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87–516PDF 2014

U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE IN FY 2015: WHAT

ARE THE PRIORITIES, HOW EFFECTIVE?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 9, 2014

Serial No. 113–161

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESS 

The Honorable Rajiv Shah, Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development .............................................................................................................. 4

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Rajiv Shah: Prepared statement .................................................. 7

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 60

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 61

The Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas: Material submitted for the record .......................................................... 63

Written responses from the Honorable Rajiv Shah to questions submitted 

for the record by: 

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey ................................................................................... 65

The Honorable William Keating, a Representative in Congress from the 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts ................................................................... 67

The Honorable Michael T. McCaul, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Texas ............................................................................................. 74

The Honorable Ted Poe ....................................................................................... 76

(1)

U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE IN FY 2015: WHAT 

ARE THE PRIORITIES, HOW EFFECTIVE? 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2014

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Royce (chairman of 

the committee) presiding. 

Chairman ROYCE. This hearing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs will come to order. We will ask all members to take their 

seats at this time. 

Today, we welcome Rajiv Shah, Administrator of the U.S. Agency 

for International Development, who is responsible for managing 

roughly 60 percent of the total $32 billion foreign operations budget. A common refrain is that foreign aid accounts for less than 1 

percent of the Federal budget. As we will hear, aid programs that 

are effectively executed can help create more stable societies, speed 

economic growth, and advance U.S. national security interests. 

Still, the bar for justifying this spending must be high given our 

unacceptable deficit. 

Of course, the principal goal of U.S. foreign assistance must be 

to get the United States eventually out of the business of foreign 

assistance because to succeed, developing nations must unlock 

their own growth potential. To that end, I am pleased that the administration is committed to the goals of the Electrify Africa Act, 

bipartisan legislation which recently passed this committee. Targeted investments in power generation can help Africans attract 

foreign investment and produce the goods to grow their economies. 

We look forward to continuing to work with USAID on this important initiative. 

I am encouraged by the administration’s commitment and by the 

Administrator’s commitment to a new model of development that 

focuses on transparency. It focuses on science, and innovation, and 

engagement with the private sector. Dr. Shah has shown that he 

is not afraid of upsetting the status quo. 

I am also pleased that this budget builds upon recent gains in 

the international food aid reform effort. Last year, I worked closely 

with the ranking member, Mr. Eliot Engel of New York, and Representatives Marino and Bass, and USAID, along with a broad coalition of advocacy groups, and ultimately we succeeded in freeing 

up an additional $100 million from inefficient purchase and shipping regulations so we can strengthen food markets, promote greatVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:30 Jul 17, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\040914\87516 SHIRL
2

er self-sufficiency, and save more lives, more quickly, and for less 

money. I have seen firsthand the need for a quick and efficient food 

aid program, having recently visited Tacloban in the Philippines, 

which of course was ravaged by the typhoon that struck that island. 

Unfortunately, USAID will have no shortage of challenges ahead. 

Needs in Syria, and the region are growing; humanitarian space 

there is shrinking. U.S. investments in Afghanistan and Pakistan 

must contend with debilitating corruption and waste, and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan will only place aid at greater risk. I am disappointed that the administration’s request for 

Egypt failed once again to prioritize true economic reforms, including a focus on the clear title to property and property title transfer, 

that would enable entrepreneurs to enter the formal economy, as 

explained to us in our committee hearing that we had on the importance of aid reform there. USAID programs in Haiti appear to 

be poorly planned and largely unsustainable; this committee 

passed good oversight legislation aimed at improving conditions 

and the value of our work on that troubled island. There are concerns about the administration’s lack of focus on democracy assistance. 

Needless to say, your challenges are great, your challenges are 

growing every day, your task is compounded by the fact that there 

are no quick fixes in your line of work. That would be the case even 

if you did not have to contend with a wave of extremism affecting 

many countries. With that in mind, we should be looking to maximize every resource at our disposal, and this includes better 

leveraging the support and investment of the many diaspora communities throughout the U.S. that are active in the same regions 

that you are. 

I look forward to working with you, Administrator Shah, to address these pressing concerns, while advancing our strategic goals, 

promoting economic growth, and graduating more countries from 

foreign aid. 

I will now turn to Ranking Member Eliot Engel from New York 

for his opening statement. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also thank you for 

holding this important hearing. 

Dr. Shah, thank you for your service, and for being here today 

to review the administration’s foreign assistance budget request for 

Fiscal Year 2015. 

I would like to begin by reminding my colleagues that the international affairs budget as a whole, is only about 1 percent of the 

entire Federal budget, and the foreign assistance funding that we 

will discuss today is only a fraction of that amount. I have constantly been saying that we should have more money in the budget 

for foreign aid. The American public thinks that we spend about 15 

percent of our budget on foreign aid and in reality it is just under 

1 percent. 

Having said that though, it is important that every tax dollar is 

spent wisely and one of the key responsibilities of this committee 

is to conduct effective oversight of USAID, the State Department, 

and other foreign affairs agencies. But let’s not fool ourselves into 

believing that we can solve our larger budget issues by slashing 

3

foreign aid. That is certainly not the case. So what do we give to 

that tiny slice of the budget that we spend on foreign assistance? 

It is easy. We promote American leadership around the world, we 

support allies in need, we creates new markets for American goods, 

and generate jobs here at home. We help impoverished men, 

women, and children suffering from hunger and disease. We prevent wars before they happen. Through all of these activities we 

make a critical investment in our own security. 

Dr. Shah, I would like to commend you personally for your leadership on so many important issues. You and I have worked very 

closely together, and I must say that I am very impressed with 

your intellect, your hard work, your dedication, and your good 

heart. The administration has made some very tough decisions on 

funding priorities, and I am impressed by USAID’s ability to accomplish so much on such a limited budget. 

As we have discussed, I am disappointed by the proposed cuts to 

the bilateral tuberculosis program and to the humanitarian accounts. The United States has helped the world make tremendous 

gains in childhood survival, maternal health, and the fight against 

tuberculosis and I fear that reductions in these areas will make it 

difficult to sustain the progress we have made. 

Likewise, I am concerned that we will need more funding for humanitarian relief in the coming fiscal year, not less, to deal with 

famine and crisis in South Sudan, the Central African Republic 

and other countries. On food aid, I am pleased that the budget request builds on the modest gains we made in the foreign bill by 

seeking additional flexibility that will allow USAID to reach about 

2 million more people each year. Dr. Shah, you and I have had extensive discussions about why there needs to be food aid reform. 

We can get more food aid to people faster and cheaper, and to me, 

that’s the bottom line. Thank you for your leadership on that as 

well, because we have piggybacked on your proposals, the chairman 

and I have made great progress in letting people know that this 

has to be done. 

I am concerned that the gains we have made on food security 

will be imperilled unless we mount an aggressive effort to combat 

the effects of climate change. This budget would help developing 

countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and help vulnerable populations deal with the impacts of global warming. 

Dr. Shah, your signature initiatives emphasize public private 

partnerships and harnessing innovation. Your latest effort 

launched just weeks ago is the U.S. Global Development Lab; I 

have high hopes for this initiative and would like you to describe 

some of the lab’s key products and innovations. I am particularly 

impressed by the invention of the Pratt pouch, which effectively 

prevents the transmission of HIV from mother to child. It costs 

only 9 cents per pouch, can be used anywhere, and will make a big 

difference in our fight to create an AIDS-free generation. 

With regard to Haiti, this committee has expanded oversight of 

U.S. assistance provided to that country, since the devastating 

2010 earthquake. I am pleased that U.S. reconstruction aide to 

Haiti has accelerated, and I hope that USAID will focus more intensely on ensuring that our assistance to Haiti encourages investment in the country. 

4

On Cuba, I have closely followed the recent press reports about 

a democracy assistance program and hope you will use this opportunity to discuss the purpose and effectiveness of these programs. 

In Africa, USAID is leading the Power Africa Initiative which 

will increase access to affordable electricity, for hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa. This will help fuel greater 

economic growth and development across the continent. I hope that 

the Electrify Africa Act, legislation that Chairman Royce and I authored, will bolster your efforts and exchange the life of this promising program. 

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars on roads, agriculture, rule of law, and capacity building. I hope 

you will focus on how USAID plans to monitor projects in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops at the end of 

2014, and the continuing value of our aid to Pakistan. 

On Ukraine, the President recently signed into law a bipartisan 

legislation to provide additional assistance with a focus on 

strengthening civil society, combating corruption, promoting energy 

efficiency and diversification, and preparing the country for democratic elections. USAID will be a lead agency in implementing this 

assistance and I look forward to hearing your views and how best 

to manage these programs. I might add that the chairman and I 

are leading a trip to Ukraine in a very, very short time. 

And finally, I regret that the budget request plans for a long 

road ahead in Syria. More than 3 years after the start of this horrendous conflict, the Assad regime continues to commit atrocities 

with impunity. The country has become a magnet for extremists, 

and the humanitarian crisis gets worse with each passing day. I 

believe we should do more to help bring this conflict to an end and 

relieve the immense suffering of the Syrian people. 

So Dr. Shah, I would like to thank you again for being here and 

I look forward to your testimony. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Engel. 

This morning, we are joined by Rajiv Shah, the Administrator of 

USAID. Dr. Shah is the 16th Administrator of USAID and previously, he served as Under Secretary of Research, Education and 

Economics at USAID, and as chief scientist at the U.S. Department 

of Agriculture. We welcome him back to the committee. 

Without objection, the witness’ full prepared statement will be 

made part of the record. Members will have 5 calendar days to submit any statements, questions, or extraneous material for the 

record. We will ask Administrator Shah if you would, please, summarize your remarks. 

Administrator Shah. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE RAJIV SHAH, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Mr. SHAH. Thank you, Chairman Royce, and thank you Ranking 

Member Engel, and to all of the members of the committee. 

I am pleased and honored to be here to present a justification for 

President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2015 request for USAID and for development assistance around the world. As the President has said 

on numerous occasions, our investments in development, health, 

5

humanitarian affairs, and in supporting civil society and democratic governance are a critical part of our own national security 

strategy. 

I first want to start by just saying thank you to all of the members of the committee and in particular, the chair and the ranking 

member. Your support over the last years has helped us rebuild 

our staffing, rebuild our capacity to manage budgets, and rebuild 

our policy leadership at USAID. You have helped us expand our 

partner base to include local organizations around the world, private companies, civil society organizations and NGOs. 

You have helped us to prioritize science and technology as a core 

driver of how America can help accelerate the fight to end extreme 

poverty, and supported the launch last week of the U.S. Global Development Lab designed to bring university scientists, businesses, 

and young people all together to literally invent new tools and technologies that can accelerate the fight against disease, hunger, and 

poverty. You have supported our efforts to aggressively transform 

the way we evaluate our programs, so that today all of our major 

programs are evaluated by third parties, and those evaluations are 

conducted at a high level of quality and made public in full form. 

We have tried to pursue a new model of development that expands the partnership base and brings innovation and technology 

to the task of ending extreme poverty. I think we have seen in 

many instances the success of this effort. The President’s Feed the 

Future Program, which operates in 19 countries, now reaches 7 

million small-scale farmers each year, helping to move 12.5 million 

children out of a condition of chronic hunger and malnutrition. This 

takes place in partnership with the private sector, which has made 

nearly $4 billion of private investment commitments alongside U.S. 

investment, this is generating concrete specific results that are reducing extreme poverty in some of the most impoverished countries 

in the world. 

In child survival, this budget calls for a $2.7 billion commitment 

to a topic where America has traditionally led. From 1990 to today, 

we effectively have helped save 5 million children’s lives every year 

through our collective efforts with partners. We have now set for 

ourselves an ambitious goal of taking down from 6.6 million to near 

elimination the remaining number of children who die every year 

unnecessarily, and we know with your ongoing commitment and 

support we can achieve that objective. 

