RESULTS Campaign Report for Alliance To End Hunger, Fall 2006RESULTS is a nonprofit grassroots advocacy organization, committed to creating the political will to end hunger and poverty. RESULTS has volunteers in over 100 communities across the United States who lobby members of Congress for effective solutions to hunger and poverty in the U.S. and abroad. Volunteers also generate media and hold public forums which build public support for Congress and other leaders to take specific actions. RESULTS Educational Fund (REF) was formed to educate the public about issues related to hunger and poverty, to educate and train individuals and groups about powerful citizenship, to research current hunger and poverty programs, and to identify solutions to effectively address these issues. RESULTS Educational Fund is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt nonprofit organization. RESULTS and RESULTS Educational Fund work closely with affiliates in six other countries who also work to educate their communities, the media and their governments about effective interventions to end hunger and poverty: Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. In 2004, REF was awarded a three-year grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support a global tuberculosis (TB) advocacy campaign. TB kills nearly two million people annually and is both a cause and consequence of poverty. The project, Advocacy to Control Tuberculosis Internationally (ACTION), aims to mobilize increased financial resources from four donor countries (Canada, Japan, the UK and U.S.) and to overcome key policy constraints that impede access to effective TB treatment in three developing countries (India, Indonesia, Kenya) where TB is a major killer. The Microcredit Summit is a project of RESULTS Educational Fund. The Summit’s mission is to ensure that 100 million of the world’s poorest families, especially the women of those families, are receiving credit and other financial and business services by 2005. A report released in December 2005 by the Microcredit Summit Campaign showed that the Campaign is on target to achieve its goal of reaching 100 million of the world’s poorest families with credit for self-employment by the end of 2005 or soon after. In November 2006, the Summit will set two new goals:
How RESULTS WorksEach year RESULTS partners lobby for changes in public policy and funding that will have the greatest impact on the lives of the impoverished through a set of two to three priority U.S. domestic and global campaigns. 2006 RESULTS Global Campaigns1) Combating the diseases of povertyThe Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria RESULTS has worked to support effective mechanisms to channel resources to affected countries to directly impact major diseases of poverty. Over the past several years, a key focus of RESULTS’ efforts has been support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Global Fund is a critical funding mechanism that is now the most important external funder for addressing these killer diseases, which together claim more than 16,000 lives every day. With support from RESULTS and other key allies, Congress is on track in 2006 to potentially approve the highest level of funding for the Global Fund that the U.S. has ever provided for the Global Fund. Tackling TB control TB is a disease of poverty that takes the lives of nearly two million people each year, mostly in the developing world, despite the fact that we have treatment to cure nearly every person sick with TB. In the last eight years, RESULTS has helped increase U.S. bilateral funding for international TB efforts from just $1 million to potentially $100 million for 2007. These funds will save tens of thousands of lives and protect hundreds of thousands more. While working to increase funding for TB and other diseases of poverty, RESULTS endeavors to ensure that these funds are invested as effectively as possible to provide needed drugs, patient services, and health worker training, so that more people actually receive effective TB treatment, and other prevention and treatment services. RESULTS also advocates for the development of new tools to combat TB. The President’s AIDS Initiative TB is the biggest killer of people with AIDS. RESULTS’ advocacy efforts helped support an allocation of $50 million for life-saving TB-HIV efforts in countries supported by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The Global TB Drug Facility (GDF) RESULTS has also urged Congress to direct the U.S. Agency for International Development to invest far more in the Global TB Drug Facility as a way of providing low-cost TB medicines to the people on the ground who need them most. The GDF has been successful in reducing costs for TB drugs to just $16 for a full course of standard TB treatment. World Bank Investment in TB in Africa In September 2006, just prior to the World Bank Annual Meetings in Singapore, REF released a report, “Enduring Neglect: The World Bank’s Inadequate Response to Africa’s TB Emergency.” The report urges the Bank to commit $1 billion over the next decade for TB and TB-HIV specific efforts in Africa. Media generated from the launch included pieces in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Associated Press, Agence France Presse and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2) Global Economic OpportunityFor twenty years, RESULTS has championed microenterprise lending as a way to provide very poor people with tools to work their way out of poverty with dignity through loans, a safe place to save and other support. Policy Work In 2004, RESULTS helped to draft and generated support for the passage into law of H.R.3818, the Microenterprise Results and Accountability Act of 2004. That law (which RESULTS is now monitoring for compliance) provided landmark reforms of USAID’s microenterprise program. First, it directed USAID to ensure that more money reach programs in the field serving large numbers of very poor clients. Second, it reinforced Congress’ priority that half of all