MONDAY

DEVELOPMENTS
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Out Ock
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ectio
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The Latest Issues and Trends in International Development and Humanitarian Assistance

Human
Rights
Restavèks:
The Child
Slaves of Haiti

Poverty
and

2008 DATA
Report
Coverage
The Potential
Power of the
New Rights Foreign
Advocacy Assistance:
Where Do the
Candidates
Capital Flight Stand?
Is a Human
Rights Abuse

October
2008
Vol. 26, No. 10
InterAction
 MONDAY
DEVELOPMENTS

Managing Editor/Art Director

Chad Brobst

Copy Editor
Kathy Ward

Advertising & Sales

14
Michael Haslett

Communications Department
Nasserie Carew, Public Relations
Tawana Jacobs, Public Relations
Tony Fleming, New Media 21

Contents
Chad Brobst, Publications

10
Michael Haslett, Publications
Margaret Christoph, Admin Associate

Editorial Committee
Cover photo by Darcy Kiefel
InterAction Communications Team
October 2008 • Vol. 26 • No. 10
InterAction
1400 16th Street, NW
Suite 210 Features Capital Flight Is a Human Special Section:
Washington, DC 20036 Rights Abuse | 22 More Than Just
Tel: 202.667.8227 Alleviating Poverty: When development aid leaves the Money | 33
publications@interaction.org
Is Aid the Answer? | 10 a country quicker than it comes InterAction members’
ISSN 1043-8157 Whose poverty is really in, where is the real benefit? involvement in global initiatives
being alleviated? for accountable and effective aid.
Education’s Effect on • NGO Roles in Financing for
Monday Developments is published 12 Speaking Out for Poverty | 23 Development (FfD)
times a year by InterAction, the larg- Human Rights | 14 Combating child labor and • The United Nations’
est alliance of U.S.-based international Financing for Development
development and humanitarian non-
World Voices Project art breaking the cycle of poverty
governmental organizations. With more installation draws attention to through education. Review Conference
than 170 members operating in every the Universal Declaration of • The G8 Summit and Beyond
developing country, InterAction works to Human Rights. Restavèks: The Child • Improving the Impact of Aid:
overcome poverty, exclusion and suffer- The Footprint of the 3rd High
ing by advancing social justice and basic Slaves of Haiti | 25
The Potential Power of the Level Forum on Aid
dignity for all. Awareness of trafficking is
New Rights Advocacy | 16 • Making Headlines:
crucial to its prevention.
InterAction welcomes submissions of The division between NGOs The Role of Media in
news articles, opinions and announce-
focused on human rights and International Development
ments. Article submission does not guar- The G8 Are Behind:
antee inclusion in Monday Developments. development continues to blur. Will They Meet Their
We reserve the right to reject submis- Foreign Assistance:
Promises? | 27 Where Do They Stand? | 38
sions for any reason. It is at the discretion The Right to Health as a 2008’s DATA Report reveals
of our editorial team as to which articles Democrats and Republicans
are published in individual issues. Way Forward | 19 some sobering trends.
Embrace and incorporate global share their visions of
All statements in articles are the sole health in your work. development.
opinion and responsibility of the authors. An Issue of Cabinet-level
Importance | 29
Articles may be reprinted with prior per- Is the Environment On the U.S. foreign assistance reform
mission and attribution. Letters to the Back Burner? | 21 Departments
aligns with the global movement
editor are encouraged. Programs that incorporate for aid effectiveness. Inside This Issue | 3
environmental concerns also
A limited number of subscriptions are
further human rights. Letters | 4
made available to InterAction member U.S. Grassroots Activists:
agencies as part of their dues. Individual
Key to Foreign Assistance Washington Update | 5
38
subscriptions cost $80 a year (add $15
for airmail delivery outside the U.S.) Reform | 30 Inside InterAction | 6
Samples are $5, including postage. Shaping policy at home can
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 INSIDE This Issue

Progress Against
Poverty: Aligning
With the Millennium
Development Goals

M
uch has been written about global poverty. It is
unfathomable to most people that in this world of
plenty, there are millions of people without life’s ba-
sic necessities – clean water, access to healthcare,
adequate food and housing. At this midpoint to the deadline
for achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the
poverty reduction report card is mixed. It is mixed largely be-
cause of the lack of a global commitment to reduce poverty.
The UN recently released a report that highlights the far
reaching effects of the current global economic slowdown in-
cluding escalating prices of food and oil. For people living in
cities on little more than one dollar a day, escalating prices
on staple food products can be crippling. As governments
and the international development community discuss more
effective ways to advance structural and social poverty re-
ducing programs, the concern is that the current food crisis
is expected to push many more people across the line into
abject poverty or even starvation.
Confronting the challenges of eradicating poverty demands
an equal focus on the successes being made around the world
to improve the lives of poor men, women and children.
InterAction will once again observe the International Day to
Eradicate Poverty with our second annual Progress Against
Poverty Week. During October 14-17, 2008 we will spotlight
advancements in fighting poverty, celebrate the people on the
frontlines of this grueling war, and facilitate an information
exchange on ways to reach our ultimate goal of achieving the
MDG targets by 2015.
I have seen up close the phenomenal benefits of many de-
velopment programs in communities around the world. An
effective poverty reduction conversation has to take place
at the local, national, and international levels. Your voice is
critical to this discussion.
This issue of Monday Developments is a practical guide to
our Progress Against Poverty 2008 dialogue. Let us know
what you think. Please send your comments and sugges-
tions, or share your poverty reduction success stories with us
by e-mailing comments@interaction.org. MD
Photo: Jessica Mull

Sam Worthington
President and CEO
InterAction

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 3

 Letters
Spouses and Families Are Important Too
I read the September issue of MOnday Develop-
ments with great interest since the topic of Staff Care, espe-
cially related to international aid workers hits close to home
for me. What surprised me was that none of the articles really
addressed the importance of the accompanying family and
“trailing spouses” that are often the supporting pillars of the
international aid professional. Without a happy and support-
ive family there will not be an adjusted and productive aid
worker, which often leads to staff turnover and the high costs
associated with this.  a humanitarian aid professional  for a couple of decades in
Having accompanied an international aid professional for
20 years in many developing countries, I know that fam-
ily members go through the same emotional stresses (if
not more) associated with relocating to a new culture and
community; worrying about health and medical emergen-
cies;  missing home and experiencing fears and concerns
over security. In fact, family members often have it worse as
they do not get the immediate comfort of quickly getting into
a working environment and the support systems associated
with it.
Many trailing spouses give up interesting and fulfilling ca-
reers to support their spouses. They play a vital role in set-
InterAction’s
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4 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
Send your letters to:
comments@interaction.org
ting up internal or home-based support systems on behalf
of the aid worker and their family. Spouses and supporting
partners bear most of the psychological  burden each time
relocation takes place, even when the best logistical support
is made available.
I hope that the new generation of aid professionals, es-
pecially given the difficult conditions  and dangers that aid
families are exposed to, will demand that their organizations
adopt agency-wide wellness and support  policies target-
ing both staff and family members equally.
On both a personal and professional level, accompanying
several continents and countries can be very fulfilling, grati-
fying and a great learning experience. It allows families to be
more competitive in the marketplace and provides a broader
global perspective through varied and rich cross-cultural ex-
periences. In a word, it can enrich your life and that of those
around you.
In my case, I am grateful for having gone through this great
journey and having been able to work with those less fortu-
nate while providing our children with the exposure and sen-
sitivity to appreciate the riches the world has to offer.
Taina Alexander, InterAction
Praying for Better Management
September’s issue on Staff Care raised a number
of important and relevant lessons for NGOs, but focused
largely on overseas operations. As an NGO worker in a large
DC agency, I would like to see the same commitment to bet-
ter management and improved staff care in organizational
headquarters.
Intense management training is essential in the NGO
world, where different cultures are embraced and diversity
is encouraged. Often people in leadership positions in U.S.
offices are required to adapt to a different culture. Unfortu-
nately I am witnessing a concentrated failure to adapt, and
the halting of an otherwise productive team.
The biggest area of adaptation for my directors is that
of religion. Many of the management team come from cul-
tures where it is normal to bring religion to the workplace.
Thrown into leadership positions in DC, they illustrate the
inability to operate while accepting other faiths. Small, closed
bible groups have sprung up, with development opportuni-
ties clearly being presented to members and denied to those
who are perceived to have contradictory views. Although I am
not a member of any such group, to my utter surprise I re-
cently found myself—helpless and offended—in a closed-door
prayer session with the project director!
Senior management at my organization would benefit from
listening to Sam Worthington, who states “better manage-
ment is often synonymous with better staff care”. Perhaps,
with improved management, less stress and equal opportu-
nity, we would more successfully contribute to our common
goal of creating change for the underserved.
Name and organization withheld
 WASHINGTON Update

FY2009 Appropriations
As the U.S. government’s 2008 fiscal year (FY2008) drew
to a close in the final weeks of September, Congress passed
a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government for the
first half of FY2009 – from October 1, 2008 through March 6,
2009. A CR is a joint resolution enacted by Congress at the
end of a fiscal year if some or all of the regular appropriations
bills for the next fiscal year have not been enacted. This year’s
CR is like most in that it provides budget authority for federal
government agencies and programs to continue in operation
at current funding levels, i.e. at FY2008 levels. The calculation
of FY2008 levels explicitly excludes emergency funding, such Woman with painted face from Kmara movement in Georgia at a
as the humanitarian funding included in the War Supplemen- protest demanding democracy.
tal for humanitarian accounts. The only exceptions were extra
funds for food aid and assistance to Georgia and Haiti. This Congress to authorizing the balance in FY2009. Some of this
CR was packaged with domestic disaster assistance and three remaining balance has already been appropriated in the CR
of the 13 appropriations bills – Defense, Homeland Security, that the president signed on September 30.
and Military Construction/Veterans. Starting next January, On September 22, Senators Lugar and Casey introduced
Congress will be dealing with a new and (it hopes) more flex- the Global Food Security Act of 2008, which would, among
ible administration, with which it can negotiate spending lev- other provisions, include the appointment of a White-House-
els and pass bills to fund the rest of the fiscal year. level coordinator to oversee U.S. government efforts towards
The House passed the FY2009 package (CR plus bills) on addressing the food crisis.
September 24 and the Senate on September 27. The Presi- If you have any questions, or would like to be added to the
dent signed it on the last day of the fiscal year, September 30, email list for the weekly public policy update, please contact
in the midst of the financial market crisis and the struggle to Margaret Christoph at mchristoph@interaction.org. MD
pass legislation to try to keep that crisis from engulfing the
whole economy. That crisis will not directly affect CR fund-
ing, but it does make it all but certain that when Congress
reconvenes in the new year and considers funding for the
second half of the fiscal year, it will do so in a very, very tight
fiscal environment.

Humanitarian Legislation Update

September also saw movement on a number of pieces of
humanitarian legislation.
The Child Soldiers Accountability Act was passed by
unanimous consent in the Senate on September 15, and now
moves on to the President’s desk for his signature. The bill
allows those who recruit or use a child under 15 years of age
in an armed force or group to be held accountable under U.S.
criminal laws and disqualifies those individuals from gaining
asylum in the U.S.
On September 17, Senators Casey and Cardin introduced
legislation entitled “Support for Vulnerable and Displaced
Iraqis Act of 2008,” requiring the Secretary of State to de-
velop a comprehensive regional strategy to address the mass
displacement of Iraqis both within Iraq and internationally,
and vulnerable but non-displaced Iraqis.
The Stabilization and Democracy for Georgia Act of 2008
was marked-up by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on
September 17. The bill supports the President’s $1 billion as-
sistance package with an authorization level of $470 million
in reallocated FY2008 funds for humanitarian assistance,
Photo: KMARA

reconstruction and democracy programs carried out by the

Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Overseas Private In-
vestment Corporation (OPIC), and USAID, and commits the