Similar outcomes are being seen in education, in water, and in 

energy where we really value the leadership presented by the committee with respect to the Electrify Africa bill. In disaster assistance, unfortunately we have had an extraordinarily active year. 

The response in the Philippines to Typhoon Haiyan has been seen 

as a global best practice and I just gathered with Secretary Hagel 

and the ASEAN Defense Ministers to learn from that example. 

One of the reasons that was so successful was the ability to use 

flexibly purchased food locally, to ensure that we could quickly and 

efficiently meet the needs of children who otherwise would have 

suffered from hunger, and quickly scale up a program to reach 3 

million people in the context of a natural disaster. We look forward 

to further discussions and support on the President’s proposal to 

6

take food aid reform forward with a request for 25 percent flexibility in the program. 

We know that we are currently facing three level three emergencies around the world: Syria and its neighbors, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan. Given the pressures that will take 

place, we appreciate opportunities to work with the committee to 

continue to optimize our response. 

We also support democratic governance, civil society, and human 

rights throughout the world in our programs. One manifestation of 

that was our support for the Afghan elections this past weekend, 

which I believe defied expectations in terms of turnout, and in particular, the turnout of women in the context of that vote. We look 

forward to discussing our democratic governance programs in 

greater detail. 

And I would like to conclude just by noting that people often tell 

me that foreign assistance is difficult to justify politically, and I 

know that each of you spend time with your constituents and in 

your communities doing that work. I want to thank you for that. 

I really believe that America stands at a unique time in our history 

when it comes to our efforts to address global poverty. 

Really for the first time, we can credibly suggest that it is possible to end extreme poverty, $1-a-day poverty, within the next two 

decades and it will require continued support from this committee, 

from businesses, from scientists, from members of the faith community, from NGOs, from civil society, and from governments around 

the world to achieve that goal. And we appreciate your support to 

that end. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shah follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you very much, Administrator Shah. 

I wanted to start with a few questions here. One on land grabbing, and the lack of enforceable property rights and title transfer 

in developing nations, which act as significant barriers to sustainable development and to long-term growth. We have seen this up 

close in terms of the results in Tunisia and in Egypt. We have seen 

the shock waves created. It is a source of tremendous political and 

social instability. 

In December, there was an insightful article, ‘‘Lessons From the 

Past: Securing Land Rights in the Wake of Typhoon Haiyan.’’ The 

article quoted a USAID official saying that unequal access to land 

is a central issue that cuts across both rural and urban sectors in 

the Philippines. Unequal access to land is a significant issue that 

occurs worldwide. We know of significant land grabbing that is occurring, and has occurred for some years now, in Cambodia and in 

China and in Peru. 

Administrator Shah, what is USAID doing to urge the Government of the Philippines to address the issue of land grabbing and, 

most importantly, what about the rampant corruption at a local 

level that allows land grabbing to occur? I have heard over and 

over again, that the Philippines is making progress on fighting corruption. However, even Philippine anticorruption officials will 

admit that corruption in this area, in terms of land grabbing, is an 

ongoing tragedy. With all of the assistance that we are providing 

to Manila, isn’t it true, and isn’t it time, that USAID and the administration should be focused on this issue given what is at stake? 

For 3 years now, I have tried to work to make this a priority 

with USAID. I have received emphatic support verbally. Three 

years later after returning, I see no progress. So will this be the 

year when we finally make a difference? 

Mr. SHAH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It will. We believe this is 

a critical issue. As I have seen personally in efforts where I handed 

out land titles to Colombian farmers who were returning to their 

farms after a conflict that has lasted decades. The power of respecting property rights, providing titles, giving people the basis to seek 

financing to invest in their own future is an extraordinarily powerful strategy to reduce poverty and extreme poverty. 

In the Philippines 46 percent of the 24.2 million parcels are titled, and even amongst those, a high degree of corruption and ineffective respect for those titles hamper the ability of many poor families to secure their future. 

I am thrilled that we have been working together on this. I want 

to say thank you for your specific visits to the country, and work 

with our program. We can commit today to use Fiscal Year 2014 

resources to engage in efforts that will help both work with the 

government on corruption issues, enforcement, community policing, 

and support for their land management office, as well as with local 

communities to help address this challenge. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. The other question I was going to 

ask you is, last week this committee held a hearing on women in 

education, followed by a markup on our legislation, the Malala 

Yousafzai Scholarship Act. Our debate, I think, drove home a very 

important point, and that is, education is a very powerful tool that 

can advance U.S. national security interests, while creating more 

19

stable societies. For many years now, I have expressed concerns 

about the rise of these Deobandi schools. I have made three trips 

to Pakistan to urge the government there to close them. They really prey upon the disenfranchised, and they are breeding radicalism. 

I have visited schools that have later been destroyed by the Taliban 

up in the Northwest frontier. 

I think that the Pakistani-American community here in the 

United States, based on my work with them, see how we can better 

coordinate efforts to promote education and private-sector growth 

in Pakistan. They have a very real interest in making certain that 

this radicalization is offset, and that the education of girls is advanced. 

What can be done to better leverage and support investments by 

the Pakistani diaspora in education and private-sector development 

in Pakistan, and how are you safeguarding U.S. assistance against 

corruption inside Pakistan? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I appreciate the leadership the committee has shown especially in taking 

forward the legacy that Malala Yousafzai has created by using her 

voice and the power of her moral example to advocate for this 

issue. USAID has supported a large-scale program in Pakistan on 

education with specific focus on girls and early grade learning literacy outcomes. 

We target reaching 3.2 million children. We have helped to reconstruct more than 1,400 schools. We have worked with Federal 

and provincial governments in a number of states to make sure 

that this issue is a priority, and we have engaged in teacher training, curricula, and standards and perhaps most importantly, the 

measuring of literacy outcomes through the Early Grade Reading 

Assessment which USAID has pioneered and tested. 

We look forward to working with the Pakistani-American community on this. We have new mechanisms to allow us to do that 

and I think, you know, that ability to engage the diaspora community, which is something we have enhanced over the last several 

years, would be quite welcome to take this program to an even 

greater level of effectiveness. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Administrator Shah. 

We will turn now to Mr. Eliot Engel of New York. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have four questions. I am going to try to do it quickly. 

First one is about something I mentioned in my opening statement. That is tuberculosis. It is usually treatable, as you know, 

with a course of inexpensive drugs. But it is still the leading curable infectious killer in the world, claiming 1.3 million lives per 

year. The emergence of multidrug resistant and extensively drugresistant TB strains really pose a direct threat to the public health 

of the U.S. 

This year’s budget request for USAID’s tuberculosis program, 

proposes a $45 million cut from Fiscal Year 2014’s appropriated 

level of $236 million. So at a time of tight budgets for PEPFAR and 

the global fund, can you elaborate on how USAID’s tuberculosis 

program could absorb a cut of this magnitude and still carry out 

its vital mission? 

20

Mr. SHAH. Thank you. I appreciate your leadership on tuberculosis. I think it has been very, very important, and that is part 

of why we have seen a 50 percent reduction in TB mortality and 

TB is projected to achieve its millennium development goal target. 

We are very concerned about multidrug resistant tuberculosis 

which largely has emerged in places like India, South Africa, 

China, Brazil, and Russia. 

I would note a few things: The first is, in a difficult budget environment we have had to make some tradeoffs, but what we have 

tried to do here is recognize we have three pots of funding for TB; 

the USAID Bilateral Program, the $180-plus million in PEPFAR 

that goes to TB, and the global fund commitment which has gone 

up over the last several years and where the United States recently 

encouraged and voted for global fund spending more of its resources from 14 to 18 percent on tuberculosis in particular. So in 

aggregate, I think the United States’ commitment to tuberculosis 

remains at a consistent and strong level. 

Second, we are engaging more in partnerships, especially in 

countries that can afford to pay for much of the response but require some technical partnership with us. I saw this specifically 

transpire in India, where they are very focused on MDR and what 

they call XDR TB. And third, we look forward to working with you 

to continue to make sure that we are optimizing our program. I 

think USAID has had a very strong history of supporting the 

World Health Organization, CDC, and local country governments 

around the world to take more of their own domestic responsibility 

for this issue. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. Let me ask you a couple of Middle East 

questions. The first one on Syria. The U.N. Security Council has 

unanimously approved a resolution which demands all parties, particularly the Syrian authorities, promptly allow rapid, safe, and 

unhindered humanitarian access to U.N. humanitarian agencies 

and their implementations. Assad, there is all kinds of questions 

about the leader of Syria, Assad, stealing the food, stealing the aid, 

not letting it go to rebel areas that need the aid. 

Can you just give us a quick overview about Syrian humanitarian aid? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you, and as you know, and as members 

of the committee have really worked hard to highlight, this is an 

extraordinary crisis with 9.5 million people in need inside of Syria, 

and 2.5 million refugees now, especially more in Jordan and Lebanon that are really taxing those countries’ ability to sustain social 

services for those mostly young Syrian refugees. 

The United States is proud of the fact that our aid and assist- ance, more than $1.7 billion over the last few years has reached 

and continues to reach more than 4 million people inside of Syria. 

More so than any other country, we reach affected communities 

even in opposition areas. Surgeons and doctors that we support 

have provided more than 250,000 surgeries, everyone of them heroic in the context of being targeted, and in many cases having 

staff lose their lives. 

We continue to provide support, but I want to say just a few 

things. One is, U.N. Security Council resolution was reviewed by 

Valerie Amos just a week ago or 2 weeks ago and she reported to 

21

the Security Council that in fact, the Assad regime had not lived 

up to the terms of the Security Council resolution in terms of greatly expanding access. 

Second, we know there are specific pockets and communities inside of Syria, roughly 220,000 people that are held in besieged 

areas, where literally, preventing food and water from reaching 

them is used as a tactic of war. And that is in violation of every 

basic humanitarian principle, including how war should be conducted. So in this context, this is an extraordinarily difficult problem. 

The committee’s work and your personal efforts to allow for more 

flexibility and food assistance have allowed us to reach so many 

more beneficiaries, women, and children, especially in Jordan, and 

Lebanon, that we simply couldn’t truck American food to, but now 

they have got a card that has USAID logo on it. It says, ‘‘From the 

American people,’’ and our humanitarian leader, Nancy Lindborg, 

just sat with a group of women in Amman who said, thank you so 

much for this card. It is what gives us dignity and keeps us going. 

That is only happening because you have fought for greater flexibility in food aid and food assistance, and I just want to say thank 

you for your leadership. 

Mr. ENGEL. Well, thank you. I am just wondering if quickly I can 

stay on the Middle East and ask you one quick question about the 

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The administration has requested 

over $400 million in Fiscal Year 2015 funds for the Palestinian Authority and last week Palestinian President Abbas announced the 

Palestinians would be joining 15 international conventions, seemingly a violation of the obligations under the agreement to negotiate. Now they are calling for several new preconditions to talks, 

making us doubt their good faith in the negotiations. 

The only pathway to a Palestinian state and sustainable peace 

between Israel and the Palestinians is through a negotiated settlement, not a unilateral declaration by the Palestinian Authority. So 

let me just simply say: How will our assistance strategy change if 

the Palestinians pursue a unilateral path? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, let me just say, Secretary Kerry has very ably 

articulated the administration’s position, and the extraordinary 

leadership he has taken to support negotiations and continues to 

moving forward. We play a part at the Secretary’s direction of providing supported in the West Bank as you have noted. None of the 

agreements that were signed last week endanger at this point that 

support right now. But we will be looking very carefully to see how 

this transpires, coordinating our efforts. 

