Ideas for Change in America - Last Chance to Vote

by Michael Bear · 2008-12-30 10:33:00 UTC
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Just a quick one, that voting for Change.org's Ideas for Change in America will end Wednesday at midnight.  Ideas for Change aims to identify and create momentum around the best ideas for how the Obama Administration and Congress can turn the broad call for "change" into specific policies.

The top 3 vote-receiving ideas for each cause will qualify for the final round.  Final round voting begins on Monday, January 5 and ends on Thursday, January 15 - the top 10 rated ideas will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009 as the "Top 10 Ideas for America." (For more information, see here.)

Anyhows, wanted to highlight a few of the ideas under Humanitarian Relief, and - if you're so moved - urge you to vote:

1. The US should establish a Department of Development.  And yes, I'm definitely biased, as I posted this idea a while back:

"Today, more than 25 different US Government departments and agencies provide overseas aid, which means that our foreign assistance spending is at best chaotic and uncoordinated, if not often completely incoherent.  The most effective reform would be to establish a new cabinet-level Department of Development, with the power to coordinate US foreign assistance across and throughout the Government, while also implementing a long-term, global development strategy."

2. Stop differentiating between emergency relief funding and development funding.  As A.S., an international aid worker explains:

"Instead of dividing our foreign assistance money into separate accounts for emergency relief and development assistance, we should allow NGO partners to apply for funds from a flexible pool which would allow for programs which do both relief and development work."

3. Demilitarize humanitarian aid and increase civilian capacity.  As Charles London explains:

"Shifting more resources to civilian development agencies and supporting a non-military humanitarian response apparatus will go a long way toward preventing future failed states from becoming hotbeds of radicalism and will create much more long term solutions to global poverty and crises than a militarized humanitarian intervention can."

There are also a number of excellent ideas related to global poverty, including ending acute malnutrition and improving global child health.

Finally - because law school habits about disclosure never quite die - I should add that the project is nonpartisan, and invites all political points of view. It is not connected to the Obama campaign or the Obama Administration.

[Image from www.universaldeceit.com]

Michael Bear
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