Aid funds not enough, groups say

Lobbyists for humanitarian organizations are battling with Senate appropriators to recover lost money originally designated for aid projects in Africa.

Food shortages in several countries, the catastrophic cyclone in Burma and a growing number of Iraqi refugees pouring into Jordan are all competing for attention — and money — on Capitol Hill. The growing list of priorities may mean that a few lesser-known projects in places like Burkina Faso, one of the world’s poorest countries, could be lost in the money shuffle.

{mosads}“These are very urgent humanitarian needs. But we cannot fund these programs at the expense of others,” said Nora O’Connell. “We don’t want to do last-minute accounting and not follow through on our promises.”

O’Connell is vice president of policy and government affairs for Women Thrive Worldwide , a nonprofit group that lobbies for foreign aid for women in developing countries.

This month, O’Connell and others have been calling on the House to restore funds in the supplemental appropriations bill that were cut by the Senate from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). The Senate instead provided more assistance to Jordan, Burma and others.

The MCC has been negotiating compacts with several developing countries, such as Burkina Faso and Namibia, to finance agricultural and education projects. The Senate cuts could postpone that aid for at least a year, O’Connell and others said. Aid to Malawi, Moldova, Senegal and other countries could also be delayed if the Senate cuts stick.

Women Thrive Worldwide and Bread for the World , a hunger relief group, urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to restore the money in a letter the groups sent earlier this month on behalf of InterAction , a coalition of more than 150 humanitarian groups.

“The MCC account should not be used for a piggybank for other projects. They were built on a long-term agenda, three to five years,” said Monica Mills, Bread for the World’s director of government relations. “The funding string needs to be in place because the countries are relying on that money for the programs to be implemented.”

But the Senate has argued that the money — about $525 million in total from the MCC account — needs to be spent elsewhere.

Close to 500,000 Iraqi refugees, for example, are swamping education and health services in Jordan, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. About 130,000 people have died from the cyclone in Burma, according to estimates, with little response from its own government. And people in countries like Haiti and Egypt are going hungry due to food shortages.

“When OMB [the White House Office of Management and Budget] doesn’t request sufficient funds or the State Department doesn’t have enough funds to dip into, it’s time for appropriators to step in and make a decision,” said a senior Senate Republican aide. “Money was needed. Money wasn’t sufficiently requested by the administration. That is essentially what happened.”

To meet the needs, Senate appropriators attached two amendments to the supplemental after it passed the House in May.

One measure, which was offered by Sens. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), would take about $225 million in MCC funds that were appropriated already for fiscal 2008 and use the money instead to help with the ongoing recovery efforts in Burma and to provide aid to countries suffering food shortages.

The second, offered by Sens. Gregg, Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), would use about $300 million in MCC funds to provide more foreign aid to Jordan.

But along with humanitarian groups, other senators and the Bush administration have criticized the amendments.

In a June 10 “Dear Colleague” letter to appropriators, 14 senators said the cuts to the MCC needed to be rescinded.

In addition, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote to Leahy, who is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Foreign Operations subcommittee, also in opposition to the cuts. Rice said the administration’s budget request “is sufficient to meet those needs” in both Burma and Jordan.

O’Connell, who has just returned from Burkina Faso, said the money would have provided vital aid for women’s education, as well as for agriculture and road projects, in that country. Eight-five percent of Burkina Faso’s population relies on subsistence farming, and only 15 percent of the country’s adult women can read, according to the State Department.

“These women are trying to lift themselves out of poverty. Those are the kind of the strategies that will prevent the food crisis,” said O’Connell.

Aid supporters worry that places like Burkina Faso will suffer because their problems are not often in the global spotlight.

“The CNN effect is definitely there,” said Bill Frelick, Human Rights Watch’s refugee policy director. “We would never put a dollar amount on the suffering of two different countries, but the reality is that situations that are better-known become better-funded under our system of government.”

Human Rights Watch has issued reports on the plight of Iraqi refugees and human rights abuses in Burma. In regard to Jordan, the group has said the international community should assist its government to help with the refugees.

Congress might act soon on the legislation.

The supplemental appropriations bill could be in front of House Rules Committee Wednesday.

That could bring a House floor vote as early as Thursday, according to a House Democratic aide.