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 5

 INSIDE InterAction
InterAction Announces
New Theme for PROGR
Annual Poverty Week AGA ESS
POVERINST
Observance
WEEK TY
InterAction’s annual event
2 0
is to now be identified as 0 8
A
Progress Against Poverty ligning wit
h th
Week. In its second year, the Develope Millennium
event has grown to include a ment Go
als
small series of events hosted
at InterAction’s offices in Washington, DC, and an en-
hanced Web presence that will highlight the anti-poverty
work of InterAction member organizations. The theme of
this year’s event is “Aligning with the Millennium Devel-
opment Goals”.
While the week is dedicated to celebrating how far the
international development and humanitarian commu-
nity has come in the fight against global poverty, par-
ticipants will also have an important opportunity this
year to assess U.S. progress toward achieving the Mil-
lennium Development Goals by 2015 and use this mid-
point analysis to better align their work.
A full recap of Poverty Week events will appear in No-
vember’s Monday Developments.
Five New Members Join InterAction
The board of directors in their September meeting unani-
mously voted for five new member organizations to join In-
terAction.
InterAction welcomes the following new members:
Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) advo-
cates on behalf of victims of armed conflict, working to ensure
they receive recognition and assistance from warring parties.
CIVIC persuaded the U.S. Congress to establish programs for
war victims in Afghanistan and Iraq. It guides victims to as-
sistance, brings the human cost of war to the attention of
policymakers and the public, and is advocating a new global
standard of conduct that warring parties should bring assis-
tance to civilians they’ve harmed. In 2005, CIVIC’s founder
Marla Ruzicka was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber while
advocating for families injured and killed in the crossfire. CIV-
IC honors her legacy and strives to sustain her vision. CIVIC
is urging warring parties to take responsibility and provide
appropriate assistance to the victims.
Handicap International USA works to improve the living
conditions of people living in disabling situations in post-
conflict and low income countries around the world. They
work with local partners to develop programs in health and
rehabilitation and social and economic integration and col-
laborate with local authorities to clear landmines and other
war debris and to prevent mine-related accidents through
education. They respond fast and effectively to natural and
civil disasters in order to limit serious and permanent inju-
ries and to assist survivors’ recovery and reintegration. They
6 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
advocate for the universal recognition of the rights of the dis-
abled through national planning and advocacy. Handicap In-
ternational USA is involved in the fight against antipersonnel
mines and cluster bombs. As a co-founder of the Internation-
al Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) which was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, Handicap International USA
is now widely recognized as a key international lobbyist on
weapons of war.
International Housing Coalition (IHC) was organized by
the National Association of REALTORS (NAR), the Canadian
Real Estate Association (CREA) and Habitat for Humanity In-
ternational (HFHI) to promote the goal of “HOUSING FOR ALL”
as an essential element to ending poverty worldwide. Recog-
nizing the worldwide housing problem and the lack of priority
being given to housing issues, the IHC was organized for the
purpose of restoring housing to a position of importance and
priority on the world development agenda. IHC supports the
basic principles of private property rights, secure tenure, effec-
tive title systems, and efficient and equitable housing finance
systems. These principles are essential elements to further-
ing economic growth and development and they support civic
stability and democratic values. The IHC vigorously advocates
for these principles in national and international forums, and
emphasizes giving high, sustained priority to housing the poor
and slum dwellers across the world.
Islamic Relief USA strives to alleviate suffering, hunger,
illiteracy, and diseases worldwide regardless of color, race,
religion, or creed, and to provide aid in a compassionate and
dignified manner. Islamic Relief aims to provide rapid relief
in the event of human and natural disasters and to establish
sustainable local development projects allowing communi-
ties to better help themselves. To achieve these objectives,
Islamic Relief implements several different types of projects
including development projects, orphans projects, seasonal
projects, and domestic projects. Islamic Relief has helped
the people of Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosova and
Palestine, providing rapid assistance in times of emergency.
Islamic Relief’s Orphans Welfare Program provides care for
orphans and remaining members of their family. Islamic Re-
lief has increasingly supported many domestic projects – the
biggest being the response to Hurricane Katrina.
CHF International is the catalyst for long-lasting positive
change in low- and moderate-income communities around
the world, helping them to improve their social, economic and
environmental conditions. CHF International programs are
building blocks to peaceful, prosperous democratic societies.
CHF International implements innovative, demand-driven
and community-specific solutions to improve depressed and
malfunctioning economic systems all over the world.
They are a pioneer in the development finance arena pro-
viding an array of financial services to economically disad-
vantaged groups.
Years of development experience has enabled CHF to start
applying sustainable community development principles as
early in the recovery process as circumstances allow. Their
experience has demonstrated that the surest route to effective
 development is a local community addressing its own needs
based upon democratic principles and collective action.
InterAction Members Meet with Liberian President
“Many organizations have helped Liberia during times of
emergency, and now the country is transitioning from hu-
manitarian crisis to development. We must scale up proj-
ects and programs in Liberia to increase impact,” said Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf, the President of Liberia. On September 26,
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the President of Liberia, poses with InterAc-
tion members and InterAction President & CEO Sam Worthington.
2008, President Sirleaf met with InterAction member CEOs
to discuss ways member organizations can best support de-
velopment and humanitarian assistance in Liberia. President
Sirleaf emphasized the importance of NGOs aligning their pro-
grams with the country’s national development strategy.
New Director for Sustainable Development
InterAction welcomes Dr. Brian Greenberg as its new Di-
rector for Sustainable Development. Dr. Greenberg has over
20 years of experience in food security, agricultural develop-
ment, and environmental sustainability.
For the past three years, Dr. Greenberg has served as a
Senior Program Officer in the Agriculture Unit at Winrock
International, where his work spanned programs in agricul-
ture and rural livelihoods, environment, conflict mitigation
and organizational capacity building. Previously, he worked
with the Office of Private Voluntary Cooperation at USAID as
a AAAS fellow, and as Director of Environmental Social Sci-
ences at Innovative Resources Management.
Dr. Greenberg’s development career has included extensive
field research, program implementation and policy advocacy,
with a focus on Egypt and South Asia. He holds a PhD in Cul-
tural Anthropology from the University of Chicago, where he
also received training in population and the environment. MD

Poverty Reduction World Health Organization Press

that Works
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2008, of Stylus Publishing, LLC, as its
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MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 7

 SOUTHERN Voices

Standing Up For Those

– millions of them in fact – that she has cast aside for political
expediency and religious conservatism,” said Saracho.
The Philippines is among those lagging in terms of meet-

Caught in the Crossfire
Amid renewed insurgency and a heated
debate about reproductive health, anti-
poverty campaigners in the Philippines
are preparing for this year’s Stand Up.
Lani C. Villanueva, Global Call to Action against Poverty
ing its MDG targets. A third of its population is deemed poor
and the number is rising. Despite record GDP growth last
year, there is rising poverty and hunger. The government
blames this on the global food crisis and the rising prices
of oil. But anti-poverty advocates maintain the government
has failed miserably to create jobs and improve people’s ac-
cess to education and health services. The global crisis in
food and oil are just “more bad luck” that hit poor families
so bad that one Filipino student in six has stopped going to
school recently (the National Statistical Coordination Board
reported recently that the drop in enrollment is worsening).

M
embers of the opposition called on her to Anti-poverty advocates are concerned that the government
cancel her trip because it would cost a lot of taxpay- is not just missing its MDG targets but also missing the point
ers’ money. But she wants to be a part of it. New York, in the whole MDG story so far.
New York. So she took a very expensive 19-hour flight, bring- Muslim separatist rebels recently attacked Christian-dom-
ing an entourage of 70 plus and a dismal re-
cord of delivering the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). Philippine President Gloria Ar-
royo initially cancelled her trip to New York to
attend the United Nations high-level meeting
supposedly so she could focus her attention on
the country’s economic problems and on the
renewed hostilities in Southern Philippines,
but changed her mind at the last minute.
There are positive gains to be had in this
trip, Arroyo’s executive secretary explained.
She would be meeting with world leaders first
and foremost, including the UN secretary gen-
eral. It will give her an opportunity to explain
to the world how the Philippines is facing glob-
al challenges and the ongoing military opera-
tions in Southern Philippines.
World leaders attending the high-level meet-
ing are expected to report on the highlights of
the progress made by their countries towards
achieving the MDGs. Joel Saracho, coordina- Poverty Requiem held on Oct. 17,2007 during the Stand Up event.
tor of the Philippines coalition of the Global
Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) is dismayed that Arroyo inated areas in Mindanao, devastating communities and forc-
is more concerned about engaging her counterparts on global ing thousands of poor families out of their homes. The dis-
economic challenges than on urgent actions her administra- placed families have been crowding gymnasiums and schools
tion must take to ensure compliance with the MDGs, the is- and many have no homes to return to or have no plans of
sue for which the high level meeting was convened. ever returning home, swelling the number of the homeless,
“The Philippines has not been making progress on MDG unschooled, unemployed, ill, and malnourished.
targets concerning universal access to education, reducing The predominantly Catholic country is also currently em-
maternal mortality and increasing access to reproductive broiled in a debate about the controversial Reproductive
health services. And her report to the UN will say that the Health bill. The bill will legalize, among others, mandatory
country is doing fairly well in terms of meeting most of the age-appropriate teaching of reproductive health and the pur-
MDG targets except that it needs to work harder on some tar- chase of contraceptives by state hospitals. Although its propo-
gets. But behind the glib presentation, the statistics and po- nents have explained that nowhere in the bill does it say that
litical-speak are real people who are living in filth and death abortion will be legalized in the country, nuns and priests
have mounted a fierce campaign against the bill’s passage.
Agree or disagree with what you’ve read? Send a letter to the editor. While surveys have found that more than 90% of Filipinos
Email: comments@interaction.org (letters will be published in a future issue) want services to plan the size of their family and are support-

8 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008

ive of a population management policy, the majority of law-
makers in the House of Representatives have sided with the
Catholic Church, which threatened lawmakers supportive of
the bill with denial of Holy Communion. Arroyo herself de-
clared she is taking the Catholic Church’s position because
this has always been her position.
Anti-poverty advocates have said financing gaps are one
of the biggest hurdles meeting the MDGs and the prospects
for bridging the gaps are not bright considering how serious
the problem of corruption is. They lament the tens of billions
of pesos that have been lost to corruption, which could have
gone to MDG funding.
This is the backdrop against which preparations in the Phil-
ippines for the Stand Up and Take Action is taking place.
Stand Up is a worldwide call to take action against poverty
and inequality and for the achievement of the MDGs. It is held
during the observance of the International Day for the Eradica-
tion of Extreme Poverty on October 17. It was initiated in 2006
by the UN Millennium Campaign (UNMC) and GCAP, a global
anti-poverty coalition working in 110 countries. That year, 24
million people from 87 countries stood up against poverty dur-
ing the 24-hour period of October 17 and made it into the Guin-
ness Book of World Record. The Philippines ranked third in the
Asia Pacific region with 2.4 million Filipinos participating.
In 2007, a total of 43.7 million people from 127 countries
“stood up”, breaking the earlier Guinness record. Close to
33 million “stood up” in Asia, the highest mobilization by a
region. Of these, more than seven million were Filipinos.
“For this year’s Stand Up, GCAP hopes to surpass last
year’s numbers and make it an even bigger moment for glob-
al action on poverty and the MDGs. In the Philippines, it is
urgent to bring people together and demand that government
take action. We are racing against time,” said Saracho.
Tens of millions of people are expected to participate in
hundreds of events from small community events to massive
concerts, sporting and faith events, and marches (for details,
check out www.standagainstpoverty.org)
To make an even bigger impact in terms of enabling citizens
to hold their governments accountable to their promise to end
poverty, GCAP has joined with Oxfam, Save the Children and
Comic Relief to launch a major campaign action called In My
Name. (see www.inmyname.com). Well-known supporters of
In My Name, who have called on their governments to take
action include Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Emeritus Archbish-
op Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, Ela Bhatt, Jeffrey Sachs,
Emmanuel Jal, Kristin Davis, Scarlett Johansson, Mischa
Barton, Angelique Kidjo, Annie Lennox, Sergio Mendes, Wyclef
Jean, Fergie, will.i.am., John Legend, and many more. MD
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 9
 “ The counting of dollars is not
necessarily a good indicator
of success, for it is often that the
promises made fall far short
of the mark at the end

”
of the day.

10 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008


Is Aid
The
Answer?
W
e have been asked to consider whether
aid is the answer to alleviating poverty and I
submit that it is. It alleviates poverty for thou-
sands of consultants like myself who earn
handsome fees advising the poor about poverty. It allevi-
ates poverty for thousands of officials employed by the
international aid agencies. It alleviates poverty for thou-
sands of technical assistance experts who vainly attempt
Photos: Darcy Kiefel (opposite page); Margaret Aguirre
to bring effective governance to failed states. It alleviates
poverty for the shareholders of thousands of firms that
win contracts on donor funded projects. And last, but not
least, it alleviates poverty for corrupt elites who govern
the poor in developing countries around the world.
And while aid alleviates poverty for the aforementioned
individuals, it is hard to find evidence that it is doing the
same for the poor themselves. Small wonder that so little
is left for them after everyone else has fed at the trough.
Now there will be those who will challenge this assess-
ment by pointing to all the money spent fighting HIV/
Poverty Solutions
The following article presents
excerpts from a presentation by
Steve Berkman at an international
symposium on global poverty
and inequality sponsored by the
Institute for Global Leadership
(IGL) and Education for Public
Inquiry and International
Citizenship (EPIIC) at Tufts
University on February 22, 2008.
AIDS, programs to empower women, social safety nets,
and a host of other obviously worthy goals. And these can
be good things, if that money is used wisely and efficiently
to achieve the donor’s objectives. But the counting of dol-
lars is not necessarily a good indicator of success, for it is
often that the promises made fall far short of the mark at
the end of the day.
But before continuing, let me clarify a critical difference
between the government officials responsible for admin-
istering aid monies, and the beneficiaries whose lives are
supposed to be improved by the process. Simply put, the
people who administer the aid monies are not those who
are supposed to benefit from it.
Perhaps this can best be understood if we examine a
recent, small health sector project in Equatorial Guinea.
The project was funded with five million dollars and was
intended to improve the delivery of health services to the
poor. The donor’s final assessment of the project conclud-
ed the following:
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 11
 Poverty Solutions
• There were no quantified outputs
found to demonstrate the progress of
the project.
• There was no recorded inventory of
the 13 vehicles, 1,000 mattresses or
the essential drugs procured under
the project.
• The status of studies on the preva-
lence of malaria, a review of hospital
finance, and an inventory of health
facilities cannot be determined.
• Service delivery for the health pro-
grams did not improve as follows:
• Endemic malaria persists where the
malaria control program was to be
piloted.
• Four newly constructed health cen-
ters are under-utilized and physi-
cally deteriorating.
• The sexually transmitted disease con-
trol center is no longer in operation.
• Essential drugs funded by the proj-
ect are in short supply.
• Despite costly rehabilitation, drug
warehouses are empty and in de-
plorable physical condition.
The only positive outcome reported at
the end of this project was the publica-
tion of a booklet on sexually transmit-
ted diseases; and even there, it was not
known how many copies were actually
printed and distributed. In this particu-
lar case, can we truly say that aid is the
answer? If we are to be honest, we must
conclude that it was a complete and
dismal failure. What else can be said
when all we have for five million dollars
is some unknown quantity of booklets
whose distribution cannot be verified?
So where did all that money go?
Given the noble intentions of the donor
community, what explains the many dis-
mal failures of the past several decades?
Part of the answer lies within certain ba-
sic underlying realities that prevail in the
aid business. First, there is the matter of
agendas. Not the institutional agendas of
the donors or the recipient governments,
but the agendas of the individuals, the
functionaries, the officials and the poli-
ticians, interacting on both sides of the
aid equation. For they are the real play-
ers in this game, not the faceless institu-
tions they represent. They are the ones
who sign on the dotted line. They are the
ones who determine the details of an aid
program. And they are the ones who de-
termine how the money will be used.
12 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
And so, let us ask what are their real
motivations? Are they completely and
genuinely committed to development?
Are they truly interested in ensuring that
donor funds are used for the purposes
intended? Will they have the profession-
al courage to speak out when things are
not going well? Are they truly committed
to alleviating poverty for the masses?
It is difficult to find satisfactory an-
swers to these questions when we see
how often aid is compromised. Despite
the dedication of many in the donor
community, there are those who often
acquiesce to other interests and pres-
sures to advance their careers, while
others ignore failures in the field to
protect the status quo. Still others dis-
regard the corrupt nature of their inter-
locutors who seek to enrich themselves
There are those who
often acquiesce to other
interests and pressures
to advance their careers,
while others ignore
failures in the field to
protect the status quo.
at the expense of the poor. All these
human factors impact the develop-
ment process as money is pushed out
the door to meet donor lending quotas.
Often doomed to fail, aid programs are
nevertheless funded to satisfy political,
institutional and personal career agen-
das that have no logical bearing on de-
velopment or the alleviation of poverty.
What do we see on the recipients’
side? More often than not, dysfunction-
al governments, run by corrupt elites
with little interest in governing for the
benefit of the governed. Billions in aid
for pie-in-the-sky projects rife with lu-
crative contracts for friends, relatives
and associates. Bid rigging, fraudu-
lent procurement, and every conceiv-
able scam known to man. All under the
guise of alleviating poverty.
I could present more examples of
failed projects. Suffice it to say, I have
seen my share of poorly constructed
roads, health clinics without equip-
ment, and all sorts of decaying in-
frastructure. I have seen too many
government officials, responsible for
administering aid monies, living way
beyond their official means. This is not
because of privately earned wealth, but
because they had abused their posi-
tions of public trust so that they may
enrich themselves at public expense.
They have raped national treasuries,
diverted public resources, and filled
their offshore bank accounts with aid
monies intended for the poor.
From this, of course it would be easy
to conclude that there is no possibil-
ity of making aid work. But I submit,
that while the picture I have painted
is bleak, it does not mean we should
throw the baby out with the bath water.
Aid does make sense, and it can work.
It has worked when applied judiciously,
and where all parties were fully com-
mitted to the process. And, it can allevi-
ate poverty. But, and this is critical, it
can only work in certain environments.
It can work where those administering
aid funds truly want to see it succeed. It
cannot work if their overriding agenda is
to enrich themselves. It can work where
certain minimal levels of government in-
tegrity are enforced. It cannot work
where corruption is rampant. It can
work where donor agendas are focused
on direct interventions with the poor. It
cannot work where the main beneficia-
ries of aid are government officials and
their bureaucracies. It can work where
aid projects are small and focused, and
where meaningful and measurable re-
sults can be achieved. It cannot work
where projects are large, complex and
overly sophisticated. It can work when
those of us in the aid business move be-
yond the conferences, the workshops,
the studies, the research, the surveys,
the papers and all the other intellectual
exercises, and concentrate upon getting
measurable results on the ground. MD
Steve Berkman worked at the World
Bank in the Africa Region Operations
Group for twelve years. He retired in
1995 and was called back in 1998 to as-
sist with the creation of a fraud and anti-
corruption unit. He is also the author of
the recently released The World Bank
and the Gods of Lending (Kumarian
Press) that provides an in-depth look at
how the Bank operates, how it has failed
to accomplish its mission of alleviating
poverty in developing countries, and how
it can return to that mission.
 World Voices

