This week USAID was featured in the Sudan Tribune for the announcement following World Water Day that ” it is committed to increase the number of South Sudanesewho have access to clean water and sanitation.” At present, “only 34% of South Sudanese have access to clean water according to statistics from South Sudan’s ministry of water resources and irrigation, leading to various dangerous diseases such as diarrhea that can lead to death, especially among vulnerable groups.”
Deputy Administrator Steinberg speaks in Bangladesh. Photo Credit: USAID/Bangladesh
Deputy Administrator of USAID Donald Steinberg is traveling this week on a three-day visit to Dhaka, Bangladesh. During that time, he launched USAID’s new environment conservation initiative, the Climate-Resilient Ecosystems and Livelihoods (CREL) project, a five-year $35 million program to involve local communities in the management of key ecosystems and develop alternative livelihoods for them to reduce dependence on protected area resources. He will also “meet government officials, including the ministers for agriculture and Environment and Forests to further the partnership between the US and Bangladesh through development assistance, with a particular focus on climate change and gender,” Financial Express reports.
In its “India Ink” blog, the New York Times interviewed USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on “his recent trip to Mumbai about transformations in the development sector, the function of the private sector in development work and the aid agency’s new programs and partnerships aimed at reducing preventable child deaths.” During the Q&A session, Dr. Shah explained among other things that now, the agency is focused “on using our India mission as a development innovation laboratory to try and find those partners in the private sector, scientists and entrepreneurs who are creating great new solutions for development and then helping them apply those solutions here in India but also elsewhere in the world.”
