USAID Impact Photo Credit: Nancy Leahy/USAID

Archives for Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah

Renewed Commitment to Global Vaccines and Immunizations Will Save Lives

Posted by  on Wednesday, June 15th 2011     

Originally posted on the White House Blog

During a time when we all – including the federal government – need to live within our means and find places to cut spending, any investments made by your government need to meet the test of whether it is an effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

Immunizing children from preventable diseases meets that test. As USAID Administrator Raj Shah announced in London on Monday, by making a multi-year commitment to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI), the US is able to get the most from our investment – leveraging a pledge of $450 million over three years more than eight-fold into billions of dollars in commitments from other donors, including the UK, the Gates Foundation, Norway and others.

Together, these commitments will help save the lives of 4 million children over the next five years, by getting more vaccines to more children and by helping to ensure the quantities of vaccines needed to lower the prices for new vaccines such as those that protect against pneumonia and diarrhea, the world’s two most potent childhood killers. All in all, we will be able to immunize more than 250 million children and prevent more than four million premature deaths.

Investments in vaccines are one of the best and most cost-effective life-saving investments for the world’s children, which is why we’ve made tough choices and trade-offs within our current global health portfolio to make this commitment.  As Administrator Shah said: “In this fiscal climate, a multi-year pledge is an extremely difficult commitment to make. But we have made tough reallocations across our portfolio in order to make that commitment because only a multi-year pledge will ensure the highest possible return for every taxpayer dollar.

Not only will our commitment inspire the generosity of other donors, it will help drive economies of scale that lower the cost of vaccines, allowing us to save even more lives. Just last week, GAVI reached an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to cut the cost of the rotavirus vaccine by 67%. That kind of reduction is only possible with the guaranteed demand a multi-year pledge provides.”

In the lead up to GAVI’s conference, the White House received thousands of phone calls, emails, and signed petitions calling for continued U.S. support for GAVI.  The ONE Campaign issued a statement of support following our announcement, including praise from Bono who noted the President was “in it to win it.”

The U.S. has played a lead role in GAVI since its inception, and is a world leader in support of every aspect of the vaccines value chain, including research, development, vaccine affordability, delivery systems, and policy coordination.

Gayle Smith is Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Development and Democracy for the National Security Staff

White House Easter Prayer Breakfast

Posted by  on Thursday, April 21st 2011     

By: Ari Alexander, Director, Center for Faith-based & Community Initiatives and Senior Advisor to the Administrator for NGO Partnerships and Global Engagement

Yesterday President Obama hosted a prayer breakfast observing the Christian holiday of Easter in the East Room of the White House.  In only its second year, President Obama is the first President to host such an event for Easter, and was honored to be joined by pastors and leaders from around the nation.  USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah attended the morning prayer breakfast and was recognized for his extraordinary leadership in the President’s remarks.

“Before I begin, I want to acknowledge one particular member of my administration who I’m extraordinarily proud of and does not get much credit, and that is USAID Administrator, Dr. Raj Shah, who is doing great work with faith leaders.  […]  Raj is doing great work with faith leaders on our Feed the Future global hunger program, as well as on a host of other issues.  We could not be prouder of the work that he’s doing.”

Following the breakfast,  attendees gathered for a series of policy briefings from various U.S. government agencies.  The discussion included topics on: energy and climate change; immigration; fatherhood and healthy families; human trafficking; and international development.  Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council, spoke eloquently about development, calling the gathered faith leaders “champions of dignity” for those often forgotten.  She highlighted the importance of the Presidential Policy Directive on Development as well as the role of USAID and Administrator Shah in leading the Feed the Future initiative.  The gathering was a unique opportunity to gather religious leaders from around the nation for a moment of reflection during Holy Week and to dialogue about ways to partner together in caring for the most vulnerable.

You can view the full transcript or video of the President’s remarks.

Calling All Probem Solvers: Help Make Birth Safe

Posted by  on Wednesday, March 9th 2011     

By: Raj Shah and Tom Kalil

This blog is cross posted from the OSTP blog.

