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Post by Alex Simon, George Washington University
When Lily first invited me to a discussion on foreign assistance reform on Capitol Hill, I must admit my expectations were low. Not only had I come to think of government approaches to global development as weakened by their bureaucratic processes and special interests, but looking briefly at the history of attempted foreign aid reform, there hasn’t been a lot of progress.
To my surprise, the meeting, convened by House Foreign Affairs Committee Senior Staffer Diana Ohlbaum last Tuesday, was filled with optimism and a sense that the time to modernize US foreign assistance has finally come.
The topic of discussion: “Discussion Paper #1: Development Assistance Reforms” released by Chairman Berman’s committee staff on October 6th of this year. Currently, foreign assistance priorities are driven by Washington, not by the needs of the countries receiving the cash and long-term development success is compromised by annual appropriations and Congressional earmarks.
The paper outlines 10 reforms directed at fixing these bureaucratic barriers and balancing what are often perceived as competing objectives. According to the paper, the following reforms could
“Provide greater support for country-owned plans while serving U.S. national interests; allow greater input from USAID field missions while advancing policy priorities; offer greater flexibility while demanding greater accountability; respond to areas of greatest need while rewarding good performance and addressing security threats; and achieve a measurable impact that leads to sustained economic growth.”
Cross-post from It’s Getting Hot in Here (IGHIH) by Jamie Henn, organizer with 350.org…
Many, many thanks to all of you at IGHIH who took part in yesterday’s International Day of Climate Action from our tired-but-psyched, humbled, and completely blown-away 350.org crew. October 24 succeeded beyond our wildest imaginations — journalists are calling it the most widespread day of political action in history.
Stay tuned to the 350.org blog for more updates and some of the best highlights from the day. And if you haven’t had a chance to watch the slide-show or visit our Flickr page, take a moment. The photos are truly spectacular and drive home the real message of the day: we’ve got a huge, beautiful, international movement.
Read on for a few photos here (they’re 16,000 in our Flickr set right now):
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Afghanistan:
While on the campaign trail for the 2008 election Barack Obama often extolled the virtues of the Afghanistan War, contrasting it sharply with the disastrous Iraq War which he had vociferously protested. A year after winning that election, he faces arguably his toughest political decision to date: should he send more troops to Afghanistan? The debate within the White House appears to be focused on how Obama should continue this war (more troops or more sophisticated technology such as unmanned drones) as opposed to why he should. In reality, sending in more troops is delaying the inevitable and Obama must put an end to this war as soon as possible.
The first reason to end this war is the lack of clarity over the war’s objective. In March, the President stated that his goal in Afghanistan was to “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda”. Yet most experts will tell you that al-Qaeda is a diminished force which has largely fled Afghanistan. It would be more prudent for the U.S. to concentrate on defeating al-Qaeda in countries such as Yemen and Somalia, which have recently become a hotbed for Islamic extremists, while paying more attention to the tinderbox that is Pakistan. Unfortunately, the U.S. is bogged down in a perpetual battle with the Taliban at huge human cost for all concerned. The War in Afghanistan has evolved into another nation-building exercise, despite the fact that Obama stated that “We are not going to be able to rebuild Afghanistan into a Jeffersonian democracy“.
The military is ostensibly in Afghanistan to protect the U.S. from future al-Qaeda attacks, yet how many of al-Qaeda’s most devastating attacks have been organized from Afghanistan? 9/11? Yes. The attacks provided the casus belli for the war. The 2002 Bali Bombings? No. They were planned in Thailand. The 2004 Madrid Bombings? No. They were planned in Spain and North Africa. The 2005 London Bombings? No. They were planned in England. The idea that the War in Afghanistan will protect the U.S. from future attacks is naïve and myopic.
So if you hadn’t heard, Power Shift Regional Summits have been happening all over the country (check out the map for a summit in your area). This weekend, Power Shift Pennsylvania pulled off our own summit at Penn State University.