And I will just add, I was with Secretary Kerry in Bethlehem a 

few months ago when we launched a high-impact infrastructure 

initiative in the West Bank, and I think the American people 

should take some pride in the fact that our assistance in the region 

helps to maintain stability and create some opportunities for dialogue and negotiation, but the Secretary, of course, went into this 

in much more detail yesterday and I will defer to his comments on 

it. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Engel. 

22

We now go to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairman emeritus of this 

committee, from Florida. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Dr. Shah. I would like to give you an opportunity to 

clarify some press reports about the Cuba Twitter program. First, 

was the program covert and top secret? 

Mr. SHAH. No. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Second, does USAID implement similar programs aimed at increasing the free flow of information throughout 

the world in closed societies? 

Mr. SHAH. We support civil society, yes. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Third, will USAID remain committed to 

reaching out to people suffering under closed societies and dictatorships? 

Mr. SHAH. Yes. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Dr. Shah. So contrary to what 

the media have reported, the democracy programs for Cuba are 

transparent, they are open. The Cuba democracy program with its 

$20 million price tag, in fact, is one of the most scrutinized programs in our foreign aid portfolio. The real question here is why 

does the press and some in our congressional family demonize 

these programs? 

The Freedom House has a report called ‘‘Freedom on the Net.’’ 

And this report lists Cuba as the world’s second worst violator of 

Internet freedom. Only Iran is worse. Thus, Cuba is worse than 

countries like Syria, Bahrain, Burma, Belarus, where no one in 

Congress seems to have a problem promoting Internet freedom in 

those countries. So why not Cuba? 

Some may have a little agenda geared toward supporting the 

Castro dictatorship instead of supporting the people of Cuba, and 

wish to put an end to these successful programs. Many of us on 

this committee have spent a lot of time and energy supporting 

human rights in Russia, in Vietnam, in Egypt, and Tunisia, 

Ukraine, Iran, Syria. So why not Cuba? Why does our foreign policy agenda discriminate against the freedom-seeking people in the 

western hemisphere? 

As you know, Dr. Shah, and I congratulate you for being so sensitive to this, the Cuban people have been suffering under the Castro dictatorship for more than 50 years; not because of U.S. policy, 

but because the Castro brothers continue to harass, to imprison, to 

torture, to kill the opposition. 

I am a political refugee because my family emigrated to the 

United States when I was 8 years old. We were seeking democracy. 

And I remember driving through Havana, and my father telling 

me, duck down, because gunshots were being fired all around us. 

And my dear friend Albio Sires, he was 11 years old when his family came here from Cuba, and he can also share some of these 

heartbreaking stories. But these tragedies continue today in the 

daily lives of the people of Cuba. 

One pro-democracy leader is named as you know, Dr. Shah, 

Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, known by his nickname Antunez. He was 

in Castro’s jail more than 17 years. Now that he is freed from one 

jail to a bigger jail, that is Cuba, he continues to fight for democracy, and for respect for human rights. In fact just 2 months ago, 

23

Antunez risked his life and went on a hunger strike with no food 

or liquids. Why? All for the sake of freedom. 

Berta Soler, another human rights advocate, she is a leader of 

an organization called Las Damas de Blanco, the Ladies in White. 

These brave women are comprised of the moms, the sisters, the 

friends, the relatives of political prisoners and they march every 

Sunday in peace to mass wearing all white, calling for freedom. 

They march in peace, Mr. Chairman, as you know, with the gladiolus in their hands, you have spoken about them. And these 

women are met with violence, beatings, imprisonment. These prodemocracy advocates are the faces of the people that you, under 

your leadership, in USAID have been trying to help with these programs. Thank you for that, Dr. Shah. 

And the U.S. citizen Alan Gross, as we know, is on his fifth year 

of being unjustly incarcerated in Cuba, and has begun a hunger 

strike. According to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and 

National Reconciliation, there were over 1,000 arbitrary and politically-motivated arrests in Cuba just 2 months ago in February, in 

1 month over 1,000 arrests. Does this sound like paradise? 

If this was happening in any other country in the world, the U.S. 

would be engaged, so why should Cuba be an exception? There is 

no independent press in Cuba. There is complete control over the 

Cuban airwaves and programming on television and the press to 

promote the political propaganda spewed by this dictatorship. That 

is why our State Department, and that is why you, Dr. Shah, with 

USAID democracy programs in Cuba are so important to offer the 

other side of the story, the side that promotes American values, 

God-given values like freedom, justice and liberty. 

And I recognize that some in Congress don’t think that Cuba is 

of national significance, but they are wrong. And this issue goes 

well beyond Cuba. This issue that we are debating, Mr. Chairman, 

is whether or not USAID should be taking steps to promote human 

rights, the rule of law, and democratic governance throughout the 

world, and I say yes. 

Thank you, Dr. Shah. Thank you, USAID. This is a cornerstone 

of our foreign policy to promote democratic ideals. 

And I am sorry I am out of time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Ileana. 

We now go to Gregory Meeks of New York. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Thank you, Dr. Shah, for your outstanding job in leading USAID. 

I am going to try to do quickly, and I guess if you can just write 

them down, four questions and hopefully you will get a chance to 

answer them. If not, then we will talk later. But first, you know, 

USAID plays a significant role in providing trade-related assistance, and Congress has appropriated funds for this purpose specifically targeting certain countries with which we have trade agreements. I am a strong supporter of trade capacity building, so I 

would like to know more about what USAID is doing to enhance 

trade capacity abroad, and what else you think Congress can do to 

help. That is question number one. 

Number two, as I indicated I also applaud what the agency has 

done and progress in dispersing aid funding in Haiti. However, recently the Congressional Black Caucus was at the U.N. and we 

24

were told that there could be a serious outbreak of cholera, and 

that there is an cholera emergency in Haiti and so I want to know, 

do you think that is so, is it under control, and what we can do 

there? 

Third, of course, I am also concerned, in regards to funding in 

Colombia, a great ally of ours, but particularly there seems to be 

a real situation in Buenaventura, which is Colombia’s largest port, 

and it is the center of its African Colombian population where over 

1⁄2 million inhabitants and over 90 percent of them are black, and 

they are mired in crime and poverty, and over 80 percent live 

below the poverty line; 30 percent are unemployed; and virtually 

none have access to reliable supplies of electricity, water, even 

basic road infrastructure. 

And so that this violence that is going on, and I know as we 

phase out of Plan Colombia, et cetera, but we want to make sure 

that we are able to address underlying social problems so that if 

there is anything that is being—what we are doing there. 

And finally, on the lines of what Ranking Member Eliot Engel 

had asked, and I know he talked especially about tuberculosis, but 

thanks in a huge part to U.S. investments in global health, the 

world has cut by 50 percent the number of children who die before 

age 5 from whether it is pneumonia, or malaria, or tuberculosis, 

the leading killers of children worldwide. 

We are on the verge of some exciting breakthroughs and lifesaving potential. For example, I know that USAID’s has new tools 

to treat and prevent malaria. But these budget controls and constraints, et cetera, so I was wondering how you would prioritize 

these health, global health needs to assure that we are fulfilling 

the gaps on current global health needs especially as it relates to 

helping children. 

Mr. SHAH. Thank you, Mr. Congressman. 

And I just want to say thank you for your personal engagement 

and leadership on so many of these issues as they pertain to so 

many important parts of the world, and on behalf of really the 

world’s most vulnerable. 

With respect to trade assistance and capacity building, the Fiscal 

Year 2015 request includes $170 million for precisely that activity. 

In addition to that, we have our Feed the Future Program, which 

is operational in 19 countries, and really focuses on improving the 

capacity of local businesses to engage in, in particular regional agricultural trade. 

And I would just note that we have done careful evaluations of 

programs like the East Africa Trade Hub, that have found that our 

efforts have helped to bring down customs blockages, and transshipments across borders, have accelerated the time and efficiency 

in regional trade in particular, and have generated $40 of economic 

value for every $1 we have invested in trade capacity building. So 

what Congress can do is support strongly the Development Assistance Account, which is part of the budget, and is under a lot of 

pressure. 

Second, with respect to Haiti, we have a strong community-based 

public health program that is focused on all causes of child mortality and will include and does already include an integrated effort 

with the U.N. to address cholera. I would point out that right now 

25

the fatality rate is under 1 percent, which meets the standards and 

goals the U.N. has set, but we are working all the time to make 

sure that cholera is managed. 

And also as we make those investments that the clinics that are 

in rural communities are well stocked and suited to serve all children, whatever the cause of disease might be, and that building 

that supply chain and that health systems approach has been critical to our efforts to bring down child mortality in Haiti which have 

been successful over the last few years. 

Third, with respect to Afro-Colombian populations in Colombia, 

I personally had a chance to meet with our partners and we are 

trying to work with about 100 businesses, train thousands of AfroColombian youth, and then get them placed in jobs, and that effort 

has been very successful. We expect to place 80 percent of the 

4,500 trainees in 2014, and reaching 10,000 by 2016. And we have 

a lot of support from business leaders there, and it is part of our 

new approach to public-private partnerships. 

And finally, with respect to global health I just want to say 

thank you. Your raising that issue is so critical. America has a 

chance right now to lead the charge to end child death, and it will 

take a two-decade commitment from this committee. 

It will take resources, and we have produced a Fiscal Year 2015 

request that has a small increase over the Fiscal Year 2014 request, and it requires a new concerted business-like approach in 

the 24 countries that account for just over 70 percent of the 6.6 

million kids who die, and we are be unveiling an investment plan 

for those 24 countries with a group of other partners later in June. 

So we thank you for your support, and I think this is one area 

where America can accomplish something in partnership with others that is truly extraordinary. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Mr. Chris Smith, chairman of 

the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And Dr. Shah, welcome and thank you for your leadership. 

Let me ask you a few questions and I do have some I would like 

to submit for the record. You know, the focus of child survival, is 

an extraordinarily important one. 

The first amendment I offered as a member of this committee in 

1982, more than 30 years ago, was to reauthorize, expand, and 

double the amount of money for child survival. It passed, became 

law, and we have as a country, been taking the lead through various administrations with oral rehydration therapy, nutrition, vaccines, and the like, but I am concerned. 

I was part of a roundtable discussion with seven African first ladies back in 2010 and it focussed on The First 1,000 Day of Life 

From the Moment of Conception, their title, a very important title 

and a very important initiative. 

As we all know, and you know it better than anyone, I think, 

UNICEF estimates that 1 in 4 children worldwide are stunted due 

to lack of adequate nutrition. Children who are chronically undernourished as unborn children, up to their second birthday, have impaired immune systems that are incapable of protecting them 

against life-threatening ailments such as pneumonia and malaria. 

26

Mothers who are malnourished as girls are 40 percent more likely to die during childbirth, experience debilitating complications 

like obstetric fistula, and deliver children who perish before reaching the age of 5. We are still waiting for the nutrition initiative 

guidelines, and I know they are in the works. The sooner the better. How do we expand the first 1,000 days of life initiative? 

I was in Guatemala on the day that they signed a compact with 

the U.S. We need to do more of those; not just for stunting purposes, but so mother and child will be healthy. So if you could talk 

about that briefly. 

Last year neglected tropical diseases caused the loss of 534,000 lives. In 2014, $100 million was focused on those horrible diseases. 

I held a hearing on that last year, Dr. Peter Hotez testified, I have 

since read his book, Forgotten People Forgetten Diseases. It is exploding all over. Schistosomiasis is on a tear, as you know, as well 

as these other horrible diseases, worms make people, particularly 

women, more likely to contract HIV/AIDS. Yet, the 2015 budget cuts it to $86.5 million. Maybe there is other money coming in from 

a different spigot but that is a 14-percent cut for something that 

is extraordinarily important. 

On Ebola, you might want to speak to that very quickly, and 

then maybe more for the record. I know five CDC people arrived 

in Guinea. But this is different. Doctors Without Borders says this 

is unprecedented because it is not small, it is not isolated, it seems 

to be expanding. 

