CWS sees danger in 'proposed budget cuts

["Lesley Crosson" <lcrosson@churchworldservice.org>]

Media Contacts: 
Lesley Crosson, Church World Service, (212) 870-2676,
lcrosson@churchworldservice.org 
Jan Dragin - 24/7 - (781) 925-1526, jdragin@gis.net 


Church World Service calls out dangers in ‘evisceration’ of global
assistance budget


WASHINGTON, D.C. - Tuesday February 15, 2011 -- Global humanitarian
agency Church World Service voiced grave concern today over proposed
budget cuts under deliberation in the House of Representatives this week
that “threaten to eviscerate” U.S. funding for humanitarian and
poverty-focused global assistance. Those cuts would be the deepest to
the international affairs budget since the end of World War II.

The proposed cuts include a 41 percent cut to Development Assistance,
which includes funding for bi-lateral U.S. agriculture and food security
assistance as well as other critical programs for children and adults
struggling to overcome poverty. 

In the midst of a looming global food crisis, the cuts would eliminate
U.S. funding for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program
(GAFSP), a multilateral mechanism to address the under-funding of
country and regional agriculture and food security strategic investment
plans already being developed by countries.  

In a letter delivered to key House leaders and appropriators, CWS
Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer John L. McCullough said,
“The minimal savings that would result from the proposed 45 percent
cut in Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) or the proposed 67 percent
cut in International Disaster Assistance (IDA) are not worth the loss of
life, human suffering, and destabilizing impact of discontinuing
programs that provide emergency health, safe shelter, and clean water
for millions of survivors of conflicts, human rights abuses, and natural
disasters worldwide.”

McCullough added that the “unprecedented and dangerous cuts will not
appreciably help solve U.S. fiscal problems,” and points out that
humanitarian and poverty-focused foreign assistance make up less than
half of 1 percent of the federal budget. They would, however, “be a
devastating blow for millions of children and adults struggling to
overcome hunger and poverty and to recover and rebuild from crises
around the world,” according to McCullough.

CWS urged the House to oppose the cuts and to appropriate funding for
foreign assistance at the levels President Obama has requested for
FY2011.

McCullough wrote to House leaders that “investing in foreign
assistance now shows compassionate global leadership.”

As a relief, development and refugee assistance agency working in some
of the world’s poorest and most conflict-riddled countries, CWS claims
that proposed draconian Congressional cuts to foreign assistance would 
“harm American long-term interests by reducing support for programs
that promote a more secure and stable world.”

In a continuing Congressional atmosphere of near-feral partisan rancor,
McCullough reminded lawmakers that foreign assistance has been a
bi-partisan commitment in Congress and of both Republican and Democratic
presidents.

“Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have both stated that the
security of the American people is closely bound up with global human
security,” said McCullough.

CWS also voiced alarm over proposed gutting of international climate
adaptation funding.  McCullough said, “Cuts to bilateral and
multilateral programs for clean technology, disaster risk reduction and
adaptation funding for communities suffering the consequences of climate
change will cost us much more in the future when the U.S. may be
required to respond to once-preventable disasters” that threaten the
stability of already-vulnerable countries.”

Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow for Global Health Laurie
Garrett said today in a CFR Expert Roundup, “Because cuts in overseas
programs have a negligible impact on U.S. voting patterns, they are
politica
lly painless. But the impact on the ground in poor and
war-ravaged parts of the world is profound.”

On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that foreign affairs
budget cuts being proposed by members of Congress would be "devastating"
to U.S. national security interests. 

From New York today, CWS Deputy Director and Head of Programs Maurice
A. Bloem noted that “The U.S. needs to continue programs that are
working.” He cited the fact that, in part because of U.S. investments
in global food and nutrition security to date, the number of children
worldwide who are hungry or who have died due to malnutrition has been
steadily decreasing in recent years. The world’s children --
tomorrow’s generation - don’t need to lose ground. ”We need to
continue making progress towards eradicating hunger and poverty.”

“The proposed cuts do not reflect the global leadership of the United
States,” he said, adding that countries that look to the U.S. might
follow our negative lead and drop their commitments to foreign
assistance as well.

Church World Service is a faith-based humanitarian agency whose
advocacy on behalf of the world’s poorest communities also represents
the concerns of the agency’s 37 U.S. member Protestant, Anglican and
Orthodox communions.


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