U.S. microenterprise resources be devoted to very poor people. Third, it reinforced that USAID must certify tools to measure the poverty level of incoming microenterprise clients, so as to ensure that half of all funds are in fact reaching the very poor. USAID Funding Work In addition to this policy-related work in the microenterprise field, RESULTS volunteers work each year on the annual congressional funding process (appropriations). As a part of RESULTS overall effort to increase funding for microenterprise within the foreign aid funding bill, RESULTS is urging that a small amount of funds specifically be set aside (within that overall amount) to address HIV/AIDS communities. Thanks to the work of RESULTS volunteers and champions in Congress, $225 million in U.S. funding will be provided for international microenterprise programs within the annual foreign aid funding bill for fiscal year 2007. International Financial Institutions and Microfinance The World Bank devotes less than one percent of its finances to microenterprise and has no way to systematically track and ensure that the very poor are being reached. In October 2003, at RESULTS’ urging, the U.S. House sent a sign-on letter to the World Bank, regional development banks, and UN Development Program (UNDP) urging increased microenterprise funding and a clearer poverty focus for these programs within their portfolios. Fifty nine members of Congress were signatories. The U.S. Senate sent a nearly identical letter to the presidents of the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, and the administrator of UNDP. There were 17 signers on the letter, including Senators Sarbanes and DeWine, who initiated the letter.[1] Political support for this was not limited to the United States. As of October 15, 2003, these letters had been signed by 111 Japanese Diet Members, 180 British Parliamentarians, 62 Canadian Parliamentarians, 105 members of the Australian Parliament, and 95 Mexican Delegates. RESULTS is continuing to work with leaders in the U.S. Congress to move the World Bank forward in the field of microenterprise. In September and December of 2005, congressional leaders sent letters to the World Bank — this time to new President Paul Wolfowitz, with an impressive bipartisan list of signers.[2] The letters urged the Bank to 1) increase its microcredit funding; 2) commit half of the funds to the very poor; 3) require the use of cost-effective poverty measurement tools to ensure compliance: and 4) report on the results. In follow-up to these letters, RESULTS is urging congressional leaders to meet personally with President Wolfowitz to convey the importance of their requests. 3) Education for All and the abolition of school fees. Ensuring all children have access to a free basic education.Policy Work RESULTS is committed to education for all, particularly the education of girls, because it is one of the most effective ways to fight poverty and disease and promote democracy and development. Goal #2 of The Millennium Development Goals — goals which now serve as the blueprint by which humanity could halve extreme poverty by 2015 — is universal primary education. However, in much of Africa and in many other poor countries, there is no such thing as a free primary public education. In a number of countries even public primary schools require fees, most of which were originally implemented in the 1980s and ’90s at the behest of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as part of structural adjustment. In part due to efforts by RESULTS and allies, the World Bank has publicly reversed its policy on school fees. The charging of these fees continues, however, in a number of countries despite the fact that fees raise relatively little revenue. Eliminating school fees is absolutely necessary to increase enrollments and ensure gender parity. Removing this barrier not only demonstrates a commitment to giving these children access to an education, hope for the future and a path out of poverty — it actually makes this possible. The elimination of these fees is only the first step, a catalyst, but resources must follow so that nations can scale up to serve the millions more children that will come to the classroom, once barriers are removed. RESULTS was very involved in developing and ensuring passage of the Assistance for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children in Developing Countries Act of 2005, which became law in November 2005. One of the reasons that this legislation has been heralded as the first comprehensive response to the orphan crisis is that it includes the elimination of school fees as a key component of the response strategy. RESULTS was actively involved in putting together civil society recommendations as implementation for the Orphans Act is being planned. RESULTS also continues its important work with the Global Action for Children Campaign to track progress on this legislation and to move forward other recommendations called for within the Orphans Act on behalf of orphans and vulnerable children around the world. Basic Education Funding RESULTS has worked to support Congressional champions to increase overall basic education funding and to better focus those resources for maximum impact. Fiscal year 2006 saw a $65 million increase within the Foreign Operations spending bill. This increase was directed to be programmed to achieve the maximum and most dramatic results in a select number of World Bank Fast Track Initiative countries — low-income countries with a serious commitment to achieving universal access to primary education. In addition, for fiscal years 2005 and 2006, with support form RESULTS and others, Congress directed that $15 million of U.S. global basic education funding should be directed to help countries eliminate public primary school fees and scale up schools to provide for hundreds of thousands more children. 