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Archives for Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah

Rebuilding Communities in Pakistan

Posted by  on Saturday, June 5th 2010     

By Zack Taylor

Khana Mohri buffalo milk producers, primarily men, developed a dairy association with USAID support. The association provides training and veterinary support to its members, and stores its milk in a chiller bought through the USAID project.

On October 8, 2005, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and AJK, killing 74,000 people and injuring 70,000. In the years since the devastating earthquake, reconstruction of the region has been an important component of the development portfolio at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Pakistan.

Read more about efforts to rebuild lives and livlihoods of the families and communities who live in this remote, mountainous province in Pakistan.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, the U.S. government mobilized all of its available resources. Military helicopters transported survivors out of destroyed cities and brought in thousands of tons of relief materials such as food, medical services, clothing, and tents in collaboration with the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team. Heavy machinery moved debris to search for victims and set the stage for rebuilding.

The close teamwork of Pakistani and U.S. governments, along

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USAID Wins Again!

Posted by  on Thursday, June 3rd 2010     

submitted by LaToya Butler
Dr. Rajiv Shah, our Administrator, has just accepted the Combined Federal Campaign’s Annual Summit Award on behalf of the agency for the second consecutive year.

The CFC coordinates fund-raising efforts of various charitable organizations so that federal donors will have the opportunity to make charitable contributions through payroll deduction. This year’s campaign: “The Compassion of Individuals – The Power of Community,” encompasses  one way that staff can serve broader communities both domestic and overseas.

More than 1,000 members of our team donated over $600,000 to the CFC in 2009.   Despite 2009 being a tough economic year, USAID managed to increase its contribution efforts by nine percent over 2008.

Congratulations to the dedicated team at USAID for all of the effort and generosity involved in achieving this high level of participation in a worthy cause.

USAID – The Week Ahead

Posted by  on Wednesday, June 2nd 2010     

June 2:  Administrator Shah will be the keynote speaker at the Interaction Forum 2010, which is being held at the  Washington Convention Center.  Several other USAID officials will speak on topics such as food security and the response to the Haiti earthquake.

June 3:  Administrator Shah will give brief remarks at the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue being held at the State Department.  These remarks will propose concrete ways to further U.S.-India cooperation on common priority issues.

June 3-8: Administrator Shah will lead the U.S. Delegation to the World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Board Meeting in Rome, Italy.  It is anticipated that 3,000 people from 36 member states will be in attendance.

A Postcard from Dhaka

Posted by  on Thursday, May 27th 2010     

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah’s visit to Bangladesh.

USAID Administrator, Dr. Rajiv Shah, visited Bangladesh May 25-26th to participate in the opening of the Bangladesh Food Security Investment Forum, hosted by the Government of Bangladesh and launched by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. During his visit, he met with bilateral and multilateral development partners from the UN, FAO and DFID, as well as with the Prime Minister to discuss development issues and mutual cooperation.  After addressing a press conference where he highlighted President Obama’s new Feed the Future initiative, Dr. Shah met with USAID staff working in the region.

Investing in food security with the Bangladeshi government, private sector, NGOs

Posted by  on Wednesday, May 26th 2010     
Rajiv Shah - Bangladesh Food Security Investment Forum - May 2010

Dr. Rajiv Shah, USAID Administrator, speaks at the Bangladesh Food Security Investment Forum in Dhaka on May 26, 2010

I’m in Bangladesh today to participate in the Food Security Investment Forum. What a crowd! The Prime Minister, Her Excellency Sheikh Hasina, who has shown a strong commitment to food security, spoke this morning, as well as luminaries such as Dr. David Nabarro, Dr. Shenggen Fan, and Dr. John Mellor.

We’ve all come together in Bangladesh because this country represents a situation that we need to address now. The rising population, decreasing availability of land for agricultural production, and the growing adverse consequences due to climate change means we need to think dramatically differently about what it takes to feed the future generations in this country.

