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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
THE PILLARS
In this section:
Moldovan Farmers Learn to Raise, Market Calves
Agency Fights Rising TB Rates
Private Sector Fellow Shares Expertise
Agency, DoD Collaborate in Africa
ECONOMIC GROWTH, AGRICULTURE, AND TRADE
Moldovan Farmers Learn to Raise, Market Calves
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Farmer-to-Farmer Volunteer Norval Dvorak inspects calves
during the winter in Dusmani, Moldova.
Citizens Network For Foreign Affairs
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Rural Moldova has excellent agricultural land, but its wheat
and corn markets collapsed with the Soviet Union. After that,
poverty began to rise and the region’s young people fled
to urban areas.
And that’s when Norval Dvorak, an 84-year-old retired
farmer from Wisconsin, showed up.
As a volunteer under the Farmer-to-Farmer (FtF) Program,
part of the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade,
he first arrived in a northwestern village of Moldova in March
2005 to help the Tersimeda Cooperative. The cooperative had
been formed with British assistance after Moldova passed a
law governing cooperatives. But the group didn’t know
what its members could produce and market profitably.
From Dvorak’s experience with U.S. cooperatives, he
came up with an idea: raise calves that could be fed the surplus
grain. He also shared the concepts of private-sector business
management and farming practices and talked about ways to
respond to the needs of the market. And, he introduced “heifer-hutches,”
plywood structures for each animal that minimize the spread
of diseases and foster growth.
Dvorak’s ideas won an enthusiastic response from cooperative
members, who were willing to put in sweat and some cash equity.
What the plan lacked, however, was capital. A World Bank line
of credit with a local bank helped purchase tractors, but
would not fund live animals.
So Dvorak returned to Wisconsin and talked up the idea to
civic and church groups. He met with community leaders statewide,
composed letters calling on the support of his senators, and
published articles in the local press. He even convinced another
dairy farmer to serve as an FtF volunteer and help with the
feed rations and disease control.
The effort paid off.
On his second journey to Moldova in September, Dvorak carried
$10,000 in donations, and was joined by 28 U.S. donors, who
paid their own way to Moldova to see how the money would be
spent.
“I’m very enthusiastic about the progress that’s
been made,” Dvorak said. “The villagers working
with the cooperative are taking a hand in the project. They’re
seeing the vision we created together, and they’re becoming
really engaged with the calves. Now that they feel a sense
of ownership, they realize they can mold the calf project,
that they can shape its future.”
To date, the Tersimeda Cooperative has spent $6,000 to buy
39 calves, built 10 hutches, and fixed up an old barn. The
remaining funds will go for 50 to 60 more calves this year.
Tersimeda members provided 15 tons of feed worth $1,200. The
oldest calves are now six months old and will be ready for
sale in the fall.
Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs, one of eight organizations
that implement FtF programs in more than 40 countries, arranged
for the owner of a new French steak house in Moldova’s
capital to visit the Tersimeda Cooperative in December. The
owner of “La Boucherie,” which is part of a worldwide
chain of upscale restaurants, will be the first buyer, providing
gross sales of $27,000 and net profits of $10,000 to 30 of
the coop’s 56 members. Plans are already underway for
the export of Tersimeda beef to the Romania branch of “La
Boucherie.”
“It’s been great to work with the people from the
cooperative,” Dvorak said. “In
fact, people from other villages, and even the technological
university in Chisinau, came to see the seminars and the demonstration
farm. They wanted to give their input and discuss the different
possibilities.
“Across Moldova, people are ‘thinking outside
the box’ and embracing this fervor.”
Moldova Agriculture Minister Anatolie Gorodenco, who hopes
to replicate the cooperative’s model, said: “The
assistance and encouragement provided by Norval Dvorak has
been inspirational. As I travel to other parts of Moldova,
I talk about what the Tersimeda Cooperative is achieving.”
