In February 2008 The Senate Foreign Relations Committee who are in overall control of US development aid funding were among the recipients of this fax describing RICO activity in Ukraine’s childcare system . It suggested moving the Global Development Commons concept forward.. Joe Biden chaired this committee where Barack Obama was also a member. Obama, I learned was the senator who picked up the proposal for a Bombs to Isotopes initiative. some months earlier
The fax refers to USAID director Henrietta Fore’s remarks “Foreign Assistance: An Agenda for Reform” at Center for Global Development in DC on February 1. For example:
“We will devote more of our management, technical expertise and financing resources to coordinating international development to avert duplication of effort, break down silos, and build partnerships that accelerate the pace of progress.
We are creating, and becoming part of, a Global Development Commons: A community of continuous and real time information exchange, coordination, partnership and action between public and private donors, agencies, NGOs, host governments and civil society all in constant collaboration. A Global Development Commons gives people in the developing world the tools they need to lead their own development.
To support this ideal of a more cohesive development network, we must enlist technology. I’ve directed USAID to assemble an information platform one that is pragmatic and affordable, leverages what’s already up and running to connect people on the ground with partners and solutions that can help us all work smarter.”
There is increasing congruence and synchronicity in play now, to the point of attunement. What Ms. Fore is describing has been central to P-CED’s main message, advocacy and activity for a decade. That, and helping establish an alternative form of capitalism, where profits and/or aid money are put to use in investment vehicles with the singular purpose of helping the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. The paper on which that is based is in Clinton’s library, dated September 16, 1996, author yours’ truly. That is reflected in P-CED’s home page and history section. In fact, you might notice a number of ideas and writings there that have now made their way into the mainstream of economics and aid thinking, how to make business and aid work smarter and more effectively in relieving poverty and the misery and risks that result. Bill Gates – as hard-edged a capitalist as has ever existed – reiterated the same things in Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago (ref below.) It sounds as though Ms. Fore’s remarks very much reflect this sort of thinking. Now it’s time to move forward and get it done.
Thank you for your time and attention to this. I and others will look forward to hearing from you. I hope we continue to realize ever more fully that outside the box and inside the box have only a box in the way. We outside the box know quite a bit of what’s going on, many times in exquisite detail, perhaps in ways that those inside the box can’t quite as easily access if at all. We are grossly underfunded in favor of missiles, bombs, and ordnance, which is about 100% backwards. Now, with even the US Pentagon stating that they’ve learned their lesson in Iraq and realize (so says top US general in Iraq ten days or so ago) that winning hearts and minds is the best option, I and others shall continue to think positive and look for aid budgets and funding spigots to be opened much more for people and NGOs in silos, foxholes and trenches, insisting on better than ordnance, and who understand things and how to fix them. We can do that. We can even do it cost-effectively and with far better efficiency than the ordnance route. Welcome to our brave new world. Except it’s not so new: learn to love and respect each other first, especially the weakest, most defenseless, most voiceless among us, then figure out the rest. There aren’t other more important things to do first. This message has been around for at least two thousand years. How difficult is it for us to understand?
Regards,
Terry E. Hallman
Founder, People-Centered Economic Development
Kharkiv, Ukraine
cc:
US Ambassador William Taylor
US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
U-CAN (Ukraine – Citizens Action Network)