2006 RESULTS Domestic CampaignsIn 2006 we prioritized building our grassroots strength through our Empowering Grassroots Activism campaign. There are 242 core domestic activists in 38 active domestic groups across the country, including 9 groups in formation, and we are working with contacts in over a dozen other communities to start more new groups in the coming months. Thanks to a generous anonymous contribution, we added an Iowa-based grassroots organizer to the staff and launched an initiative to engage faith organizations. 1) Health Care for AllRESULTS domestic volunteers are working to build momentum for health care for all by 2010, a relatively new issue for our groups that we took on as a direct result of grassroots feedback from our strategic planning process in 2004. Our campaign has a dual focus of building support for health care for all by 2010 and stopping cuts or structural changes that weaken health safety net programs. Unfortunately, Congress approved a $40 billion 2006 spending cuts package in February, which includes over $8 billion in Medicaid cuts. The president’s 2007 budget proposed additional cuts but the House and Senate did not include cuts in their respective FY07 budget proposals. However, in the fiscal year that begins October 1, 2006, 17 states will experience an SCHIP funding shortfall of $890 million — which experts now say equals the cost of covering 610,000 children. Throughout the remainder of this year RESULTS groups will build support for a bipartisan effort to address this projected shortfall. RESULTS groups across the country are mobilizing around the National Academy of Sciences’ call for universal health care by 2010. RESULTS volunteers worked to impact the Citizens Health Care Working Group; the Working Group’s report, released on September 25, “demonstrate[ed] remarkable consensus among Americans for public policy that ensures all Americans — regardless of their financial resources or health status — have affordable health care coverage.” We are now working with coalition partners, including the Campaign for Children’s Health Care, to lay the groundwork for health care for all U.S. children in 2007. 2) Early Childhood DevelopmentOur Early Childhood Development campaign includes our longstanding work to protect and expand Head Start, including continued federal oversight of the program. The House bill passed in September 2005 does not shift Head Start oversight to the states, nor does the Senate bill passed out of committee and awaiting floor action. A final Head Start reauthorization package is not expected in this Congress and our grassroots network will continue to advocate maintaining the federal-to-local funding structure, protecting the role of parents, halting standardized testing (the National Reporting System, or NRS) and urge Congress to include “triggered” funding for any increase in teacher qualifications. We also worked the last few years to significantly increase funding for child care through mandatory CCDBG (Child Care and Development Block Grant) funds while expanding opportunities for education, job training, and other services for welfare participants. Congress’ 2006 spending cuts package increases work participation requirements, but includes only a $1 billion mandatory increase for child care. Analysts say this will cut child care assistance for 255,000 children from low-income working families. We’ve worked over the past six month to impact funding levels for Head Start and CCDBG included in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. We are working with coalition allies to impact the funding levels for Labor-HHS, which is expected to come to the floor in a lame-duck session after the November elections. 3) Tax Policies and the Wealth GapThis year, RESULTS took on tax policies as a primary campaign for the first time. RESULTS strongly believes in a fair tax code and in giving low-income families opportunities to move up the economic ladder. RESULTS opposes tax breaks that deepen the wealth gap and ultimately lead to cuts in domestic anti-poverty programs. We attempted to defeat efforts to extend capital gains and dividend tax breaks; however, the House and Senate passed a compromise tax cut bill worth $70 billion over five years, primarily benefiting rich, extending 15 percent rate on dividends and capital gains. Due to the work of RESULTS activists and many others, attempts to cut the estate tax have twice been blocked in the Senate, though another Senate vote on repeal or cuts to the estate tax could come up during the lame duck session. The House passed H.R.8 to repeal the tax last year. We support features of the tax code that assist working families, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. We also favor expanded opportunities for asset development, establishing matching savings accounts that allow people to save for a house, college, or a new business. Asset development builds towards a future in which every person is a stakeholder in the American dream. Congressional action is still pending on the ASPIRE Act (S.868/H.R.1767), bipartisan KIDS accounts legislation and on bills to expand Individual Development Accounts. [1] The final list of senate signers on the 2003 letter to the World Bank was as follows: Bingaman, Cantwell, Clinton, Collins, Corzine, Dodd, Feinstein, Feingold, Kerry, Lautenberg, Levin, Lieberman, Kennedy, Kerry, Murray. [2] 2005 Senate signers were: Bennett, Bingaman, Boxer, Cantwell, Coburn, Coleman, Cornyn, Corzine, Dayton, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Durbin, Feinstein, Inhofe, Inouye, Jeffords, Kohl, Lautenberg, Levin, Martinez, Murray, Nelson (FL), Reed (RI), Salazar, Santorum, Sarbanes, Smith, Stabenow, Stevens. 2005 House signers were: Andrews, Baldwin, Blumenauer, Corrine Brown, Capps, Carter, Conyers, Jim Davis, Doggett, Farr, Ferguson, Al Green, Gene Green, Inslee, Jackson-Lee, Kaptur, Kilpatrick, Kirk, Kucinich, Larsen, Langevin, Levin, Lofgren, Matheson, McCaul, McCotter, McDermott, Kendrick B. Meek, George Miller, Pallone, Pascrell, Payne, Pearce, Rohrabacher, Ros-Lehtinen, Rothman, Schakowsky, Wasserman Schultz, Adam Smith, Sullivan, Tom Udall, Walsh, Waters, Henry Waxman, Wexler, Heather Wilson. |