GLOBAL HEALTH
Agency Fights Rising TB Rates
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A woman covers her mouth in a tuberculosis ward of
a hospital in Cambodia, where USAID supports TB and
HIV/AIDS programs.
Chris Thomas, USAID
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China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines have made remarkable
progress in the battle against the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic,
and other countries such as Bangladesh, Brazil, and Pakistan
are showing steady improvement, according to the 2006 Global
Report on Tuberculosis released March 24 to coincide with
World Tuberculosis Day.
Worldwide the incidence rate of TB was still growing at
.6 percent during 2004, largely because of TB-HIV/AIDS, inadequate
investments in public health systems, and, in some areas,
emerging TB drug resistance, the report said.
In sub-Saharan Africa, TB rates are being driven up by the
HIV epidemic; and in former Soviet states, drug-resistant
strains of TB are spreading.
On the day the report was released, USAID announced it was
providing a $1 million grant to the Green Light Committee
(GLC), part of the global Stop TB Partnership, to help accelerate
treatment of multi-drug resistant TB in 29 countries. The
grant will enable the GLC to provide technical assistance
to Global Fund grants, which include second-line TB drugs.
“Even though a cure has existed for more than half
a century, tuberculosis remains one of humankind’s greatest
scourges,” said Dr. Kent Hill, USAID assistant administrator
for the Bureau for Global Health.
Tuberculosis devastates families and hinders economic growth.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that almost
9 million people become ill with TB annually, and almost 2
million die. TB kills 5,000 people every day worldwide. Because
TB is an airborne disease, no community is immune from its
threat.
Virtually all TB deaths are in the developing world, where
the victims are mainly adults in their most productive years.
Twenty-nine percent of all TB cases are in Africa. Some 250,000
TB deaths, most of them in Africa, are related to HIV.
However, unlike many health threats, TB’s spread can
be halted through research into new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics;
and with assistance efforts to expand the new Stop TB strategy.
Dr. Hill said Stop TB, the GLC, and the Global Fund are
“making a real difference in the lives of thousands of
people with drug-resistant TB who, until recently, had little
hope of being cured.”
The GLC, which is housed at WHO, works with technical experts
from various Stop TB partners and other organizations. The
$1 million grant from USAID will allow it to provide technical
assistance and monitoring to Global Fund grant recipients
who are expanding directly observed treatment, short-course
strategy using second-line TB drugs—called DOTS Plus—for
multi-drug resistant TB patients.
USAID and other U.S. agencies currently assist TB programs
in 40 countries. USAID is the largest bilateral donor for
TB treatment; since 1998, it has provided $408 million to
developing countries to fight the disease. In 2006, USAID
will provide $90 million for global TB control.
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE
Private Sector Fellow Shares Expertise
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A computer dealer in Ratnapura, Sri Lanka, speaks with
Karen Li about the Last Mile Initiative.
Jonathan Metzger, USAID
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Karen Li of Intel Corp. came to USAID headquarters in January
for three months to identify ways to broaden the way Intel
and the Agency use information and communications technology
for economic, educational, and workforce development.
Li is the first participant in the USAID Private Sector
Knowledge Exchange Program. She is Intel’s worldwide
K-12 education program manager, based in Santa Clara, Calif.
“The exchange program is an excellent opportunity for
corporations and others to gain a greater understanding of
how USAID works,” said John Davies, Intel’s senior
vice president, Customer Solutions Group. “It has provided
Ms. Li access and insight to key decisionmakers in Washington
and the field. These opportunities are already beginning to
achieve goals and objectives for both sides that might have
taken years to accomplish.”
While at USAID, Li consulted with representatives responsible
for the information and technology sectors in the Bureau for
Asia and the Near East and traveled to missions in India,
the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia.
“Although innovative technologies and sound development
strategies are important, it’s really the people that
make a public-private partnership work,” Li said. “The
beauty of this exchange program is that we’re building
relationships with people to bring our mutually desired outcomes
to fruition.”