And finally, something that I think is an easy lift, I had a hearing on this whole emerging problem of infectious-based hydrocephalic disease. Dr. Ben Warf from Harvard sat where you sit and 

gave riveting testimony on the need for neurosurgeons in Africa 

and neurologists. 

Cure International has cured over 5,000 kids in Uganda. I have 

introduced a bill but I don’t know if it is going to pass or not. We 

have asked you repeatedly. I have asked you if you would look into 

it. We are talking about $3 million per year to get us involved with 

brain health in general, but this one is the situation of kids who 

are dying horrible deaths from water on the brain. 

I have seen the kids. I have met the children. I had one of the 

neurosurgeons testify from Africa. They need more of them. And 

that is part of the vision to grow the capacity of neurosurgeons in 

Africa; 1 in 10 million of all of East Africa. That is appalling. 

Mr. SHAH. Thank you, and I just wanted to thank you for your 

leadership on all of these global health issues, your chairmanship 

of that committee, as well as your work from the early 1980s that 

set a tone for American leadership that I think has borne tremendous results. So thank you very, very much. 

First, on nutrition, we will be announcing on May 22nd, our nutrition policy—this is very important because this is one area 

where the science and the solutions have advanced dramatically in 

the last 5 years and working together with Tony Lake, who leads 

UNICEF, I am part of something called the Scaling Up Nutrition 

or SUN effort, which is designed to take the 1,000-days approach, 

targeting pregnant women and young children with supplemental 

foods that can improve their nutritional status so that they are not 

stunted through the rest of their lives, and move it forward in dozVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:30 Jul 17, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\040914\87516 SHIRL
27

ens of countries that where the countries themselves make the first 

commitment, create the plan, make their own investments, and 

then we match that. 

I think you will see in the policy that we are setting a quantitative target for the number of stunted kids. We will achieve reduction of child stunting country by country. It will be an integrated policy with our Feed the Future Program and our larger 

global health efforts, and it will be the operational plan that makes 

real last year’s commitment that I made on behalf of the Obama 

administration at the G8 Summit in London to commit nearly $1 

billion to nutrition-specific investments over the next 3 years. 

With respect to NTDs, we will provide a more detailed answer 

for the record, but I just want to note that under the Obama administration, we have scaled up significantly the private-sector 

drug contributions from a number of key partners as well as scaled 

up their contributions to do the community training of health workers and deployment of health workers. 

[The information referred to follows:]

Mr. SHAH. Our approach is now integrated with our child survival effort because there is so much overlap in the countries of 

greatest need. And I am confident that while we had to make some 

tough tradeoffs on certain budget lines, investing in the systemic 


87516b.eps
28

approach to child survival, bringing these drug donations into an 

integrative supply chain will help us effectively achieve those goals. 

We could have more detailed discussion offline. 

With respect to Ebola, we have been supporting the World 

Health Organization and the CDC in this effort. We are supporting 

them in the regional office in Brazzaville as well as in headquarters providing personal protective equipment to frontline workers so that they are protected from disease themselves, and providing emergency financial support as it is needed. I am glad that 

you raise it because it does have real and dire potential and we will 

continue to work on it. 

And on hydrocephalus, I look forward to working with you a bit 

more on that. I understand why it has been difficult and part of 

the difficulty is that we have been so laser-like focused on community health and efforts to reduce diseases that cause large scale 

mortality and morbidity that we haven’t had the resource flexibility 

given the extraordinarily tight budgets. But if there is something 

we can do to be helpful I would like to make that commitment to 

you, and I understand the data that you are citing and the commitment you have shown and I want to thank you for that. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go to Mr. Albio Sires of New Jersey, the 

ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would first like to associate myself with the words by my 

colleague Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and I won’t bore you with some of 

my experiences as a young boy. 

What I do want to talk a little bit about is this issue with the 

Tweeter, and I want to know if you still feel that USAID is still 

the appropriate vehicle to carry out these programs? And quite 

frankly, what are the potential negative effects on USAID’s programs going forward in Cuba and elsewhere? Because we have the 

issue of Venezuela, so——

Mr. SHAH. Well, maybe I could suggest three things. The first is, 

it is clear that this program which is directed and mandated by 

Congress and implemented within pretty tight direction, is a part 

of our portfolio of activities and I do want to have a conversation 

with Congress about how we are managing this, about what the 

long-term approach ought to be. 

I do take note that the GAO report that reviewed our management complimented us for making management improvements in 

how the program is executed, and I know that in countries all 

around the world standing up for democratic values, improved governance, anticorruption, open civil society, access to information, is 

critical to achieving a broad range of goals. That said, we are open 

to the dialogue you are suggesting and I would like to have that. 

I would also like to note right now that, because Alan Gross was 

raised earlier and I just want to be clear about something. Alan 

should be released by the government. He shouldn’t have been arrested in the first place. He should be freed and allowed to return 

to his family. He is a husband, a father. He is facing health issues. 

He has had a long career of providing support to vulnerable populations and the entire U.S. Government is working aggressively to 

secure his release. 

29

As you know, it is important for us as an administration to speak 

with one voice on this. And I and USAID will continue to work 

with the State Department and under its leadership as they lead 

the effort to secure his release on a diplomatic basis. 

Mr. SIRES. My last question is regarding Colombia. At a time 

when they are negotiating with the FARC, we seem to be cutting 

our assistance to Colombia. Do you feel that is a good message that 

we are sending? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, we are doing everything we can to maintain levels of support throughout the region and throughout the world in 

an environment where the budget is very, very tight. We have had 

a top-line reduction in the 150 account over all. We have had a reallocation of resources to make significant security investments and 

implement the findings of the review that was conducted on security for State and USAID personnel and that is creating significant 

pressures. We have less overseas contingency operation resources 

in the Fiscal Year 2015 request. So that is all creating downward 

pressure. 

In that context I think we are doing our best to prioritize Colombia. We recognize how important that is. I visited personally, met 

with the President, with leaders there in the private sector and 

civil society and we are embracing new partnerships. We launched 

a big new effort with Starbucks to reach 25,000 small scale coffee 

farmers and connect them to a high value market and these are 

specifically farmers in post-FARC affected communities to get the 

economy going in precisely those rural areas where we know that 

peace is tenuous and we want to make sure that it is sustained. 

So we are going to do our best, but this is a difficult year 

budgetwise overall, and I always hope Congress can provide greater resources for America’s foreign engagements around the world, 

because I believe these investments are the frontline of our own security, prosperity, and peace. 

Mr. SIRES. I am just concerned that Colombia has been such a 

staunch ally of ours and we have had success working together, 

that at a time when they are negotiating, we are cutting, and I 

don’t know that sends the right message. 

But thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Sires. 

We will go now to Mr. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Administrator, you are asking for $20 billion in your budget 

this year; is that right? 

Mr. SHAH. It is $20.1 billion. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. $20.1 billion. How much of that is disaster 

assistance and how much of that is, let’s say, long-term country 

building aid? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, sir, it depends a bit on how we count the accounts, and one of the things we have tried to do is use disaster 

assistance to support longer term systemic developments. In the 

Philippines, we got the energy system and water system back up 

and running within a few weeks and we did that using a combination of disaster funds and general assistance. 

30

But in general our humanitarian accounts are called IDA, International Disaster Assistance, Food for Peace and a number of other 

accounts and they probably total maybe $4 billion, $3 billion to $4 

billion in total, depending on which accounts you look at. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. 20 percent, 20 percent would be disaster assistance of what you are asking for in the budget? 

Mr. SHAH. I wouldn’t state it that way, but we could come back 

and be precise about the answers. But, yes, it is a portion of the 

$20 billion. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me just say that I believe that the American people are not stingy people and we have a heart for people 

who are suffering anywhere in the world, and certainly when people go through the natural disasters or even disasters that are 

caused by human action, lending a helping hand to get over that 

emergency is certainly something that none of us—and I think the 

American people would oppose, the American people would support—even though we are $500 billion in the red every year our 

overall budget. We are spending $500 billion more, so every cent that we are 

spending, much of that is borrowed money from somebody else in 

order to give it to somebody else. But for disaster assistance, that 

is understandable. 

Long term country building aid, however, at a time when we are 

borrowing this money to have our own economy survive doesn’t 

make as much sense to me or, I believe, to the American people 

and often it is done in a way that is just absolutely atrocious. And 

I would like to challenge one aspect of that today, and that is the 

money that we plan, and I see that the administration is planning 

to provide, at least you are requesting $882 million in aid for Pakistan, and let me just note that Pakistan arrested and is still holding and brutalizing Dr. Afridi, who helped us identify and locate 

Osama bin Ladin, who was responsibility for slaughtering 3,000 

Americans. 

I consider his arrest and his continued incarceration to be a hostile act by Pakistan against the United States, and I don’t see how 

anybody else could see it as anything else. But worse than that, we 

have, apparently since 9/11 we have given Pakistan over $25 billion, and of that, $17 billion have gone to Pakistan’s security services, which we know now have been in cahoots with terrorists who 

murder Americans, and even worse, perhaps, we have been providing these billions of dollars to Pakistan’s security services and 

they are using billions of dollars of military equipment that we 

have been giving them in order to conduct a genocidal campaign 

against the people of Balochistan and the Sindhis of Pakistan as 

well. 

How can we justify providing more aid for a country like Pakistan that is using our aid, our military aid to murder in great number the people of Balochistan and the repression of the Sindhi people? 

Mr. SHAH. Sir, let me just come back to our budget. You know, we have about $3 billion for natural disasters. The majority of the 

remainder is spent in child survival, HIV/AIDS and treatment for 

AIDS patients, food and hunger, including the President’s Feed the 

Future program, our education effort which specifically focuses on 

31

girls and getting girls basic education in early years, and water, 

and getting water to people who otherwise suffer without. 

And for each of those areas we have strategies, goals, metrics, we 

measure outcomes and I believe we can speak about the effectiveness both in terms of achieving those objectives and creating the 

basis of stability and opportunity so that we live in a more peaceful 

world because of this effort. 

With respect to Pakistan in particular——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. My only comment on that would be that we 

are borrowing the money from other people in order to achieve very 

fine objectives like that and perhaps in the past, we could afford 

to be benevolent toward other souls that are not in an emergency 

situation, but at least helping some people out. We could be benevolent and think borrowing the money is okay. Perhaps we have 

reached a point now that it threatens our whole economy. Pardon 

me for interrupting. 

Mr. SHAH. And with respect to Pakistan, the USAID program focuses in five sectors. In health, education, agriculture, a stabilization program in the Fatah that has built schools and community 

clinics and roads, infrastructure, and energy and electricity and in 

each of those areas, in energy we put 1300 megawatts on the grid. 

We believe that those efforts are helping to move communities toward a better perspective about how to engage in the world; are 

giving people who otherwise wouldn’t have opportunity, basic opportunity. 

And our goal, as is our goal for all of our efforts everywhere 

around the world is to succeed at having local capacity replace external assistance over time. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. While we are putting our money into those 

wonderful goals, they put their money into murdering their own 

people and helping terrorists kill American troops. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to, Mr. Ted Deutch of Florida, 

ranking member on the Subcommittee on the Middle East. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank Dr. Shah for being here today. Let me join my colleagues in commending you for the work that you have done to 

make USAID more efficient and more transparent over the years 

and the tremendous work that has been done promoting American 

interests around the world. 

United States gives foreign aid not because we like one country 

or another; we do it to ensure stability, equality, rule of law, food 

security, global health, all of the things that have a direct impact 

on our own security and I commend you for your efforts. 

I would like to follow up on the exchange that I had last year 

with Assistant Administrator Lindborg, who is doing fantastic work 

in an incredibly challenging region on the branding of USAID in 

Syria. At the time we were seeing a stream of press reports that 

the Syrian people have no idea that the United States is the largest provider of aid. There are reports that in U.N. refugee camps 

there were flags of other countries on the tents, on the blankets, 

but hardly any U.S. flags at all. 

