Government Relations and Policy
Modernizing Foreign Assistance -
Taking Conservation into Account
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White House Draft Development Policy: A Step in the Right Direction
For more information, please contact Jessica McGlyn at Jessica.McGlyn@wwfus.org
In the 111th Congress, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Berman, will be working on re-writing the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA). The FAA, enacted in 1961, authorizes international development assistance and the work of institutions such as USAID. Much of the United State’s contribution to international conservation and biodiversity efforts is directed through the FAA. The world has changed dramatically since the FAA was last amended in the 1980s, and it is widely accepted that US foreign assistance is in need of restructuring. The different functions of foreign assistance have become fragmented and inefficient, with over 26 agencies implementing development programs without clear coordination or a unified set of objectives.
Moreover, in the last 50 years, humans have made unprecedented changes to the planet’s ecosystems — largely to meet rising demands for food, water and energy. Over 60 percent of ecosystem services are being used in ways that cannot be sustained. With current consumption patterns and a projected global population of nine billion in the next 50 years, it is vital that environmental sustainability and biodiversity conservation be elevated to a new level of importance in revised laws, regulations, bureaucratic structures, policies and appropriations in order to promote US national interests. Clearly, some of the greatest challenges requiring US leadership today are rooted in the health and productivity of the global environment: climate change, pressures on food supply (both from agricultural and fisheries production), lack of adequate quantity or quality of water, health and violent conflict over land or resources.
WWF is working with other environmental organizations to educate Congress on the need to fully integrate and elevate conservation and environmental considerations within a modernized approach to foreign assistance.
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