While I hope to submit additional posts on the overall turnout, content of each panel and activists work around the first week of Senate hearings on the Kerry-Boxer bill, I want to start with the discussion that I found most interesting–the panel I facilitated on How Coal & Natural Gas Disrupt Communities and Degrade the Environment.
Presenting were Andrew Munn, from the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC), Jay Sweeny and Brady Russell from Clean Water Action (CWA), Stephanie Simmons from both CWA and the Sierra Club, and Raina Rippel from the Center for Coalfield Justice and the newly formed Alliance for a Coal-Free Generation.
Andrew has been working and living in the Coal River Valley in West Virginia, working with communities affected by Mountaintop Removal. Jay and Brady have been working with communities affected by Natural Gas drilling into the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, along with Stephanie. And Raina has been doing some amazing organizing against Longwall Mining in her community.
With 50 days left before the COP-15 international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, we’ll need a serious shift in climate (figuratively speaking) for any significant shift in climate (literally speaking) to happen after the close of negotiations on December 18th.
Developed and developing nations remain at an impasse over two major points of negotiation–who will incur the brunt of the costs to help developing countries adapt to climate change, and who will take the lead and stop pouring green house gases into the atmosphere. So, what are young people across the country doing to shift the climate state-by-state as our leaders remain stagnant and unproductive? Power Shift.
Post by Julie Turkewitz, Campus Progress
Twenty university teams descended on the National Mall last week for the fourth Solar Decathlon, sponsored by the Department of Energy, which is an international competition designed to build the most energy efficient solar-powered houses possible.
The teams came from around the world – including Spain, Germany and Puerto Rico. Judges will rate the homes in 10 different categories, but the prize isn’t so much university bragging rights as it is the opportunity to play a key role in the future. The United States consumes about 100 quadrillion British thermals units (BTUs) of energy each year, and about 84 percent of our energy consumption is consumed through burning fossil fuels. As climate change becomes a more pressing issue, it’s critical that Americans change the way we use energy.
We need these houses now. The teams could be designing the homes of the future.
Check out the video to hear from Chip Clark, a three-time solar decathlon participant from Virginia Tech. Go to solardecathlon.org to learn more about the competition.
Visit the solar village Oct. 8-18, 2009 on the National Mall. Homes are open to the public 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Homes will be closed on Wednesday, Oct. 14.
Julie Turkewitz is a video intern at Campus Progress
Something else to consider on Columbus Day… What does the way we celebrate our past say about the way we live in the present?
Post by Denver Anarchist Black Cross
Columbus Day has become a day to commemorate resistance against the colonization and genocide of the native peoples of the Americas, a legacy that Columbus initiated in 1492.
In Denver, the annual Columbus Day parade has become a flashpoint for the anti-colonialist struggle. Just days before this year’s parade, local media outlets reported that the parade would be canceled this year after receiving a press release stating as much. The press release appears to actually be yet another act of resistance against the legacy of genocide that a celebration of Columbus represents.
Some further suggested reading:
500 years of Indigenous Resistance article from Oh-Toh-Kin, Vol. 1 No. 1, Winter/Spring 1992 Although this article is over a decade old, it is still one of the most comprehensive articles chronicling native resistance on this continent.
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee Supporting the struggle for freedom of American Indian Movement organizer Leonard Peltier, now imprisoned in Pennsylvania. Leonard has been imprisoned for over 30 years for his role in the fight for self determination for indigenous people.
Leonard Peltier’s 2001 Columbus Day statement
Remembering the 1990 Oka Uprising The Mohawk Defense Of Kanasetake (aka Oka, Quebec, Canada)
Indigenous Resistance to 2010 Olympic games in Vancouver Remember the history, and support the growing modern day resistance.
It had started off simple enough.
Two weeks ago, still relatively new in my position as a Northeast Regional Coordinator with AIDemocracy, I spent a few hours trawling through Social Edge and twitter. With an eye on global development and security, my goal was to discover what was being done already in the non-profit world, who was doing it best and who among these folk were the most open to collaboration.
