Supporter: Jeremy Konyndyk

Internally displaced Somali women and children are seen outside their shelter at a camp in Mogadishu. Photo: REUTERS/ ISMAIL TAXTA, courtesy Trust.org -- AlertNet

Last Wednesday, I had the privilege of testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations’ African Affairs Subcommittee on the intensifying crisis in the Horn of Africa. The issue could not be more pressing – even as the hearing was underway, the United Nations declared that famine had spread to three additional regions in southern Somalia, and it expects famine to spread across all regions of the south in the next four to six weeks. At least 12.4 million people across the Horn are in need of humanitarian assistance — 3.7 million of them in Somalia alone.

The subcommittee’s chairman, Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, and its ranking member, Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, took the very unusual step of staying on into the Senate recess to hold the hearing now, rather than wait until the Senate comes back into session in September. They asked thoughtful, pointed questions and are genuinely seized with the unfolding crisis. Their leadership on this issue is important, and much appreciated.

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"The drought has gotten so bad that we have seen camels dying of thirst," recounted a Mercy Corps colleague during my recent visit to Somalia. While crises in Sudan, Libya and Japan may get the headlines, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today — by a long shot — is taking place in the Horn of Africa. Experts in the region say that the drought is the worst the Horn has seen since the 1950s. The U.N. estimates that more than 10 million people face severe food shortfalls. Spanning across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, the current crisis could prove to be worse than the far better-known crisis in Ethiopia in the 1980s, which ultimately killed up to 1 million people.

The epicenter of the crisis is Somalia, where nearly 3 million people — more than one-third of the population — face possible starvation. Mercy Corps staff in the country, people with years of experience in humanitarian relief, have told me that this is one of the worst situations they have ever seen.

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An earthquake in Haiti. Violent conflict in the Congo. Mass hunger in Niger. An AIDS epidemic spreading across many of the world’s poorest nations. Building peace in the Middle East. Recovering from war in the Balkans.

What do all of these challenges have in common? They are all core to America’s national interests and values. And they are challenges that require a strong, coherent U.S. approach to global development — something that our government presently lacks.

Last December, many Mercy Corps supporters joined more than 40,000 other activists in sending a petition to the White House. We urged President Obama to make good on his campaign promise to elevate global development as a core goal of American foreign policy, and to update America’s 1960s-era foreign aid system. Last week, we saw two things that indicate real progress on this front — a (leaked) copy of a new White House strategy paper, and a landmark speech by Dr. Rajiv Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Let’s start with the White House strategy paper. Last year, the President asked some of his top foreign policy advisors to review U.S. development policy. This was a crucial acknowledgment that our 20th-century aid structure is not measuring up to 21st century global challenges.

The President’s advisors have now come back to him with a proposal for a new approach. The paper is not perfect — it appears to perpetuate the fragmentation of aid functions across the U.S. government, rather than consolidating all of our tools into a single empowered agency. But nonetheless the proposed strategy would represent a huge step forward if adopted as official policy.

That paper alone would have made it a big week for anyone who supports U.S. action to combat poverty and other global challenges — but there was more to come! On Wednesday Dr. Shah, the head of USAID, gave a major speech outlining a clear and thoughtful vision of how he will update his agency for the 21st century.

Both Dr. Shah and the White House study paper point towards an emerging vision for the Obama Administration. This vision would elevate priorities like reducing global poverty, alleviating human suffering and supporting better governance of weak states, to the highest level of American foreign policy. And, just as importantly, it would modernize our country approaches development — improving how we provide aid but also recognizing that the aid America provides is just one aspect of helping countries overcome poverty.

Therefore, the emerging vision would use market tools such as trade policy, it would improve collaboration with other development actors to improve efficiency, and it would emphasize and invest in game-changing innovations in health and agriculture. Most crucially, it would seek to engage the people of developing countries to own and to lead their own development — with the U.S. Government acting is a partner, not a patron. Tying all of this together would be a heavy emphasis on measuring what works, through rigorous impact evaluation.

This is a compelling vision of how the U.S. could work to build a better world. There is just one thing lacking — a clear statement by the President that he will pursue the ambitious agenda that his advisors have marked out for him. He will have a perfect opportunity to do this in September, when he addresses the world at a summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

If America is going to return to a leadership role in addressing global poverty and alleviating global suffering, the MDG summit will provide the perfect platform. Stay tuned.