World Voices Project at New York’s

South Street Seaport

14 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008


J
ust what does Tigrinya,
Apache or Zulu sound like? Have
you ever heard of the languages
Igbo or Ga? You may have, de-
pending on where you live, but most
people don’t even know they exist.
World Voices Project lets you listen
to these and over fifty other languages
reading The United Nation’s Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. It’s an
artistic and educational audio instal-
lation and informal online database of
recordings whose primary message is
that regardless of ethnicity, religion,
gender, age, or cultural barriers, we
share a common humanity that car-
ries with it an international standard
of justice and equality of treatment.
Speaking Out
for Human Rights
World Voices Project art installation draws attention
to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
By Brenda Ray, Director and Audio Artist
“Did you travel around the world
to record these languages?” someone
asked me. I laughed that I should be so
lucky to have that kind of funding. But
no. The project is predominantly self
funded and while the languages I re-
corded represent peoples from around
the world, I barely had to cross 42nd
Street to find them. All but four voices
were recorded in the New York City
area, thanks to the city’s melting pot
status. I met my “Armenian and Mon-
golian voices” at a bar during a birthday
party for a friend. Both were investment
bankers. Later that month I met each at
their respective offices and after record-
ing Ganbat, my new Mongolian friend,
he was inspired to help me. “There’s a
man from China who sits around the
corner. Let me see if he’s still here.” He
Photo: ArchiCulture.net
was, and Ganbat proceeded to bring
me willing co-workers from Germany,
France, and Romania. He later said that
having grown up in communist Mongo-
lia, he had never read the Declaration.
He was struck by Article One that says,
“All human beings are born free and
equal in dignity and rights.” He noted
that he sees inequality between people,
especially men and women, as a world-
wide problem. “When I was growing up,
those sorts of things were never men-
tioned, but I knew they existed,” Ganbat
said. “It was good to hear they were ac-
tually written in the declaration.”
World Voices Project was borne out
of a humble desire to create a little
more harmony in the world. As a sound
recordist on documentary films, I had
grown close to many colleagues on dif-
ferent continents. I was consistently
struck by the fact that from Jakarta to
Cairo, we always found ways to laugh
together; that despite our cultural dif-
ferences there were many common
threads in humor, aspirations, com-
passion and good will. Creating the
World Voices Project was a way to turn
my mundane technical skills into a cre-
ative force for education and a measure
of enlightenment for those who haven’t
had the opportunity to travel exten-
sively; to help dissipate the climate of
fear and xenophobia that permeates
the media; and to express our common
humanity through sound.
World Voices Project premiered at
New York’s South Street Seaport in
July 2008, where a jungle of almost
sixty hanging headphones representing
as many languages were suspended
from a grid in an atrium space over-
looking New York’s East River. One visi-
tor, Tammy Morris, said, “As a parent
and as a New York mom, I think this
is amazing... all good moms around the
world are trying to teach their children
that every person in every country has
these rights. And who wouldn’t want to
hear what so many different languages
World Voices
sound like? This kind of example should
be in as many places as possible.”
Another woman from Kashmir, India
said after experiencing the exhibit, “Peo-
ple should hear this entire declaration on
the radio in their native language. Most
poor people, the ones whose rights are
abused, can’t read and don’t even know
this declaration exists.” I looked at her
and said, “You’re right. Why don’t you do
that? Maybe you can get local stations to
read it on-air.” She nodded at first reluc-
tantly, then as she thought more about
it, she smiled and I could see that she
was mentally taking on the task. I was
thrilled. Maybe the exhibit had made a
difference and inspired someone to take
action. I could only hope.
“Most poor people, the
ones whose rights are
abused... don’t even know
this declaration exists.”
The goal of World Voices is to do just
that: to travel around the world, to
schools and to other public forums and
to inspire people to either take action,
stand up in defense of every person’s
rights, or at minimum to change their
minds about long held stereotypes or
beliefs. I think almost every person has
a natural inclination to create harmony
in the world we live in. Many just don’t
know where to begin.
The digital audio tracks are offered
to anyone who wants to present it
themselves in exchange for a voluntary
contribution to help keep the project
going. Please visit www.worldvoicesproj-
ect.org for more information or write to
info@worldvoicesproject.org. MD
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 15
 Rights Advocacy
The Potential
Power of the New
Rights Advocacy
The division between
NGOs focused on human
rights and development
continues to blur.
By Ellen Dorsey, Executive Director,
Wallace Global Fund
T
he development sector
is advancing new methods,
new strategies and new part-
nerships in the application of
rights-based approaches (RBA). Argu-
ably one of the most compelling rea-
sons for development agencies to move
towards rights-based approaches is
the enhanced power brought by sub-
jecting policies and programs to inter-
nationally recognized standards and
principles based upon a framework of
entitlement, accountability and obliga-
tions. Such standards provide greater
legal and political accountability than
goals, while conferring an international
legitimacy that can be a powerful tool
in advocacy and campaigning. Finally,
RBA offers a more powerful framework
by moving the tenor of the discourse
from charity to entitlement.
A parallel shift is occurring in the
traditional human rights sector. NGOs
that traditionally focused on civil and
political rights increasingly are tar-
geting their monitoring and advocacy
work on economic and social rights.
As these two sectors engage in pro-
foundly transformative activities, both
are being influenced by the growth of
social movement advocacy on econom-
ic and social rights occurring across
the globe.
My research collaborator, Paul Nel-
son, and I have dubbed these three
16 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
trends as the New Rights Advocacy. We
also argue that we are witnessing the
development of fundamentally new hu-
man rights norms and standards at the
convergence of development and human
rights goals and practice. Significantly,
the real potential of RBA for the devel-
opment sector lies in the convergence of
these trends and whether opportunities
are exploited for collaboration.
These changes in the human rights
sector have evolved over decades, but
only recently manifested themselves in
new missions, agendas and campaigns
by human rights groups. Two signifi-
cant factors drove this change. The
first, and most obvious, is the signifi-
cant changes occurring in the world –
from the end of the Cold War and the
explosion of communal conflicts to the
rapid growth in economic globalization
and corresponding shifts in power of
economic actors. NGOs began to look
for the root causes of the new types of
abuses that arose and struggled to de-
velop strategies to address the power of
the international financial institutions
and corporations that were having as
much, if not more, impact on human
rights than the state governments
these groups traditionally had target-
ed. Simultaneously, international hu-
man rights groups were also re-orient-
ing their work towards civil society in
the global South. No longer did human
rights groups represent the “victims”
directly, but instead they began work-
ing in partnership with local communi-
ties, movements and organizations ad-
vancing human rights and advocating
for just and sustainable development.
By the late 1990s, human rights
groups were collaborating at the global
level with development and environmen-
tal NGOs and working with partners in
the South who were not limited by those
distinctions. New rights groups were
cropping up, focusing on specific eco-
nomic and social rights. And together
with the movements in the South, they
pressured the human rights groups to
end the historic bifurcation of human
rights. These new actors argued that
the practice of treating civil and political
rights as concrete and enforceable, and
economic and social rights as merely
aspirational, was out of date and in-
stead championed the principle that all
rights are interdependent.
While different international human
rights organizations vary in the degree
and method of their work on economic
and social rights, the human rights
movement has been fundamentally and
irrevocably changed and can been seen
in shifts in the work of these groups.
Some NGOs, such as Physicians for
Human Rights, are emphasizing spe-
cific issues such as the right to health.
Other human rights groups are focus-
ing on a particular method of advanc-
Photo: Hearly Mayr
ing economic and social justice through
the lens of anti-discrimination. Yet oth-
ers are transforming their missions to
embrace work on the “full spectrum” of
 Rights Advocacy
human rights. One striking example of
this change is the launch next year of
a decade-long worldwide campaign on
poverty by Amnesty International.
In addition to significant changes in
the human rights sector, creative social
movement advocacy is producing new
norms for human rights. Most notable
are the campaigns for broad access to
essential medicines (particularly for
people affected by HIV/AIDS) and for
the protection of the right to access to
drinking water in the context of rapid
privatization of water utilities. The coop-
eration and joint efforts among NGOs,
consumer organizations and commu-
nity based movements are evidence of a
Creative campaigns
between development
and human rights
NGOs are cropping up
everywhere, addressing
a range of issues and
targeting government
and economic actors
that impede progress
on change.
new level of integration in which meth-
ods, language, strategies and actions are
consistently informed by human rights
and development interaction. They are
also producing “new rights” (such as
the right to essential medicines and the
right to water) that are subsequently
evoked by other social movements and
are used in litigation or advocacy to
hold governments and economic ac-
tors accountable at the domestic and
international levels. Social movements
and sometimes governments have also
asserted or claimed these rights and
brought them into international and
national policy debates.
An emergent norm that perhaps best
reflects the development-human rights
convergence is the right of affected
peoples to participate in development
decisions. While not yet codified into in-
ternational standards, there is a global
push to institutionalize “the right to free,
prior and informed consent” as a new
18 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
norm that will shift the power of com-
munities to resist seizure of lands and
privatization of resources. As these new
norms advance, they become tools in a
larger strategy to pressure governments
and non-state actors to be accountable
for the social and environmental im-
pacts of their projects and policies.
But what do these larger trends sig-
nal for the development sector? It is ul-
timately a question of power through
coordination and collaboration.
Collaboration between the develop-
ment, environmental and human rights
sectors is growing rapidly. Professional
staff are moving across the sectors,
bringing expertise and knowledge that
are contributing to cross-fertilization of
the fields. Creative campaigns between
development and human rights NGOs
are cropping up everywhere, address-
ing a range of issues and targeting
government and economic actors that
impede progress on economic and so-
cial change. Rights campaigning is also
producing more effective partnerships
between social movement organiza-
tions and international NGOs.
Yet this collaboration is still nascent.
Opportunities to share learning and to
experiment programmatically need to
be created in order to bring the unique
expertise and experiences of the differ-
ent sectors together to build more coor-
dinated approaches. Historic differenc-
es, unique cultures and competition
for resources also must be bridged to
allow for new levels of work on econom-
ic and social policy and transformative
services with a human rights lens.
To not exploit this potential power is
to risk rendering the rights-based ap-
proaches to development a mere fad in
development practice and would miss
a golden opportunity to advance the
development community’s goals. But
done strategically, financially re-
sourced, and backed by the leadership
of agencies and NGOs, the potential
convergence could produce an unprec-
edented level of political power and in-
fluence for all involved and spell real
change for development work. MD
Ms. Dorsey formerly served as Chair
of the Board of Amnesty International
USA. She is the co-author of New Rights
Advocacy: Changing Strategies of De-
velopment and Human Rights NGOs
(Georgetown University Press).

