August 2008 CRS Advocate

Legislative Update

Global AIDS Bill
Congratulations!  The 4905 messages you sent to your Members of Congress helped them pass the Global AIDS bill known as PEPFAR.  The bill provides $48 billion for HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis over the next five years.  It also includes the following CRS and USCCB supported provisions:

• Expanded integration of food and nutrition into treatment programs that will benefit people affected by HIV;
• Resources to address the shortage of healthcare workers and strengthen healthcare systems;
• A balanced approach to HIV prevention that includes support for effective abstinence and behavior change programs;
• Removes language that would have mandated the integration of family planning and reproductive health services into HIV prevention, care and treatment. Such language would have effectively excluded CRS and other religious organizations from participation in PEPFAR and reduced the effectiveness of prevention programs.

The bill was signed into law by President Bush on July 30.
Read the full CRS/USCCB press release.

The Role of Advocacy in Emergency Preparedness

Bill O,Keefe, Senior Director, Advocacy Department, U.S. Operations, Catholic Relief Services

As both a relief and development organization, CRS prepares for situations that cause or foreshadow lasting hardships or possible devastation in communities least able to withstand such difficulties. We support overseas projects, educate Catholics in the U.S., and advocate for policy change in preparation for and in response to humanitarian emergencies. More…

Global Food Crisis

Volunteers distribute highly nutritious corn-soy blend, provided as part of a CRS-supported food distribution for 1,230 beneficiaries at a site in Goro Gutu, Ethiopia. Recipients of the food aid then provide labor to help improve local roads, build schools and rehabilitate farm land - all aimed at helping to boost the local economy by improving agricultural production, access to markets, and increasing education levels. Such integrated approaches are essential in the fight against poverty.

Delivering International Food Aid and Providing Foreign Agricultural Development Assistance

Sean Callahan, CRS' executive vice president for overseas operations, recently returned from a trip to east Africa and testified about the additional help needed by impoverished Africans affected by mounting food and fuel prices.

"CRS staff around the world has heard stories of families who are stretched to the limits of life itself by the high price of food," Callahan told a subcommittee hearing of the House Agriculture Committee.

In some regions of Niger, he said, families have started eating only one meal a day. In dire circumstances, people have resorted to eating anza, a wild plant with bitter leaves, to supplement their diet. In northern Ghana, students have been taking CRS-provided lunches home to share with hungry family members, sharing their only meal of the day.

"Some families must make do with eating less at each meal. They are already skipping meals, or even not eating on a particular day," he said. "Tragically, they may even have to decide which child or children may have the best chance of survival and which, already so ill and weak, will be allowed to die. These are the agonizing choices the global food crisis is forcing the poor to make."

Callahan also alerted the subcommittee to what he saw several weeks ago in Ethiopia, where two consecutive seasons of poor rains have led to total crop failure and malnutrition.

"I visited a feeding site run by the Ethiopian Catholic Church and the Missionaries of Charity in a largely Muslim area where, over the previous five weeks, 28 children had died of malnutrition. The conditions there are already dire," he said.

"I saw one Ethiopian parent bring a very sickly, lethargic child to the center for emergency treatment. The parent told the sisters, 'I brought this child because I thought he could make it. My weakest child is at home.'

"My first reaction on seeing all this was simply to bite my lip, to contain my emotion," Callahan said. "My second reaction was anger. How could we let this happen? But the more I observed, I realized that this was a place of hope. I saw kids being fed and stabilized, getting better. Parents were thanking the workers for saving the lives of their children."

Callahan described CRS' emergency response to the food crisis, which involves getting food and cash into the hands of the urban and rural poor, so they can eat. These efforts include providing cash vouchers so families can purchase food, and projects that provide cash for work on disaster preparedness measures, like clearing out drainage canals to prevent flooding when a storm hits. CRS is also redoubling efforts to promote agricultural development for long-term food security.

CRS will fund many of these projects with private donations. Callahan noted that there are not enough cash resources available from the U.S. government and urged Congress to expand the availability of these resources.

"This global food crisis is bigger than food aid alone," he said. "The U.S. government should provide much more cash in the International Disaster Assistance and Development Assistance accounts to complement current food aid efforts."
Read Sean Callahan's testimony.

CRS Staff Discuss Global Food Crisis on National Public Radio
On Wednesday July 23, Dan Rodricks, host of WYPR,s Midday Show spoke with Sean Farris, CRS Sr. Advisor for Agriculture and the Environment, Darren Hercyk, CRS Country Representative for Pakistan, and Lisa Washington-Sow, CRS Country Representative for Niger, on how CRS is working around the world to alleviate the global food crisis. Listen to the broadcast.

Hunger, Food Relief and Food Security

Farm Bill
Thank you again for the strong advocacy work to help with the passage of the Farm Bill.
Read Ken Hackett's letter to Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
On behalf of Catholic Relief Services and the millions of people we assist with international food aid I wish to thank and commend you for your bipartisan work on the Trade Title of the 2008 Farm Bill. More....

A World Made Whole