HAC SFOps Public Witness Hrg March 2013 Testimony-short_1

7/29/2019 HAC SFOps Public Witness Hrg March 2013 Testimony-short_1

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Testimony of Samuel A. WorthingtonPresident and CEO

InterAction

Chairman Granger, Ranking Member Lowey, and members of the Subcommittee: I

am here today representing the nearly 200 U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations

(NGOs) that form InterActions membership. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and

thank you for your work to guide this subcommittee in this extraordinarily challenging

budget environment. I am here to advocate for the poverty-focused development and

humanitarian programs that are funded through the State, Foreign Operations

Appropriations Bill, in the hope that you will give them the attention they deserve as you

make your funding choices. The U.S. government can play a vital role in helping the worlds

poorest and most vulnerable, so that they can build better lives for themselves and create a

more stable and prosperous world while contributing to the worlds collective security.

An infusion of funds is needed now more than ever to respond to the mounting

humanitarian calamity in Syria, where one-fifth of the population requires humanitarian

assistance and 2 million people have been displaced by the war. At the same time, more

than 700,000 people have fled to neighboring countries, and they are in desperate need of

aid. Unfortunately, the response to Syria puts a strain on already overstretched U.S. efforts

in Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and South Sudan. Moreover, current

funding levels also mean that the U.S. government would be hard-pressed to respond to

any unexpected crises, like the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. It is imperative that Congress

funds humanitarian accounts so that we are not put in the impossible position of choosing

to save lives in one country but not another.


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It is therefore essential, during these difficult budget times, that the U.S.

government strengthen its cooperation with private actors who bring their own money to

the table. NGOs alone contribute over $14 billion each year to international development

and humanitarian projects,i and the U.S. government must seize the opportunity to work

with them to create a bigger bang for the taxpayer buck. One example of this is the

billion-dollar food security pledge that InterAction members announced at the last UN

General Assembly. It demonstrated that, while government funding is crucial, the U.S.

government can also play a unique role in uniting NGOs, other private actors, and the

international community to solve problems together. No one else has that kind of

convening power and now more than ever it is crucial that the U.S. government

continue to do so.

I would like to close with just one story of the success weve seen through

collaboration between the U.S. government and international NGOs. In a village in Mali, the

Millennium Challenge Corporation and ACDI/VOCA have partnered to help train 10,000

semi-nomadic herders how to farm rice using modern irrigation techniques; those farmers

are now earning an average of $1,000 per hectare in a country where the average annual

income is just $700. And even during the severe droughts that have hit Mali, the farmers

trained by this program produced a surplus. This is just one example of the work being

done with foreign aid dollars to create the circumstances that allow people to lift

themselves out of poverty and provide food for their families.

I believe this story, like so many others, shows how the U.S. government, working

alongside global NGOs, can help the worlds poorest build better lives for themselves and

contribute to a healthier, more humane, stable and prosperous world.


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Thank you once again for your efforts to reduce extreme poverty and suffering

around the world.

i

http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/2012IndexofGlobalPhilanthropyandRemittances.pdf

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HAC SFOps Public Witness Hrg March 2013 Testimony-short_1