The Right to
Health as a Way
Forward
Embrace and incorporate global health in your work.
By Leonard S. Rubenstein, President, Physicians for Human Rights, and Eric A.
Friedman, Senior Global Health Policy Advisor, Physicians for Human Rights
T
he right to health has
come of age. This was stun-
ningly apparent at a conference
in London held in September to
reflect on the work of the first UN Spe-
cial Rapporteur on the Right to Health,
Paul Hunt, and to consider the way for-
ward under his successor, Anand Gro-
ver. The right to health has become a
powerful tool: for developing health sys-
tems with sufficient human resources
to meet the needs of the population; to
support the demands of poor and in-
digenous people to end the marginal-
Photo: Sarah Kalloch
ization that both leads to ill-health and
denies them access to health services;
to insist upon access to essential medi-
cine including for treating  AIDS; and
to link activists with experts in public
health and development to create en-
ergy for social justice in health.
A decade ago, the right to health, like
many economic, social and cultural
rights, was seen by many, including
almost the entirety of the U.S. human
rights and development communities,
as rhetorical at best – useful to invoke at
rallies but unsuited for the tough work
of development and of holding govern-
ments accountable. It might represent
human aspirations, but it lacked the
conceptual clarity, to say nothing of the
political teeth, of “true” human rights of
the civil and political variety: concrete
standards and analytical tools, mecha-
nisms for monitoring compliance, ac-
countability, and social movements ani-
mated by a common set of values and
Right To Health
Ugandan activists call for affordable generic
AIDS drugs, March 2005.
demands to provide the political sup-
port that human rights requires.
That has all changed. Clear princi-
ples are emerging. The right to health
requires governments to offer health
services to their people that meet ba-
sic criteria: that they are available and
accessible – physically, geographically,
and economically – to all; respect cul-
tural values and offer quality of care;
and that health services must conform
to principles of non-discrimination and
equity – and indeed must particularly
focus on the needs of the most vulnera-
ble and marginalized. Any disease-spe-
cific health programs must strengthen
health systems as a whole.
Moreover, no matter how poor, states
have a core obligation to develop na-
tional plans that assure critical health
needs are met. They must vigorously
allocate resources within their capacity
to fulfill the requirements of the plan
– and numerous objective measures
have emerged to access whether they
are doing so, including comparing gov-
ernment health spending to compara-
ble countries, to changes in gross na-
tional income (GNI) and to other areas
of the budget.
The right to health encompasses more
than health services. Governments are
also obligated to assure that determi-
nants of health, such as clean water,
sanitation, education, safe drugs, and
protection of equal legal and social sta-
tus of women and minority and indige-
nous communities, are secured. And as
with all human rights, process is criti-
cal: transparency and the participation
of communities are essential.
Someday historians will no doubt
unravel the relationships between the
efforts of scholars, activists, UN com-
mittees and the Special Rapporteur in
working out many of the conceptual
and legal dimensions of the right to
health and the spectacular activism in
global health that has led to unprec-
edented – if still insufficient – increases
of both funding and international atten-
tion to global health, especially the suf-
fering of millions of people from HIV/
AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, some
of the scourges of the developing world.
But for the moment, what is most im-
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 19
 Right To Health
portant is that human rights provide a
way forward on health in practice.
We see this in so many ways. In some
countries, especially in Latin Amer-
ica and perhaps most prominently in
South Africa, the right to health has
become enforceable in courts. More-
over, the right to health is providing
a framework for planning to address
some of the most intractable needs. For
example, it has yielded detailed strate-
gies for assuring that national health
workforce plans and the donor policies
that support them emerge from a par-
ticipatory and transparent process and
produce strategies consistent with hu-
man rights principles.
Perhaps most important of all, civil
society and health advocacy move-
ments throughout the world, from the
People’s Health Movement to more fo-
cused efforts like the Health Workforce
Advocacy Initiative, are insisting that
the actions of both donors and devel-
oping country governments adhere to
right to health principles. Indeed, the
right to health approach has begun
20 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
No matter how poor,
states have a core
obligation to develop
national plans that
assure critical health
needs are met.
to inspire and stimulate partnerships
between agencies that provide health
services and develop health policies
and human rights and civil society or-
ganizations that can address social in-
equality and marginalization in areas
as disparate as women’s reproductive
health and health worker recruitment.
And yet for many in the larger global
health community, the right to health
largely remains a secret or, worse, an
empty slogan. For example, the har-
mony between human rights principles
and the Millennium Development Goal
5 on maternal mortality is much pro-
claimed, but too little attention is paid
to addressing structural factors, includ-
ing entrenched discrimination and de-
valuation that make the poorest women,
especially in the rural areas of develop-
ing countries, most likely to die in child-
birth. The welcome attention to rights-
based development has mostly been a
method used by development agencies
themselves rather than extending it to
the range of actions and partnerships
needed to address human rights viola-
tions that underlie ill health; partner-
ships between development and civil
society groups in health development
remain too rare.
Even worse, the global health com-
munity as a whole has not fully em-
braced the right to health as the driving
set of values, standards, and mecha-
nisms for health development. In his
last report to the General Assembly in
March, 2008, Special Rapporteur Paul
Hunt noted that while governments
pass resolutions on the right to health
at the UN Human Rights Council, “they
appear to suffer from amnesia” at the
continued on page 23

T Is the Environment
he connection between
a healthy natural environment
and human rights and well-be-
ing has been widely recognized
for the past four decades. However, in-
ternational development and humani-
tarian assistance organizations still
often overlook the magnitude of this
relationship. This effectively places the
environment on the back burner, and
leads to the failure of organizations to
incorporate conservation programs into
their overall mission. Unfortunately,
this is often a result of working under
constricted budgets, where lifesaving
programs will naturally trump projects
that focus on long-term sustainability
or well-being of a community. Never-
theless, because the environment and
human rights are often closely related,
the importance of a healthy environ-
ment should not be overlooked.
Forty years ago, in December 1968,
the UN General Assembly passed Reso-
lution XXIII on convening a United Na-
tions Conference on the Human En-
vironment. The Resolution begins by
noting that modern science and tech-
nology has led to significant changes in
the natural environment, thus raising
concern for “the consequent effects on
the condition of man, his physical, men-
tal and social well-being, his dignity and
his enjoyment of basic human rights.”
The Conference on the Human En-
vironment, which was held in Stock-
holm, Sweden in June 1972, was the
first major, international conference
on the relationship between humans
and the environment, and is noted for
developing what is seen by many as
the foundation for linking the two, the
Stockholm Declaration.
Photo: Stocksnapper - Fotolia.com; photo illustration: Chad Brobst
Principle 1 of this Declaration states:
“Man has the fundamental right to
freedom, equality and adequate con-
ditions of life, in an environment of a
quality that permits a life of dignity
and well-being, and he bears a solemn
responsibility to protect and improve
the environment for present and future
generations.” In other words, not only
do humans have a right to freedom,
equality, and well-being, but “in an en-
vironment of a quality that permits a life
of dignity and well-being.” If people do
not have access to a healthy environ-
ment, they may not be able to achieve
a dignified life and would thus be de-
On the Back Burner?
Programs that incorporate environmental concerns
also further human rights.
By Leah Berry, Program Associate, Humanitarian Policy & Practice, InterAction
NGOs can make
changes to reduce
their carbon output
and minimize their
overall consumption of
resources.
prived of some of their basic rights.
In an ideal situation, development and
humanitarian assistance organizations
would integrate environmental pro-
grams into all aspects of their work, and
more money would be available to fund
these programs. At the very least, these
organizations must ensure that their ac-
tivities do not contribute to environmen-
tal degradation that ultimately will harm
the very communities the organizations
aim to assist. Agencies working with dis-
Environment
placed populations should be particu-
larly aware of environmental concerns,
considering that a large scale influx of
people will likely have some negative
environmental impacts, particularly in
a situation where refugees or internally
displaced persons (IDPs) are required to
live in a contained settlement or refugee
camps. These problems have been doc-
umented over the past several decades
by refugee-hosting governments, the
United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, NGOs working with displaced
populations and independent research-
ers. At times, displaced populations
have been unfairly blamed by the host-
ing government or local community.
Although NGOs cannot determine
where refugees or IDPs will or can settle,
they can take actions to ensure that nei-
ther the refugees nor the host communi-
ties face unnecessary challenges stem-
ming from shortages of natural resources
associated with environmental decline.
Organizations must also consider the
impact their own operations can have
on the environment. Both in their field
and headquarters locations, NGOs and
other humanitarian organizations can
make changes to reduce their carbon
output and minimize their overall con-
sumption of resources. Environmental
considerations may seem insignificant
when compared with the daily activities
of most humanitarian assistance orga-
nizations that work to save lives and
protect people from conflict. Yet because
those same people—those who live in
conflict affected areas or are living in
poverty—will be disproportionately af-
fected by the impacts of climate change
and natural resource depletion, it would
be irresponsible to overlook the value of
mitigating our organizational carbon
output and use of natural resources. MD
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 21
 Capital Flight

Capital Flight is
attention. Behind these headlines,
though, is the reality that abusive busi-
ness practices such as trade mispricing
and resource smuggling dwarf the graft

a Human Rights
of corrupt government officials.
In July Greenpeace released an in-
vestigative report entitled Conning the
Congo, which details how the German
owned, Swiss-based multinational Dan-

Abuse
zer Group, one of the largest players in
zens remain poor or actually see their the DRC logging sector, used an elabo-
quality of life worsen. rate profit-laundering system to move
The World Bank estimates that devel-
oping countries loose between $500 and For every dollar in
When development aid $800 billion dollars a year in illicit fi-
nancial outflows. Conversely, the World aid that goes into the
leaves a country quicker Bank and other international organiza-
developing world, $10
than it comes in, where is tions estimate that monetary aid to the

the real benefit?
By Raymond Baker, Director,
Global Financial Integrity
developing world is in the vicinity of $50
to $80 billion per year. That’s a ratio of
ten to one, meaning that for every dol-
lar in aid that goes into the developing
world, $10 is siphoned out, undermin-
is siphoned out.
income out of Africa and into offshore
bank accounts. This kind of nefarious
business model is a scourge of the de-

I
ing economic development efforts within veloping world. And the true cost to the
recently had the opportunity the world’s poorest nations. citizens of these countries is measured
to address a coterie of high-level fi- The high-profile perpetrators of capi- in lives, not dollars.
nance and academic representatives tal flight such as kleptocrats Mobutu of A report released this summer by
in Kinshasa on the subject of capital the Congo (now the DRC), Suharto of In- Christian Aid predicted that illegal,
flight out of the Democratic Republic of donesia, Marcos of the Philippines, and trade-related tax evasion alone would
the Congo (DRC) and strategies for cur- Abacha of Nigeria led glitzy, unabashed, be lead to 5.6 million deaths of young
tailing the destructive outflow of illicit colorful lifestyles that made newspa- children in the developing world be-
money from the developing world. per headlines and captured the world’s tween 2000 and 2015. These are deaths
I brought with me a report prepared
by Global Financial Integrity Lead
Economist Dev Kar on total cumula-
tive capital flight from the DRC. Using
World Bank and International Mon-
etary Fund data from 1980 through
2006, Dr. Kar estimated that $15.5
billion had been drained from the DRC
illicitly over that time period.
In the report Dr. Kar noted that if
the DRC could have prevented this il-
licit outflow of money during that same
time period, in effect keeping its $15.5
billion, the DRC could have paid off its
entire external debt at the end of 2006
($11.2 billion) and still had $4.3 billion
left over to add to the country’s foreign
exchange reserves or to invest in infra-
structure and poverty alleviation.
Today, the DRC is a country rav-
aged by civil strife and mired in abject
poverty. With vast mineral and oil re-
serves, the country is a paradigm of
what development economists call the
“paradox of plenty,” in which a coun-
try reaps massive wealth from a steady
and lucrative export trade while citi-

22 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008

 Education

Education’s Effect
due to lack of clean drinking water,
vaccinations, access to adequate medi-
cal care, and other basic forms of soci-

on Poverty
etal infrastructure such as electricity,
education and transportation.
Today, as the 60th anniversary of the
United Nation’s adoption of the Univer-
sal Declaration of Human Rights ap-
proaches, many poor countries remain Combating child labor and breaking the cycle of
mired in poverty and have correspond-
ingly poor quality of living indices such
poverty through education.
as high infant mortality and low life ex-
pectancy because corruption, abusive By Azra Kacapor, Director of Child and Youth Programs, and John Fox,
trade mispricing, and criminal activ- Senior Director of Strategic Communications, World Learning

ity have systematically robbed these
countries of capital.
The Declaration states that “Every-
one has the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and well being
of himself and his family, including
food, clothing, housing, medical care,
and necessary social services.”
The link between capital flight and
degradation of human life is clear. Im-
proving transparency and information
sharing will hinder both government
kleptocrats stealing money and multi-
national corporations evading taxes,
which will in turn allow capital to ac-
cumulate in poor countries. The way is
there, what is critically needed now is
just the will. MD
O
n a recent visit to a
school in Kisapincha, a poor
indigenous community in the
Ecuadorian sierra, we were
meeting with a teacher when an eight-
year-old boy named Jose arrived sev-
eral hours late to class and approached
the teacher to speak in private. He was
clearly upset to be late and wanted her
to know it was because his parents had
kept him home to spray the fields with
pesticide. The teacher contacted Jose’s
parents and community leaders to en-
sure he is kept in school and away from
hazardous work in the future.
That moment, brief as it was, cap-
tured a snapshot of a system function-
ing as it should to acknowledge and
protect the rights of a child from eco-
nomic exploitation and hazardous la-
bor, linking the responsibilities of the
state down the line to the empower-
ment and well-being of the child him-
self. Jose had learned the importance
of being in school rather than working.
He trusted his teacher, the school sys-
tem, and implicitly the state, to address
the situation and protect his interests.
A girl learns agricultural techniques at the
Colegio Avila vocational high school,
Loreto, Amazon region of Ecuador.

