Global Weekly Update February 8, 2010

Top Action: Appropriations Season is Underway — Contact Your Congressional Offices Today!

On February 1, the president released his fiscal year 2011 budget request to Congress. We’re still waiting for the administration to release funding requests for all our issues, and we’ll send out an update as soon as we have full information.

The budget release signals the beginning of our appropriations push, and now is the time to submit requests to our members of Congress. The February Action Sheet and the supporting Appropriations Requests Memo outline these requests.

Action: Determine the appropriations request process for your members! Make sure to reach the Navigating the Appropriations Process on the action sheet.

Tip: If you come across a roadblock — the office doesn’t seem to have a request form or thinks a deadline has past — don’t let that stop you from submitting our wish list memo (Word doc) to the key aide.

Remember: Follow up is key. Ask your reps and aides to let you know whether and when they included your submissions in their requests to the Appropriations Committee.

National Conference Call this Saturday!

The guest speaker is Ernie Loevinsohn, vice chair of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (and former chairman of the RESULTS board). Call in number: (888) 409-6709. Some items to think about for your group agenda this weekend:

• Write your action sheet letters before you go to your meeting.
• Determine your goals for each of your members of Congress.
• Where is your group on setting up face-to-face meetings for each member?
• What plans do we want to make for World TB Day? Do we want to submit an application for a mini-grant?
• Have we thanked our member if he/she signed on to the Haiti letter?
• Is our group plan completed and turned in?
• When is our second group meeting this month?
• What did we achieve in January so we can report it to our RC next week?

Will You Help Us Get 75 New Cosponsors for the Yunus Bill?

Our RCs set a goal to get 75 new cosponsors on the Yunus Bill by February 14. Will you help us? Have all the reps your group covers signed on? Can your each out to other reps in your state? Can you ask your rep to ask their colleagues to sign on? For help or ideas, please contact Lisa or Jen.

Impact of Awarding Prof. Yunus the Congressional Gold Medal

Presenting Prof. Yunus with the Congressional Gold Medal would help to:

• Raise public and congressional awareness of the power of microfinance to change lives;

• Build congressional and U.S. government support for this proven anti-poverty intervention;

• Send a strong signal to USAID and the World Bank that the U.S. is committed to microfinance for the very poor;

• Reinforce the message that microfinance is strongly supported by both political parties.

Read our fact sheet on the bill (including cosponsors) and take action today!

Update: January Congressional Staff Delegation to Bangladesh and India

In January, RESULTS Educational Fund organized an educational trip to Bangladesh and India for congressional staffers who work on global health and foreign affairs. The purpose of these educational trips is to provide congressional staff with a firsthand experience of the progress and challenges faced by developing countries trying to addressing these issues, as well as the impact of U.S. government support for these programs. Read more about the visit and how these countries are tackling TB and TB-HIV with the help of the U.S. and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.

We’re going to be a strong an advocate as we can be, but with 10 percent unemployment, urgent needs at home, a trillion-dollar budget deficit, and focus on creating jobs, there is no doubt that these factors make it a difficult political environment for expanding our foreign assistance and development budgets.

— Nita Lowey (D-NY), chair of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommitee, in Foreign Policy

February: Group Planning

February 11: 9 pm ET. Training Call: Engaging Your Community to Create the Political Will for a Global Fund for Education. Call in at (712) 432-3100, 887871

February 9–19: Congressional recess

February 13: Global Conference Call. 2:00 pm ET. Call in at (888) 409-6709

March 13: Global Conference Call. 2:00 pm ET. Call in at (888) 409-6709

March 24: World TB Day