Who’s paying for Haiti?
The State Department and the White House are busily working on a new request for supplemental funding to cover the near and immediate term costs for Haiti relief. But in the meantime, other countries funded by the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance are feeling the pinch and being forced to accept big budget cuts. Consider ...
The State Department and the White House are busily working on a new request for supplemental funding to cover the near and immediate term costs for Haiti relief. But in the meantime, other countries funded by the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance are feeling the pinch and being forced to accept big budget cuts.
The State Department and the White House are busily working on a new request for supplemental funding to cover the near and immediate term costs for Haiti relief. But in the meantime, other countries funded by the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance are feeling the pinch and being forced to accept big budget cuts.
Consider this email sent to Somali teams working with OFDA funding that was sent to The Cable (emphasis added):
As a result of Haiti there have been some significant budget changes at OFDA that will have a major impact on the Somalia programs," it reads, "As you are probably well aware, OFDA is engaged in a multi-million dollar response in Haiti. As a result, we have had to make all available resources available for Haiti. What this means is that all regions within OFDA are being reduced by 40% resulting in subsequent reductions in planned programming at the country level."
State Department P.J. Crowley told The Cable that the redirection of funds from other countries’ accounts was necessary but would not have consequences on the ground unless there is a long delay in receiving supplemental funding, which he said is unlikely.
"This temporary movment of money from the Somalia account to the Haiti account is going to have no impact on the ground in Somalia," Crowley said, "assuming that the supplemental occurs expeditiously."
In an exclusive interview with The Cable, Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew said that although the administration couldn’t include Haiti funding in this week’s budget request because the crisis came too late, the administration plans to ask for more Haiti relief funding soon. "There will be additional requirements related to the Haiti earthquake," said Lew. "We’re working with OMB to come up with both the requirements and a strategy for meeting those needs."
A senior Democratic Senate aide told The Cable that the administration is "expeditiously" preparing a Haiti supplemental that will be separate from the regular and supplemental budget requests given to Congress this week, although no final decisions have been made.
In the meantime, "those places where they have existing or ongoing humanitarian issues are the ones that are having to slash their budgets," the Senate aide said, "That’s basically saying there’s a hierarchy of humanitarian assistance and Haiti is the most important … and the other places will have to make due at the moment."
"We’ve drawn down emergency funds substantially," Lew acknowledged.
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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