I understand the risk that branding inside Syria places on aid 

workers and I am sensitive to that. But I do believe it is approVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:30 Jul 17, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\040914\87516 SHIRL
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priate in refugee camps. Ms. Lindborg gave us a number of instances of U.S. branding, including plastic sheeting, nutritional biscuits, and also discussed efforts to broadcast on Arab media into 

Syria. I wonder if you could give us an update on efforts to let the 

Syrian people know that we are there and that we are helping. 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you, sir and I think we tried to do our 

best to make sure that the work that we are doing, and the partners who are conducting this work, are appreciated for America’s 

generosity and for the results they are achieving. We have tried to 

balance that with some of the very specific risks that some of our 

partners, in particular, Syrian American doctors and medical facilities, face because we know that they have been targeted by the regime. 

So with that, a few examples would be as we are moving to providing these voucher and debit cards to refugee families who are 

registered in Jordan and Lebanon and Turkey, those are branded. 

I noted earlier for the chairman that Nancy Lindborg just sat with 

a group of women in Amman who said this represents our dignity 

in an environment where we have lost our homes, we have lost our 

husbands, we have lost our assets, our kids are not in school, and 

thank you to the American people. In other context——

Mr. DEUTCH. I am sorry; how are they branded? 

Mr. SHAH. They have a USAID brand on them, and ‘‘From the 

American People,’’ which is part of our branding efforts, which has 

been actually studied and is quite effective and sometimes is represented in both the local language and our own. 

Anytime we provide any sort of cash assistance or food items or 

nonfood items, like the plastic sheeting, those things are branded 

and identified. We have expanded over the last few years efforts to 

use broadcasting and other tools to help people see what we are 

doing, and also to learn what the needs are so that we are both 

projecting an American image that is more effective from a public 

diplomacy perspective and, frankly, gathering information that 

helps us improve our response, identify communities in need or 

changes in that context. 

And in general, I think it is now recognized that America provides a lot of critically needed and life saving humanitarian assistance in Syria and certainly in the communities I have been with 

in Amman, in Lebanon, in Turkey. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Great, I appreciate that. And I hope the issue that 

we heard about last time, that there are tents that clearly display 

flags of the other countries who are helping to a much less extent 

than the United States, that those will now include American flags 

as well. 

Let me move to one other issue in my remaining time. I want 

to commend the good work of the American Schools and Hospitals 

Abroad program which has helped American organizations start 

and maintain programs around the world. In the past few years 

the administration has usually recommended a level of around $15 

million in their budget. Congress is appropriated $23 million. The 

Fiscal Year 2015 budget request for this program has been reduced 

again and it would be helpful if you could just walk us through the 

reasoning for this continued reduction in what is a successful program, at least to my understanding. 

33

Mr. SHAH. Thank you. And, again, we really respect the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad effort. ASHA has since 1961 

provided almost $1 billion in health and education assistance to 

more than 300 organizations, continues to be a critical vehicle for 

us, and we hosted their international conference just a week or two 

ago here in Washington, DC. We know we reach more than 10,000 

students and health professionals every year with this effort. 

We have to make tough budget determinations, especially because of the dire humanitarian consequences of what is happening 

around the world right now and the downward pressure on the 

overall account that comes from both the budget agreement, the 

control levels, and the efforts to make the security investments to 

implement the PRB report. 

So this is one of those tough trade-offs. We recognize how important this effort is and I think these are important efforts. We just 

have had to make very, very difficult decisions. This is a program 

that I respect and value and I think over time we will absolutely 

sustain. 

Mr. DEUTCH. I thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I would just point out that, Doctor, I appreciate 

the trade-offs that have to be made, but I would just ask if when 

you consider the merits of this program relative to the relatively 

small investment that is being made in it, that that analysis ultimately be a determining factor as you go forward. 

And I yield back. Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We are going to Mr. Steve Chabot 

of Ohio, chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And as we continue to see government spending grow across the 

board, it is critical that we ensure that taxpayers are not being 

wasted on ineffective assistance programs or end up in the hands 

of corrupt governments or any other organization like that. 

So Administrator Shah, I have a few questions. In February I 

had the opportunity to visit the Philippines with Chairman Royce 

and a number of other members of this committee in order to assess the devastation which was caused by Typhoon Haiyan. While 

there we learned that USAID was using geo locators to track precisely where assistance is being delivered and by whom. It was indicated that these locators were being used in order to help reduce 

the overlap of aid. 

How effective has this method been in the typhoon-hit areas and 

at the same time, has this technology been used in other countries 

and if so where? What are the cost benefits of implementing this 

type of tracking method? 

Mr. SHAH. Thank you, sir. I don’t have the data to speak to the 

cost-benefit of that specific strategy at this point. But one of the efforts we’ve——

Mr. CHABOT. Could you provide that when it is available? 

Mr. SHAH. Absolutely. One of the things we have done over the 

last few years is really work hard to improve our coordination and 

our lead role in coordination with the U.N. and with a range of 

other partners. That is actually why I went out to co-chair with 

Secretary Hagel the ASEAN defense ministers’ ministerial and humanitarian assistance, because often coordination is about coordiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:30 Jul 17, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\040914\87516 SHIRL
34

nating with civilian and military actors, as we saw during Typhoon 

Haiyan. And this is one technology; we have used others as well 

to help make sure that we are kind of coordinated and swift and 

aggressive in how we respond to things, and that we have data 

back so that we know who is receiving aid and where there are 

pockets of need in the midst of a crisis where data is often difficult 

to come by. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, sir. If you could provide that cost-benefit information, I would appreciate that. 

[The information referred to follows:]


87516c.eps
35

Mr. CHABOT. My next question, the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee, 

which I have the honor to chair, did quite a bit of work regarding 

Cambodia last year in the run-up to elections which not surprisingly we believe were both rigged and overall unfair elections. 

At the time, I introduced legislation calling for more accountable 

foreign assistance for Cambodia. That legislation stated that if the 

elections were not deemed free or fair, Cambodia should be ineligible for direct U.S. assistance to support its military and police, 

and that the State Department and USAID should jointly reassess 

and reduce, if appropriate, assistance for Cambodia. 

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 contained restrictions on aid to Cambodia dealing with human rights situation 

which has not improved. 

Has USAID begun the process of reassessing assistance to Cambodia? And also would you please describe what U.S. assistance in 

Cambodia has actually achieved, in which areas aid has been least 

effective, and how have the actions of Hun Sen’s regime impacted 

the effectiveness of USAID and the foreign assistance from other 

countries as well?; if you know. 

Mr. SHAH. Thank you, sir. On the Asia-Pacific in general, this 

has been as part of the President’s direction to pivot to the region. 

We have, despite all the difficult trade-offs we have made, we have 

had modest increases in budgets through that region and in aggregate for Asia and the Pacific. 

With respect to Cambodia in particular, the strategic direction 

we have taken and we appreciate the guidance that you have provided, has been to increase support for democracy programs, for 

civil society, for efforts to improve governance. The Fiscal Year 

2015 request includes more than $12 million for democracy, governance, civil society, and transparency efforts inside of Cambodia. 

Mr. CHABOT. How much resistance from Hun Sen’s regime do 

you get on that sort of assistance? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, you know, we support civil society based on a 

set of principles that we believe, as part of partnering with America, we should be engaging with all parts of society and not exclusively just the government. These are open programs. They are notified as we have discussed and we get from time to time some degree of comment. But nevertheless we have support for civil society 

as one of our core values in our programs around the world. 

I will say with respect to effectiveness, these efforts have in the 

past directly engaged over 22,000 young Cambodians and indirectly 

reached tens of thousands more, and they do provide support for 

them to document what happened during elections, to mobilize 

young people, and stand up for a set of values about open society 

and we will continue to provide that support, should Congress provide the resources. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

My time is expired. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

We go to Mr. David Cicilline of Rhode Island. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Dr. Shah, for joining us today. And I want to begin 

by complimenting you on your powerful and very moving words at 

the national prayer breakfast. You obviously were not instructed to 

36

upstage your boss, but you did, and I thank you for that and thank 

you to you and your excellent team at USAID for the work that you 

are doing in particularly challenging times and often in the face of 

diminishing resources. 

We were also very proud to welcome you to Rhode Island and I 

want to thank you for your visit last year to Edesia, the producer 

of Plumpy’Nut and related nutritional products. And I am very 

pleased that you were able to see firsthand how Edesia is using innovations to treat and prevent malnutrition for the world’s most 

vulnerable children and creating good jobs in my home state to do 

it. 

And they are currently drawing up plans for a larger facility in 

Rhode Island that they hope can help them reach over 2 million 

children each year worldwide. And I know that they would welcome 

your return to Rhode Island to help them cut the ribbon in that 

facility next year. 

I want to acknowledge also USAID’s efforts to ensure inclusive 

development, especially for the protection of human rights of LGBT 

individuals, and I know that the recently appointed senior LBGT 

coordinator for USAID started 2 weeks ago and I look forward to 

hearing about the great things that you will do and I look forward 

to working with him. 

As you know, this is an especially important issue right now as 

Uganda and Nigeria have both recently passed severely discriminatory anti-LGBT laws which could significantly hamper our public 

health efforts. Just this past week there were press reports of a police raid on a U.S.-funded HIV project and reaching key communities is a critical component, obviously, to reducing the transmission of HIV and creating an AIDS-free generation worldwide. 

So I have three questions. Which I would like to go through 

quickly and then give you an opportunity to answer them. First is 

would you talk a little bit about what USAID is doing to ensure 

that LGBT individuals continue to have access to PEPFAR’s lifesaving interventions and medications, as well as other global 

health programs. 

Second, in 2010, USAID launched a procurement reform initiative that promised to increase the number of contract awards to 

small businesses NGOs, to streamline procurement processes, to 

provide more funds directly to host countries, and to ensure that 

the products being purchased are of the highest quality. Could you 

talk about the progress that has been made on these initiatives. 

And, finally, how does USAID work with intergovernmental organizations and NGOs worldwide to combat the horrific, very serious 

problem of gender-based violence, particularly against very young 

children and girls? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you, Congressman for your unwavering 

and incredible support. I love remembering what those employees 

at Edesia told me, which was upon learning that their work and 

their products were reaching families throughout Syria and helping 

women and children, they were just so proud to be part of America’s engagement in the world. And those are great new jobs in that 

community. So thank you for having me out there. 

With respect to Uganda, I very much appreciate your comments. 

These retrogressive laws that have been passed have a chilling efVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:30 Jul 17, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\040914\87516 SHIRL
37

fect on the LGBT community access to care and quite simply put, 

we are not able to achieve our goals of an AIDS-free generation if 

they are allowed to hamper the effort for our program beneficiaries 

to receive services in an environment that is safe, that is open, that 

respects their dignity, and that understands that this is a critical 

point of access to critically needed and lifesaving health care. 

So we are currently undergoing a review of all of our Uganda assistance programs and how to best engage. We have made some adaptations already to programs based on particular organizations 

and their behavior with respect to all of this. I have talked to my 

counterparts in the UK and other European capitals so we have a 

coordinated response that carries more effort, force as we talk 

through how we are going to deal with the consequences of this. 

But our commitment is to make sure that we are able to reach 

the LGBT community in Uganda with basic services for health and 

HIV/AIDS and that we are you know, working to, as Secretary 

Kerry has noted, you know, work to highlight how regressive and 

repressive this law is. 

With respect to small businesses and NGOs, you know I am 

proud to report that over 4 years we have nearly doubled our commitment to new partners, and NGOs in particular. The percentage 

of funds used to be 9 percent going to those partners and is now 

18 percent. 