Right to Health
continued from page 20

World Health Assembly and the World

Health Organization (WHO) Executive
Board, which pay scant attention to
human rights as a means of driving
global health policy. Draft WHO guide-
lines on the international recruitment
of health personnel, for example, fail to
recognize certain international obliga-
tions on recruitment that flow from the
right to health.
It has been thirty years since the Al-
ma-Ata Declaration proclaiming health
for all. Since then there have been many
shifting approaches to global health pol-
icy, but none that combine the enduring
Photo: John Fox, World Learning

values, analytical power, motivating

force for communities, and potential for
realizing health for all as a human rights
approach. If the right to health is to
achieve its potential rather than be a
passing fancy, everyone concerned about
global health must not only embrace it,
but also ground their work in it. MD

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 23

 Education
And he felt empowered to claim his right to an education as
his pathway out of poverty.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,
approaching its twentieth anniversary next year, has changed
the way the world views children and provided a legally bind-
ing platform for protecting their unique and inalienable
rights. Although a legal document by definition, the Conven-
tion has inspired a shared vision for children’s rights that
recognizes their protection as fundamental and sacrosanct.
It also represented a paradigm shift by defining the rights of
the child comprehensively and stipulating the responsibility
of the State to protect those rights “to the maximum extent of
their available resources.”
In its application to real-world contexts, however, the Conven-
tion’s vision remains distant from the reality in much of the de-
veloping world where poverty, armed conflict and other factors
leave children at risk and not covered by the laws that should
protect them. In these contexts, child labor predominates, de-
priving children of education and perpetuating the generational
cycle of poverty for vulnerable and marginalized groups.
In Ecuador, for example, child labor is disproportionately
high among indigenous children who live in poverty. Indig-
enous children are, by tradition, more involved in domestic
labor and farm work, and have less access to quality educa-
tion than non-indigenous children. Like many other margin-
alized groups, they often start school when they are older and
are more likely to drop out, weakening their opportunities for
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24 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
Wiñari: Growing from the Bottom
Recognizing the link between child rights and poverty
alleviation, World Learning is partnering with the U.S.
Department of Labor and indigenous communities in
Ecuador to combat child labor and break the cycle of poverty
through education. The purpose of education projects that
combat child labor is to reduce the number of current and
potential child laborers by increasing their enrollment in
school, reducing their hours of work, and removing them
from the worst forms of labor.
Wiñari, which means “growing from the bottom” in the local
Kichwa language, addresses child labor by:
• Supporting re-enrollment of children who have dropped
out of school through accelerated classes that allow them
to re-enter at grades appropriate to their age;
• Improving teacher performance and teaching methods to
encourage first-time enrollment and retention;
• Providing older, out-of-school children with technical
training in skills they need to compete for jobs; and
• Strengthening the capacity of school committees and
community organizations to support their schools,
effectively advocate for improved government policy,
and establish networks of activists to continue advocacy
beyond the life of the project.
employment and perpetuating poverty across generations.
Studies suggest a direct link between more equitable dis-
tribution of education and lower poverty and inequality, as
well as faster economic growth. World Bank studies show that
access to education for girls strongly impacts the educational
achievement, health prospects, and mortality rates of their
children, while additional Bank data suggest that education
for girls and boys may also be the most effective preventative
measure in fighting HIV/AIDS. However, studies such as these
also consistently confirm that access to education is only a
start toward achieving the positive benefits of education.
In Ecuador and elsewhere, World Learning has found that
for the 165 million children involved in child labor today the
answer to their future lies in ensuring access, retention and
completion of adequate, quality education. Child labor among
marginalized populations is too often a rational response to
desperate poverty and lack of hope that is only reinforced
when the alternatives are seen to have little value. Quality
education and clear pathways out of poverty must be assured
in order to counter the perception of poor families that their
interests are better served by keeping their children home to
work than sending them to inadequate schools.
By addressing the intertwined rights of the child to an edu-
cation and a childhood free of hazardous and exploitative la-
bor, we are in turn establishing the conditions necessary for
marginalized communities such as Kisapincha to break free of
poverty. Through a chain of protection involving the govern-
ment, NGOs, community partners and parents, Jose and chil-
dren like him can be confident of their rights and have the hope
and opportunity to envision a better, more secure future. MD

Rescued children receive integral
attention at rehabilitation centers;
not only food and shelter, but
also education and employment
opportunities.
Restavèks:
The Child Slaves
of Haiti
Awareness of trafficking is crucial to its prevention.
By Amber Lupin, Program Assistant, Pan American Development Foundation
J
ust a few years ago, teen-
age Benchelo was a restavèk, a
domestic slave in Haiti. Born in
Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince’s noto-
riously violent slum, he was sent to live
with a distant relative in Cap-Haitien af-
Photos: Karl Grobl
ter his mother’s death. Unlike the other
four children in the house, Benchelo
was not sent to school. Instead, the ten
year-old was forced to perform most of
the household chores. When he pro-
tested, he was deprived of food.
Eventually, Benchelo ran away to
live on the streets of Cap-Haitien. After
enduring years of frequent beatings by
gangs while he begged for food, Bench-
elo found the Foyer Lakou/Lakay Cen-
ter. He is now a full-time resident there
and is studying to enter school in the
second grade, at the age of fifteen.
Child Slavery
Unfortunately, Benchelo’s story is just
one of hundreds of thousands in this im-
poverished Caribbean nation. Frequent-
ly, children are sent away by their own
families in hopes of giving them a bet-
ter life, an education or opportunity. All
too commonly, these children are forced
into domestic servitude or agricultural
labor and never go to school. Many are
physically and sexually abused. Others
are sold to more affluent families, or traf-
ficked abroad to serve other masters.
According to the U.S. State Depart-
ment, human trafficking “deprives
people of their human rights and free-
doms; it increases global health risks;
and it fuels the growth of organized
crime” (Trafficking in Persons Report,
June 2008). Worldwide, there are up to
27 million people held against their will
in forced labor, sexual servitude and
other forms of modern slavery. In Hai-
ti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest
country, where the unemployment rate
hovers at sixty percent and the average
income is under two dollars per day,
the number of children servants, or
restavèks, may be as high as 300,000
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 25
 Child Slavery
– in a country of 8.5 million.
The problem is compounded by the
Haitian government’s lack of resources,
including the lack of an organized and
effective police force. In many cases,
there are too few officials, and those
that do exist are too inexperienced or
lack training to investigate restavèk
cases. Trafficking across the Domini-
can Republic – Haiti border is of partic-
ular concern, with Haitians sold as sex
slaves for the tourism trade or as do-
mestic servants in Dominican homes.
The Pan American Development
Foundation (PADF) addresses these
issues under its Protecting Human
Rights program in Haiti, funded by
USAID. By implementing resources
like the Foyer Lakou/Lakay Center,
which provides medical assistance,
psychological counseling, legal assis-
tance, and employment opportunities,
PADF works to provide a new start for
enslaved children and adults. The pro-
gram includes a media campaign to
educate the population about traffick-
ing, technical assistance for grassroots
groups working to combat the enslave-
26 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
Worldwide,
there are up
to 27 million
people held
against their
will in forced
labor, sexual
servitude
and other forms of
modern slavery.
ment of children, training for police
and enforcement groups, and targeted
legislative assistance to help the Hai-
tian government meet international
standards in the area of human rights.
Because Haiti has no law prohibit-
ing trafficking in persons, PADF, the
International Organization for Migra-
tion and the Organization of American
States, helped draft an anti-trafficking
bill that was presented to Parliament
in March of 2008.
With additional funding from the State
Department’s Office to Monitor and Com-
bat Trafficking in Persons, the Protecting
Human Rights program also includes a
cross-border component that educates
the community and local government
officials, empowers a civil society border
watch to monitor and document human
rights abuses, and provides resources
for trafficking victims.
Hopefully, with the installation of a
new government, Haiti can begin to
strengthen its efforts to combat human
trafficking. If Haiti cannot bring this
major human rights offense under con-
trol, it will affect the country’s ability to
receive non-humanitarian internation-
al assistance, such as funding from the
World Bank. In the meantime, organi-
zations like PADF are struggling to help
as many children as possible. As for
Benchelo, he is hopeful about his fu-
ture for the first time in many years. He
is training to become an auto mechan-
ic, and, when he is older, he plans to
care for street children just as he is
cared for now. MD
 DATA Report

The G8 Are Behind:

rica by 2010. At the time, the G8 had
actually committed to just over $25 bil-
lion alone and other non-G8 countries

Will They Meet Their

committed to even more. Because some
countries have “clarified” their commit-
ments and others’ Africa targets were

Promises?
dependent on global aid growth (which
has not been realized), the total target
from the G8 is now $21.8 billion by
2010. When non-G8 donors are added,
the total is $26.1 billion.
2008’s DATA Report reveals some sobering trends. In 2007, total ODA for Africa from
G8 donors only increased by $837 mil-
By Joshua Lozman and Erin Thornton, ONE lion over 2006 levels. Three countries,

T
Canada, France and Japan, actually
his year marks the mid- exactly what they committed to spend cut ODA to Africa in 2007. In total, de-
point in the timeline for realiz- every year, they did spell out what they spite the fact that the G8 are roughly
ing the G8’s promises to Africa intended to spend annually by 2010. To halfway to the 2010 deadline, they have
to help achieve the Millennium monitor progress towards that goal, the thus far only delivered an additional $3
Development Goals (MDGs), which are DATA Report draws a straight line from billion, or 14 percent of the total com-
also at the mid-point of the fifteen-year the baseline to that target to measure if mitted increase to Africa.
period set for their accomplishment. regular progress is being made towards For three years, the G8 have de-
When at the Gleneagles G8 Summit in that target. Sadly, the answer is that livered less than the total that would
2005, the G8 committed to doubling sufficient progress is not being made. have been needed to be on a straight
ODA (Official Development Assistance) line trajectory to reach the 2010 target.
to sub-Saharan Africa by 2010, DATA The G8 collectively This means that scaling up to the goal
and the ONE Campaign cheered as The commitment from 2005 was in 2010 will require much larger an-
loudly as anyone. But, like many oth- commonly referred to as a $25 billion nual increases between now and 2010.
ers, we underscored that these com- commitment in new assistance for Af- In total, ONE estimates that the G8
mitments would truly be something
to celebrate once delivered. So we set
out to monitor that delivery. The DATA
Report is an annual effort to hold the
G8 accountable to these promises by
monitoring progress towards not only
the broad commitment to double ODA
to sub-Saharan Africa, but also to the
sectoral commitments made for debt
cancellation, health, education, water
and sanitation, trade, governance and
security and aid effectiveness. The 2008
report highlights the achievements in
Africa that are too seldom recognized
and underscores the fact that the fail-
ure to deliver in full on the G8 commit-
ments limits the possibilities for taking
these successes to scale.
Due to space constraints, this ar-
ticle focuses only on the ODA progress
by the G8 nations other than Russia,
which DATA does not hold accountable
for meeting the group’s development
promises. The complete report, includ-
ing information on progress towards
the sectoral commitments, aid effec-
tiveness commitments, and a detailed
explanation of ONE’s methodology are
available online at www.one.org/report.
Although countries did not spell out

MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 27

 DATA Report
* Though Japan is shown here as having achieved its commitment, it should be noted that this commitment was only to double
bilateral aid from 2003 levels. In selecting 2003 for its Africa commitment, Japan chose the year with the lowest bilateral spending in
the previous decade – ¥60 billion ($561 million). This was not an ambitious commitment and does not contribute significantly to the
overall increases to which the G8 committed.
will need to increase ODA to Africa by
$6.4 billion each year starting in 2008.
ONE estimates that while 2008 ODA
levels will improve (with an estimated
increase of $2.6 billion in 2008), this
is still $3.8 billion short of the increase
needed to get on track.
Canada
In 2007, Canada’s ODA to Africa
decreased by $88 million. Canada set
a fairly weak commitment to Africa in
2005 and has weakened it further by
lowering the baseline against which a
doubling of ODA would be based. The
target is now $1.5 billion – the lowest
commitment by any G8 donor mea-
sured in nominal amount. Between
2004 and 2007, Canada’s ODA has
only increased by $72 million.
France
France made a very large commit-
ment to Africa in 2005. But last year,
France cut assistance to Africa by $66
million, and in total has delivered $334
million or less than seven percent of
the increase promised by 2010. Presi-
28 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
dent Sarkozy also moved the goalpost
for France’s commitment from 2012 to
2015. France has only increased ODA
to Africa by $334 million between 2004
and 2007, but has committed to reach
$7.53 billion in 2010.
Germany
In the wake of the Heiligendamm G8
Summit in 2007, Germany increased
ODA to sub-Saharan Africa by $311
million in 2007, and an increase nearly
twice that is expected in 2008. Despite
this, Germany only increased ODA by
$485 million between 2004 and 2007.
It has promised $6.204 billion in ODA
for Africa in 2010; in 2007, it delivered
$2.72 billion.
Italy
Italy made a very ambitious commit-
ment to Africa, but since 2004 Italy’s
assistance to Africa has actually de-
clined by one percent, making it un-
likely that it will deliver on its com-
mitment. Italy provided a substantial
increase for Africa in 2007 ($417 mil-
lion) by diverting tax savings towards
development, but this increase was not
enough to overcome past cuts. Italy
has promised $4.793 billion in ODA
for Africa by 2010, but its ODA in 2007
was only $1.097 billion.
Japan
After largely fulfilling its relatively
weak commitment from 2005, Japan
has committed to double bilateral aid
from its 2004-2007 average by 2012.
In 2007, Japan’s total bilateral ODA to
sub-Saharan Africa was $1.16 billion,
actually a decrease of $213 million
from 2006. ONE has estimated that Ja-
pan’s ODA to Africa will again decrease
in 2008 by $59 million.
United Kingdom
The UK has increased ODA to Africa
more than any other G8 country since
2005, delivering 26 percent of its prom-
ised increases thus far. Additionally,
the UK appears to have plans in place
to deliver the ODA promised by 2010.
Despite this positive news, the UK only
increased ODA to Africa by $48 mil-
lion in 2007. Prime Minister Brown’s
budgets for the next three years show
a roadmap to meet the UK’s commit-
ment to Africa of $6.508 billion in ODA
in 2010. In 2007, ODA was $3.637 bil-
lion to Africa.
United States
While disbursements of recent in-
creases in U.S. assistance to Africa have
been slower than hoped, increases in
assistance primarily for HIV/AIDS and
malaria are starting to come through.
ONE predicts that by next year the in-
creases will double; and analysis shows
that by 2010 the U.S. is likely to have
delivered in full on its 2005 commitment
to double ODA to Africa between 2004
and 2010 to a total of $8.8 billion. In
2007, ODA to Africa was $5.414 billion,
representing 15 percent (or $581 mil-
lion) of the total committed increase.
Going forward
The question is what happens now?
Though some countries are doing bet-
ter than others, as a whole, the G8 are
on track to break their word unless
radical changes are made. The DATA
Report lays out a roadmap for how the
G8 can get back on track. Italy – the
continued on page 32

