Contractors at the United States Agency for International Development have found themselves stuck in a nightmarish loop of filling out paperwork and answering questions related to parental leave requests.
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Also in this edition: Russia and Ukraine agree to extend the Black Sea grain deal, and Honduran farmers give us a hard look at the reality facing smallholder farmers around the world.
The devil in the details
Instead of spending the first few months of their child’s life incessantly cooing over every burp and gurgle or reminiscing about the last time they slept for more than 30 minutes, some new parents who are contractors at USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, or BHA, have found themselves ensnared in a “seemingly endless cycle of paperwork and bureaucratic minutiae” tied to their requests for paid parental leave, my colleague Michael Igoe reports.
Under a policy approved by agency chief Samantha Power last year, “personal services contractors” who have worked with the agency for at least 12 months can request up to 12 weeks of paid leave.
However, one new parent told Michael that they submitted paperwork 12 times over the course of nearly a year and were never granted approval. The contractor described exchanges with the humanitarian bureau’s contracts personnel that sound like a customer service call from hell during which they were repeatedly asked to provide information they’d already submitted.
“The language that [BHA] would use in reverting back about the changes that needed to be made I found was so curt and so painfully transactional and inconsiderate that I got so frustrated, I said, ‘I actually don’t want to do this anymore,’” the contractor — who later resigned — says.
A current USAID official added that instead of relieving stress for new parents, the new policy “has done the opposite.”
USAID: Parental leave policy buries humanitarian contractors in paperwork
+ You can read more of Michael’s reporting on USAID contractor concerns, BHA’s staffing issues, and the agency’s plan to address the problems.
It's a deal
The United Nations-backed Black Sea grain deal with Russia and Ukraine has been extended for another 120 days.
"I welcome the agreement by all parties to continue the Black Sea Grain Initiative to facilitate the safe navigation of export of grain, foodstuffs and fertilizers from Ukraine," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement today.
But even with the deal in place, prices have remained elevated compared to levels seen before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in part because the volume of exports still remains below what the world enjoyed as recently as February this year. Yesterday a U.N. source warned that they were concerned that failure to reach an agreement could result in scarcity.
"We are worried that the crisis of affordability that we are living through now will become a crisis of availability because of the high cost of fertilizer," particularly absent a deal, the source said.
Background reading: Inside the UN’s high-stakes deal to open Ukraine’s grain corridor
View from the ground
My colleague Teresa Welsh recently traveled to Honduras – one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries – where she interviewed smallholder farmers who have been grappling with unpredictable weather conditions.
Susana Turcios said her husband has struggled for years to grow beans and corn. After Hurricanes Eta and Iota hit in 2020, their crops were so damaged that the family didn’t have enough to eat that year, she said.
“Last year was also bad. There’s less water, and you wait, but nothing comes,” she said, referring to conditions in the region where she lives, known as the Dry Corridor.
Ten million people live in the Dry Corridor that stretches across parts of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. More than half of them are involved in agriculture. And an estimated 7.1 million are severely food insecure, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
In Honduras, the government has been ill-equipped to respond to the crisis. Instead, international organizations like the World Food Programme have had to step in to teach climate-adaptive agricultural practices to Honduran farmers.
Visual story: Honduran farmers at the mercy of climate change-induced droughts, floods
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Climate mindset
Speakers at last week’s Devex @ COP 27 event said they were heartened to see major global development donors like USAID begin to integrate climate into all of their funding, rather than keeping it siloed.
Eric Reading, chief climate officer at Abt Associates, said he’s seen an “explosion of interest” among clients such as the United States and Australian governments in integrating climate solutions. USAID has rapidly transitioned toward distributing more climate funding through existing resources, without receiving any new allocation from the U.S. Congress, he said.
*Side note* This siloed thinking about climate has also been an issue for philanthropic funders. Part of why climate change mitigation funding continues to hover below 2% of all global giving could be because it has been “siloed” in the minds of most grant-makers, according to a recent study from the Center for Effective Philanthropy.
Read: How climate finance is coming out of its silo (Pro)
+ Will COP 27 be a success for climate advocates or will key demands fall short? In the aftermath of the negotiations, join us for a Devex Pro Live event on Nov. 22 at 9 a.m. ET to assess the outcomes.
Roe’s ripple effects
The impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 law that provided national protection of abortion rights, last summer is starting to be seen around the globe. Anti-choice opposition has been emboldened in Kenya where recent abortion rights “wins” are being “dragged” back into court before they can be implemented, write International Planned Parenthood Federation’s Beth Schlachter and Caitlin Horrigan of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in an op-ed for Devex.
They write that church-sponsored, anti-choice movements have also emerged in India in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and are now filing a case in that country’s supreme court that would reverse the legal basis for Indian women to have access to abortions.
Opinion: Abortion care – we won’t let the opposition define us
In other news
The head of the International Rescue Committee says international donors should provide humanitarian funding to East Africa now instead of waiting for famine to be declared in the region, where tens of millions of people are going hungry. [VOA]
The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the first Ebola vaccine doses, targeting a rare strain of the virus, will arrive in Uganda next week. [AP News]
African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina says the right of African countries to use their natural gas reserves should be reflected in any deal at the 27th U.N. Climate Change Conference as the continent has 600 million people living in energy poverty. [Reuters]
Shabtai Gold contributed to this edition of Newswire.
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About the author
Stephanie Beasley@Steph_Beasley
Stephanie Beasley is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global philanthropy with a focus on regulations and policy. She is an alumna of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Oberlin College and has a background in Latin American studies. She previously covered transportation security at POLITICO.