With respect to small businesses, we get a score every year, a 

grade, and when I started it was an F, and then it went to an A, 

and came down to a B, and we are hopeful for another A. But I 

will knock on wood and not commit to that until the scoring comes 

out this year. The reason we pursue this effort is we believe that 

we should have a diversified base of partners, that all of our partners should have access to the opportunity to take this mission forward, and that small businesses, NGOs, civil society, often can add 

a lot of value at a very efficient price point and so we want to engage that community effectively. 

And finally on NGOs and gender-based violence, yeah, I was in 

eastern Congo a few months ago and the use of rape as a commonplace practice of conflict and war in that environment is just devastating. To interact with and to meet young girls and young boys 

who have been a part of this is just extraordinarily difficult. 

I am very proud of our teams that have not just had targeted 

gender-based violence programs to reach survivors and to protect 

them, to make sure they get fistula repair operations and other 

critically needed and specialized services and this is happening in 

difficult contexts. 

But also to look at the broad range of what we do on humanitarian efforts, on agriculture programs, on health programs, and 

ensure that we are focusing on reaching girls protecting girls, giving girls an opportunity. Because we know that in many parts of 

the world doing that will change the character and sufficiency and 

prosperity of society over time, and every bit of effort we can make, 

which while by definition is not enough, I think is an important 

manifestation of America’s values. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

38

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Judge Ted Poe, chairman of the 

Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Shah, it is good to see you again. Thank you for what you 

do. 

I want to talk about money, taxpayer money that is spent 

through the State Department specifically, then through USAID. 

When Americans think of foreign aid they think of all the money 

that the State Department spends, but there is a State Department 

budget and then there is that foreign assistance money that goes 

to foreign countries. But let’s start with the State Department and 

why so many, including me, people are frustrated about American 

money. 

The State Department, I understand, has an arts division that buys the art for its Embassies. This is a $1 million stack of bricks 

in my opinion, I know nothing about art, that is at the London Embassy that taxpayers spent. The State Department paid for it and 

we spent on ourselves at the London Embassy. It is $1 million, to 

me that is quite a bit of money. 

Recently the State Department has decided to purchase this 

camel and send it to Islamabad and put it in the American Embassy in Islamabad. This is about $400,000 and the State Department said, well, it could have been more, but we got a discount. 

We got the camel, the stack of bricks, I understand that is not foreign assistance but that is money that goes to the State Department and I am a little concerned that we would spend American 

money that way. 

If we want art in our Embassies, why don’t we get school kids 

to paint pictures that we could put it in all our Embassies throughout the world? I think school kids could do that, it would be better. 

Anyway. 

So, let’s narrow it down to foreign assistance. Recently the Associated Press has reported that the State Department cannot account for about $6 billion over a period of years. Some of that 

money is foreign assistance; some of it is not foreign assistance. It 

would be security assistance. But for the record I would like to put 

the Associated Press article into the record, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Without objection. 

Mr. POE. I am not sure where all the money came from, or what accounts, but it is $6 billion that the State Department says we 

just can’t find it, which is a little concerning as well. That is according to the report that the Office of Inspector General did in the 

State Department and that frustrates me as a Member of Congress. It frustrates the citizens too. Six billion dollars, we are talking about real money even for the Federal Government. Which 

leads me to the comment I would like to get from you. 

Accountability is to me very important. How we spend taxpayer 

money. Representative Connolly and myself have introduced legislation, the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act, which 

basically says when we give foreign assistance we need to be able 

to measure if it is working or not working. Programs that work, 

let’s maybe keep them. Programs that are not working, let’s get rid 

of them. And, as you know, many nongovernment organizations 

support the legislation. Even organizations that would sort of be 

39

audited by the State Department or by USAID support a review, 

an audit is what I call it, of foreign assistance overseas. 

I personally think that would bring some credibility to how we 

spend our money. Maybe we shouldn’t be buying art. I know that 

is not foreign assistance. You commented in the past on this specific piece of legislation. So from your point of view as the Administrator of USAID talking about specific foreign assistance, not talking about other State Department money, do you think if we eliminate the security portion of it and just evaluate at this time foreign 

assistance, security, that is a different issue, weigh in on that for 

me if you would and then I have one other question. 

Mr. SHAH. Well, sir, as we have discussed before, and I very 

much appreciate your comments on evaluation and monitoring, we 

have taken the precepts that underlie the legislation and actually 

implemented them. So over the last 4 years we have put out a new 

evaluation policy, we have trained 460 of our staff, we have increased the number of evaluations that we do and publish every 

year from about 73 to, in this last year, 234 and the quality of 

those evaluations which we now track and measure has also gone 

up significantly to be consistent with our new policy. 

Mr. POE. I am running out of time, Dr. Shah. Excuse me. And 

I have some questions that I will submit for the record and I know 

that you always respond, and I appreciate that. 

And one last question, if I may, Mr. Chairman. I understand that 

we give foreign assistance to Armenia and Belarus. Those two 

countries specifically voted against the United States in the U.N. 

They agreed with the basically invasion—in my opinion—of the 

Russians in the Crimea. Maybe we should reevaluate giving money 

to countries that support Russian invasion. Just a thought. 

And I will submit the questions, Mr. Chairman, for the record for 

Dr. Shah. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Dr. Ami Bera of California. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you Dr. Shah for your testimony. Good to see you 

here again. 

Also thank you for your leadership in transitioning USAID from 

just being a donor organization to one that is actually a capacity 

building organization. India is a good example of a country that we 

built capacity and now they can actually donate and help develop 

countries in Africa and other places. 

As has been mentioned before, you know when we look at our 

overall budget, we are spending less than 1 percent of the Federal 

budget on foreign aid so we should keep that in perspective. We 

also know that these are remarkably important investments that 

not only extend the goodwill of the American people globally, but 

also have dramatic impact on health and relief of human suffering 

and is a reflection of our values as Americans. 

I specifically want to focus in on the $8.1 billion USAID and 

State Department allocate for the global health program. In particular the $538 million in family planning and reproductive 

health. 

As you already mentioned, USAID has a major focus on maternal 

and child health in 24 countries where more than 70 percent of the 

maternal-child deaths occur. You know quoting another Senator, 

40

former Senate Bill Frist, he talked about family planning as being 

a key, often hidden engine for additional global health achievements. He also noted that when women space their pregnancies out 

by more than 3 years through the use of voluntary family planning, 

they are more likely to survive pregnancy and childbirth. Their 

children are more than twice as likely to survive infancy and as 

doctors, we also know that pregnancy spacing is incredibly important. 

Research has shown that addressing the current unmet need for 

modern contraception, if we were able to meet that need that we 

prevent 79,000 maternal deaths and over 1.1 million infant deaths. 

Now, from your perspective, how is USAID ensuring that we better support effective family planning tools to advance our shared 

goals of ending preventative child and maternal deaths. 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you, Congressman. Thank you for your 

leadership on these issues and global health in particular. 

We do have a significant proposed investment in family planning 

and voluntary family planning. This has been a part of America’s 

global health and foreign assistance legacy for now more than four 

decades and it has been extraordinarily successful in taking up the 

contraceptive prevalence rate and bringing down the total fertility 

rate in country after country. One of the biggest successes of the 

program is most of the programs transition to country ownership, 

management, funding, and implementation after that capacity is 

built, as you point out, over years. 

President Obama has been very committed to this issue, increasing budgets relative to the prior administration significantly and 

we have a very careful process to make sure that everything we do 

follows the very strict letters of the law. 

I think there are three things I would highlight as you point out. 

One is, this is one of the most effective ways to save women’s lives 

during child birth, and the most cost-effective way to do that. 

The second is we don’t achieve the end of preventable child death 

unless we make these investments. 

And the third is the demographic shift that comes with bringing 

down child death and bringing up voluntary family planning together, is what gives countries the capacity to be more stabilized 

from a population perspective and to then grow their economy. All 

of these things have been proven, which is why we have engaged 

in this administration with the private sector, with Australia, the 

UK, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to get others to 

do more with us in genuine partnership. 

Mr. BERA. Great, you know playing off of the hearing that we 

had last week about empowering girls and women and particularly 

on the education fronts, we know, as we are prone to say in our 

own country domestically, when women succeed, society succeeds. 

And in the remaining few seconds I would like you to comment on 

some of the strategies that USAID is engaging in. 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you, and I think we put out a new women 

and gender policy a few years ago. We now really take a pretty aggressive approach. We have a new gender coordinator coming on 

board and we have really restructured the way we do this work, 

so that we support the National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and 

Security and critically important in all of our major programs we 

41

try to measure whether the benefits of our efforts are reaching 

women. 

So in the Feed the Future program, which works to reach 7 million farm households, we actually measure whether the income improvements that come from better agricultural production on the 

farm are going to women? And the reason that is important is they 

do most of the work and you know that $1 of additional income 

with a woman in that context is far more effective at getting kids 

into school, reducing child death rates, and improving community 

development outcomes than if that same dollar goes to a male. 

So, by measuring and reporting on those trends we have actually 

helped to lead on this issue, not just for own foreign assistance but 

in the community of our partner country agencies. 

Mr. CHABOT [presiding]. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Kinzinger, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. KINZINGER. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. Administrator, thank you for being here and thank you for 

serving your country in a difficult capacity and a difficult time in 

world history, I believe. So I appreciate having you here. 

I want to touch on two different areas: Iraq and Afghanistan. 

When America withdrew its forces from Iraq after 2011, I think 

USAID and the State Department was kind of left scrambling. I 

will say I have been critical of the administration. I thought the 

withdraw from Iraq was probably one of the biggest blunders in a 

decade, in foreign policy. But that said, you were left with kind of 

a presence in which you had to figure out okay, with no U.S. troops 

here how are we going to go forward? 

It seems like since that kind of opening day, opening salvo of a 

no U.S. military presence, USAID and the State have been kind of 

scaling back its presence and figuring out the right size there. 

What lessons have we learned in Iraq that can be applied to Afghanistan as we are going ahead and looking at the post 2014, and 

what is the number one lesson that you plan to apply to that? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you. I think there are three. One is we 

have to review our programs continuously to ensure that they are 

sustainable, given the political context and the security situation 

and the underlying economics. A second is we have to protect our 

people. So we have to make sure we can get eyes on projects, that 

we are using third party monitors, that we are using in some cases 

satellite data to look at crop yields and other ways to track outcomes. But our people need to be able to evaluate programs and 

also be safe. And the third is the cost of operations goes up. 

So I would just say with respect to Iraq one of the things we very 

much focused on as we take down our presence and our investment, which we have done, is that we transition the responsibility 

of paying for programs to the Iraqis and there has been an extraordinarily successful set of transitions there where our major programs have been picked up and continued with Iraqi local resources. 

I think in Afghanistan, we are implementing those lessons and 

we recognize that for the 2 to 3 percent of the cost of the overall 

war that was USAID’s component of the investment, we have 8 

million kids in school, 3 million girls; we have the fastest reduction 

42

in child mortality, maternal death; the longest increase in human 

longevity anywhere in the world over the last decade; and the improvements in customs revenue collection at the border posts. All 

of those—sustaining those gains is critical to capturing the promise 

of peaceful and more secure Afghanistan for the future. So that is 

what our focus is right now. 

Mr. KINZINGER. I would like to say too that I recently visited 

South Waziristan and Pakistan and was able to see some of the 

USAID’s projects in terms of completion of dams, road building, 

and although there are huge problems in Pakistan and we all know 

this, and significant problems that the Pakistani Government 

needs to confront, we have seen some success. Whereas when you 

bring economic prosperity to the people and give them an opportunity to sell their fruits and goods, they turn away from terrorism 

and turn away from extremism and turn toward peace, and I think 

that is ultimately the key here. 

