I am particularly concerned about funding in three significant areas important to Ethiopia’s future: Maternal and Child Health, Basic Education, and Development Assistance. I had the opportunity of visiting the Ethiopia, and witnessed first-hand the incredible strain that the Ethiopian people are under to maintain innovative and valuable methods of responding to the most devastating of conditions, while at the same time struggling as an emerging democracy. While Ethiopia’s maternal and child mortality rates are among the highest, the only hospital in the world to combat obstructed birth operates in Addis Ababa. Education for girls is severely disproportionate to boys, although Ethiopia is one of the few countries in Africa that has laws in place to try to equalize access to education. Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, but only receives 6% of the of the retail price its fine coffees earn in foreign markets – farmers are now organizing to capture a greater share of the retail price that Ethiopian fine coffees earn in foreign markets.

Ethiopia is too important to our country real opportunities to alleviate poverty and encourage social justice. Ethiopia plays a significant role in our political and economic relationship with Africa, the most obvious example being the African Union’s headquarters is in Addis Ababa. As the only country in Africa to never have been colonized, self determination and cultural preservation are fundamental characteristics of the Ethiopian world view to which the United States historically relates. Ethiopia is an ally to the United States and supports our security efforts in the Middle East, and most recently, Somalia. I am certain that we can find a way to provide substantially more support for those so desperately in need in Ethiopia.

Below, you will find the project, program and report language requests that I submitted. Again, my focus was on major areas including organizing coffee farmers, increasing basic education funding for girls, and supporting health care for victims of HIV/AIDS and Obstetric Fistula. I am pleased that my program and report language requests were included in the FY08 Foreign Operations bill. I was successfully able to increase funding for existing programs, and encourage USAID and the Department of State to consider funding for specific organizations that have significantly contributed to the development of Ethiopia.

Child Survival and Health

This account funds programs with a focus on health interventions that address critical health, HIV/AIDS, nutrition and family planning needs worldwide. Investing in the health of populations in the developing world can contribute to global economic growth, poverty reduction, strengthened governance and civil society, a sustainable environment, and regional security.

There is report language noting Ethiopia’s leading role in maternal health, and encouraging USAID to consider proposals from:

Ethiopian North American Health Professionals Association (ENAHPA) – to support the Safe Motherhood Project in Awassa, Ethiopia. ENAHPA seeks to reduce the maternal and infant mortality rate in Ethiopia, which at 11% is one of the worst mortality rates in the world.Funding for the ENAHPA Safe Motherhood project will provide caesarian sections for high risk pregnant mothers and other surgical care for high risk pregnant mothers and infants. The Safe Motherhood project also provides room and board, transportation, or supplies that mothers need at home to care for themselves and their infants. Medical equipment and instruments will also be provided to the Safe Motherhood medical professionals to both perform emergency surgical procedures, and for maternal and child healthcare education.

Fistula Foundation - to provide necessary material support to hospitals and health care centers in need throughout Ethiopia and to help expand the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital (AAFH), the only hospital in the world dedicated exclusively to fistula repair, treatment and prevention of fistula. To address the needs of over 100,000 women, each hospital will contain a 20-bed ward, operating theatre, educational / administrative facilities, and other essential plant facilities. The AAFH combines immediate health services with longer-term training by providing education, treatment, and a focus on prevention. The focus is: Education: reproductive health education programs; Treatment: provide specialized fistula repair surgery to local women who cannot make the trip to Addis Ababa; Prevention: high-quality emergency obstetric care free of charge to women at high risk of obstructed labor; the hospitals are also hubs for health professionals to educate local populations about the risks of unattended childbirth.

Development Assistance

DA funds programs that promote economic opportunity, support just governance, and invest in people through education in transformational development countries -- needy countries with good economic and social policy performance.

Funding for Basic Education was increased to $550 million in the Development Assistance Account, but receives overall funding of $750 million in the Foreign Operations Bill. I requested $800 million.

Trade

USAID is encouraged to support the work of:

Ethiopian Fine Coffee Brand Ownership and Management Initiative –to alleviate poverty in Ethiopia by increasing trade and export income for poor coffee growers and sector workers, thereby increasing their rate of return on the sale of their coffee.

