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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
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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
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