The birth of a child is a momentous event anywhere in the world.  In many countries, though, the occasion is not just one of joy, but one of fear – fear for the life of the mother and the newborn baby.  The time between when a woman begins labor and 48 hours after the birth of a baby is a high-risk period during which millions of newborn babies and new mothers die each year.

US Agency for International Development(USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah delivers remarks at the launch of a Global Partnership on Maternal and Child Health on March 9, 2011 at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton introduced a new partnership between the US Agency for International Development, the Government of Norway, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada and The World Bank that will seek innovative solutions to reduce maternal and child mortality in developing countries. Photo Credit: Chris KLEPONIS/AFP

That’s why today the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is leveraging the collective resources of our partners—the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, the Government of Norway, and The World Bank—to launch Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development. This grant-based program will seek groundbreaking prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant mothers and newborns around the time of delivery in rural, low-resource settings.

This extraordinary partnership underscores the fact that saving lives at birth is one of the most critical challenges facing people in developing countries.  Finding new technologies, such as low-cost infant resuscitation devices or incubators, and new approaches to improve birth outcomes for mothers and newborns would not only alleviate suffering, but would also have a significant impact on public health and economic productivity.

It would also accelerate progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, which call for a two-thirds reduction in under-five mortality, a three-quarters reduction in maternal mortality, and universal access to reproductive health services.

Saving Lives at Birth is the first in a series of Grand Challenges for Development that will be announced by USAID in the coming years to mobilize focused attention and resources around the most pressing obstacles to achieving our development goals.  These Grand Challenges for Development are definable, quantifiable goals that address some of the largest solvable problems poor countries currently face.  USAID will partner with other funders and encourage others to invest in finding innovative solutions to these Challenges that are sustainable, scalable, easily adopted, and that build on and utilize 21st-century infrastructure and technology.

These Challenges also reflect President Obama’s commitment to game-changing innovation as a powerful and cost-effective instrument for achieving development goals.  The President’s Policy Directive on Global Development focuses on sustainable development outcomes by placing a premium on broad-based economic growth, democratic governance, sustainable systems, and the creation and application of game-changing innovation to transform longstanding development challenges into solvable problems.

We believe that these Grand Challenges can address key priorities, catalyze innovations that drive economic growth, spur the formation of multidisciplinary teams of researcher and multi-sector collaborators, bring new expertise to bear on important problems, strengthen the ‘social contract’ between science and society, and inspire students and non-development experts to get involved in problem-solving for development.

USAID and its partners cannot solve the Grand Challenges for Development alone.  We hope that the effort to meet these challenges will be taken up by non-governmental organizations, the private sector, governments, and individuals around the world.  We know there are millions of people and organizations around the world who want to help but don’t know how to start.  This is a place to start.

For more information on the Challenge and application process, visit here.

Dr. Rajiv Shah is the USAID Administrator and Tom Kalil Deputy Director for Policy for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Senior Advisor for Science

USAID’s Battleground: Expanding Access and Strengthening Health Systems

Posted by  on Tuesday, February 15th 2011     

Administrator Shah: “Our experience with GHI has made it clear: our largest opportunities to improve human health do not lie in optimizing services to the 20% of people in the developing world currently reached by health systems; they lie in extending our reach to the 80% who lack access to health facilities. That is where the success of everything I’ve discussed today will be determined.  That is our battleground.  And I am proud to say: that is where USAID will lead the fight.”

Today, in a packed auditorium at NIH, Administrator Shah outlined a global health agenda around five transformational goals.  Dr. Shah believes that we can achieve the following by 2016: save the lives of over 3 million children; prevent more than 12 million HIV infections, avert 700,000 malaria deaths, ensure nearly 200,000 pregnant women can safely give birth, prevent 54 million unintended pregnancies, and cure 2.4 million people infected with TB.  To achieve these ambitious goals, he emphasized the need to strengthen health systems by empowering community health workers and midwives by equipping them with better diagnostics and treatments.