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A water-retention terrace. Photo: Jeremy Konyndyk/Mercy Corps

Ethiopia has long struggled with food insecurity. With generous support from USAID, Mercy Corps has just completed the first year of a three-year effort to improve food security in some of Ethiopia’s most vulnerable regions.

Recently I made a trip to Jijiga, in the east of Ethiopia, to see how Mercy Corps is working with community members and the local government to address the causes — rather than just the effects — of hunger.

Our consultations with community members revealed that environmental factors can have a major impact on people’s access to food. Ironically, we learned that rains can be a hindrance as much as a help.

I visited a shallow valley outside Jijiga, where the fertile farmland in the bottom of the valley is threatened every time there is a heavy rain. Seasonal rains have carved ferocious gullies, up to a kilometer in length, into the surrounding hillside. The rain runoff spills into these gullies rather than soaking into the hillsides.

It then carries on into the valley below at great speed, taking with it pebbles and other detritus from the hills. By the time the gullies reach the bottom of the valley, the force of the water often wipes out the crops planted there and deposits detritus in their place. This situation is disastrous not only for the farmers in the valley but also for the herders in the hills above. The swift removal of the water from the hillsides prevents plant growth, making it difficult for them to graze their animals.

A water-break dam in a gully. Photo: Jeremy Konyndyk/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps turned to a technique that has been applied in Ethiopia’s central highlands. Using labor from the local community — including nearly 100 women — we financed the construction of a series of small dams and retention walls to break up gullies and keep more water in the hills. The retention walls are simple stone terraces, about a foot high, built in a wide U-shape (like a smile) and backed with native aloe plants to anchor them into place. These are positioned in numerous spots along the hill side. Once in place, they prevent runoff from rushing down the slope. Instead, they hold moisture back on a patch of hillside, where it can soak into the ground and foster the growth of plants for grazing.

We complemented these terrace walls with small dam structures that are placed in the path of the gullies. These dams, made of local rocks and standing 2-3 feet tall, are simple structures but do a great deal to break up and slow down the flow of water as it proceeds down the hill. By the time the water reaches the valley floor, the dams have slowed it down enough that it gently nourishes the crops rather than washing them away.

And so with this simple intervention, life improves for both farmers and herders, and both groups can reduce their reliance on food aid or other external support.

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Photo: White House

This holiday season, Mercy Corps and the millions of people that we serve around the world need your help. Simply put, the U.S. Government's aid efforts overseas are lagging far behind the times.

The law that governs U.S. development assistance has not been rewritten since 1961 – the time of President Kennedy — and this Cold War relic just doesn’t cut it in the 21st century. Over the past few decades the law has been gradually tweaked, expanded, and loaded with so many directives, objectives, and pet priorities that it no longer provides coherent goals or an effective structure for US foreign aid. The result is that our government's development efforts now resemble a jury-rigged, 48-year old car about to embark on a long road trip – without a map. The destination is unclear, and there’s no guarantee that the car can go the distance.

The U.S. is a very generous country — and the U.S. Government is a great partner of ours — but our government’s international aid system is becoming more outdated with each passing year. President Obama and the Congress have been working to increase funding for foreign aid, and we strongly support those efforts. But without corresponding reforms to our aid structures, these funding increases are like putting premium gas in that 48-year old car — it may help, but you still won’t get the most bang for your buck.

It's time for that to change. Candidate Obama recognized this challenge, arguing during the campaign that “too little of our taxpayers’ resources [are] getting to the problem and no single person…[is] responsible for directing and managing what should be one of our most powerful foreign policy tools.” He vowed that, as President, he would build an “elevated, streamlined, and empowered 21st century U.S. development agency.”

With President Obama now approaching a full year in office, he needs to hear from you that a renewed and refocused U.S. development strategy must remain a top priority. The President has ordered a review of U.S. development policy, but needs to know that voters expect him to follow through and finally fix our outdated system. We have seen too many government studies that go sit on a shelf instead of driving real changes — that must not happen this time. Too much is at stake in the world's poorest and most challenging places.

That is why this holiday season, Mercy Corps is teaming up with many of our colleague organizations to support a petition that will be delivered to the White House. Taking a few moments of your time to sign this petition will help people all over the developing world by improving the effectiveness of U.S. investments in development aid. You can find the petition here.

Let's work together to bring U.S. development assistance up to date and give those we serve around the world the help they need. Thank you for your ongoing support.

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