Speeches Shim
Widespread migration from the countryside is placing tremendous stress on urban water supplies and sanitation services delivery throughout Asia. This has placed a heavy burden on the nations of the Lower Mekong region as well as on the millions of urban poor who lack direct access to clean water. Further, many water services providers in Asian cities lack the proper management skills and suffer from weak governance, inefficient operations, aging infrastructure, and limited investment. Each of these contributes to poor service delivery and reduces access to safe water supply and basic sanitation. This in turn leads to higher rates of disease and child mortality from preventable waterborne illnesses and a corresponding loss of economic productivity.
The Mekong is among the world's longest rivers, flowing 4,800 kilometers from the Tibetan plateau through six nations to its delta in Vietnam. The river and its tributaries contain the largest freshwater fishery in the world, producing 2.6 million tons annually, a food chain that relies on the nutrient rich sediment carried by the river. The river contains between 1,200 and 1,700 species of fish, making it the second most biodiverse river in the world. Many of these species must migrate a thousand kilometers or more upriver in order to spawn. This vast fishery supports some 60 million people along the Mekong and its watersheds, directly and indirectly, of whom 40 percent still live in poverty. Many of them depend on protein from the fish and the food grown along the river’s banks and floodplain, which receive nutrients during annual floods.
The United States government deeply regrets the Bolivian government's decision to expel the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). We deny the baseless allegations made by the Bolivian government.
The Food Aid Reform proposal in the FY 2014 President’s Budget will reach more people in need by expanding the flexibility in our food assistance delivery while reducing average per person costs, addressing clear inefficiencies in P.L. 480 Title II (Title II), while allowing for the majority of emergency food aid to still be procured from the United States. This fact sheet details the total resources available for food aid under the reforms and how the reforms will allow USAID to reach more people and reduce the average cost per beneficiary. In addition, this fact sheet clarifies the overall International Disaster Assistance (IDA) request and explains how it is allocated between emergency food and non-food emergency needs.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama called upon our nation to join with the world in ending extreme poverty in the next two decades. Today, we have new tools and approaches that enable us to achieve a goal that would have been unimaginable even two decades ago: the elimination of extreme poverty and its most devastating corollaries, widespread hunger and preventable child and maternal deaths.
With just over one percent of the federal budget, the State Department and USAID budget advances U.S. national security, protects Americans at home and abroad, opens markets overseas, fights disease, hunger and extreme poverty, creates American jobs, forges global partnerships and delivers real results for the American people. The FY2014 budget request of $47.8 billion supports U.S. engagement in over 180 countries, and provides the people and programs necessary to protect U.S. interests, promote peace and ensure America’s leadership in the world.
The President’s FY 2014 budget request for the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is $47.8 billion, a six percent decrease from FY 2012. The request makes tough trade-offs, proposes important reforms, and takes advantage of efficiencies to support our diplomatic, development, and national security priorities and use taxpayer dollars efficiently.
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