An Issue of Cabinet-
level Importance
U.S. foreign assistance reform aligns with the global
movement for aid effectiveness.
By Lindsay Coates, Vice President, Public Policy & Outreach, InterAction
I
n 2005, ministers of developed
and developing countries responsible
for promoting development and the
heads of multilateral and bilateral de-
velopment institutions met in Paris and
resolved to take far-reaching and mean-
ingful action to reform the delivery and
management of aid. The meeting led to
the Paris Declaration on Aid Effective-
ness, which establishes global commit-
ments for donor and recipient countries
aimed at supporting more effective aid.
Signatories to the declaration include
35 donor countries (including the U.S.)
and agencies, 26 multilateral agencies
and 56 countries that receive aid. The
Paris Declaration principles dovetail
with many of the principles underlying
the push by InterAction members to re-
form U.S. foreign assistance structure –
a system that is badly broken and must
be repaired. Many of the approaches en-
couraged by InterAction and its mem-
bers as part of this reform effort also will
bring U.S. foreign assistance into align-
ment with global efforts to overcome
poverty, exclusion and suffering.
The Paris Declaration outlines five
principles that should be shaping aid
delivery:
• Ownership. Developing countries
will exercise effective leadership over
their development policies and strat-
egies and will coordinate develop-
ment actions.
• Alignment. Donor countries will base
their overall support on recipient
countries’ national development strat-
egies, institutions and procedures.
• Harmonization. Donor countries
will work to make their actions more
harmonized, transparent and collec-
tively effective.
• Managing for results. All countries
will manage resources and improve
decision-making to achieve results.
• Mutual accountability. Donor and
developing countries pledge they will
be mutually accountable for devel-
opment results.
These principles are iterative and
interlocking. They also fit closely with
positions taken by InterAction’s Board
of Directors in 2006 and in our pro-
posal for the creation of a new Cabi-
net-level Department for Global and
Human Development.
 Alignment and harmonization allow
donors and recipients to interact more
effectively at all levels: donor-to-donor,
recipient-to-recipient, and recipient-to-
donor. InterAction has called for cohe-
sion and coherence to replace the cur-
A new department
would streamline U.S.
assistance programs.
rent fragmentation in order to achieve
the effective use of development resourc-
es. Harmonization of priorities among
U.S. government agencies, multilateral
institutions and recipient governments
will ensure the best and wisest use of
resources. The proliferation of uncoor-
dinated programs throughout the U.S.
executive branch has resulted in less
effective achievement of development
goals and incoherent interface with our
development partners. A new depart-
ment would streamline U.S. assistance
programs (currently there are at least 26
departments and agencies providing of-
ficial development assistance) under one
Cabinet secretary, and would go a long
way towards achieving the Paris Decla-
ration principle of harmonization.
Furthermore, it would improve our
AID Alignment
alignment with recipient countries’ own
development strategies. As InterAction
member Oxfam America found on a re-
cent research trip to El Salvador, there
are at least 11 agencies delivering for-
eign assistance there and U.S. govern-
ment development staff find that “‘It’s
difficult to keep everyone happy,’ when
each agency focuses on the challenges of
development through a different lens.”
Clearly, the current system creates un-
necessary roadblocks on the route to
alignment, and we can do better. By
joining the global effort for alignment
and harmonization, U.S. policy-makers
will become more collaborative actors in
a global context and better stewards of
taxpayer funds.
Managing for results and mutu-
al accountability will also be better
served by U.S. foreign assistance re-
form. A new Secretary for Global and
Human Development should manage
for results by:
• Creating, adequately staffing and
funding an independent office for
evaluating foreign aid programs
across all the agencies and offices of
the new department;
• Using training programs to build
staff capacity in monitoring and
evaluation;
• Making mid-term and final evalua-
tions mandatory;
• Ensuring that grants and contracts
provide adequate staffing and funding
for performance monitoring, as well
as midterm and final evaluations;
• Rewarding learning rather than sim-
ply punishing mistakes;
• Committing to impact evaluations
for new or untested interventions
that donors or governments would
like to scale up or replicate;
• Requiring that all impact evaluations
undergo external peer review; and
• Joining the recently formed Inter-
national Initiative for Impact Evalu-
ation (3ie), contribute substantial
funds, and encouraging other coun-
tries to join it as well.
Finally, more than five decades of de-
velopment experience have taught In-
terAction members that we can never
achieve true development without real
ownership by the beneficiaries of as-
sistance programs. Nor can we expect
continued on page 32
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 29
 Grassroots
U.S. Grassroots Activists:
Key to Foreign Assistance Reform
Shaping policy at home
can be just as effective as
work in the field.
By Michele Learner, Writer,
Bread for the World
W
hen my friend’s devel-
opment project in Latin
America was completed,
he wanted to stay on and
work for another worthwhile group. He
asked people in the community, “What
can I do that will help you the most?
Which of these development programs
is the most important?” The most fre-
quent answer surprised him: “The best
thing you can do for us is to go home
and work to improve U.S. policy. You
are a citizen and a constituent, and
you have the ability to influence mem-
bers of Congress. We are affected by
the policies, but we do not have the
power to shape them.”
Of the various U.S. policies that affect
developing countries, foreign assistance
is one of the most influential – and out-
dated. When the Foreign Assistance Act
of 1961 was passed, African colonies
were still fighting for independence and
the U.S. was preoccupied with Soviet
expansionism. The world has changed,
but the Foreign Assistance Act and
many of its assumptions have not.
To get Capitol Hill to change it, tim-
ing is everything. Now, with the prom-
ise of a new administration, supportive
statements from leaders of key con-
gressional committees, and increased
voter concern as soaring food prices
and their consequences regularly make
the U.S. news, the time has come to
pass new and improved foreign assis-
tance legislation.
Persuading members of Congress
to do this – particularly for nonprofits
without large lobbying budgets – will
mean connecting members of Con-
gress with networks of their constitu-
ents who are concerned about global
poverty alleviation and are comfortable
30 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
A greater U.S. focus on poverty reduction could mean more resources for agriculture in
Ethiopia and elsewhere in the developing world.
in voicing their opinions.
Strategists on both sides of the par-
tisan divide agree that grassroots advo-
cacy works. “Members of Congress lis-
ten to constituents at home a lot more
than the news media gives them credit
for doing,” explained Republican Jack
Oliver. Democrat Mike McCurry noted,
“More and more political power is now
in the hands of people who work at
the grassroots. It’s really replacing the
30-second ad as the way we persuade
people to pay attention to the issues –
and that’s a good thing. The personal
witness of individuals is powerful for
the people around them.”
We have consistently found this true
where I work, Bread for the World, a col-
lective Christian voice against hunger
based on grassroots advocacy. Bread
members reach members of Congress
using the traditional tactics with a few
updates: writing letters, making calls,
visiting congressional offices, writing
letters to the editors of key media, post-
ing to influential blogs, and organizing
others to do the same through church
activities, campus outreach, Facebook,
listserves, community groups, and
friends-and-family contacts.
Perhaps Bread for the World’s icon-
ic advocacy story is from 2004, when
Connie Wick of Indianapolis wrote to
her senator, Richard Lugar (R-IN), to
support funding for the Millennium
Challenge Account (MCA) and global
HIV/AIDS programs.
Soon after she sent the letter, Bread
president David Beckmann attended
a White House signing ceremony and
had a chance to talk with President
Bush about the importance of funding
the MCA. Mr. Bush called over Sena-
tors Frist and Lugar and asked them to
help secure MCA resources.
A minute later, Senator Lugar said to
Beckmann, “You know, I am just now
responding to a letter from a constitu-
ent, Connie Wick. She is saying just
what you are saying, that we should
fully fund the MCA and not cut fund-
Photo: Todd Post/Bread for the World
ing for ongoing programs of assistance
to poor people.”
In one sense, Wick’s story is unusual
– it includes the President of the Unit-
ed States and a senior U.S. senator.
But activists frequently hear from key
members of Congress that letters from
constituents influenced specific votes
or decisions.
 The world sees one Africa.
We see so much more.
No two countries are the same. Every country in Africa has a different culture,
a different economy, a different way of doing things. We understand this.
With an established presence in 18 African countries, we not only know the
dynamics of each local market, its specialist sectors and its communities; we’re
also committed to every one of them. So when it comes to doing business in Africa,
you’ll know you’re dealing with the bank that truly celebrates unity in diversity.
www.standardbank.com
Inspired. Motivated. Involved.

SBSA113531-8/08
 Grassroots
In 2009, Bread for the World is ask-
ing Congress and the new president to
reauthorize U.S. assistance to promote
global development, foster broad-based
economic growth in low-income coun-
tries, and support the efforts of poor
people to lift themselves out of hunger
and poverty.
In our experience, grassroots activ-
ists are knowledgeable, sophisticated
and creative. In recent years, Bread for
the World members have pushed for
debt relief, creation of the Millennium
Challenge Account with the goal of
poverty alleviation, farm bill reform to
allow fair treatment for farmers in the
developing world, and more and better
development programs that respect the
priorities of poor people.
In the national office, it is our job to
explain the issues in a clear and com-
pelling way, provide advocates with
tips and resources, support them in
planning activities, monitor develop-
ments on the Hill and alert them when
action would be most effective – and
then get out of their way. MD
32 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
Bread for the World is developing a
handbook, video, and Web resources
– for advocacy to reform foreign assis-
tance. It will be providing stories and
examples, as well as statistics, to help
advocates persuade Congress to make
poverty reduction a goal of our assis-
tance and to keep development focused
on long-term objectives. The resources
will be made available on the organiza-
tion’s website early next year.
DATA Report
continued from page 28
country most behind on its commit-
ment to Africa – is now the G8’s host.
Prime Minister Berlusconi, recently re-
elected to lead Italy, is the only G8
leader who will attend this year’s sum-
mit who was also his country’s leader
at Gleneagles and signed his country’s
name to the Africa Communiqué. If the
G8 is to continue to be a trusted body
and if the world is to prevent millions of
Africans from dying needlessly, the G8
must keep their promises. MD
Aid Alignment
continued from page 29
to live up to the standard of mutual ac-
countability if recipient countries have
not fully bought into donor countries’
development plans. A new Cabinet-level
department would need to prioritize own-
ership and mutual accountability, and
maintain some of our government’s best
practices in these areas, like the policies
of the Millennium Challenge Corporation
(MCC) that promote country ownership,
manage for results, and contain mutual
standards of accountability between the
U.S. and recipient countries.
It would be easy for an outsider to
dismiss the current push for foreign as-
sistance reform and a new Cabinet-level
Department for Global and Human De-
velopment as a U.S.-centric bureaucrat-
ic exercise, but it is important to re-
member that we have, in the principles
laid out in the Paris Declaration, a high-
er set of objectives: ownership, align-
ment, harmonization, managing for re-
sults, and mutual accountability. MD