As part of the President’s Global Health Initiative, USAID helps countries integrate their health systems across WHO’s six health system “building blocks” (human resources; medical supplies, vaccines, and technology; health financing; information; leadership and governance; and service delivery) and within their national infrastructure.  Recent activities included: strengthening health care financing in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Senegal through the use of national health accounts; helping nine countries implement human resource information systems; and instituting performance assessments to raise standards for HIV services in six Central American countries.

For more information, check out USAID’s 2010 Report to Congress on Health-Related Research and Development Activities.

Administrator Shah Makes His Debut in Guatemala

Posted by  on Tuesday, January 11th 2011     

By: Wende DuFlon,  USAID/Guatemala

USAID Administrator Shah Visits a Local Agricultural Project. Photo Credit: Wende DuFlon/USAID

Administrator Shah packed an enormous amount into his day-and-a-half visit to Guatemala. Dr. Shah and Mark Feierstein, Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), were hosted by U.S. Ambassador Stephen McFarland and USAID Director Kevin Kelly and USAID staff on an early morning helicopter ride over Guatemala’s mountainous terrain to a village in the municipality of Sacapulas, Quiché to meet with partners in USAID agriculture value chain, food security, and health/nutrition programs. The ride took travelers by six of Guatemala’s 33 volcanoes and past the famous destination spot–Lake Atitlan. At midday they returned to Guatemala City via helicopter for courtesy meeting with Guatemala’s President Alvaro Colom and Foreign Minister Rodas and an all-hands meeting with USAID Guatemala staff.

The Administrator held a press roundtable with Guatemalan journalists and several meetings with U.S. Government (USG) agency staff (USAID, Centers for Disease Control, Peace Corps, and U.S. Embassy sections) on two Presidential Initiatives—Feed the Future and Global Health—as well as the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). The U.S. Ambassador and USAID Director accompanied Administrator Shah and LAC Assistant Administrator Feierstein throughout the day and evening at a dinner hosted by Ambassador McFarland at his Residence for government and civil society leaders to meet and talk with Administrator Shah to discuss security and justice issues in Guatemala.

The visit was an exceptional opportunity for USG staff to meet Dr. Shah and brief him on why Guatemala is a key player in a region that is critically important to the United States. Guatemala has the largest population and economy in Central America. Sadly, the country has some of the lowest human development indicators in the world, and income distribution is among the most unequal. Guatemala is also the epicenter in Central America of the fight against organized crime and large areas of its territory are under the control of drug trafficking organizations.

Administrator Shah’s trip signifies the long tradition of collaboration and friendship between Guatemala and the United States.

Leading Through Civilian Power

Posted by  on Wednesday, December 15th 2010     

After months of effort and meaningful discussions, today I was happy to join Secretary Clinton to unveil the first ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) at a State Department town hall.

Complementing the Presidential Policy Directive on development that was released earlier this year, the QDDR helps make real the commitment the Secretary has shown to creating a modern, efficient diplomatic and development architecture.

For USAID, the QDDR provides an opportunity for this Agency to demonstrate its capabilities, elevating the role development plays in our nation’s foreign policy while empowering us to be inclusive leaders. It affirms USAID mission directors as the top development advisers in U.S. embassies and grants USAID the hiring authority to attract and recruit top talent. It also recognizes USAID as the lead agency in charge of President Obama’s chief development initiative, Feed the Future, and positions us to lead the Global Health Initiative by the end of FY 2012.

Critically, the QDDR endorses the suite of reforms we began earlier this year—USAID Forward—recognizing this Agency’s need to develop new systems and capacities to deliver against these new opportunities. We will continue to streamline our work and cut red-tape, transforming our Agency into a modern, efficient development enterprise. But we also must renew our engagement with our interagency partners in a spirit of inclusive leadership and cooperation, and focus thoughtfully, aggressively, and primarily on delivering results for those we serve.

