Devex: U.S. Senate foreign aid funding bill holds spending steady, leaves out COVID-19
“The Senate’s fiscal year 2021 state and foreign operations budget bill provides roughly the same amount of funding for aid as last year, though it has a couple of notable differences from the House of Representatives bill — including no emergency COVID-19 funding. The bill, released by the Senate Committee on Appropriations Tuesday, … [is] well above President Donald Trump’s request, which would have substantially cut the aid budget and about the same amount that the Senate proposed last year. The funding bill is good for the development community and perhaps even better than what some had expected given discussions earlier this year, one development advocate who asked for anonymity to speak freely, told Devex. Other development experts said that it demonstrates once again that Congress is willing to push back against proposed cuts, but also called for Congress to pass supplemental funding for global COVID-19 response…” (Saldinger, 11/11).