What is the current USAID footprint in Iraq and are your personnel presently able to go outside the wire and visit projects? And 

what do they do in terms of security and stuff like that and how 

would that apply to Afghanistan? 

Mr. SHAH. In Iraq, it is diminishing, and that is by design. The 

goal to transition the programs to local investment and ownership 

and we are on the path to do that successfully. In Afghanistan it 

is different because in Afghanistan we have large scale programs 

and investments. The Fiscal Year 2015 budget calls for sustaining 

at a slightly reduced level over historic terms those investments. 

And we are really working with the community of international 

partners according to something called the Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework so if the Afghan Government is making the 

right choices; free and fair elections, efforts to fight corruption, efforts to replace foreign assistance with revenues that are collected 

and transparently provided, we will continue to work with the 

international community to make sure they have the resources to 

sustain these important gains. 

And that is important for women and girls in Afghanistan. That 

is important for rural communities that have been part of the National Solidarity Program that has been evaluated by Harvard and 

MIT and proven to be successful, and it is important for continuing 

to build civil society and civilian capacity in the Afghan Government. 

So, we are encouraged by these efforts. We know it is going to 

be very, very tough and our people in that context as you know, 

sir, take tremendous risks every day to carry out that mission. 

Mr. KINZINGER. Yeah, and again, in my travel I have seen a lot 

of what your organization does in terms of helping to rescue women 

and girls who are in a situations that none of us could ever ponder. 

Stuff that you thought existed 100 years ago or 200 years ago, still 

exists in parts of the world today. 

So, again, thank you for your hard work. I know you know, we 

are going to look at the budget. We always do that in a very big 

way. But I think your organization is a force multiplier and helps 

us prevent going to war in many cases. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

43

The gentleman from the Commonwealth of Virginia Mr. Connolly 

is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And welcome, Mr. Shah. Can you bring us up to date? We asked 

questions the last time you were here about the relationship of 

USAID to sort of the proliferation of other USAID-like entities in 

the United States Government. 

The Millennium Challenge, the African AIDS Initiative, and so 

forth, all of which seem to have the effect of diluting the centrality 

of USAID as our lead development agency. That is of concern to a 

number of us on this committee. 

A concern I shared with you last time you were here, can you 

bring us up to date on how that is being coordinated and perhaps 

reassure us that that doesn’t in fact dilute USAID’s role as the lead 

development agency in the United States Government. 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you, sir. And thank you for your leadership on development and foreign assistance and how we project our 

values around the world. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Does that mean you are endorsing my aid reform 

bill? 

Mr. SHAH. We have talked about this and I value the underlying 

concepts of that bill. 

I will say that over the past, President Obama started his administration by issuing a policy directive and said that we were going 

to commit ourselves to rebuilding USAID to be the world’s premier 

development institution. Time will test whether we have done that, 

but I believe we are strongly on that path. 

We have rebuilt our policy, reclaimed and designed our budget. 

We take accountability for our decisions. We have shut down 34 

percent of all of our programs around the world to create the space 

to invest in food security and child survival and education and 

water in a more results oriented way, and did all of that during 

a period of relative budget neutrality. 

We measure and monitor our programs and we lead in many 

international fora including next week’s big global development 

conference in Mexico. Our ideas on a new model of development 

that bring private sector, civil society, public sector together to 

tackle really big challenges, are leading the sector in spades. 

So I feel confident that we have rebuilt USAID’s capabilities, including with your support the hiring of nearly 1,100 new staff that 

has given us all kinds of new technical capacity that is deployed 

around the world. 

With respect to MCC and PEPFAR, yes, we work in close partnership, and I feel that partnership is a lot better now than it was 

when I started and that is it true whether we are working in Liberia with MCC to figure out who does what and to get our timing 

and sequencing right. It is true whether we are assessing each other’s programs and sharing information and it is true with PEPFAR 

where we have a joint goal to create an AIDS-free generation and 

to bring science and technology to the front lines of that fight given 

that USAID implements about 60 percent of PEPFAR. 

So we are doing our best within the institutional constraints that 

are already defined and exist to ensure that that we operate as one 

team, we deliver one set of extraordinary results. We are clear 

44

about our leadership around the world and we project that. This 

is an important way for America and the Obama administration, 

as it was for the Bush administration before, to project leadership, 

to protect the world’s most vulnerable in extreme poverty. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I appreciate that and it sounds like everything 

is sunny in the neighborhood. But when you ask yourself what 

could go wrong, Mr. Shah, when you don’t have clear organizational lines of responsibility in the org chart, you know, maybe you 

and your colleagues get along just fine but maybe the next team 

won’t. 

And frankly, from the United States Government’s point of view 

it seems to me it ought not to be up to only the relational capacity 

of those who hold these jobs. There ought to be clear lines of responsibility and authority and who reports to whom. Now in some 

cases maybe a dotted-line responsibility is what we are going to 

have to settle for. 

I asked you a year ago whether you would meet with us and 

work with us on the reform bill that our former chairman, Howard 

Berman, and I had worked on. I haven’t heard anything from your 

agency. Not a word in a year and the intent of the legislation is 

to be helpful and to try to streamline and to remove the encrusted 

barnacles that have built up in 50 years and it seems to me not 

an unreasonable proposition that we actually need a new and a 

streamlined legislative framework for moving forward that takes 

cognizance of what you are doing and the changes in the world in 

the last half century. 

So I re-invite you to please come and sit down with us and go 

over that legislation so that we can move forward together. 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Would the chairman allow Mr. Shah to respond? 

Mr. CHABOT. Yes. 

Mr. SHAH. Let me just say I endorse the concept. We do need a 

new framework and I think enough has changed in how we all operate, especially embracing science and technology, private partnership, innovation, the world out there has changed dramatically. It 

used to be that our agencies were the bulk of investment going into 

poor countries. Now we are the minority of investment. 

So if we are not structured to partner well with the private sector with other sources of local revenue and resources, we won’t succeed in the mission to end extreme poverty to keep our country safe 

and secure and to that end, I will personally sit with you, I will 

be eager to do that. 

I know that my colleagues at MCC and PEPFAR would be eager 

to have that conversation and we are also realistic about the 

timelines it takes to produce long term outcomes on that basis. But 

we value your leadership and I and my colleagues will come and 

speak with you about it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I very much appreciate that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, the gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Holding, Number 2, is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HOLDING. Dr. Shah, your request for the Office of Transition 

Initiatives OTI, has around a 17-percent increase. I looked at OTI’s 

45

Web site and it states that their mission is to: ‘‘Help local partners 

advance peace and democracy in priority conflict prone countries. 

Seizing critical windows of opportunity, OTI works on the ground 

to provide fast, flexible, short-term assistance targeted at key transition needs.’’

Now, if you go to the State Department’s relatively new Bureau 

of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, CSO, it states that they: 

‘‘Offer rapid locally grounded conflict analysis in countries where 

massive violence or instability looms’’ and, ‘‘CSO helps develop 

prioritizes strategies to address high risk periods such as election 

or political transitions.’’ And CSO also: ‘‘Moves swiftly to mobilize 

resources and civil response mechanisms for conflicts revision and 

response.’’

The State Department’s Inspector General just last month issued 

from what I understand to be one of their most critical reports ever 

issued citing problems of mission management, staffing, accountability, and more, and most importantly in this report, it states 

that USAID’s Office of Transition Initiative has a mission statement almost identical to that of CSO and from a comparison of the 

Web sites of OTI and CSO, it appears that both organizations are 

currently working in Burma, Syria, Kenya, and Honduras. 

So, it would seem that there is a lot of overlap between these two 

offices, and even when we consider the fact that they both work in 

very difficult and unstable situations. So I am wondering if you 

could lay out the differences between OTI and CSO and help us determine whether there is a duplication of efforts going on here and 

if there is a duplication, what warrants that? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you, sir, and I would be happy to have 

my team also follow-up in more detail across the range of programs. 

If you just look at Syria, for example, OTI is helping to support 

the governance needs of some of the local coordinating councils 

under the SOC, the Sunni Opposition Council, and they provide 

support on an as-needed basis that is civilian support, efforts to 

help them stand up local governance. 

I saw this firsthand in Haiti where after the earthquake when 

the government was in a really difficult situation years ago, OTI 

helped the office of the President set up——

Mr. HOLDING. Sure. I appreciate the work that they do. 

Mr. SHAH. And those types of efforts are not very large and are 

time bound and play a unique role. 

In Syria, CSO does things in a coordinated manner but a different set of things, and I think they have worked hard to make 

sure that they are not duplicating but are coordinating. And in fact 

the USAID guy——

Mr. HOLDING. Are you in the process of doing, you know, any 

study, or interagency review to look for overlaps between the two 

organizations? Is that something going on, on an official basis? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, we will be launching soon, the QDDR, and that 

would be a vehicle for doing that. So I will look, and I know we 

did that last time, and during the QDDR, so——

Mr. HOLDING. Well, that is something that you commit to do, 

look for overlaps. 

Mr. SHAH. Yes. 

46

Mr. HOLDING. And one last question before I run out of time. Is 

USAID, do they have any programs currently going on in Russia? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, USAID left Russia and so, no, we don’t currently 

run programs in Russia. But our partners in the State Department 

continue to partner with, and engage with, a broad range of civil 

society in that context. But I can’t speak to the details of that. But 

I know USAID is not currently present there. 

Mr. HOLDING. All right, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman yields back. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Sherman, who is the ranking 

member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and 

Trade is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I focus a lot on national security, and there is no 

greater concern than Pakistan, and within Pakistan, I tend to focus 

on the Province of Sindh. In Sindh, especially rural areas, you have 

historically marginalized area of Pakistan. USAID has done a number of projects in the Sindh Province including building schools. I 

want to thank you for that effort. 

I want to push for more. I hope that—well, please provide for the 

record, a comprehensive list of your current projects in Sindh, either ongoing, or completed over the last year or two, and please include in that, a discussion of whether we can find women teachers 

to teach girls, whether there are enough qualified women teachers 

and whether they are being hired. 

The far area of Sindh, especially if you could comment about how 

we have dealt with the recent famine and drought there, and if 

Sindh is marginalized by Pakistan, the Hindus who live in Thar, 

are even more marginalized. 

According to human rights activists, the Hindus there, and then 

elsewhere in Sindh, live in fear of forced conversion or are being 

pushed off their land if they don’t convert. 

Is USAID and Pakistan cognizant of and sensitive to the ethnic 

and religious minorities of Pakistan and the vulnerable populations 

and do we focus our effort on those vulnerable populations? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, thank you, Congressman, and thank you for 

your support for our efforts in Pakistan and all around the world. 

I think the Sindh Pakistan program is a good example of what 

we can get done when we take a results-orient approach, and a few 

years ago we restructured our work there to focus on health, education, and power and in education as you noted. We are rehabilitating and building out 120 schools. Our target is to ensure that 

750,000 kids, mostly girls, are learning to read at grade level in 

early grades. We will conduct a performance testing of those kids 

to ensure that that is, in fact, the case. 

We have rehabilitated power plants such as the Jamshoro Power 

Plant and others and my team can followup with details, but that 

has helped produce 270 megawatts of energy at a time when that 

is the core constraint to growth and we have supported more than 

200 healthcare workers to provide basic healthcare services to 

25,000 women across 14 districts in Sindh. And that has been one 

of our most effective ways to help reduce child death and promote 

maternal survival during childbirth. So these programs when well 

run are effective. 

[The information referred to follows:]

47

Mr. SHAH. I am not as aware of our specific efforts in Thar, and 

with minority communities, so I appreciate your raising that. I will 

look into that specifically and ask our team to come back to you. 

[The information referred to follows:]


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Mr. SHERMAN. And I want to thank you for your responsiveness. 

I have been focused on Sindh for several years and to have an Administrator that up-to-date with everything—first of all, doing all 

of the good things, and then to have an Administrator that knowledgeable, is a good result. 

