While more and more of us are living lives augmented by virtual reality, self-driving cars and “smart” homes, a global report released July 12 by the authoritative Joint Monitoring Program on Water Supply and Sanitation shows that 2.1 billion people don’t even have access to safe drinking water at home.
More than twice that number—4.5 billion people, or a full 60% of earth’s population—live without a toilet that safely protects them from human waste.
For generations, the United States has devoted a small portion of our national budget—currently less than 1 percent—to aiding the world’s least fortunate.
Unfortunately, President Trump’s first budget proposal submitted to Congress did not grasp this.
The unprecedented extent to which the President has proposed withdrawing life-affirming aid to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people fundamentally misjudges the value and purpose of America’s engagement with the world’s poorest countries.
Specifically, the President has proposed that Congress eliminate that part of the national budget—the Development Assistance account—which funds America’s core foreign assistance activities.
This is the very account that helps the world’s most impoverished communities gain their first access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene.
That account is administered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the agency that has a mandate to target its aid to where aid is most needed.
Instead, the President’s budget would hand over USAID’s responsibility for administering development assistance to the State Department.
Specifically, the State Department’s Economic Support Fund—used to assist our strategic partners, who often have less poverty and therefore less need for development assistance.