I made a number of new friends: the people at Acumen Fund, Water Charity (not to be confused with charity:water), Be Unreasonable, Sangam India, CORD and Open Society Institute were fantastic right off the bat– They were engaging, interested and human. It was like a Utopian first day at school.
In the context of my new job and projects I had in mind, I needed to know what was being done in terms of technology support for non-profit outreach and education services. One name that came up regularly was Ken Banks, founder of Kiwanja.net
I had heard of Kiwanja in passing before, but didn’t know much about it’s main project FrontlineSMS, otherwise known as \o/ (Which, btw, is a design based on this fantastic visual here).
I wasn’t sure what to expect. Before this Saturday, I had no idea who Ken Banks is as a person, and was as wary as a product of post-post-colonialism can be of anybody who does “non-profit work” in “Africa”. I was afraid I might run into yet another individual who’s working to “save Africa” just because that’s what Bono, the UN and everyone else is talking about right now.
[And if this is something that bothers you, Aid Watch has a great post on the issue here.]
I sent an email to Ken, one of those self-introduction/basic outline of project/can we chat sometime emails. You must remember that I moonlight as a writer: after all my experiences writing lit mag queries, I was prepared to face rejection or silence.
Let me begin with a quick introduction of myself (which I forgot with my last post). My name is Maggie Williams. I attend the University of Virginia and am in the Global Development Studies and Sociology programs. I am also one of Americans for Informed Democracy’s Regional Coordinators for the Southeast and, like my major, am focusing on Global Development.
As part of the crowd that gets the most excited about the development work abroad, I often forget about my roots (here in Virginia) and that (prepare to be shocked!) U.S. development trends are part of a global system. Moreover, there is plenty of work to be done here in the U.S. to define and defend sustainable development.
Therefore, take a moment to read this post by Kris Maher and celebrate the small success that environmental advocates are making, here in our own country.
Post by Kris Maher, The Wall Street Journal, U.S.
The Obama administration on Wednesday moved to curtail the practice of mountaintop mining to extract coal, angering mining companies that said the move threatens thousands of jobs.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced it had held up 79 permit applications for projects related to so-called mountaintop removal — a practice of blasting hilltops and dumping unused rock and dirt into valleys and streams — in Central Appalachian states West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, its broadest move to date against this type of mining. The agency said the work for which mining companies sought permission could violate the Clean Water Act, which the EPA enforces.
“Each of them, as currently proposed, is likely to result in significant harm to water quality and the environment,” the EPA said in a statement Wednesday.
Mountaintop mining involves clearing miles of forest and blasting away rock, reducing the elevation of a mountain by as much as 800 feet. Each mining project requires a dozen or so permits, often including permissions to fill nearby valleys with waste rock. Mining opponents say this harms or destroys streams.
Mining companies, which are required to rebuild mountains when work is finished, say their projects follow the permit process.
America has a long history of involving itself militarily around the world. Our primary justification for military action is always the protection of the citizens of the United States from harm from external forces. We also justify wars by claiming to protect the rights and wellbeing of citizens of other nations who cannot successfully fight for themselves.
By providing ethical motives for our military presence abroad, our government rationalizes most everything we do. Daniel Volman, director of the African Security Research Project, recently spoke at John Hopkins University here in D.C. and argued quite effectively that we may need to question these motives.
Mr. Volman studies the evolution and activities of AFRICOM, the U.S. military command in Africa. He believes that a significant amount of why we are militarily present in Africa has to do with our reliance on African oil supplies. He notes the correlation between our increased military action in Africa in the last decade and our increased need for African oil. (The U.S. intelligence community predicts that the U.S. will be receiving 20% of its foreign oil supplies from Africa by 2015.)
Until about 10 years ago, Africa was quite marginal from the point of view of the Pentagon. As it became clear that we would come to rely on resources from the continent much more heavily than we had in the past, the need to protect those resources, and our access to them, became increasingly vital.
