Sam Batchelder ‘21
Staff Writer
Did you know that 736 million people live in extreme poverty? An estimated 2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation,one billion people live without electricity, and hundreds of millions more live with unreliable or expensive power.
These are just a few hard facts about the effect that poverty has across the world.
The Borgen Project is an advocacy organization that believes that leaders of the most powerful nation on earth should be doing more to address global poverty. They are the innovative, national campaign that is working to make poverty a focus of U.S. foreign policy.
The Borgen Project pushes for legislation and bills to be passed that can help aid others in need. One of the bills Borgen advocates for is the “Keeping Girls in School Act,”which urges Congress to empower girls around the globe and protect U.S. national security interests. They also work to influence spending through the International Affairs Budget, which funds world health issues like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, Malaria, and now, Coivid-19.
Also, in light of the coronavirus, the Borgen Project supports bills that urge relief for the pandemic. Covid-19 could push 265 million people to starvation by the end of 2020 and 500 million more people into poverty due to the economic fallout. More than half of the world’s population could be living in poverty in the wake of this virus, which is why it’s essential for U.S. leadership to combat the COVID-19 pandemic globally, and to protect the health, security, and economic interests of all Americans.
These are just a few examples of the kind of legislation Borgen backs up and fights for, and you can help by contacting your representatives and asking them to support the additional emergency supplemental resources for the International Affairs Budget to fight COVID-19.
To learn more about the other bills the Borgen Project supports, please visit BorgenProject.org.
