Cross-cutting Themes

Choose to Invest helps facilitate a greater understanding of how and why the U.S. government provides assistance to countries around the world.

To illustrate the relationship between foreign assistance activities and their interdependencies, InterAction has identified several cross-cutting themes of interest to the development and humanitarian community. This section provides an overview of those themes and a list of associated accounts demonstrating the linkages.

In many ways, the themes could be applied across almost all activities as part of regular good practice. For example, children and youth and gender considerations should be part of all programming. Climate change generates crises and affects the implementation of programs across a range of development and humanitarian activities. However, here, Choose to Invest provides examples where the activities directly compliment each other, reinforcing and improving outcomes.

To see how these themes play out across activities, Choose to Invest includes icons, which you can click for more information.

CHILDREN & YOUTH

Children and youth comprise almost half the world’s population and are the majority in many countries, yet can be an afterthought in funding and policy decisions. Global crises are disrupting the lives of young people and setting back decades of progress, even more so for those with underlying vulnerabilities due to their gender, disability, or socioeconomic status. Given the compounding global crises, issues affecting children and youth need additional focus on foreign assistance to ensure that young people are supported comprehensively and holistically as they grow.

CLIMATE

As the latest IPCC report shows, the global impacts of climate change on people, animals, and ecosystems continue to grow with every tenth of a degree of additional warming. Climate change continues to exacerbate inequality and poverty on a global scale and keeps development and human rights out of reach for many. If we fail to tackle climate change, an estimated 132 million people will slip back into extreme poverty by 2030. Even though the world’s most vulnerable are the least responsible for climate change, they have been the first and hardest hit by its impacts. Left unaddressed, nearly 200 million people could require international humanitarian assistance for climate-related disasters by 2050, almost twice the number of people in need of assistance today.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions at scale gets more challenging and expensive every year, and needs to adapt grow.

COUNTERING MALIGN FOREIGN INFLUENCE

U.S. bilateral and multilateral assistance can serve as an alternative to the “aid” given by authoritarian countries. U.S. investments provide economic and social safeguards for governments and communities that can be absent in aid provided directly from authoritarian regimes. The below accounts foster democratic resilience and improve accountability and transparency for citizens, thereby reducing countries’ long-term dependence on foreign assistance overall and mitigating against the malign authoritarian influence that often conditions aid with political favors, sows corruption, and negatively impacts the environment and violates human rights.

FOOD & AGRICULTURE

Global food insecurity has been on the rise and has worsened in recent years due to multiple crises stemming from the growing effects of climate change, the long-term impacts of the global pandemic, and rising socio-economic tensions. Currently, up to 205 million people are expected to face acute food insecurity and be in need of urgent assistance in 45 countries. U.S. investment in the accounts below has been crucial in alleviating global hunger, building resilience to shocks, and helping countries build stronger food systems.

GENDER

The Executive Order establishing the White House Gender Policy Council states that advancing gender equity and equality is “a strategic imperative that reduces poverty and promotes economic growth, increases access to education, improves health outcomes, advances political stability, and fosters democracy.” U.S. foreign assistance across the accounts below contribute to combating gender-based violence, fostering women’s economic empowerment, and supporting the ability of all people to live free, full lives.

WATER, SANITATION & HYGIENE

Clean, safe drinking water and access to sanitation are fundamental to preventing disease, yet 2.3 billion people still don’t have a place to wash their hands with water and soap at home. Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are foundational to development—WASH interventions improve health outcomes, advance education, and reduce poverty and malnutrition. The below accounts directly or indirectly support WASH programming.