Speeches Shim
USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah is traveling to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Senegal from October 13–17 to meet with national and local officials, aid organizations, and staff coordinating the international response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. USAID is helping coordinate the USG’s whole-of-government response to the EVD outbreak that leverages broad expertise and personnel from several federal departments and agencies, including DoD, Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of State, and CDC. On October 14, in Monrovia, Liberia, Administrator Shah announced nearly $142 million in USAID humanitarian activities to support the EVD response. The USAID activities in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone include construction and support of EVD treatment units (ETUs), critical training for health care workers (HCWs), and social messaging and mobilization.
The Fifth Committee of the U.N. General Assembly—a body responsible for administrative and budgetary issues—recently adopted a measure to allocate $49.9 million to fund UNMEER. The U.N. plans to launch a Global Ebola Response Coalition on October 10, which will bring business, political, and health leaders together to mobilize resources and support for the ongoing response.
The Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget have implemented a Government-wide Performance Management System initiative. This information reflects current internal processes and regulations for Senior Executive Service (SES) members and equivalent officials (Senior Leaders (SL) and Scientific Professionals (ST)) concerning Performance and Misconduct.
To date, U.S. Government (USG) funding for the West Africa EVD outbreak has surpassed $111 million.
USAID and the U.S. Department of State are providing a $10 million grant to support an African Union (AU) medical mission responding to the EVD outbreak.
President Obama has designated October as National Cyber Security Awareness Month, a nationwide effort to educate and engage both public and private sector stakeholders and the American public on cybersecurity issues through a variety of communications and outreach activities held across the country.
- The overall EVD caseload has increased approximately 17 percent since September 16.
- To date, the U.S. Government (USG) has committed more than $95 million towards its $175 million EVD response funding pledge. The USG continues to increase support for the EVD response.
- As part of this $95 million, USAID contributed nearly $15.6 million in additional support for EVD response activities in Guinea and Liberia.
- CDC has developed trainings for clinicians planning to work in EVD treatment units (ETU).
The U.S. Government (USG) has launched a whole-of-government response to the EVD outbreak in West Africa, including increased involvement from the U.S. military. On September 16, President Obama announced that an estimated 3,000 U.S. troops plan to deploy to provide logistics support, construct EVD treatment units (ETUs), and train health care workers. Additionally, the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps plans to deploy health care workers to West Africa.
The Regional Agricultural Development Program-North (RADP-North) is a sustainable agriculture development program in Jawzjan, Balkh, Samangan, Baghlan, Kunduz, and Badakhshan. The program aims to support U.S. and Afghan Governments’ economic development objectives. RADP-N improves the sustainability and profitability in wheat, high-value horticultural crops, and livestock value chains that provide food and economic security for rural Afghans in the targeted provinces.
Additional EVD treatment units (ETU) and trained staff are urgently needed as the EVD caseload continues to increase in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. USAID/OFDA contributed nearly $7.9 million in additional support for EVD response activities in Liberia. USAID/FFP provided food commodities valued at $6.6 million to support EVD-affected populations in Liberia.
Many vulnerable groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) – women, national minorities and the LGBTI population, in particular – are often denied human rights and opportunities that others take for granted. Various forms of discrimination permeate all sectors of BiH society, including health care, employment and education. This takes a toll on the country as well as individuals as it prevents thousands of people from contributing fully to development of the country. In 2009, BiH adopted the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination, however, implementation has been weak. This is due largely to low public awareness of legal recourse for discrimination, as well as inefficiency and the lack of action by relevant institutions that do not cooperate with civil society in protecting citizens against discrimination.
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