Setting Bold Goals and Meeting Them: Extending Microcredit to over 100 MillionOver 106 million of the world’s poorest people (those who live under US$1/day) held microloans in 2007, exceeding a goal set by our Microcredit Summit Campaign of reaching 100 million of the poorest families. When the audacious goal was set in 1997, fewer than 8 million people had microloans. But the combined efforts of the Campaign, microfinance organizations across the globe, and the tireless advocacy of RESULTS led to a growth rate of 1,300 percent in ten years! “What makes it even more remarkable,” said Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and RESULTS/REF board member, “is that loans to more than 100 million very poor families now touch the lives of more than half a billion family members around the world. That is half of the world’s poorest people.”
RESULTS has been at the forefront of pushing major legislation that ensures health insurance coverage for low-income Americans and children. Years of effort resulted in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Act of 2009, which provided health insurance to over 4 million uninsured children. When Congress took up health care reform in 2009, we demanded reform that would reach those least able to afford insurance — low-income Americans. Our determined grassroots activism was crucial in making the expansion of Medicaid and community health centers key elements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Act of 2010. Starting in 2014, Medicaid will cover all people earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty line. This expansion is expected to provide 15 million uninsured persons with coverage by 2019. Funding for community health centers will increase by $11 billion from 2011 to 2015 to serve an additional 20 million people. We continue to work towards our goal of universal coverage.
When RESULTS and REF began advocating for tuberculosis (TB) funding in 1997 as a key poverty and health issue, the U.S. was providing less than $1 million in global TB funding. Since then, we’ve helped members of Congress realize that not only is TB a global epidemic, but the fight against HIV/AIDS will not succeed without an equally aggressive effort against TB. In 2008, the historic Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008 was signed into law, authorizing $48 billion over five years for life-saving programs, including $4 billion for TB and a goal of treating 4.5 million people.
Over $10 billion over ten years is being used to expand the food stamp program and fill the shelves of food banks in no small part because of RESULTS’ grassroots demands that the funding be included in the new Farm Bill. When we began our campaign, we were told by members of Congress that there was no more money for nutrition programs. But 16 months of emails, letters, calls, and meetings with members of Congress, as well as generating media, got results.
More children around the world are in school and spending on basic education in the world’s poorest countries is rising, thanks in part to the efforts of RESULTS and REF. Since we began our Education for All campaign in the late 1990s, a sea change has occurred — the World Bank has stopped demanding that school fees be charged for primary school and U.S. foreign aid for education has increased substantially. Now we're leading a movement to create a Global Fund for Education. This multilateral coordination and financing mechanism would ensure that all children have access to primary education, as promised by the U.S. and other nations in the Millennium Development Goals agreed upon in 2000.
Giving Children in the U.S. a Head StartIn the U.S., the pressure our activists put on members of Congress inspired them to include the largest allocation ever for Head Start and Early Head Start in the 2009 economic recovery bill — $2.1 billion! As a result, over 1 million children are receiving services ranging from school readiness to immunizations.
Our support of tax credits for low-income Americans paid off — twice. In 2008, we persuaded Congress to lower the income eligibility threshold for the Child Tax Credit (CTC) from $12,050 per year to $8,500 so that an additional 3 million low-income children would qualify. In 2009, Congress lowered the CTC even further, to $3,000, meaning 13 million more low-income children and their families will receive the CTC through 2011. The EITC also was increased for large families and married couples.