Some policymakers realized that the 30-percent budget cuts in the previous year for programs assisting the world s poor had gone too far. We continue to have friends on Capitol Hill who understand the value of our federally supported initiatives, such as a girls education project in Ethiopia, a USA-Germany high school student exchange program, and a project to provide skills to nongovernmental o rganizations taking root in the former Soviet Union. Leahy stated, We hear foreign aid referred to as charity, or as a luxury we can no longer afford. It is said that the American people don t support it. The reality is different.
Foreign aid has many constituencies.
In an increasingly competitive world, our security at home is more and more dependent on the much maligned, poorly understood, and seriously underfunded programs that are collectively referred to as foreign aid. Nevertheless, one of the central challenges faced by the international community is to find new advocates and to educate new members of Congress who have little foreign experience. Retiring Senators Bradley and Simon, for example, were great champions of international educational exchange. Others who traveled and gained expertise in the developing world, such as Senator Kassebaum in Africa, have also left the Hill without obvious successors. The nature of U.S. international engagement will depend highly on the attitudes and leadership of the Clinton Administration and its foreign policy team.