|
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
In this section:
Grant Aids Afghan Women
IG Office Secures Conviction
Over $3 Million to TB Programs
Dominican Republic Firefighters Get Aid
Radio Program Credited With Saving Lives
Handbook on Kids with HIV/AIDS
New Head for Iraq Mission
Lebanon Voters Get Support from U.S.
Donors Pledge $4.5 Billion to Sudan
African Strain of Polio Virus Hits Indonesia
Grant Aids Afghan Women
WASHINGTON—A $2.5 million USAID grant to the
Afghan Ministry of Women’s Affairs announced in March
will support advocacy and policy development while improving
the status and lives of women. USAID will also assist in programs
for the 17 Provincial Women’s Resource Centers.
The Agency has provided more than $50 million to support
women’s issues in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban.
IG Office Secures Conviction
WASHINGTON—Khaled Bichara, president and chief
executive officer of LINKdotNET, pled guilty in a Manhattan
federal court to making false statements in an application
to USAID, the Agency’s Office of the Inspector General
announced March 18. The USAID-conducted investigation was
made in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for
the Southern District of New York.
In its application, LINKdotNET, an internet company located
in Egypt, requested approximately $2.1 million through USAID’s
Commodity Import Program to purchase communications equipment.
As part of the application, Bichara included sham bids from
two American suppliers.
Bichara is scheduled to be sentenced June 8 and faces a
maximum sentence of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
Over $3 Million to TB Programs
LWASHINGTON—The national tuberculosis (TB) programs
in Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, and Zambia will receive
nearly $3.2 million in new assistance, USAID announced March
24 to coincide with World TB Day 2005.
In these countries, USAID will support the Directly Observed
Treatment, Short-Course (DOTS) strategy, which involves observing
patients to ensure they take the full course of TB medicine,
increasing treatment adherence.
Although a cure for TB has existed for more than half a
century, the disease continues to infect and kill 2 million
people every year, according to the World Health Organization
(WHO). Nearly 9 million people will develop TB in 2005.
Dominican Republic Firefighters Get Aid
WASHINGTON—Firefighters in the Dominican Republic
received $50,000 from USAID in March to help them battle devastating
wildfires.
Three months of intensive drought caused wildfires to break
out March 11 in and around the Jose del Carmen Ramirez National
Park in the Dominican Republic’s Central mountain range.
Approximately 100,000 hectares were consumed in the fire’s
first three weeks, and 70 people were evacuated from the area
when the wildfires began.
Radio Program Credited With Saving Lives
GHAZNI CITY, Afghanistan—A radio program aired
over a U.S.-assisted radio station warned residents to flee
after a dam collapsed March 29, saving many lives from the
resulting flood.
A station manager at Radio Ghaznawiyaan in Ghazni called
journalists from Salaam Watandar, a daily news program,
to alert them to the situation. The journalists, in turn,
reached the governor of Ghazni Province and had him issue
a warning to listeners to evacuate the area before the dam
broke.
The dam’s collapse destroyed the village of Zamin Kola
and hundreds of shops and houses in Ghazni Bazaar, but with
minimal loss of life. “I was listening to the Radio Ghaznawiyaan,
and when it started to talk about the Sultan water dam, I
turned the volume up and I understood that we have to run,”
said one of Ghazni’s residents.
Internews, an international nonprofit organization that
supports open media worldwide, has provided training to journalists
in Afghanistan with funding from USAID’s Office of Transition
Initiatives.
Handbook on Kids with HIV/AIDS
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania—A new handbook was launched
in February to help African healthcare providers care for
children with HIV/AIDS.
Handbook on Pediatric AIDS in Africa focuses on the
needs of HIV-positive children on the continent and is geared
to healthcare providers at all levels, including medical and
nursing school faculty and students, researchers, and scientists.
It will be distributed continent-wide.
The African Network of Children Affected by AIDS, a network
of African pediatric AIDS experts supported by the Agency’s
Regional Economic Development Services Office, wrote and published
the book, which is already in its second printing.
There are more than 2 million HIV-infected children worldwide,
and 90 percent live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Tens of thousands of them have been dying unnecessarily
on the continent because healthcare providers have not always
known how to treat or care for their special needs. Backers
of the new handbook say its guidance gives Africans an opportunity
to break this cycle of unnecessary child deaths.
New Head for Iraq Mission
WASHINGTON—Dawn Liberi was sworn in April 1
as director of USAID/Iraq, which is carrying out the largest
U.S. government reconstruction effort since the Marshall Plan,
with more than $5 billion in resources. USAID is supporting
efforts to revitalize Iraq’s economy, improve education,
develop civil society, and build democratic institutions.
Liberi is a member of the senior foreign service and holds
the rank of minister counselor. She has served for more than
20 years at USAID in five overseas posts, including Nigeria
and Uganda.
Lebanon Voters Get Support from U.S.
BEIRUT—The U.S. government provided support
to Lebanese voters ahead of their country’s first elections
after Syria withdrew its troops in late April. The elections
began May 29, and will continue over several weekends.
USAID’s partner, the Consortium for Elections and Political
Process Strengthening, worked on an election mapping activity
to improve the election process. The effort looked at the
state of Lebanon’s electoral framework, trends in changes
to those laws, accuracy of electoral rolls, and security for
elections, among several other issues.
The State Department conducted voter education projects
and helped recruit election monitors.
Donors Pledge $4.5 Billion to Sudan
OSLO—Nations and international organizations
on April 12 pledged $4.5 billion over three years to help
southern Sudan build government institutions and alleviate
poverty, as it recovers from 20 years of civil war.
The bulk of the money will come from the United States,
which promised $853 million in 2005, and has requested over
$900 million for 2006. This is in addition to the $630 million
already provided in 2004.
The United Nations and the World Bank had estimated that
Sudan needs $7.9 billion to build roads and schools, improve
healthcare, and boost economic growth over the next three
years.
African Strain of Polio Virus Hits Indonesia
JAKARTA, Indonesia—Four cases of polio, a disease
that had been previously eradicated, have been detected in
Indonesia as of May 5, World Health Organization (WHO) said,
indicating that an outbreak spreading from northern Nigeria
since 2003 has crossed an ocean and reached the world’s
fourth most populous country.
The virus, found in a village on the island of Java, is
most closely related to a strain found in Saudi Arabia in
December, WHO officials said.
Indonesia’s last case was in 1995, and it is now the
16th country to be reinfected by a strain of the virus that
broke out in northern Nigeria when vaccinations stopped there.
USAID has contributed $500,000 to WHO and Indonesian government
teams that discovered the polio outbreaks, and $200,000 to
immunize children under 5 in West Java. Several million more
children are also to be vaccinated.
 |
|
Laura Bush, left, and Egypt’s first lady Suzanne
Mubarak stand by the muppet Khokha while touring the
set of Alam Simsim, or Sesame World, the Egyptian
version of the popular American children’s show
Sesame Street. Bush was in Cairo May 23 as part
of a tour of the Middle East. See an article on page
11 on the Bangladeshi version of Sesame Street.
AP/World Wide Photos |
Back to Top ^
|
RSS Feed for Recent HIV/AIDS WebSource Articles
