Foreign Assistance Reform Campaign

U.S. foreign assistance programs provide vital resources to people in developing countries worldwide. However, conflicting goals, lack of coordination, insufficient funding and an increasingly burdensome bureaucratic system limit the effectiveness of our aid dollars.

Through our Just Aid campaign, AJWS advocates for reform, calling on the U.S. to strengthen its foreign assistance policies to better alleviate poverty, empower local communities and advance human rights. To accomplish this, foreign aid must be country-owned and country-driven, with the active and meaningful participation of civil society, including its most marginalized members. U.S. development funding should be flexible and support local infrastructure to build a country’s capacity to respond to its own challenges. The Obama administration and Congress have begun the process of assessing our foreign aid system and making recommendations for reform, but progress remains slow.

At AJWS, we believe it is crucial to continue making our voices heard to ensure that U.S. foreign assistance is as effective and responsive as possible to the priorities and needs of those living in poverty around the world.

Download fast facts on advocating for foreign assistance reform.

Download our printable resource: A Justice-Based Vision for Foreign Assistance Reform.

Watch our Just Aid slidecast.

• Over fifty human rights and development organizations, including AJWS, sent a letter to Jack Lew, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, encouraging him to include the strongest possible funding for US global humanitarian response in the President’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2013.
• AJWS and other Sudan advocacy organizations signed a letter to members of the US Senate opposing funding cuts to the FY 2012 State Department, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations bill.
• AJWS endorsed a community statement that advocated for the Senate to maintain the support for international family planning and reproductive health in the FY 2012 State Department, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations bill.
• Working with a diverse group of organizations, AJWS called for language included in the FY 2012 State Department, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations bill to permanently protect international family planning providers from the Global Gag Rule.
• AJWS and more than 40 organizations wrote to President Obama urging him to support a robust International Affairs budget that includes clearly identified funding for gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and response globally.
• Over fifty human rights and development organizations, including AJWS, sent a letter to all members of Congress urging them to fund the Migration and Refugee Assistance, International Disaster Assistance and Title II Food Assistance accounts for Fiscal Year 2012.
• In a letter to Congress and an advertisement in Roll Call, AJWS and over 130 faith groups, development organizations, advocacy organizations and businesses working to end poverty and respond to emergencies around the world, advocated to prevent deep and disproportionate cuts to the fiscal year 2012 International Affairs Budget.
• As part of a coalition of people of conscience, AJWS wrote to President Obama, Vice President Biden and congressional leadership calling upon them to give moral priority to programs that protect the life and dignity of poor and vulnerable people.
• AJWS joined over 200 endorsers of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network in an open letter urging President Obama to reform U.S. foreign aid policy.

• Visit our Action Center and get involved.
The Jewish Petition for a Just Farm Bill




The U.S. is the largest donor of global food aid. But that generosity can have unintended—yet tragic—consequences for people in need around the world. Next year, when Congress debates the U.S. Farm Bill, we can reform food aid so that it helps turn back the tide of food insecurity. A better food aid system will save more lives. And we can make it happen.