Today, First Focus Campaign for Children sent a letter to Rep. Tom Cole, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Sen. Susan Collins, and Sen. Patty Murray — leadership of the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations out of concern about proposals that have been made to the Department for Government Efficiency to eliminate foreign assistance and urging them to protect foreign aid for critical lifesaving programs for children.
Excerpt from the letter:
Programs benefiting children within our foreign aid budget amount to a mere 10% of that 1% —– or just 0.09% of the overall federal budget. Children make up between 30-50% of the population in many low-income countries, so allocating children 10% of the pot is alarmingly low. But despite its modest parameters, U.S. foreign aid for children does an astounding amount of good in the world. For example, thanks in large part to the United States’ foreign aid, preventable deaths globally of children under five have been slashed from over 12 million a year in 1990 to roughly 5 million today. Thanks to U.S. investments, 7.8 million babies have been born HIV-free since the early 2000s and 11.7 million pregnant women and young children’s lives have been saved from malaria.