As to aid to Nagorno-Karabakh, I hope you provide for the record 

the aid that is being spent in Armenia, but also in NagornoKarabakh, for Fiscal Year 2014, and particularly, focus on what 

has been done to reduce land mine explosions, and provide clean 

water to villages. 

We have seen the tragedies in Syria. I know that Eliot Engel, our 

ranking member, has already focused on you trying to reach those 

very vulnerable populations. Obviously, Jordan and Lebanonhave 

absorbed the bulk of the international displaced persons, but a lot 

have gone to Armenia, and I wonder whether you were providing 


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aid through the Government of Armenia to handle the refugees 

that have gone there? 

And since my time is about to expire, I will ask you to respond 

to that for the record. 

[The information referred to follows:]

Mr. SHERMAN. I finally want to focus on the Javakheti region of 

Georgia. Over the last 20 years, we have provided over $1.5 billion 

of assistance to Georgia. One of the poorest regions of Georgia is 

Javakheti, and some 28 of us have signed a letter urging that with 

U.S. assistance to Georgia, at least a good percentage of that go to 

the Javakheti region, and I will add, since my time is expired. I 

will ask you to respond to that for the record, unless the chairman 

wants to indulge me. 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman’s time is expired, but you can respond to the record. 

Mr. SHAH. Sure. Well, on Javakheti we will continue funding 

with Fiscal Year 2015 funds for activities in those regions, and we 

can provide a more detailed response about the 10 specific programs that will be supported in that context. 

[The information referred to follows:]

Mr. CHABOT. On Nagorno-Karabakh, I just note that in the Fiscal Year 2015 budget the resources to support that effort are labeled in the Eurasia regional account. So our team will followup to 

make sure that it is clear how we are going to deploy those resources and the specific results. We have already achieved and exVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:30 Jul 17, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\040914\87516 SHIRL

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pect to achieve on demining and on potable water in particular, 

which have been areas of focus for that implementation. 

And we will just continue to work with your office, but thank you 

for raising those, and I think we have hopefully been responsive in 

the context of the prior dialogue. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

And the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Yoho is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. YOHO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Shah, I appreciate you for being here. You have got impressive credentials and I look forward to talking to you. 

You started with USAID at the end of 2009, is that correct? 

Mr. SHAH. Yes. 

Mr. YOHO. And so you have been there for quite a while. You 

have seen a lot of things and I am sure you know a lot of different 

things that we can do, and I commend you for streamlining the 

agency. When we can go back home, like you have heard a lot of 

members talk about giving foreign aid to other countries when we 

are kind of suffering here a little bit. 

The beginning of January 2013, there was the fiscal cliff. The 

world was going to end in America, then we had the sequestration, 

and then we had furloughs, and then, you know, people were being 

laid off in my district and then toward the end of September, beginning of October our Government shut down. And it was over money 

and certainly wasn’t from an excess of money, and we are in a tight 

budget constraint and what I see is, you know, the way we are 

spending this money—and I understand the concept, and create 

goodwill, bring economic development to some of these countries so 

hopefully they become our allies, but I see so many times that we 

do that, and it is like the movie Groundhog Day. It is the same 

story over, and over, and over. And we are not getting the results 

that we intended to. 

And I am just reading here an article that is in the New York 

Times about the $1 billion that was given to Afghanistan and the 

Special Inspector General said there is hundreds of millions of dollars that are unaccountable, or unaccounted for. 

Can you explain what happened to that? Because we talk about 

transparency, and accountability, but this is a recent thing that 

just happened. We don’t have that. How can we—I want to hear 

your thoughts on that, what happened to that and how we can prevent it. 

Mr. SHAH. Sure. Sir, I can’t speak to that specifically because I 

am not sure which pot of money that is referring to. 

[Additional information follows:]

53

Mr. SHAH. But let me just say about Afghanistan in general. The 

USAID component of the investment has been about 2 to 3 percent 

of the total cost of our global engagement in Afghanistan and for 

that 2 to 3 percent, we have helped to ensure that more than 8 million kids go to school, including more than 3 million girls compared 

to almost no girls before. 

We have helped to make sure that 65 percent or so of the population has basic access to health services, not comprehensive highorder healthcare, but vaccines, clean water, pills and things like 

that, and that has led to the fastest and most sustained reduction 


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in child death, maternal death, and a huge increase in longevity of 

women’s lives based on those programs. 

We have helped build out 2,200 kilometers of road with our military partners and with our international partners, and we have 

seen trade relationships blossom across the Pakistan-Afghan border. We have also improved, and this is very important, the Afghan 

collection of customs revenue transparently, and so that it goes 

back to the Kabul government so the government can pay for more 

of their country’s own needs themselves. 

You know, when I started we launched an effort called A3, the 

Accountability Assistance for Afghanistan. We tripled the number 

of people out reviewing projects and programs. We conducted reviews at the subgrant level. We implemented a system that allowed 

us to assess who is doing what, where resources are going, and we 

insisted on tighter monitoring. 

We conducted a sustainability review and stopped and took off 

the books projects that we didn’t think could sustain into a future 

where American presence was going to be significantly diminished. 

What we are left with, I believe, is a program that will hopefully 

be able to sustain some of the gains that have been experienced on 

behalf of the Afghan people. 

And frankly, when I look at what happened this past weekend, 

60 percent voter turnout, a higher percentage of women voting, Afghan institutions that we have been working with and supporting 

for years in the lead in terms of electoral complaints and conduct 

of the election and there is a lot to do before we can label this a 

success. 

Mr. YOHO. You know, time will tell on that. 

Mr. SHAH. Just 2 to 3 percent helps our country greatly, and I 

appreciate your efforts to advocate for it and support it and hold 

us to account. 

Mr. YOHO. Well, time will tell how well that turns out. But 

again, you know, in my own community, we have got over 500 

underperforming septic tanks and we can’t get them fixed because 

of money. I just met with somebody with disabilities, and they can’t 

get the service they need because of the lack of money. And I just, 

I guess what I am going to ask is that you let us know what we 

can do to help you be more effective, more efficient, to hold everything more accountable, so that when we do give money out we get 

the results we want, so that we are not here in a year talking 

about another $100 million being lost and we don’t know where it 

went to. 

I would love to see people in charge of that that we can come 

back to and say, Dr. Shah, you had this money last year, where did 

it go? Why is it not spent the way it was supposed to be so that 

we can bring an end to that kind of lost funds. 

And I appreciate you being here. Thank you. 

Mr. SHAH. Thank you. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Meadows, is recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Dr. Shah. I think I am your last hurrah here. But 

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ers who have taken notes, patiently been behind you supporting, 

thank you for all of your work as well. 

There are a number of people across the world that will never 

be able to tell you thank you, and so on behalf of them, I want to 

say thank you. As we start to look at priorities and that is really 

the subject of this hearing, there are a couple of areas that are 

troubling to me, and so I don’t want anything taken that is not 

being appreciative of your work. 

Global Fund, we have had Mark, the executive director here with 

Global Fund. I am a huge fan to see some of the work that he has 

done, the impact that it has done, and truly, some of the reforms 

that have been made to make sure that every dollar goes further. 

It appears that there is a little over $500 million requested for 

global climate change initiatives within your agency. Would you 

say that your agency is the best one to be implementing that, because it is not just your agency. It is a number of agencies throughout the Federal Government that have requested money for global 

climate change initiatives and yet, when you look at the core principle of what you do, that doesn’t seem to align with your core mission. Can you address that? 

Mr. SHAH. Sure. Well, thank you, and you know, first, I would 

ask that my team followup on the specific number, because that is 

a little high. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I think it is $506.3 million. 

Mr. SHAH. It might be lower, but we will follow up on that. 

[The information referred to follows:]

Mr. SHAH. But I do want to note, in this portfolio, are some efforts that are actually quite critical to our ability to be successful 

at ending extreme poverty. One is a component to support illegal 

deforestation and we work with companies, big consumer goods 

companies like Procter & Gamble, Unilever, to make sure that the 

supply chains they are supporting are not causing down at the 

farmer level in Indonesia and Colombia, large-scale deforestation. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So how do you coordinate that with the other 

agencies? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, that is an effort called the Tropical Forest Alliance where we lead the coordination. The White House is critical 

to bringing other agencies together, and we present one consistent 

interface to the major companies that are part of a group called the 

Consumer——

Mr. MEADOWS. So how much do you need for that particular program? 

Mr. SHAH. I am not——

Mr. MEADOWS. I guess my question is, whenever you get a pot 

of money——

Mr. SHAH. Yes. 


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Mr. MEADOWS [continuing]. And there is more than one person 

managing that pot of money, it becomes very difficult to manage 

it. 

Mr. SHAH. Yeah. 

[Additional information follows:]

Mr. MEADOWS. It is like giving your wife the same checkbook and 

never reconciling. You know, you spend out of the same checkbook 

and you never reconcile. So how are we reconciling that? 

Mr. SHAH. Well, so I think that there are different components 

of this that different people have responsibility for. So USAID 

takes responsibility for the Tropical Forest Alliance. For our resilience efforts we measure and monitor the risk of disasters coming 

from droughts, for example, and we can then track what the climate impacts are on our humanitarian portfolio, respond quicker 

and more coherently. 

We have a clean energy program that supports, you know, we 

have talked about some hydro projects in Pakistan and programs 

in Africa, that helped to provide off-grid renewable energy, so that 

I and other agencies do——

Mr. MEADOWS. And all of those are worthwhile. I don’t want to 

go on record to say that they are not. But we have people dying 

and people who, quite frankly, just don’t have food and yet, we are 

doing something that is way out in the future instead of meeting 

those individual needs right now and is that a top priority, or 

should that be even in the top 10 of your priorities in terms of the 

Nation? 

Mr. SHAH. Let me give you one example. You know, we work to 

create improved seeds in sub-Saharan Africa, in East Africa that 

can perform better in environments that are hotter——

Mr. MEADOWS. So that comes under global climate change initiatives? Because I thought that was in a different pot of money. 

Mr. SHAH. We do a lot of attribution here. So I think we have 

counted some of that work in the context of this, but we can go 

through a full portfolio. 

[Additional information follows:]


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Mr. MEADOWS. I have a real concern——

Mr. SHAH. Yeah. 

Mr. MEADOWS [continuing]. That your core mission has creeped 

over into one that might be better suited for a different agency. 

The other thing I would ask you, and I am running out of time, 

but I am very troubled with the amount of money that we give to 

the Palestinian Authority and yet, what that fungible money, you 

know, they are paying $46 million additional to terrorists and applauding their efforts as heroes. 

The minister of prisons said that these terrorists are heroes. I 

have, you know, it is hard to justify when we go back home that 

we are giving money, and yet they are taking part of their money 

to support terrorists and I need you, because part of the omnibus 

said that Secretary of State needs to certify that incitement and 

those things are not happening, and I need you all to address that. 

And I am out of time. I appreciate the patience of the chair. 

Mr. SHAH. Sir, can I just respond? 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman’s time is expired, but you can respond, yes. 

Mr. SHAH. I just want to point out that the mechanisms we use 

for support in that area are very, very precise. We have a vetting 

system that ensures we know who is receiving the resources at the 

endpoint of use, and the cash transfer to the Palestinian Authority 


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is actually done through—it enables the repayment of payments 

that are owed through an Israeli bank and it is structured very, 

very carefully. 

So I will have our team followup, but I can assure you on those 

that they have been carefully scrutinized, and they require the Secretary’s clearance as is appropriate, and we can show you exactly 

how the money moves that will offer you a lot of confidence. 

[The information referred to follows:]

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

We thank the Administrator for his time here this morning, and 

we look forward to following up on these critical issues. 

And if there is no further business to come before the committee, 

we are adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


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