Current Priority Issues
In today’s interdependent world, the United States confronts extraordinary international political, security and humanitarian challenges, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to instability in regions confronting poverty and state failure. To exercise effective leadership and make progress on these issues, the United States must advance a vision for responsible U.S. global engagement that emphasizes international cooperation, affirms the strong connections between today’s most pressing global issues, and recognizes that progress on compelling global problems will require the active support of friends, allies and other major stakeholders in the international community. The United States will only gain such cooperation and support if it exercises power and influence in a manner that is widely perceived as legitimate, and that clearly demonstrates foresight and responsibility to future generations. This approach embodies principles that have marked U.S. foreign policy at its most effective.
The Connect U.S. Fund has identified four broad areas of focus for our grant-making and for much of our operational work in 2010-2011. We have focused on those issues in which significant progress demands a far greater degree of international cooperation, including U.S. engagement with and support of international institutions. The areas of program focus offer unique opportunities for NGO collaborations (both formal and informal) and, as a result, unusual potential for progress on key policy issues affecting the role of the United States in the world.
Human Rights
The Connect U.S. Fund is working to ensure continued U.S. commitment to multilateral engagement on international human rights through, for example, forward movement on several global human rights conventions and treaties, support for and reform of international human rights institutions and instruments, continued engagement with the U.N. Human Rights Council, actively cooperating with the International Criminal Court, and putting in place policies and systems that improve the capacity to prevent and respond to mass atrocities. We continue to facilitate collaboration among groups working to improve multilateral human rights policy.Security
The Connect U.S. Fund is focused on pressing for U.S. support for arms control treaties, a fissile material cut-off, and efforts to secure vulnerable nuclear materials. We engage with Congress, the Administration, and the public to translate commitments made towards these goals into concrete policy wins. Given the large number of groups that are involved in advocacy on these issues, our focus is close cooperation and policy prioritization among advocates for more effective advocacy.
Development
We work to develop collaborative efforts to encourage U.S. leadership in reshaping and reforming the international financial architecture; improving the transparency and accountability of associations like the G20; constructive U.S. engagement in, and support for reform of, IFIs like the International Monetary Fund, support for new proposals on trade, including trade preference reform; U.S. advocacy for new solutions on generating finance for development; and U.S. leadership on developing and implementing robust global regulatory standards.
We also work to ensure that civilian agencies have the funds, capacity, and knowledge to conduct development, stability operations, and diplomacy effectively, thus striking a better balance between the civilian and military responsibilities in these areas. Our primary strategies of interest have included addressing the imbalance in resources between military and civilian agencies engaged in diplomacy and development, as well as integrating defense and foreign assistance budgeting processes in order to create a more holistic vision of national security budgeting and protect foreign assistance budgets.
Climate Change
We promote a development perspective on climate change in the U.S. policy debate and build bridges between the development and environmental communities in support of an integrated approach. We are working to help advocates, Congress, and the Administration determine how the U.S. can help generate the resources necessary to address developing country concerns and bridge the gap between North and South that will be necessary for reaching an international agreement. This includes working with diverse actors, including the business and labor communities, to promote robust U.S. engagement in the various international fora dealing with climate change and to address some of the core obstacles to U.S. support for climate finance.