At Hearing on USAID Budget, Senator Murray Discusses Importance of Our Investments in International Development—and of Urgently Getting More Aid into Gaza

Hearing

“I share the concerns of my colleagues that you heard about we are not doing enough to get more aid into Gaza. Air drops and sea routes are not going to solve this. So we have got to see consistent access across the entire Gaza Strip—including the north—at a scale necessary to address the serious threat of famine.

Chair Coons, several colleagues, and I just returned from a CODEL that I led to southern Africa, where we met with officials and leaders in a handful of countries, and saw firsthand how U.S. investments are strengthening our political, economic, and security partnerships.

And I’m very eager to talk about how we build on that progress—especially when it comes to economic and development assistance.

At this critical moment with a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza, civilians in Ukraine suffering from Putin’s brutal invasion, and so many other challenges—like the truly dire crisis in Sudan, where a staggering eight million people have been displaced—it is clear that we cannot abandon our role as a global leader in delivering humanitarian aid.

Across all these programs, we also need to continue to do better incorporating women and girls—who are often most at risk in times of conflict—into emergency response, development programming, and peacebuilding work.

And we need to keep building our global health infrastructure.

Let’s be clear: helping our partners around the world overcome hardships, increase their security and stability, and improve their economies and the lives of their people is not just the right thing to do—it is the smart thing to do. These are investments that pay off for our country.

We are helping our partners address threats across the world—like conflict, chaos, and contagion—before they fester and jeopardize folks here at home.

“So with that in mind, I’d like to turn to my first question.

On my recent trip to southern Africa, I was glad to see the progress we’ve made in improving the lives of women and girls. But we need to continue to do more to be responsive to their needs in every aspect of foreign assistance. …. How can we continue to ensure the needs of women and girls are accounted for in humanitarian response and development programming?”

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