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Joseph Molieri/Bread for the World
PFDA
Poverty-focused development assistance comes in the form of emergency
aid after major disasters as well as long-term development. While the
former type of assistance is immediate and obvious in its impact, the
latter is crucial in helping children have better lives as they grow up.
parts—“accounts” in government-speak—collectively as “poverty-focused development assistance,” or PFDA for short.
PFDA accounts fund programs that reduce poverty and
that carry out development and humanitarian assistance.
These programs help to lift millions of people out of hunger, poverty, and disease around the world. The work takes
a wide variety of forms—agricultural development and nutrition, emergency humanitarian assistance, global health, education, gender equality, and water and sanitation, and more.
PFDA accounts provide long-term, sustainable solutions to
the problems of poverty and hunger. And these investments
are yielding impressive results: Since 1990, improvements in
child nutrition have led to a 37 percent drop in stunting, and
there has been a 34 percent reduction in global hunger as well.
PFDA programs improve the lives of hungry and poor people
in developing countries and lay the foundation for future generations to live in a more prosperous and peaceful world.
Going deeper
Budget-watching may sound tedious, but fortunately, our
analysts and partners regularly pore through the hundreds
of pages that comprise the federal budget to tell us which
programs are in danger of being cut or will be increased.
This vigilance–and your advocacy–has been especially valuable in the past three years as we faced unprecedented attacks from Congress to balance the budget on the backs of
hungry and poor people.
With your support, we have blunted the impact of these
proposed budget cuts. In fact, we have actually increased
funds for PFDA. In FY 2014, PFDA increased by more than
$800 million for a total of $21.4 billion. Funding for such
programs vital to women, children, and small farmers all
2 Bread | March-April 2014
over the world actually tripled from FY 2000 (see figures in
infographic on back page).
Within the federal budget, we especially monitor what is
called the 150 Account, or the International Affairs Budget,
funded through the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. This is where the bulk of PFDA programs are authorized. They are then implemented through such agencies and
programs as the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID), the Department of State, the Department of Agriculture, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).
And here’s an astonishing fact: These programs comprise
less than 1 percent of the entire federal budget! Yet they provide lifesaving programs for millions of hungry and poor
people, bolster U.S. national security, and promote trade
and job creation both here and abroad. Ironically, many
Americans believe the myth that that we spend more than
25 percent of the federal budget on foreign aid. Again, in
reality, it’s less than 1 percent!
Importance of engaging in the process
As budget negotiations go on through the year, we have
to strengthen the circle of protection around the funding for
these programs that are so vital to hungry and poor people
all over the world. At any time during the budgeting process,
there will be attempts to drastically reduce such programs in
an attempt to balance the federal budget.
The federal budg ]