Oscar Fuentes's home was damaged and he lost the corn crop that his family counted on for survival when Hurricane Mitch hit El Salvador. A local nongovernmental organization supported in part by Lutheran World Relief helped Oscar and his family with emergency food, and helped him build a retaining wall to hold back future flooding. Photo by Jim Stipe.

Why is it important to invest in work and farming skills?

• Agriculture is the backbone of developing nations’ economies; the livelihood of 70 percent of the 1 billion people who live on less than $1 per day.
  
• Investments in agriculture, small and medium-sized enterprises and microfinance help stimulate broad-based economic growth.
  
• Many in the developing world are self-employed, with little or no access to such financial services as credit or bank loans. Microfinance extends small loans and other financial services to very poor people who use them for projects that generate income for nascent businesses.

How is the U.S. Government promoting work and farming skills?

• Over the last 20 years, U.S. microfinance assistance has reached over 3.5 million small business owners.
  
• According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, America has sent 2300 volunteers to 33 countries through the Farmer-to-Farmer Program, which helps farmers in developing countries increase productivity and improve distribution.

Progress has been made.

• As of 2002, 19.3 million of the poorest – 74 percent of them women – were being served by microfinance institutions.
  
• According to the World Bank, average crop production in developing countries has increased by 71 percent between 1961 and 2002 and average grain production has doubled.

But challenges remain.

• 1.2 billion people are living on less than $1 per day.
  
• According to the International Labor Organization, 186 billion people worldwide were unemployed in 2003.
  
• Increasing demand for food will profoundly shape the world’s future. In the next 20 years, according to USAID, farmers in developing countries must nearly double productivity to provide sufficient food for their growing populations.

Articles on Work and Farming Skills :

• Creating "Field of Dreams" in Sierra Leone, Christian Children's Fund
  
• Renewing a Tsunami Devastated Fishing Industry, American Refugee Committee and American Jewish World Service
  
• Promoting Business and The Environment: The Right Thing and The Smart Thing, The Trickle Up Program
  
• Microlending in Bolivia Breaking Cycle of Poverty, ACCION International
  
• Building Self-Sufficiency among Moldovan Farmers, Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs
  
• Malawian Farmers Unite To Find Power; Self-Sufficiency, ACDI/VOCA
  
• Teaching Business Skills; Self-Reliance to Mongolians, Mercy Corps
  
• Ukrainian Farmers 'Got Milk', Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs

Sam Daley Harris, Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign
"In the end, people don't want handouts. They want to do for themselves. People want to make their own ends meet. They are working somebody else's land or renting someone else's rickshaw. So when people can have the access that they have been traditionally denied by banks, they really want to work."

Jim Kolbe, Chairman of the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, in his opening statement on USAID appropriations - April 1, 2004
"Whether it is through basic education programs to provide opportunities for women; microenterprise programs to help generate jobs for the poor; agriculture programs to provide sustainable farming; health programs to protect against chronic diseases; or democracy programs to teach respect for the rule of law - all these programs are important components of the effort to provide hope for those less fortunate than us, and to help counter conditions that give rise to terrorism."

Under Secretary of State Al Larson at AGOA Hearing - March 25, 2004
"In Rwanda, two women are developing a cottage industry that now employs 225 women to produce colorful baskets woven from sisal and fabric-called "peace baskets"-for export to the United States under AGOA. The U.S. business partners in this venture are successfully marketing these high-quality handicrafts. . . . These women are will earn nearly twice Rwanda's average per capita income of $210 per year. It is small-scale efforts like this - multiplied across the continent of Africa-that will bring the large-scale economic development Africa so desperately needs."

Basic Education  |  Health Care  |  Work & Farming Skills  |  Reducing Hunger

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