Speeches Shim
The U.S. government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has provided over $22 million to complement the Government of Bangladesh’s ongoing efforts to prepare and respond to the spread of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This funding builds on more than $1 billion in health assistance provided to Bangladesh over the past 20 years and underscores the long-term U.S. commitment to ensuring access to quality, lifesaving health services for all people in Bangladesh.
In northeast Bangladesh, up near the border with India, you find a mosaic of habitats: rivers, streams and irrigation canals, large areas of seasonally flooded cultivated plains and hundreds of wetlands with still water. Large areas are covered by wetlands that between May to October transform into massive bodies of deep water.
It is uniquely beautiful here, even picturesque—but it is not an not easy place to live and nurture a family. Just ask Tahmina Begum, a wife and mother caring for her large family in the village of Birnagar. She could tell you what it feels like to stare down an impending disaster when the rains come. Wind whips wildly and water gushes from nearby mountains, generating waves in the wetlands when the haor is full that in turn surround and erode the raised mounds of earth—called atis—upon which people live.
In Bangladesh, young party leaders reach across the aisle for better and more constructive collaboration. Playing a supporting role, the USAID-funded Strengthening Political Landscape (SPL) activity has convened Bangladeshis for cross-party training sessions and events under the Young Leaders Fellowship Program (YLFP). The 352 YLFP graduates, who studied leadership, internal party democracy, party constitutions, advocacy, public speaking, and communications, are shunning confrontation and working across party lines to address problems affecting Bangladeshis.
For over a decade, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Bangladesh has been making headlines for its novel approach to health. Much of its shining success has come through the Smiling Sun network of 134 clinics, run by a pro-poor, independent social business company, Surjer Hashi Network (SHN), which has made primary health services available to millions of Bangladeshis.
The U.S. government recently announced a commitment of $37 million in financing from the Emergency Reserve Fund for Contagious Infectious Diseases at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for 25 countries either affected by novel coronavirus COVID-19 or at high risk of its spread. The U.S. government is providing these funds to the World Health Organization, other multilateral institutions, and programs led by USAID implementing partners in individual countries. These are the first U.S. government funds committed from a recent pledge of up to $100 million to be used worldwide.
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