From jrubinstein@igc.apc.org Mon Jan 12 16:43 EST 1998 Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 13:45:21 -0800 (PST) To: Sheila Goldner , Mark Coats , Kermit Rose From: Joel Rubinstein Subject: RESULTS Basics Sender: jrubinstein@igc.org RESULTS Global Basics 1996 Q. What is the purpose of RESULTS? The Purpose of RESULTS is to create the political will to end hunger, and to break through the thought "I don't make a difference" so that we can create the political will to end hunger. Q. What does the acronym RESULTS stand for? RESULTS : Responsibility for Ending Starvation Using Legislation, Trimtabbing, and Support. Q. Explain Trimtabbing. A trimtab is a small flap on the back of a rudder. On a large ship, you would find that the rudder is massive and hard to turn, so you turn the rudder by turning the trimtab. By analogy, to turn the ship of state, look for the points of leverage where a little effort makes a big difference. The usage "trimtabbing" was coined by R. Buckminster Fuller. Partner Agreements Q. What are the partner agreements? The Partner agreements are to: 1. Attend each national conference call , usually the second Saturday of each month , or listen to the tape of it. 1a. Participate with your group in speaking the issue and take the action, writing the letter. 2. Meet an additional time each month to plan and implement activities to move our members of Congress become leaders and spokespersons for ending hunger and poverty. 3. Be in regular communication with your group or team leader for the support you need to have projects go forward. 4. Contribute or raise at least $25 per year to cover the cost of membership. (Of course, many of us contribute much more.) Note: A member of RESULTS gets the quarterly Entry Point and the monthly Partner Idea Letter. A partner should also learn the RESULTS basics. A group should raise or contribute $60 per month. RESULTS, as distinguished from other groups. Q. What is the distinction between RESULTS' tax status and the tax status of most other groups working to end hunger and poverty? Hunger, poverty, and children's groups such as CARE, Save the Children, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, Children's Defense Fund, and others are non-profit, tax-deductible, with an IRS status of 501 (c) (3). If they spend more than 10% of their budget on lobbying, they lose tax-deductibility, and have an IRS status of 501 (c) (4). In this category are RESULTS and Bread for the World. These organizations spend virtually all of their budgets on lobbying. (Note: they each have non-lobbying, tax-deductible arms, the RESULTS Educational Fund and Bread for the World Institute respectively.) Issues What are the top two global goals of RESULTS? The top two global goals of RESULTS are to: 1. fulfill the year-2000 goals of the September 1990 World Summit for Children 2. reach 100 million families, especially the women of those families, with microcredit loans by 2005. Q. What are some of the major promises of World Summit for Children for the year 2000? . Cut child mortality by 1/3 . Cut maternal mortality in 1/2 . Cut child malnutrition in 1/2 . Universal access to safe drinking water . Universal access to sanitation facilities . Universal access to basic education . Universal access to family planning info and services Q. What are the numbers of daily preventable child deaths and the three leading causes, and the World Summit goal concerning this? . 35000 children die each day of preventable malnutrition and disease. . One of the goals of the World Summit for Children is to cut these deaths by 1/3 by 2000. . Almost 60% of these deaths are caused by 3 diseases: pneumonia, diarrheal diseases and measles. Q. How many children die each year of measles now and in the early 1980s; what are the immunization rates now and the early 1980s? About 1 million children die each year from measles. In the early 1980s the number was about 2.6 million. About 80% of the world's children are immunized now, and in the early 1980s it was about 25%. Note: the remaining 20% are the poorest and hardest to reach children. Q. How many lives does diarrheal disease take each year? Diarrheal disease claims the lives of about 3 million children each year. Q. How many of those are attributable to dehydration, and what technique can prevent these deaths? More than half of diarrheal disease deaths are caused by dehydration. Oral rehydration therapy (ORT) can avert most of these deaths. Q. How can ORT be made? ORT can be made by mixing 8 teaspoons of sugar, one teaspoon of salt, and one liter of boiled and cooled (or purified) water. Note: Alternatively, a foil packet of pre-mixed sugar and salt can be used instead of measuring the ingredients. Q. How much does ORT increase the body's ability to absorb the fluid? ORT increases the body's ability to absorb and retain fluid by 25 times. Q. How prevalent is ORT in the world, in 1980 and now? ORT is now used by about =BD of the families, up from 1% of the families in 1980. Q. How many lives are being saved now using ORT? ORT is saving 1 million children's lives each year. Pneumonia is now the world's biggest child killer. Q. How many children die of pneumonia each year? Pneumonia kills over three million children each year. Q. How could most of these lives be saved? Most of the pneumonia deaths could be averted if parents knew how to recognize the danger signs, and if community health workers were trained to diagnose pneumonia, and provide low-cost antibiotics. Microenterprise Q. How was the Grameen Bank founded? Muhammad Yunus got a PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee in 1971. He returned home to Bangladesh to become an economics professor at Chittagong University in Bangladesh. He discovered the elegant textbook theories had little relevance to the poverty in the villager near the campus, so he met with the villagers to learn their stories and learn economics from them. He met a woman, Sufia Khattun, who made bamboo stools. Her profit was $.02 per day. Each day she borrowed money from the trader, and purchased the materials from him, and at the end of the day she sold the stools to the trader. He dictated all the terms and set it up so that she made only $0.02 per day. Yunus asked, If you could sell the stools in the market, could you make more, and she said yes. So he lent her the money and her income rose to $1.25 per day. She was the first borrower in what would become the Grameen Bank. Q. How many borrowers does the Grameen Bank have? What portion are women? By January 1996, there were 2.1 million current borrowers of the Grameen Bank. 94% of the borrowers are women. All of the borrowers are destitute before they get their first loan. Q. What is the average loan size and repayment rate? The average loan is about $140 and the repayment rate is around 98%. Q. How much money does the Grameen Bank Lend in aggregate? The Grameen Bank lends about $1.5 million per day. Q. Explain Peer Lending, the solidarity groups of five borrowers. Grameen Bank lends only to people organized into groups of five women or five men, which act as a support group for each other. Usually the two poorest and neediest get their loans first. If they are on time with their payments for five weeks, the next two get their loans. If all four are on time with their payments for five more weeks, the fifth gets her loan. Q. Tell the story "Looking for the Most Timid" about how the Grameen Bank finds its first borrowers in a village to which the Grameen Bank is expanding. When the first Grameen Bank staff member comes to the village, they announce that they are looking for poor women to lend to. Usually, several women will come and say "I am poor and I could use a loan." The bank workers listen politely, but they take no action. Usually these women go away after awhile, when it seems that nothing is happening. After a few weeks, a bank worker starts looking for the first borrowers. She looks for the women who were too timid to come forward. She finds a woman in her hut, and says that the Grameen Bank is looking for poor women to lend to. The woman usually responds that they must have meant to speak with her husband. "No, we meant to speak with you," the bank worker replies. The woman then often says that she doesn't need or want any money. Coming from a desperately poor woman, this is a strong sign that the bank has found a borrower. Almost everything in her life that started out looking like good news has turned out bad, and she's learned from bitter experience to avoid becoming hopeful. The bank worker explains that many other women as poor as she have taken loans, started small businesses, and generated income to repay the loans and improve the quality of their lives. The prospective borrower finds the courage to seek out four others. They each decide what to do with the money, and learn the rules of the Grameen Bank. The Grameen Bank approves the loans. Soon comes the day that she will receive the money. The night before she gets her loan, she cannot sleep. She worries that her business will not succeed and she will not be able to repay. By morning, she has often decided to cancel her loan request. But the other four women encourage her to go through with it, and convince her that with their support, she will succeed. When she accepts the money, her hands are trembling. She's never seen $30 all in one place, let alone in her own hands. She takes the money and starts her business, and her life is changed forever. Q. What is the Foreign Aid budget, FY 1996? $12.1 billion Total Foreign Assistance FY 1996 $5.5 billion, Security and ESF $3.2 billion, Military assistance ($3.1 billion to Israel and Egypt) $2.3 billion, Economic Support Funds "Walking around money for State Department" ($2 billion to Israel and Egypt) $6.6 billion, Development $1.4 billion Multilateral (UN Agencies, World Bank, MDBs) $5.2 billion Bilateral and other $1.7 billion USAID bilateral aid $3.5 billion $1 billion, international trade promotion $0.5 billion, USAID operation expenses $1 billion Russia and Eastern Europe $1 billion other Q. What is the Funding Cycle? Jan or Feb. Pres submits budget to Congress. House and Senate Budget Committees set broad funding levels House and Senate Authorizing Committees set policy House International Relations Senate Foreign Relations House and Senate Appropriations Committee House & Senate Foreign Operations Subcommittees of Appropriations Fiscal year ends September 30 and new one starts Oct. 1. Q. How does a bill become law? . Bill is introduced by a member of the House or Senate. . Bill gets co-sponsors (both before & after it is introduced) . Bill gets assigned to committee . Committee holds hearings . Committee marks it up (offers amendments) . Committee reports bill to floor of House or Senate. . Bill goes to other house, if it's not already there. . After House and Senate have passed the bill(s), if they are not identical, they go to House-Senate conference to resolve the differences. Then, each house has to re-pass the conference bill, unless it is identical to the version they already passed. . Then it goes to the President. . If the President vetoes it, it goes back for possible override by a 2/3 vote of each body.