SPECIAL SECTION:
More Than
Just the
Money
A look at InterAction members’ involvement in global
initiatives for accountable and effective aid.
NGO Roles in Financing
for Development (FfD)
By Gemma Adaba, Representative to the United Nations,
International Trade Union Confederation, and John
Ruthrauff, SR. Manager, Member Advocacy, InterAction
N
GOs and civil society organizations, includ-
ing the International Trade Union Confederation
(ITUC), InterAction and several of its members, were
active at the UN’s International Conference on Financing for
Development in Monterrey Mexico in 2002. NGOs acted both
globally and nationally, convening and participating in initia-
tives aimed at monitoring progress and holding governments
accountable to their commitments. They worked on key Fi-
nancing for Development (FfD) themes such as: the MDGs
and poverty eradication, capital flight, debt cancellation, la-
bor rights and employment issues, and financing for gender
equality and women’s empowerment.
The FfD process is one of the global mechanisms for dia-
logue and action along with others, such as the annual G8
Summit and the 3rd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness
held recently in Accra, Ghana. NGOs play a role in ensuring
the implementation of G8 and other intergovernmental com-
mitments. They monitor for coherence and continuity across
the range of global structures.
Last year the UN designated a group of civil society or-
ganizations and networks as facilitators for the official UN
FfD process. This has evolved into the thirteen-member Doha
Non-Governmental Organization Group on Financing for De-
velopment (DNG), which includes the International Trade
Union Confederation and InterAction. The DNG provides a
broad and inclusive platform around which interested orga-
nizations and networks can mobilize. The aim is to ensure
effective civil society participation in the Doha preparatory
process and at the Doha Review Conference. Both Oxfam and
Population Action International are involved in the process.
A Global Civil Society Forum open to all stakeholders in-
cluding governments will be held on November 26 – 28, just
Finance
prior to the Doha International Review Conference on Financ-
ing for Development (November 29 – December 2). The Forum
will offer a unique opportunity for civil society organizations
(CSOs) and NGOs to carry their engagement forward by pre-
paring strategic policy interventions for their participation in
the official round tables of the Doha Conference. A civil so-
ciety representative will also address a Conference plenary.
The Forum will also allow NGOs and CSOs to establish syn-
ergies with governments and institutional stakeholders with
a view to ensuring that governments reaffirm and honor their
Monterrey commitments, and supplement them with new
commitments.
The objectives of the Doha Global Civil Society Forum are to:
• Provide time and space for extensive discussion and review
of the FfD agenda;
• Review civil society proposals on FfD and related and cross-
cutting issues, such as the environment, climate change,
gender, labour issues, economic, social and cultural rights,
and innovative financing measures; 
• Enhance the participation of civil society in the Doha Con-
ference through panels, workshops, debates and dialogues
with governments and institutional stakeholders;  
• Provide networking opportunities for civil society, NGOs,
government delegates and institutional stakeholders
through interactive dialogue sessions; 
• Design strategies and mechanisms of follow-up engage-
ment and monitoring of the Doha Conference outcomes on
thematic issues that are civil society priorities; and
• Disseminate civil society policy proposals and points of
view regarding the Doha Conference to the national and
international media.
InterAction members interested in the FfD process can
visit www.un-ngls.org/ffd/ or contact John Ruthrauff at jru-
thrauff@interaction.org or 202-552-6523. MD
The United Nations’
Financing for
Development Review
Conference
By Oscar de Rojas, Director, UN Financing for Development
I
n 2002, the United Nations organized a confer-
ence in Mexico, which resulted in the “Monterrey Con-
sensus of the International Conference on Financing for
Development.” A follow-up International Review Conference
will take place in Doha, Qatar from November 29 through
December 2, 2008. The conference will review progress made
in the implementation of the 2002 agreement. Last year, the
President of the General Assembly appointed the Ambassa-
dors of Egypt and Norway as facilitators of the preparatory
process for this follow-up Conference. During the past year,
six review sessions have been held on the issues addressed
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 33
 Finance
in the Monterrey Consensus: mobilizing domestic resources,
mobilizing private foreign direct investment, trade, increas-
ing official development assistance (ODA), external debt, and
systemic issues. Based on the summaries of the review ses-
sions, as well as other relevant inputs, the President of the
General Assembly and the facilitators have circulated a draft
outcome document of the Review Conference on which infor-
mal consultations by UN Member States and drafting ses-
sions are being held in the fall.
The Doha Review Conference provides a unique oppor-
tunity to address crucial issues of international economic
cooperation and development. It is taking place at a criti-
cal juncture when the current difficulties in global financial
markets and the discussion of financial sector regulation
have also underscored the importance of incorporating the
voice of developing countries in the relevant international
fora, as the decisions made there greatly affect their develop-
ment prospects. Similarly, the current food crisis highlights
a number of systemic issues that deserve concerted atten-
tion. This is also a period when a number of emerging issues
and challenges, relating to innovative sources of finance and
climate change, among others, have received great attention.
Given these developments, there should exist a willingness
in both the North and the South to review existing arrange-
ments relating to international economic relations and coop-
eration for development.
By allowing the international community to take stock of
urgent needs and priorities pertaining to financing for devel-
opment, the Monterrey Consensus has provided a valuable
benchmark that serves to mobilize policy efforts in areas re-
lating to aid and other capital flows, debt, systemic matters
and domestic reforms. It is our hope that the Doha follow-
up will provide additional momentum to this process that
should help lead to a significant reduction in poverty and
want and a better world for everyone. MD
The G8 Summit
and Beyond
By Kimberly Darter, Coordinator for Global Partner-
ships and Strategic Impact, InterAction
T
his year’s G8 Summit in Toyako, Japan could
have been significant. Leaders of the G8 countries had,
yet again, a historic opportunity to take positions on
transnational issues of fundamental importance such as
global warming, the international financial system, and the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – all made immedi-
ately tangible by the global food price crisis.
The G8 leaders failed, however, to use the Summit to fur-
ther the interests of their citizens, let alone the interests of
people in the rest of the world. Progress at the Summit extend-
ed to commitments to deliver on the Gleneagles promise of $50
billion for development in Africa by 2010, implementation of
monitoring mechanisms for pledges on health, education, wa-
ter and sanitation, and a pledge of monetary support for hu-
34 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
manitarian aspects of the
global food price crisis.
Yet global NGO advo-
cates and practitioners
know that the G8 is not the
only forum in which issues
of fundamental interna-
tional importance are ad-
dressed, and governments
know this as well. This
was reflected in the state-
ment issued by the Group
of Five (G5) (Brazil, China,
India, Mexico and South
Africa) during the G8 Sum-
mit, the G5’s first stand-
alone document since they
came together in 2005. The
G5 framed their key concerns and recommendations in the
context of global structures beyond the G8, including the UN,
the Doha Development Round, the Financial G20, the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Pro-
tocol and the Bali Road Map, the Monterrey Consensus, the
Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, and the MDGs. Not
once in their statement did the G5 countries recommend that
action be taken within the G8 framework. What the statement
does call for is action within agreed upon global frameworks
and fora.
In this proliferation of global mechanisms for dialogue and
action, NGOs have a role to play in ensuring that not only are
commitments kept, but that there is also continuity across
the range of global structures, with each one building and
improving on the last. The recent 3rd High Level Forum on
Aid Effectiveness, hosted by Ghana in September, and the
up-coming Doha Review Conference on Financing for Devel-
opment, offer opportunities to do just this. The High Level
Forum, which addressed key issues related to improving the
impact of aid, complements the Doha Review, where partici-
pants will address how to meet the financial needs of devel-
opment priorities.
As a community, there will always be room to improve how
we communicate and coordinate our positions and our ac-
tions. The way in which civil society organizations in Japan
went about preparing for the 2008 G8 Summit reflects such
learning. Well in advance of the Summit, individual Japa-
nese NGOs and NGO networks formed coordinating bodies
and established lines of communication that were kept open,
even in the face of disagreement on positions or actions. Ad-
ditionally, Japanese NGOs worked to ensure that precedents
Photo: Ruslan Gilmanshin - Fotolia.com
concerning NGO participation set at recent G8 Summits were
built on, including NGO accreditation and access to the me-
dia center, as well as dialogues and meetings with Japanese
government officials, including the Prime Minister.
Moving forward, the number of fora between the 2008 G8
Summit and the 2009 Summit in Italy provide further op-
portunities for civil society to work at both the national and
international levels to ensure that commitments are followed
through on and that progress continues to be made in the
fight against global poverty. MD

Improving the Impact
of Aid: The Footprint
of the 3rd High Level
Forum on Aid
By Sylvain Browa, Director of Global Partnerships,
InterAction
M
“ inisters of developing and donor countries
responsible for promoting development and Heads of
multilateral and bilateral development institutions en-
dorsed the following statement in Accra, Ghana, on 4 Septem-
ber 2008 to accelerate and deepen implementation of the Paris
Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2 March 2005).” With two
key words – deepen and accelerate – this preamble to the Ac-
cra Agenda for Action (AAA) captures the two main objectives
of the 3rd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF3) that
took place on September 2-4, 2008 in Accra.
Alerted by the results of the mid-term evaluation on the
Accra Outcomes
implementation of the Paris Declaration principles on aid ef-
fectiveness (the 2008 Monitoring Survey), the HLF3 admit-
ted openly that the current pace of implementation would not
meet the 2005 commitments made in Paris by the 2010 dead-
line. That reality led the HLF3 to explore various ways to get
the pace of implementation back on track. Chief among these
were: identifying new targets that would allow signatories to
meet their commitments by 2010 (accelerate); and addressing
some of the fundamental limitations of the 2005 agreement
(deepen) identified in consultations leading to Accra.
The outcome of the HLF3 captured in the AAA was positive
overall. Although there were no specific commitments to de-
tailed plans and individual targets showing how donors and
recipient countries would meet their commitments by 2010
– as called for in the statements issued by civil society organi-
zations (see box) – the AAA produced a number of action items
that, if carried through, would afford a new momentum to the
overall efforts to improve the impact of aid. These include:
• Predictability of Aid Flows. Donors will provide three- to
five-year advance information on their planned aid to re-
cipient countries, so that recipient countries can integrate
that information into their medium-term planning.
• Use of Recipient Country Systems. Donors will use re-
cipient country systems to deliver aid as the first option
MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 35
 Accra Outcomes
What Does The Accra Agenda for Action
(AAA), produced at the recent 3rd
the Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effective-
ness, has broad implications for US
Agenda NGOs, both advocacy-focused and
for Action implementing organizations.
Mean for The U.S. NGOs’ call for an overhaul
of the Foreign Assistance Act can-
U.S. NGOs? not afford to ignore the growing
consensus on development effec-
tiveness at the global level. The out-of-date and fragmented
current U.S. aid architecture prevented the U.S. from showcas-
ing some of its more progressive programs such as the Millen-
nium Challenge Account and/or aspects of its operations that
are far ahead of what the principles on aid effectiveness call
for. This meant that in Accra the U.S. was perceived as out of
step and sometimes as the obstacle to consensus on a more
progressive AAA. An overhaul of the U.S. Foreign Assistance
Act that does not account for the consensus reached in Accra
or the U.S. government’s current global commitments – the
Paris Declaration, Millennium Development Goals, and Fi-
nancing for Development (FfD) – will have missed a significant
opportunity to re-position the U.S. as the leader on global
aid issues. U.S. NGOs will need to re-think their strategies to
take into account not only the realities of the U.S. domestic
political context but also the realities of the country that aid is
intended to help, and their shared development vision.
Accra will have direct impact on US NGOs operating over-
seas. The U.S. government’s aid programs overseas will be
scrutinized for compliance with the principles on aid ef-
fectiveness. As the U.S. tries to comply with these principles,
some of its responsibilities will trickle down to NGO partners
either at the sector or project levels. Even NGOs operat-
ing with private resources will ultimately have to interface
with recipient country priorities as framed under the Paris
Declaration. At a minimum, U.S. NGOs must engage the U.S.
government agencies they work with on the possible impli-
cations of Accra for their operational partnerships.
InterAction will provide the appropriate space and organiz-
ing to ensure that U.S. NGOs engage the government on
both policy and operational matters. InterAction will also
ensure that U.S. NGOs have a voice in the development of the
planned CSO [civil society organization] effectiveness frame-
work, which has become a key component of the growing
consensus on development effectiveness. Accra proved that
there is a need for closer collaboration between the U.S. gov-
ernment and U.S. NGOs on development issues at the global
level. U.S. NGO delegates in Accra had full access to U.S.
government representatives, including the USAID Adminis-
trator herself. It is important that preparations for the Doha
Conference on Financing for Development and for the next
G8 Summit further strengthen such collaboration, regardless
of the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.
36 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
and provide a justification when they opt not to.
• Aid Conditionality. How and when aid money is spent will
be determined by the recipient countries’ development objec-
tives (results-based conditionality) rather than donors’ pre-
scriptive conditions (i.e., broad policy conditionality such as
the World Bank’s famous Structural Adjustment Programs.)
• Tied Aid. Donors will relax restrictions requiring recipient
countries to procure the goods and services they need from
donor countries (rather than wherever they can find the
best quality at the lowest price.)
• Strengthening Country Ownership over Development.
Developing country governments (with donor support) will
work more closely with parliaments, local governments, civil
society organizations, research institutes, media and the pri-
vate sector in preparing, implementing and monitoring na-
tional development policies and plans.
• Capacity Building for Development. Donors’ support for
capacity development will be demand-driven and designed
to support country ownership (through donor support to
recipients’ self identified capacity needs and related strate-
gies to address them).
Accra is a milestone in the aid effectiveness debate. The role
played by the development ministers in Accra marked a prac-
tical shift from a purely technocratic debate between donor
and recipient countries about the mechanics of how aid is pro-
vided and used to a broader discussion of development effec-
tiveness that recognizes and seeks to leverage the critical roles
of stakeholders such as parliament, civil society and the pri-
vate sector. The development ministers were critical in reach-
ing consensus on the content of the AAA in the final hours of
the HLF3. This consensus was mostly due to the leadership of
Henrietta Fore, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for Interna-
tional Development and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance.
Ms. Fore took the responsibility for signing off on three stick-
ing points the U.S. had opposed over the course of the negotia-
tions: the predictability of aid flow over 3-5 years, departure
from aid conditionalities similar to the World Bank’s Struc-
tural Adjustment Programs, and the use of recipient countries’
public management systems to deliver aid.
Accra recognized the work of civil society organizations
(CSOs) in addressing poverty and inequality and committed
to engaging them more deeply. Unlike the 2005 agreement
that overlooked the critical roles and contributions (money,
expertise and human resources) of NGOs and other CSOs
to fighting poverty and saving lives, the AAA devoted a full
article to CSOs. The commitments in Article 20 to support-
ing the CSOs’ own initiative to promote CSO development ef-
fectiveness and assisting with the provision of “an enabling
environment that maximizes their contributions to develop-
ment” will prove critical to advancing the humanitarian and
development efforts of CSOs. (See box for highlights of how
the AAA will effect U.S. NGOs.)
Accra confirmed the growing consensus on development ef-
fectiveness that has been building since the formulation of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 and the con-
ference on Financing for Development in Monterrey in 2002.
Two critical characteristics of that consensus include: (1) the
centrality of gender integration, respect for human rights, and
 Media

environmental sustainability as the pillars for achieving last-
ing impacts in fighting poverty and inequality and saving lives;
and (2) the recognition that development is a political process
of selecting priorities and committing resources to them that
starts with a national government, its various branches, its
citizens and their organizations, and its private sector.
2010 will tell if and how the AAA helped put the implemen-
tation of the aid effectiveness principles back on track. In the
meantime, CSOs will continue to monitor the behaviors of
both donor and recipient governments, using the frameworks
they collectively defined and agreed on. MD
opment objectives by key
stakeholders – a preamble For video coverage of
to increased accountabil- the media summit and
ity, ownership and effec- additional information about
tiveness. InterAction’s Aid Effectiveness
These events included a efforts, please visit:
media workshop, media sum- www.interaction.org/aideffectiveness
mit and a post-conference
media briefing.
The media workshop took the form of an information
sharing session between civil society representatives and
Ghanaian journalists in order to develop better knowledge

Making Headlines:
of aid effectiveness issues and their relationship to core local
and regional issues.
The media summit was conducted as an interactive dis-

The Role of Media cussion between civil society, media and policy-makers on
the role of media in setting and implementing development

in International
priorities and objectives. The participants and audience dis-
cussed ways to improve the media’s role in promoting the
principles of accountability and ownership among all the rel-

Development evant actors. The event was hosted by the Ghana Association
of Private Voluntary Organizations in Development, InterAc-
tion, the Pan African Organization for Sustainable Develop-
By Nasserie Carew, Director of Public Relations, ment and the West African Civil Society Institute. Attendees
InterAction included local, regional and foreign correspondents.
Following the conclusion of the HLF3, InterAction held a

T
he Accra Agenda for Action, adopted recently comprehensive post-conference media briefing for junior-
at the 3rd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF3), level journalists to stimulate interest and commitment to the
identified the role of media as vital to attaining an ef- issue of development. MD
fective aid system. The recognition of the progression of the
responsibility of media within the global poverty debate is an
exciting and welcome one. The Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development (OECD), which through its De-
velopment Assistance Committee (OECD DAC) organized the
MONDAY
DEVELOPMENTS
HLF3 and oversees the aid effectiveness debate of which the

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ingly embracing the idea that in order to significantly advance

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the aid dialogue, the media-civil society relationship must
mature into a partnership built on shared values.
InterAction’s Excellence in Development Reporting program
recognizes the incredible potential of the media as a develop-
ment partner. Building an effective media-civil society rela-
Visit www.interaction.org/monday
tionship starts with the international development commu- to subscribe
nity – civil society, policy-makers and donors – viewing the
Monday Developments
media as a critical and equal partner in development. provides in-depth news
Civil society can do much to help the media develop a bet- and commentary on global
ter understanding of core development issues by improving trends that affect relief,
access to staff and information and providing an open forum refugee and development
of information exchange. work. Monday Developments
As part of this effort, InterAction held a series of media also describes new resources
for relief and development
events at the HLF3 in order to:
workers, professional growth
• Amplify the voice of civil society in the aid effectiveness opportunities, upcoming events
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MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 37