We should keep in mind that in the end, success for this Agency and the people we serve will not be delivered in a directive or a document, no matter how powerful or carefully crafted. Our success will be determined by the hard work and enlightened leadership we show. The QDDR has provided us a blueprint to effectively channel our efforts, but it is only as powerful as we make it.

A Thanksgiving Statement from Administrator Shah

Posted by  on Wednesday, November 24th 2010     

Thanksgiving is a poignant time to remember that many, both at home and in the countries in which we work, struggle to secure their next meal. Reflecting on those in need is fundamental to who we are as an Agency. An awareness of our larger world and the inequities it contains demands both our attention and our action.

Among a diverse portfolio of vital development work, ending global hunger is this Agency’s top priority, and I am excited our new Food Security Bureau is in place to embrace this goal. The unveiling of our new Bureau occurs at a pivotal time; we are experiencing a degree of support for development and specifically agricultural development that the world has not witnessed since the earliest days of the Green Revolution.

Through our Feed the Future Initiative, I am confident we will make great strides toward ending global hunger.

That confidence comes from the tremendous dedication and hard work I’ve seen from all our staff. Tomorrow, I will be thankful to lead such a talented Agency toward such a meaningful goal.

University of Michigan and the Call to Action that Changed the World: USAID Congratulates Peace Corps

Posted by  on Thursday, October 14th 2010     

On October 14, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy addressed students from the steps of the University of Michigan Union, challenging them to give two years of their lives to help people in countries of the developing world.

“How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana?” the soon-to-be president said. “Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past.”

That call to action, 50 years ago today, inspired one of the most successful service projects in American history, the Peace Corps. Since its inception a year later, nearly 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps, serving in 139 countries and making a difference every day, promoting shared understanding, peace and prosperity.

The pillars of the Peace Corps — using American expertise to help nations around the world, promoting a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served, and helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans — are noble goals that have impacted countless individuals, communities, and nations over the last half century, including our own.

Next year, both USAID and the Peace Corps will celebrate their 50th anniversaries thanks to President Kennedy´s vision to engage with the world and show American leadership though peace, friendship and compassion—the greatest assets anyone has to offer.

On behalf of all of us at USAID on this historic day, I would like to congratulate this great organization, which continues to inspire some of our country’s best and most dedicated volunteers to help people around the globe build better lives for themselves.

This Week at USAID – October 11, 2010

Posted by  on Tuesday, October 12th 2010     

Administrator Shah opens a weeklong training for over 80 USAID communications staff from USAID Missions all over the world.  These communicators are in Washington, D.C. to engage with senior officials about elevating development, particularly the first-ever national development strategy issued by a U.S. President and “USAID Forward”, the Agency’s change management agenda.  Sessions featured during the week include: a meeting with staff from the National Security Council, a joint session at the annual State Department Public Affairs Officer’s conference, and a panel discussion with leading foreign policy journalists at the Newseum.

Administrator Shah travels to Des Moines, Iowa to speak at the Borlaug Dialogue, which is held each year in conjunction with the awarding of the World Food Prize.  The theme of the conference is: smallholder agriculture, “Take it to the Farmer“.  Dr Shah will focus on how you take interest in fighting poverty to the smallholder farmer.  He will also promote progress under Feed the Future, the Administration’s global hunger and food security initiative.

This Week at USAID – October 4, 2010

Posted by  on Monday, October 4th 2010     

USAID joins the global community in recognition of World Habitat Day. The United Nations has designated the first Monday in October as annual World Habitat Day to raise awareness of the need for improved shelter and highlight the connection between human health and housing.  This year’s Habitat theme is “Better City, Better Life.”

Administrator Shah travels to Columbia University to address their Business School’s Social Enterprise Conference.  Dr Shah will focus on how USAID is pursuing innovative models by working with the private sector and leveraging social enterprise.

USAID’s Global Health Bureau along with the George Washington University Center for Global Health will host the 10th Annual Global Health Min-University.  Over 1,000 people will attend more than 50 unique sessions to learn evidence-based best practices and state-of-the-art information across the global health field.

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