Well, this is pretty cool – I’m in the top five for a $5,000 grant to support the Cycle for Security tour! Whoever gets the most votes wins, so please take 1 minute and vote for me! Just like with foreign aid and development funds, a little effort can go a long way.
The competition is sponsored by GOOD, in partnership with USAID’s FWD campaign, to raise awareness about what’s happening in the eastern Horn of Africa, where 13.3 million people are in crisis due to war, famine and disease. This man-made crisis is a tragic demonstration of what can happen when we don’t invest in the rest of the world. There’s plenty that we could have done to prevent it and there’s plenty we can do now to help. It’s not only the right thing to do, but it also makes us safer here at home.
Food security is one of the most basic human needs and a cause of significant volatility when it is not met. In 2008, when world food prices rose, food riots destabilized country after country, including Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. When governments face the anger of their own people and have to fight to maintain order, they have only limited ability or willingness to help America fight our terrorist threat, to provide useful intelligence, or to remain stable allies. Meanwhile, food insecurity provides terrorist groups with yet another area to take advantage offrustrations and distress and win support for their own causes. Violent groups from Hamas to the Taliban to Hezbollah all make a point of providing food for the poor, as one of the most visceral ways of buying affection. Improving food security in vulnerable places is one way development aid improves the kind of global stability U.S. national security requires.
But despite this, there are people out there who want to cut funding to aid programs that prevent food insecurity in places like the eastern Horn of Africa – even though they make up less than 1% of the federal budget. There’s never been a more critical time to protect these programs. By crossing the country on my bike, I hope to demonstrate that you don’t have to be an expert to help end the crisis in the eastern Horn of Africa and prevent others like it in the future – and give others the tools and inspiration to take action.
Please take a moment and vote for me and the Cycle for Security cross-country tour.
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