Architect of the Capitol via Wikicommons

THE ISSUE

Global Citizens have campaigned all year to encourage national governments and leading corporations to make commitments to end extreme poverty by 2030. This tells the story of three successes we’ve had in achieving commitments from the United States Government in 2014.

We’ve been busy working as a movement to campaign on three issues we believe everyone should have access to in 2014:

1. Vaccines – yet at least 30 million children lack access to routine immunizations, even polio which is now almost eradicated

2. Education – yet 58 million children have no opportunity to go to school, and

3. A clean, safe place to go to the bathroom - but unacceptably, 2.5 billion still lack access to improved sanitation and 1.1 billion people defecate in the open.

GLOBAL CITIZENS RESPOND

Over the course of 2014, Global Citizens have proven their commitment to these issues, seeking commitments from the United States Government:

1. Vaccines - over 46,000 Global Citizens signed a petition calling on the United States Government to help increase access to vaccines. In November, we handed this petition over to key leaders in the administration.

Additionally, over 60,000 supporters signed our petition calling on world leaders to support polio eradication. Since 2011, we have been working with key leaders to secure new funding commitments that will allow us to see the end of polio.

2. Education - Over 40,000 supporters like you signed the petition calling on Congress to increase support for the Global Partnership for Education. Global Citizens also tweeted at key leaders like Raj Shah, Administrator of USAID, calling on him to increase support for global education.

3. Sanitation - Global Citizens exceeded 53,000 actions supporting increased access to water and sanitation.  We called on key leaders in Congress to pass the Water for the World Act and to increase funding for water and sanitation through efficiency savings.

WHAT’S THE IMPACT?

Together, we’ve demonstrated the importance of ending extreme poverty to US leaders. Thanks your work as Global Citizens and the efforts of our partners in the sector, US funding for vaccines, education, and sanitation will increase in 2015. Take a look:

1. Vaccines

  • Funding for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance will increase from $175m in FY14 to $200m in FY15. This is a 14% increase that demonstrates huge momentum around increasing access to vaccines!
  • Funding for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative will increase from $205m in FY14 to $217.7m in FY15. This is a 6% increase!

2. Education

At our Thank You Festival in June, Dr. Shah announced that the United States Government would double their funding from $20m in 2013 to $40m for Global Partnership for Education in 2014. Dr. Shah told the crowd that his twitter account had been flooded by Global Citizens who were asking him to increase support for this critical issue.

  •  US budget appropriation further allocated funding for Global Partnership for Education increasing the 2014 of $40m in FY14 to $45m in FY15. This is a 13% increase.

3. Sanitation

  • Funding for water and sanitation will increase from $365m in FY14 to $382.5m in FY15. This is a 5% increase!

WHAT’S NEXT?

We are very excited about the progress that has been made around funding for vaccines including polio eradication, and sanitation but there is much work to be done to secure the funds needed for Global Partnership for Education to ensure children have access to Education. Onstage at our Thank You Festival in June, Raj Shah pledged to work with Congress to secure $50m for Global Partnership for Education in 2015. We will continue to work with USAID to secure the final $5m for Global Partnership for Education from the United States Government.

Our goals for 2015 are ambitious. Foreign aid makes up just over 0.2% of the United States government’s budget and we’re lagging far behind countries like the United Kingdom which is on track to pass a law ensuring 0.7% of the UK budget will forever be dedicated to overseas aid and development.

We know that most Americans believe the United States spends 30 % of the federal bud­get on foreign aid, making its budget at particular risk of reallocation to reduce the deficit or help balance the budget. Yet realistically, cutting the aid budget would have almost no effect on reducing the nation’s debt. However, cuts would threaten the lives of millions of the world’s most vulnerable people.

We will have updates on ways that Global Citizens can take action to protect the foreign aid budget soon.

Editorial

Demand Equity

Global Citizen actions help see US Government cash for 2015