Protect Poverty-Focused Development and Humanitarian Assistance Funding In All Budget Negotiations

The International Affairs base budget has already been cut by 15% over the last two years. Sequestration or other additional cuts are not the answer to resolving the deficit.
Under a sequestration cut of 5.3%: 2,914,286 fewer children annually will have access to a quality primary school education.1 605,625 fewer children who will receive nutritional interventions designed to save their lives and help prevent the irreversible damage to their brains and bodies caused by malnutrition. 2.1 million fewer people would have access reduced or denied to lifesaving food aid. 234,000 children will have reduced or denied access to school feeding programs. 1.17 million fewer farmers and businesses in poor countries would receive support from Feed the Future to improve their business and increase their economic return by 22 percent, thereby limiting their ability to grow their businesses and communities out of poverty.2 321,300 fewer people will have access to improved water and sanitation. 1.6 million fewer women and couples would receive contraceptive services and supplies.3 As a major refugee crisis continues in Syria, the Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) account will be forced to shift resources away from assistance that is not directly life-saving. Funding is already stretched for the MRA account and sequestration would likely mean cuts in gender-based violence prevention and services; refugee education programs; refugee livelihoods programs (which reduce long-term dependence on aid); and programs to find permanent solutions for the long-term displaced. The International Disaster Assistance (IDA) account is badly stretched, responding to the multiple major crises in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Cuts to this account would translate to reduced support to conflict victims in places like Darfur and South Sudan; mothers and children facing starvation in Somalia and the Sahel; reduced resources for preventing new emergencies; and would undermine the US ability to respond to the next major natural disaster.

This figure is based on the average number of primary and secondary age learners enrolled in USG supported education programs through FY09-FY11 and the correlating fiscal year appropriations levels to determine average cost per student. 2 Statistics and information are from an analysis of the Feed the Future Progress Report and pg 384 of the FY13 CBJ. As retrieved from http://www.feedthefuture.gov/sites/default/files/ftf_progress_report_2012.pdf and http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/185014.pdf 3 For methodology see Guttmacher Institutes fact sheet. Just the Numbers: The Impact of U.S. International Family Planning Assistance, May 2012 http://www.guttmacher.org/media/resources/FB-Family-Planning-Assistance.pdf.
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Consequences of Funding Cuts to Humanitarian Accounts

Under sequestration, the U.S. government wont be able to adequately respond to the current complex humanitarian crises, without cutting lifesaving assistance in other places. In Syria, cuts could impact 2.5 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), over 770,000 refugees and the communities hosting them, further destabilizing the region; In and around Mali, cuts could impact funding that assist nearly 170,000 refugees and 230,000 IDPs; Cuts in funding for populations displaced by conflict in Sudan and South Sudan would put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, including 1.9 Darfuris and 210,000 refugees from South Kordofan and Blue Nile seeking safety in South Sudan and Ethiopia; and Cuts put an estimated 2.7 million IDPs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at risk. Violence and insecurity in North Kivu alone has led to the displacement of an additional 500,000 since April 2012. They join the estimated nearly 450,000 DRC refugees in Africa. Programs to address gender violence--which are already under-funded--would be further compromised. Fewer survivors of assault would get needed medical and mental health care. There would be even less funding for critically prevention programs. The U.S. will not be able to follow through with its special responsibility to provide protection and assistance to some two million Iraqis who remain displaced in Iraq and in the Middle East. The U.S. will be less able to support people displaced by conflict and natural disasters in Afghanistan and Pakistan, undermining U.S. foreign policy goals at a critical moment. Reduced funding would decimate U.S. capacity to continue to response to displacement in the strategically important Horn of Africa. Hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by conflict and the drought last year continue to need life-saving assistance. A reduction in resources would slash USAIDs disaster risk reduction (DDR), which saves lives and money by reducing the humanitarian impact of natural disasters and builds communities self-sufficiency. The U.S. would have less leverage to encourage other states to provide protection and assistance to refugees, such as through our support to Ecuador for hosting thousands of Colombian refugees.