A Call for More Youth Foreign Service Opportunities

On his transition website, President-elect Obama has outlined his agenda for service and defense.  These plans include initiatives to expand domestic community service opportunities as well as civilian-military cooperation (details below the fold).  These plans are a step in the right direction, but I believe we should go even further to provide civilians and especially youth opportunities for foreign service (in addition to domestic service).

I envision a Humanitarian Corps, analogous to the military, but equipped to pursue humanitarian and peace building missions.  While the Peace Corps is a valuable institution that should be expanded and supported, as Obama plans to do, we need a civilian agency that can take on large scale projects and crises as well.  The Peace Corps places individuals or small groups in communities where they are needed.  What we need in addition is an agency that can place large units of people trained in development, reconstruction, and emergency response in areas recovering from conflict, natural disaster, and/or humanitarian crisis.  This humanitarian corps would also assist with general development projects like the Peace Corps does, but on a larger scale.  Corps members would receive training on the local area (culture, language, history) so they could best meet the needs of the communities they serve.  Lastly, this group would be able to coordinate their efforts with the military, USAID, NGOs, the UN, and other agencies, and fill the capacity gaps within our development, foreign aid, and military missions.

A humanitarian corps would serve several purposes.  First, it would bolster U.S. relations and global security with a long-term “hearts and minds” approach.  Second, it would alleviate strains on our troops by allowing them to focus on military concerns.   Third, and most importantly, it would provide an invaluable opportunity for youth to engage in public diplomacy and become more informed and involved in the world around them.

There are thousands of college graduates each year searching for opportunities to travel, learn, and explore before settling into a career or grad school.  More and more of them are pursuing careers in the non-profit sector and they need real international expertise and on-the-ground experience.  Furthermore, student activists around the country are clamoring for opportunities to take direct action on issues they are passionate about  - genocide, HIV/AIDS, climate change, Millennium Development Goals – I believe that given the opportunity, these young people would embrace a civilian humanitarian corps, I know I would.

Reinvestment in America’s Infrastructure Should Look to the Middle East

The present condition of the United States economy has led President-elect Obama  to focus much of his first term on reinvesting in the United States’ infrastructure.  With crumbling roadways, turbulent energy costs, rising unemployment, change in the global climate, and a system with gaping holes in it, the United States is posed for a make over.  The difficult task is in deciding where to begin.  In doing so, the United States should look to a small country in the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates, where the country’s capital is developing the worlds first zero carbon, zero waste city.

In what is known as the Masdar Initiative, it is a global, collaborative, development between the top of academia and the innovative corporations of this planet.  With a capacity of sum 50,000 residents, the car-less city will produce zero emissions as well as zero waste with its recycling of goods.  Powered by solar panels and wind turbines, the city will become a producer of technology rather than just a consumer.

As America is in dire need for the creation of jobs, there is an entire industry sitting idly as other countries take advantage of it.  Putting together their most educated minds in a capitalistic environment, there are countries that are transforming into self-sustaining, self-reliant states.  Producing their own energy, growing crops, development of efficient mass transit, while all the more creating a competitive future for their citizens.  It is time that we build the cities of tomorrow, today.