March 2006, v3, #10; pp32-41
“Economists used to think wealth came from a combination of man-made
resources, human resources, and technological resources. Obviously,
poor countries grew into rich countries by investing money in
physical resources and by improving human and technological resources
with education and technology transfer programs. Harford examines
the clues that would complete the jigsaw puzzle of why poor countries
are poor.” Tim Harford is a columnist for the Financial Times,
is the author of The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich
Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor-and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent
Used Car! (Oxford University Press), from which this article is
adapted. Fulltext
H2 - International Population Assistance and Family Planning
Programs: Issues for Congress
Larry Nowels, Larry
Congressional Research Service, CRS Report for Congress, January
26, 2006, 21p
Since 1965, United States policy has supported international population
planning based on principles of volunteerism and informed choice
that gives participants access to information on all methods of
birth control. This policy, however, has generated contentious
debate for over two decades, resulting in frequent clarification
and modification of U.S. international family planning programs.
Throughout the debate on family planning — at times the most contentious
foreign aid issue considered by Congress — the cornerstone of
U.S. policy has remained a commitment to international family
planning programs based on principles of volunteerism and informed
choice that give participants access to information on all major
methods of birth control. In addition to differences of opinion
over how population growth affects economic development in developing
countries, family planning assistance has become a source of substantial
controversy among U.S. policymakers on two other issues: the use
of federal funds to perform or promote abortions abroad and how
to deal with evidence of coercion in some foreign national family
planning programs, especially in China; and setting the appropriate,
effective, and affordable funding levels for family planning assistance.
Larry Nowels, Congressional Research Service, Specialist in
Foreign Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division.
Fulltext
H3 - U.S. Assistance to Women in Afghanistan
and Iraq: Challenges and Issues for Congress
Congressional Research Service, CRS Report for Congress, January
5, 2006, 12p
This report reviews U.S. funding for programs directed toward
women in Afghanistan and Iraq. Women in these two countries have
faced particularly difficult conditions under the Taliban and
Baathist regimes. Although there have been notable improvements
since the ouster of these regimes in 2001 and 2003, respectively,
women still face real challenges in the areas of education, health
care, political participation, and, in many cases, basic human
rights. The national and international response to the plight
of Afghan and Iraqi women may have an important impact not only
on the women being directly assisted, but also on their countries
as a whole, in terms of more widespread access to education, health
care, and political and economic participation. Rhoda Margesson,
Congressional Research Service, Specialist in Foreign Affairs,
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division. Daniel Kronenfeld,
Congressional Research Service, Research Analyst, Foreign Affairs,
Defense, and Trade Division. Fulltext
H4 - Action Today: A Foundation for Tomorrow: President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Second Annual Report to Congress
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, February 8, 2005. 166p. Highlights, 8p.
Initiatives to expand prevention, care and treatment for people
living with HIV/AIDS are expanding at a steady pace, according
to the second annual progress report on the President’s Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR. The five-year, $15 billion plan
targets disease assistance to the most hard-hit nations, by working
to provide immediate assistance but also to help these countries
in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean improve their health care systems
and increase their capacity to cope with the epidemic. In 2005,
the United States invested $2.8 billion in the program, and has
set aside $3.2 billion for PEPFAR programs in 2006. U.S. agencies
are forming partnerships with local community groups as they work
to achieve these goals and enhance their long-term ability to
care for the sick and deliver public health services. Fulltext
H5 - The Underground Economy of AIDS
Epstein, Helen
The Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2006, v82, #1;13p
"African women are oppressed by the entire system under which
they live. Their families are being torn apart by poverty and
there are no institutions to protect them. They are obliged to
use whatever resources they have, including sex, to negotiate
a degree of freedom in a world wracked by forces they can barely
comprehend. Here, Epstein talks about the underground economy
of AIDS." Helen Epstein, a molecular biologist by training,
is an independent consultant and writer specializing in public
health in developing countries. Her book on AIDS in Africa is
forthcoming in 2006 .
Fulltext
H6 - HIV/AIDS International Programs: Appropriations,
FY2003-FY2006
Salaam-Blyther, Tiaji
CRS Report for Congress, Updated January 3, 2006, 6p
"The $550 million directed to the Global Fund through FY2006 appropriations
reflects the largest U.S. contribution to date, with $450 million
in Foreign Operations Appropriations and an additional $100 million
in Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations. Final conference funding
levels for AIDS, TB, and malaria were $286 million more than the
Administration requested, $230 million more than the House requested,
and nearly $121 million less than the Senate proposed." Tiaji
Salaam-Blyther is analyst in Foreign Affairs at Foreign Affairs,
Defense, and Trade Division. Fulltext
H7 - Humanitarian Intervention After
Iraq: Legal Ideals vs. Military Realities
Kurth, James
Orbis, January 2006, v50, #1, pp87-101
“The theory of humanitarian intervention has received new attention
since the humanitarian crises of the 1990s and the United States’
becoming the world's sole superpower. The actual practice of humanitarian
intervention, however, has declined. It is difficult to forge
the political will for it when the countries composing the global
organizations that could provide the political legitimacy disagree
on an intervention, and with so few countries—mainly the United
States and Great Britain—capable of providing the required expeditionary
forces. Moreover, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have diminished
the United States’ political will, military capability, and diplomatic
credibility to conduct future humanitarian interventions. In particular,
those wars precluded its intervention in the current genocide
in Darfur. Regional bodies such as the African Union may be the
only entities that can, with aid and training, undertake effective
interventions.” James Kurth is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign
Policy Research Institute, where he co-chairs FPRI’s Center for
the Study of America and the West, chairs FPRI’s Study Group on
America and the West, and serves as Editor of Orbis. He is also
the Claude Smith Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore
College. Fulltext
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