Development Works The Complete Set | Page 21

ESSAY  3 & internationalize” efforts to respond to urgent global problems, adding that an initial U.S. contribution of $302 million “directly leveraged $579 million from others.” GAFSP estimates that these resources will improve the food security of 7.5 million smallholder farmers. The idea behind leading and supporting multilateral development efforts is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We can see this when we look at what is already being accomplished through newer efforts such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the L’Aquila food security commitments and the GASFP grants that L’Aquila made possible, the Millennium Challenge Account, and CAADP. Multilateral cooperation enables the global community to pool its resources, share knowledge of what is working well, and identify and fill funding gaps in the most promising programs. Myths Realities Myth: The United States provides more than its fair share of development assistance. Reality: Multilateral programs are supported financially by a variety of donors. For example, the L’Aquila global agriculture initiative includes not only pledges of $3.5 billion over three years from the United States and $3 billion each from Germany and Japan, but also $2 billion from the Netherlands (population 16.7 million) and $1 billion from Canada (population 34.7 million). The United States saves millions of lives every year with programs like child immunizations, PEPFAR, and food aid. There is no doubt that our efforts make a big difference. But the amount the United States gives per person is less than average for donors and far less than Scandinavian countries. Preliminary data for 2011 indicate that Sweden and Denmark devoted more than 1 percent of their national incomes to development assistance. The U.K. gave 0.56 percent, the average for 23 donor countries was 0.46 percent, and the United States was near the bottom of the list at 0.2 percent. Reverie Zurba/USAID nn A South Africa agriculture program covers research and increasing the productivity of small farming businesses to cope with the persistence of chronic hunger, malnutrition, and threat of famine, particularly in a region reeling from the effects of HIV/AIDS. A Question of Leadership Until 2005, the United States was the largest donor to every multilateral development fund, but a shift toward more bilateral assistance through efforts such as PEPFAR and Feed the Future means that this is no longer the case. In fact, the share of U.S. foreign assistance that is channeled through multilateral programs has fallen to 11 percent of our country’s total assistance— less than half of its level in 2000. The average for donor countries is 30 percent. Financial contributions are a way to show leadership in multilateral initiatives. Moreover, influence on important decisions within multilateral organizations is often linked to funding. For example, the United States contributes 15 percent of the funding Myth: U.S. leadership on development assistance isn’t really essential. Reality: U.S. leadership leverages additional funding from other donors. Recently, USAID administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah told members of Congress that the agency is increasing its contributions to the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria “to make sure that we’re investing in those multilateral vehicles that allow us to leverage our dollars with the dollars of other donors and generate $2 or $3 or $4 of investment for every $1 we put in.” Conversely, U.S. withdrawal from development initiatives sends a signal that often leads to a decrease in support from other donors as well. For example, when the United States cut back on its support for agricultural development at the end of the 1980s, the efforts of most other developed countries waned as well. Agriculture remained a relatively neglected area until as recently as 2008, when the global food price crisis and other factors, such as new information on the damage caused by early childhood malnutrition, brought leaders’ attention back to the necessity of improving farming if we are to reduce hunger. www.bread.org/institute n Development Works  19