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Today is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day

Posted by  on Tuesday, May 18th 2010     

Young people are watching a play about adults being encouraged to get tested for HIV as part of participating in a clinical trial for a novel HIV vaccine at YRG Care, a premiere HIV referral center in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

Administrator Shah recently said that “humanity demands an AIDS vaccine” when describing USAID’s approach to high impact development.  USAID and its partners continue to support the quest for a safe vaccine that could effectively prevent HIV — a search that is commemorated each year on May 18th, HIV Vaccine Awareness Day.  This work is essential since notable progress in providing life-saving treatment to those who need it cannot keep up with the number of new HIV infections.  For every two people living with HIV who begin taking antiretroviral therapy, five additional people become newly infected.  Each day, there are at least 7,400 new infections.

Our current efforts are outlined in a vaccine brief.

USAID’s Senior Technical Advisor for HIV Vaccines was featured in a recent issue of Frontlines [PDF].

Aiding Agriculture after Conflict

Posted by  on Tuesday, May 18th 2010     
USAID Administrator & Sudanese Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry launch FARM

USAID and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry launched the FARM program, which marshals a variety of resources in a re-emerging agricultural area. It's designed to inspire others to join as partners in reducing hunger in southern Sudan.

Today we launched the Food, Agribusiness, and Rural Markets (FARM) Program, an innovative and promising partnership with the Government of South Sudan to rebuild capacity in the “green belt zone,” where conflict destroyed much local agricultural production during Sudan’s civil war.  This area has high potential and, with new road construction, will be connected to fast-growing markets for farm goods.

Read more about the FARM program here.

Health and Development in Southern Sudan

Posted by  on Tuesday, May 18th 2010     

This afternoon we visited two sites where USAID, together with community groups, is helping improve health in Juba.

Sudan is a top U.S. government foreign policy priority; we need this country to be on a stable, peaceful path, which in turn is crucial to regional security.  Ultimately this means transitioning from humanitarian assistance to long-term development.

At more than $1 billion per year, USAID’s program in Sudan is our largest in sub-Saharan Africa.  One important project is the Lolongo Clinic in an outlying area of Juba, which helps meet the community’s basic health needs while also educating parents in preventative care.  About 35,000 people in the region rely on the treatment and care that Lolongo offers; that works out to about $6 per person per year.

Non-governmental organizations such as this clinic account for a full 86 percent of all health care services in Sudan.  And it’s by far not enough.  Southern Sudan has the highest maternal mortality ratio in the world, and a girl stands a higher chance of dying in childbirth than completing secondary school.

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This Week at USAID – May 17, 2010

Posted by  on Monday, May 17th 2010     

USAID will launch the Feed the Future website – a hub for resources on the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative.

Administrator Shah will provide keynote remarks and release the Feed the Future implementation guide at a Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security, hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

A senior delegation from Djibouti will meet with Administrator Shah.

Administrator Shah meets with Nancy Sutley, Chair, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and other CEQ leaders to discuss continued collaboration on climate change and forestry issues.

A Visit to Otash Camp

Posted by  on Sunday, May 16th 2010     

An early a.m. flight brought us to Juba in south Sudan. We swapped planes at the airport and headed straight for Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.

USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah at Otash Camp with the WFP.

USAID works in partnership with 11 other organizations to provide humanitarian assistance to the thousands living in the Otash IDP camp at near Nyala in Darfur.

After arriving, we met up with the World Food Programme (WFP) and visited an IDP camp called Otash.

USAID, through the WFP and its NGO partners like World Vision, provides emergency relief supplies to the 71,000 Dafuris living in Otash. The camp was established in 2004 and was originally home to 15,000 IDPs. It grew to its current size after large scale displacements in 2004 following fighting between the Government of Sudan and Darfuri rebels, and more recently, in 2008 after the outbreak of tribal conflict.

Since 2003, USAID has helped to meet the immediate needs of millions of people affected by the conflict in Darfur. Today, in the three states of Darfur there are some two million people living in IDP camps.

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