In Sri Lanka, Li consulted with the mission on the Last
Mile Initiative, established to connect underserved areas
of Sri Lanka to the internet and to computerized programs
to teach English as a second language.
She identified several areas where Intel could bring private-sector
resources to bear on difficult problems while potentially
increasing the Sri Lanka mission’s impact. Li identified
low-cost alternatives to current technologies used to connect
the “last mile” to the internet, and she suggested
aligning Intel and USAID programs to scale up the distribution
of several of the mission’s products to reach thousands
of underserved areas.
“Ms. Li’s insight and knowledge into the private
sector’s capabilities were value added and will certainly
help ramp up the reach and distribution of several of the
mission’s tools and products,” said USAID/Sri Lanka
Mission Director Carol Becker. “I believe this private
sector exchange program holds promise for many other USAID
missions.”
Under the new exchange program, private sector experts donate
their time to assist USAID with major initiatives while also
learning about U.S. development programs. The program also
hopes U.S. and overseas private trade and professional organizations,
other for-profit companies, and foundations will host civil
service employees and foreign service officers.
This program presents the Agency with an opportunity to
equip USAID’s current and new employees with private
sector knowledge and expertise, said Manpreet Anand, who is
with the Office of Global Development Alliances. The aim is
to create more effective officers in Washington and the field
who are better able to interact with private sector organizations.
DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
Agency, DoD Collaborate in Africa
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U.S. Navy Cmdr. Paul Vandenberg, right, an engineer
with Naval Mobilie Construction Battalion Seven, greets
Abdi Reshid Mohamed Omer, center, the head of Ethiopia’s
Mines and Energy Department, and Alemayehu Mekonin,
a water engineer, at a waste water treatment facility
in Gode, Ethiopia, March 31. Vandenberg is doing preliminary
research on behalf of Combined Joint Task Force Horn
of Africa, which is interested in aiding a construction
project to add capacity to the area’s water treatment
capabilities.
Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Roger S. Duncan, U.S.
Navy. |
Camp Lemonier, Djibouti—Over 90,000 metric tons
of U.S. food aid will be shipped to local ports in coming
months, even as incidents of piracy in the Horn of Africa
have risen in the past year.
To cope with piracy threats to relief shipments, Tom Baltazar,
who leads the new Office of Military Affairs (OMA) within
the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance,
met recently with senior leaders of the Combined Joint Taskforce
Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), an arm of the U.S. Department of
Defense (DoD) that deals with counterterrorism and humanitarian
work.
Officials with CJTF-HOA, which is based out of a former
French Foreign Legion post here, made no firm commitments
on providing security for the vessels. Any final decision
would come from the White House after consultation with military
leaders.
This relationship in the region goes beyond piracy talks.
CJTF-HOA already includes some civil-military operations in
its mission, such as drilling wells, providing medical care,
and renovating schools and clinics throughout the Horn. The
USAID and DoD staffs have been meeting to find ways their
combined efforts can address development issues in the Horn.
“Where it makes sense, the CJTF-HOA command is keen
on supporting our activities throughout the region,”
Baltazar said. “The military has the equipment and resources—hardware—and
USAID has the knowledge and experience—software. When
they are combined and coordinated, U.S. national security
is enhanced.”
Among the military office’s first tasks has been reaching
out to the Defense Department’s combatant commands, which
carry out military operations around the world. USAID is placing
representatives in each command to work closely with the military
and help coordinate efforts in specific regions.
“For the first time, the four-star commander will not
only have a State political advisor on his staff but also
a USAID senior development advisor,” Baltazar said. “This
is an important effort to ensure that our country’s strategic
plans are integrated and synchronized with State MPPs [mission
performance plans] and DoD theater security cooperation plans,
resulting in a plan that addresses the President’s National
Security Strategy.”
His recent trip to the region included meeting some of the
key players in and outside of USAID from Djibouti, Kenya,
Yemen, Ethiopia, and Sudan. There were also talks with staff
in the Regional Economic Development Services Office for East
and Southern Africa and regional representatives from the
Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.
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