Ethiopia’s poor coffee farmers only receive 6% of the retail price their fine coffees earn in foreign markets, yet coffee comprises 40% of all Ethiopian exports.  The Ethiopian Fine Coffee Brand Ownership and Management Initiative is comprised of Light Years IP (LYIP), the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office (EIPO) and the unions of coffee cooperatives. Its strategy includes: designing poverty-alleviating IP solutions; training and capacity building; and raising awareness.  The Coffee Initiative will allow Ethiopia to work with the coffee industry to capture a greater share of the retail price for Ethiopian fine coffees by building the value of its coffee brands, and better managing the distribution and the brand reputation of their export coffees to increase the producers’ earnings. LYIP is also assisting Ethiopia register trademarks for Harrar, Yirgacheffe, and Sidamo in 40 countries.

World Vision to improve the capacity of Ethiopian coffee farmers to produce high quality specialty coffee by offering grants to supporting farmer-owned organizations with members earning less than $1 a day.

Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance (VEGA) Ethiopia AGOA+ to equip Ethiopian entrepreneurs with skills to take advantage of economic opportunities that African Growth and Opportunity Act provides and enable Ethiopian firms to successfully export duty-free to the US.

VEGA’s Africa Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA+) program is a two- year export promotion program under the broader trade initiative AGOA, which was signed into law on May 18, 2000. AGOA and all activates under AGOA are designed to offer tangible incentives for African nations to continue their efforts to open their economies and build free and prosperous markets.

This program aims to develop and promote Ethiopia’s export market to the United States and other international markets. The program will accomplish this objective through three primary project activities:

Global HIV/AIDS Initiative

The U. S. Global AIDS Coordinator oversees this initiative and leads the implementation of the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Emergency Plan/PEPFAR). The Emergency Plan is the largest commitment ever by any nation for an international health initiative dedicated to a single disease -- a five-year, $15 billion, comprehensive approach to combating the disease around the world.

The Committee encourages the Global AIDS program to work with:

Hiwot HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care and Support Organization (HAPCSO) - HAPCSO’s mission is to provide access to indigenous methods of care and support for HIV/AIDS patients and their families. This program involves 65,000 people along the southwestern outskirts of Addis Ababa, an area that represents the city’s most impoverished settlements, characterized by overpopulation, unemployment and destitution.

HAPCSO provides services in 4 primary areas: (prevention) workshops and seminars, as well as voluntary counseling and testing provided to the most vulnerable populations including commercial sex workers and factory workers; (orphan support) comprehensive support and skills training are provided for orphans; (care) home-based care, that is accessible, equitable and efficient, enables and empowers health professionals to teach PLWHA’s in their community about how to cope with and properly treat opportunistic infections; (community capacity building) the collective capacity of the community has proven successful in sustaining HAPCSO’s services.

Migration and Refugee Assistance

MRA funds programs that focus on 3 major areas: promoting equal access to effective protection and assistance for refugees and conflict victims; funding the maintenance of multilaterally coordinated mechanisms for effective and efficient humanitarian response at internationally accepted standards; and supporting voluntary repatriation and sustainable reintegration of refugees in the country of origin.

The Committee included language recognizing the importance of developing a strategy to assist unaccompanied refugee minors with resettlement to the US. There is an extreme dearth of referrals for refugee processing of unaccompanied minors including orphans and children who are developmentally disabled who ultimately spend their childhoods in refugee camps at risk of harm without any available parent or guardian to care for them and for whom resettlement to the United States is in their best interests as a durable solution. I therefore requested that Population, Refugees, and Migration to work with reputable refugee resettlement agencies, the Department of Homeland Security Asylum Office Refugee Corps and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to prioritize screening and identifying vulnerable unaccompanied refugee minors for expeditious resettlement to the United States.

USAID is encouraged to consider funding the work of:

GlobalPOWER (Partnership Of Women Elected/Appointed Representatives) –a new global network of policy leaders who seek to build longterm sustainable partnerships in order to work together on urgent women’s human rights issues including: International trafficking of women and girls, HIV/AIDS, and the role of women in post-conflict settings.