COVID-19 and Foreign Assistance: Issues for Congress

"As Congress considers policy responses to the global spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Members of Congress may consider the impact of the pandemic on U.S. foreign assistance agencies and programs, and explore the pandemic’s influence on U.S. foreign aid priorities. This analysis focuses on current pandemic-related personnel and program issues at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other U.S. foreign assistance agencies, and identifies potential concerns about the pandemic’s effect on U.S. global development strategies.

Personnel

On March 14, the State Department authorized the return to the United States of high-risk U.S. government personnel and family members from diplomatic or consular posts abroad. The impact of such departures varies by post. USAID maintains that all of its staff under Chief of Mission authority are following State Department guidance on authorized and ordered departure. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is also authorizing the departure from overseas posts on a limited basis. The Peace Corps, in contrast, has suspended all operations worldwide out of concern that disruptions in international air travel may make guaranteeing volunteer safety difficult. A worldwide volunteer evacuation is underway; post staff have not yet been evacuated..."
COVID-19 and foreign assistance

State Department Travel Alerts and Warnings

"We issue a Travel Warning when we want you to consider very carefully whether you should go to a country at all. Examples of reasons for issuing a Travel Warning might include unstable government, civil war, ongoing intense crime or violence, or frequent terrorist attacks. We want you to know the risks of traveling to these places and to strongly consider not going to them at all. Travel Warnings remain in place until the situation changes; some have been in effect for years..."
Travel warnings

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2016

"Promoting human rights and democratic governance is a core element of U.S. foreign policy. These values form an essential foundation of stable, secure, and functioning societies. Standing up for human rights and democracy is not just a moral imperative but is in the best interests of the United States in making the world more stable and secure. The 2016 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (The Human Rights Reports) demonstrate the United States’ unwavering commitment to advancing liberty, human dignity, and global prosperity.

This year marks the 41st year the Department of State has produced annual Human Rights Reports. The United States Congress mandated these reports to provide policymakers with a holistic and accurate accounting of human rights conditions in nearly 200 countries and territories worldwide, including all member states of the United Nations and any country receiving U.S. foreign assistance. The reports cover internationally recognized individual civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments..."
Human Rights Report

Foreign Relations of the United States

"The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. The series, which is produced by the Department of State's Office of the Historian, began in 1861 and now comprises more than 450 individual volumes. The volumes published over the last two decades increasingly contain declassified records from all the foreign affairs agencies.

Foreign Relations volumes contain documents from Presidential libraries, Departments of State and Defense, National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, Agency for International Development, and other foreign affairs agencies as well as the private papers of individuals involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy..."

Foreign relations