Appropriations Wrap-Up for FY2016

Advocacy is a lot like sowing seeds and then waiting for something good to sprout up. That was ever apparent after 11 months of work last year when the long awaited passage of the omnibus spending bill on December 18 reversed funding cuts proposed by the administration and even increased some poverty focused accounts RESULTS supports, none of which was guaranteed at the start of the year.  

The fiscal year 2016 (FY2016) seeds for success were planted starting back in February 2015 when RESULTS advocates responded in full force to ask members of Congress to increase funding for some of the most important global health and education accounts in the State and Foreign Operations (SFOPS) Appropriations bill. Through many constituent led in-district meetings, numerous letters, emails, and calls to foreign policy staffers, and even face-to-face meetings with members of Congress at the REAL Change mid-year retreat Hill Day, voices for RESULTS were heard by hundreds of offices on Capitol Hill. Because of your advocacy, more than ever before members of Congress signed on to “Dear Colleague” letters  and personally weighed in expressing their support for global health and education to the Chairs and Ranking Members of the SFOPS committee.  And that was all before spring break!

Because Congress has not resumed regular order for passing appropriations bills in years, all last summer there was a lot of waiting to see how your advocacy would pay off. The September update explained that while SFOPS bills had passed both House and Senate committees, a final budget deal was not reached and the process was again delayed. Then, after two Continuing Resolutions to keep the government running past the fiscal year deadline and weeks of intense negotiations, Congress finally passed the remaining FY16 appropriations bills in a joint package deal in their last week in session for the year.

After all those months of advocacy and waiting – RESULTS was fairly pleased with the final bill. While Congress did not fund every issue at our request level, we reversed a total of $495 million dollars in proposed cuts to poverty focused programs and increased funding for programs by $70 million dollars! This is definitely something good.

Account by account – check out the saves and wins at the end of the fiscal year 2016. Also, you can find an in depth read out of the entire International Affairs Budget on the USGLC blog. Now on to the next planting season!

Saves

• Tuberculosis funding received a 19 percent cut in the administration’s FY16 budget but was restored to the FY15 level of $236 million.
• Global Fund was cut to $1.1 billion by the administration’s budget and Congress restored the final funding to FY15 level of $1.35 billion, which keeps the U.S. in a leadership position as we enter a Global Fund replenishment year.
• Basic Education funding was again restored to $800 million.
• TOTAL restored: $495 million

Wins

• Increase of $25 million to the Global Partnership for Education. This increases the funding by 56 percent over FY15 levels.
• Increase of $35 million to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and to the overall Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Account. This maintains that Gavi’s increase to meet the $1 billion over 4 year pledge is not at the expense of other MCH programs.
• Increase of $10 million to Nutrition account over FY15 levels and $24 million over the President’s budget request! This big sign of bi-partisan support from Congress provides additional leverage for a bold pledge as the U.S. approaches the second Nutrition for Growth pledging conference in Rio Brazil in August 2016.
• TOTAL of $70 million more to these programs in FY16.