 Party Platforms
Foreign Assistance:
Where Do
They Stand?
Republican National Convention 2008
Excerpt from approved Party Platform
Helping Others Abroad
A mericans are the most generous people in the world. No nation
spends more in combined public and private efforts to combat
disease and poverty around the world, and no nation works harder to
ensure the continued vitality of the global economy. Our reasons for do-
ing so are both moral and practical, for a world where half of the human
race lives on a few dollars a day is neither just nor stable. Including the
world’s poor in an expanding circle of development is part and parcel of
the Republican approach to world trade through open markets and fair
competition. It must also be a top priority of our foreign policy. Decades
of massive aid have failed to spur economic growth in the poorest coun-
tries, where it has often propped up failed policies and corrupt rulers.
We will target foreign assistance to high-impact goals: fostering the rule
of law through democratic government; emphasizing literacy and learn-
ing; and, concentrating on the foundations for economic development
— clean water, agricultural improvement, and microcredit funding for
small enterprises. Maternal and child health, especially safer childbirth-
ing and nutrition, must be priorities, especially in countries affected by
epidemics of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Further, we call for the
development of a strategy for foreign assistance that serves our national
interest. Specifically we call for a review and improvement of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 oriented toward: alignment of foreign assistance
policies, operations, budgets and statutory authorities; development of
a consensus on what needs to be done to strengthen the non-military
tools to further our national security goals; greater attention to core
development programs — education, child survival, and agricultural
development; and greater accountability by recipient countries so as to
ensure against malfeasance, self-dealing, and corruption, and to ensure
continued assistance is conditioned on performance. MD
38 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
F
oreign assistance reform has continued to grow as
a hot political topic. More than thirteen Congressional hearings
have been held in the last year, as well as consultations with se-
nior Congressional leadership members and staff. There is a deep
understanding that the United States Government foreign assistance
planning, delivery, implementation and monitoring apparatus needs to
be re-thought. InterAction members in partnership with Brookings Insti-
tution, the Center for American Progress, the Center for Global Engage-
ment, and others have been actively engaged in the call for reform (to
get involved, visit www.modernizingforeignassistance.net) So important
is this issue that the two major U.S. political parties addressed the prob-
lem in their respective party platforms at this summer’s conventions.
Here are excerpts of the key passages.
Democratic National Convention 2008
Excerpt from approved Party Platform
Invest in Our Common Humanity
T o renew American leadership in the world, we will strengthen our
common security by investing in our common humanity. In countries
wracked by poverty and conflict, citizens long to enjoy freedom from
want. Because extremely poor societies and weak states provide optimal
breeding grounds for terrorism, disease, and conflict, the United States
has a direct national security interest in dramatically reducing global
poverty and joining with our allies in sharing more of our riches to help
those most in need. It is time to make the U.N. Millennium Development
Goals, which aim to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015, America’s goals
as well. We need to invest in building capable, democratic states that can
establish healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and gen-
erate wealth. Such states would also have greater institutional capacities
to fight terrorism, halt the spread of deadly weapons, and build health-
care infrastructures to prevent, detect, and treat deadly diseases such as
HIV/AIDS, malaria, and avian flu. We will double our annual investment
in meeting these challenges to $50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those
new resources are directed toward worthwhile goals. But if America is
going to help others build more just and secure societies, our trade
deals, debt relief, and foreign aid must not come as blank checks. We will
couple our support with an insistent call for reform, to combat the cor-
ruption that rots societies and governments from within. As part of this
new funding, we will create a $2 billion Global Education Fund that will
bring the world together in eliminating the global education deficit with
the goal of supporting a free, quality basic education for every child in
the world. Education increases incomes, reduces poverty, strengthens
communities, prevents the spread of disease, improves child and mater-
nal health and empowers women and girls. We cannot hope to shape a
world where opportunity outweighs danger unless we ensure that ev-
ery child everywhere is taught to build and not to destroy. Our policies
will recognize that human rights are women’s rights and that women’s
rights are human rights. Women make up the majority of the poor in the
world. So we will expand access to women’s’ economic development op-
portunities and seek to expand microcredit. Women produce half of the
world’s food but only own 1% of the land upon which it is grown. We will
work to ensure that women have equal protection under the law and
are not denied rights and therefore locked them into poverty. We will
modernize our foreign assistance policies, tools, and operations in an
elevated, empowered, consolidated, and streamlined U.S. development
agency. Development and diplomacy will be reinforced as key pillars of
U.S. foreign policy, and our civilian agencies will be staffed, resourced
and equipped to address effectively new global challenges. MD
MONDAY Developments
EmploymentOpportunities
Program Officer for Eurasia
Washington, DC
Based in Washington DC this position will support innovative
and high quality programming for World Vision field offices in-
cluding Indonesia, Cambodia, and the Philippines. The position
is responsible for management of private funding, including
programs funded through child sponsorship, foundations, cor-
porations, and individuals. Applications accepted only online at
www.worldvision.org.
Director of Finance and Operations
Washington, DC
 Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF). Senior-level opportunity for ac-
countant or  financial manager with international experience.  transition to a new monitoring and evaluation system focused
See complete job announcement, including application instruc-
tions, at www.SlesingerManagement.com.
Director of Resource Development
Washington, DC
Partners of the Americas requires a proactive, highly motivated
and creative Director of Resource Development. Responsibilities
include managing the Resource Development Unit, including
unit priorities, budget, team members, and consultants. Leading
Brandeis University
The Heller School of Social Policy and Management
The End of Poverty ...
Over 150 students in residence from 65 countries forming one of
the largest programs of its kind in the world.
Alumni are employed by U.N. agencies, bilateral and multilateral
aid organizations, and NGOs throughout the world.
Generous financial assistance for Peace Corps and other service
organization volunteers.
A community of activists and scholars on the front lines of social policy.
heller.brandeis.edu
To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
the proposal development process including technical writing,
collaborations with local organizations, program budgeting,
and overall proposal strategy and design. Identifying new op-
portunities for funding, outreach, and strengthening organiza-
tion’s portfolio; represent Partners at meetings and conferences.
Salary will commensurate with experience. Please send a cover
letter and resume to recruit@partners.net with “Director of Re-
source Development” in the subject line. For more information
on Partners, visit www.partners.net.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION OFFICER
New York
Trickle Up seeks a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer to lead our
on documenting outcomes, learning and excellence. Working
with our staff in New York, Guatemala, India, Mali and Uganda,
you will develop, implement, refine and maintain all system
components and manage the adoption of a new database. You
will be committed to Trickle Up’s mission, with at least 3 years’
experience leading monitoring and evaluation of poverty alle-
viation programs (quantitative and qualitative). Job description,
requirements, and application instructions at www.trickleup.
org. Deadline: Dec. 1, 2008.
Knowledge Advancing Social Justice
One Degree at a Time
x M.A. in Sustainable International Development
M.S. in International Health Policy and Management
x
x M.B.A. concentration in Sustainable Development
x M.P.P. concentration in Poverty
x Dual M.A. programs in Sustainable Development with
Coexistence & Conflict and with Women & Gender Studies
781-736-3820
HellerAdmissions@Brandeis.edu
39
 Job Openings
Project Director,
Cultural Heritage
Project
Baghdad, Iraq

Program
Coordinator,
Cultural Heritage
Project
Erbil, Iraq

Chief Engineer
West Bank

Country Director
Islamabad,
Pakistan

Director of
Internal Audit
Arlington,VA

Director of
Health Programs
Arlington,VA

International Relief & Development For more

information
1621 North Kent Street
contact Ingrid
Fourth Floor
Fitzgerald at
Arlington,VA 22209
P: 703.248.0161 703.248.0161 or
F: 703.248.0194 visit www.ird.
org and click on
www.ird.org “careers.”
Chief of Party
Famine Early Warning Systems Network
(FEWSNET)
Chemonics seeks a chief of party for the Famine
Early Warning Systems Network Project (FEWS
NET), a long-term, USAID-funded food security
and early warning information project. FEWS
NET is a set of integrated activities that provide
early warning of environmental (e.g. drought) and socio-economic (e.g.
rising prices) hazards, and monitoring and assessment of current food
security conditions and of a population’s current or future vulnerability
to food insecurity. Responsibilities include overall project leadership,
management, and technical direction of the FEWS NET technical team
in Washington, DC and field office staff in Africa, Afghanistan, Central
America, and Guatemala; provision of client and stakeholder briefings on
project data analysis; ensuring strategic long-term vision of innovations
in international food security monitoring; and serving as the key liaison
coordinating with USAID, FEWS NET implementing partners such as USGS,
other U.S. government agencies, and international and regional partners,
such as WFP and CILSS. Qualifications: Advanced degree in agriculture,
economics, international development, or related field; French and English
fluency; ten years of work experience in a food security-related field
(agriculture, agricultural economics, early warning, economics, emergency
response, food security assessment, geography, planning, public health,
and rural development) developing and managing programs in Africa; five
years of senior level experience managing complex field and U.S.-based
projects involving large and dispersed multidisciplinary team; U.S. work
authorization is required; ability to travel and work overseas; knowledge of
USAID operations, programming, and structure; demonstrated personnel
and financial management skills Application Instructions: Send electronic
submissions to FEWSNETCOP@chemonics.com by October 24, 2008.
Submit CV, cover letter, and three references, with the position title in the
subject line. No telephone inquiries, please. Finalists will be contacted.
To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008
Director of Security
Minneapolis, MN
The Director of Security at ARC headquarters directs
the development, implementation and monitoring of an
effective strategy to mitigate risk, maintain continuity
of operations, and provide for the safety and security of
all ARC employees. Also serves as the subject matter
expert on safety and security. S/he establishes policies
and standards affecting safety and security of ARC staff
members, ARC field facilities and assets, and program
activities. The Security Director ensures adequate security
protocols and mechanisms are in place to address country
programs’ unique security challenges. S/he provides
direction and technical support direction in developing
and maintaining country programs’ context-specific
field security plans and leads the organization’s Crisis
Management Team. The position has the authority to
direct and implement appropriate security measures for
ARC country programs. This position requires 40%
international travel.
To view complete the job description and to apply, go to
www.arcrelief.org
41
 “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex,
and more violent. It takes a touch of genius— and a lot of
courage—to move in the opposite direction.”
—Albert Einstein, at whose suggestion the IRC was founded

Musu Mulbah
GBV Program Manager

It takes the best to prevail against

the worst of crises.

To join us, please visit: theIRC.org/Jobs

HR_employeeHero_AprilAd.indd 1 3/26/08 11:48:48 AM

42 MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org
 Did You
SKILL Know?
AND In the developing

PASSION
world outside
China, the $1.25

AT WORK poverty rate has

fallen from 40
percent to 29 per-
Current cent over 1981-
Openings 2005. However,

Field Coordinator given population

DR Congo growth, this
progress was not
Grants Coordinators
enough to bring
South Sudan & Sudan
down the total
Operations Coordinator number of poor
Central African Republic outside China,
which has stayed
Health Coordinators
Sudan & Chad at about 1.2
billion.
Human Resource Coordinator
Source: World Bank
Sudan

Finance Controller
Chad
How Secure Is Your Organization?
InterAction Minimum Operating Security Standards Workshop
October 30th—Washington, DC
The working environment for international humanitarians and development
professionals has become increasingly volatile in recent years. Because of this, many
NGOs are seeking a way to incorporate more robust security measures into their
programming. However, few NGOs know how best to do it.

To learn more about working InterAction has been tasked by USAID to create a set of Minimum Operating Security
Standards (MOSS) for its members. Under the MOSS, InterAction members are
with us, please visit required to create organizational policies and plans; make appropriate resources
available to comply with the standards; implement appropriate human resources
theIRC.org/Jobs policies; incorporate accountability for security at the management level; and work
together as a community in order to advance their common security interests.

This workshop seeks to assist InterAction members and other interested

organizations in the incorporation of InterAction’s Minimum Operating Security
Standards (MOSS). Recognizing that every organization will have differing needs, the
“Suggested Guidance” section for each standard will be presented by members of
the Security Advisory Group. A brief review will be followed by an open forum that
will enable attendees the opportunity to discuss methods, policies and practices of
other members in order to aid all in compliance.

This workshop is open to InterAction member organizations only.

Please RSVP by email to jkearns@interaction.org.

Subject line: “MOSS RSVP.”

To advertise, call 202-667-8227 ext 548 or email publications@interaction.org MONDAY DEVELOPMENTS October 2008 43
1400 16th Street, NW, Suite 210
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 667-8227
Fax: (202) 667-8236
publications@interaction.org
www.interaction.org

InterAction is the largest alliance of U.S.-based international

development and humanitarian nongovernmental
organizations. With more than 160 members operating in every
developing country, we work to overcome poverty, exclusion
and suffering by advancing social justice and basic dignity for all.

Program on Forced Migration and Health

HEILBRUNN DEPARTMENT OF POPULATION AND FAMILY HEALTH

MASTER OF PUBLIC HEALTH

The Program on Forced Migration and Health is committed to improving the health and well-being of people in crisis-
affected settings. The Program offers a Master of Public Health (MPH) through the Heilbrunn Department of Population
and Family Health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. The MPH curriculum is intended to prepare
health professionals for the practice of public heath in complex emergencies and post-conflict settings.

The Program's teaching and research components emphasize pragmatic, inter-disciplinary, and human rights-based
problem-solving in the health and social sectors. Upon completion of the degree, graduates will be able to:

x Lead the field of humanitarian response in the 21st century;

x Define the nature, impact, and determinants of health and social sector problems in complex emergencies;
x Develop effective policies to alleviate problems in the health and social sectors;
x Design, manage, and evaluate health and social sector programs;
x Undertake population-based research to improve humanitarian response policies and practice.

For information about the Program on Forced Migration and Health: www.forcedmigration.columbia.edu
For admissions information: www.mailman.columbia.edu/dept/sph/experience

MPH Student Practicum Photos: (L to R) Juan David Gastolomendo (1 & 3); Victoria Foster; Carinne Meyer