Fact sheet: U.S. assistance to Russia - Group of Seven G-7 1993 Economic Summit

US Department of State Dispatch, August 9, 1993

Overview

The U.S. assistance effort to Russia originated at the International Coordinating Conference in Washington, DC, in January 1992. At that time, the U.S. announced a program to deliver emergency humanitarian assistance and that it would participate in several working groups in an international assistance effort to combine humanitarian aid with technical assistance.

Since then, the assistance effort to Russia has been composed of three general categories--humanitarian assistance, technical assistance, and credit guarantees and economic agreements--each with different types of programs, and often having interrelationships that link humanitarian assistance to technical assistance. This interrelationship is exemplified in the health sector, where provision of equipment and supplies is considered to be humanitarian assistance and building reliable health sector practices is technical assistance. Agriculture and food system efforts have similar aspects: Provision of commodities and transportation are considered humanitarian assistance; support for private farming and other elements of a free market agricultural system is technical assistance.

This summary explains both types of assistance as well as government credits and other financial guarantees.

Humanitarian Assistance

Humanitarian assistance supports Russia's "social safety net" by providing basic, emergency commodities or support to stave off sickness, hunger, and threats to human life.

Government Assistance. Much of the U.S. Government's humanitarian assistance effort has been under Operation Provide Hope, which was officially launched in January 1992. Provide Hope was divided into three phases involving the delivery of Department of Defense (DOD) excess food, medicines, and medical supplies to Russia and other destinations using DOD transportation assets (including contracts with private shipping entities). Under the three phases of Operation Provide Hope, the U.S. has delivered an estimated $48.8 million worth of food and $32.9 million worth of medicines and medical supplies to Russia.

* The Emergency Medicines Initiative of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) draws upon a $10 million appropriation to purchase emergency medicines for the new independent states. For Russia, this fund has been used to purchase more than $16,000 worth of pharmaceuticals, primarily leukemia drugs, that were delivered to Khabarovsk in November 1992.

* Public Health Surveillance--The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been working with the Russian Ministry of Health departments and other organizations since October 1992 to study the availability of health care resources and to identify early warning indicators of disease. CDC sponsored a trip to Atlanta by Russian health officials in February 1993 to learn the principles of publications dealing with epidemiology.

* Food Assistance--Separate from the food deliveries made under Operation Provide Hope, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has three supply initiatives (see Commodity Credit Corporation credit program on page 16) to provide food assistance to Russia. USDA will provide $250 million in grant food aid to Russia in fiscal year (FY) 1993 for a variety of commodities including. rice, corn, baby food, wheat and wheat flour, whole dry milk, and peanuts and peanut products. The U.S. also has provided donations of corn ($29 million) and feed wheat ($18.1 million) to Russia this fiscal year.

In 1992, USDA provided Russia with 63,485 metric tons of commodities worth $52.5 million under the Food for Progress program, and 39,365 metric tons of food worth about $75 million under the Section 416 (b) program. (Transportation costs were included.)

* Special Commodities--Under separate programs, the U.S. Government purchased $13 million worth of dry whole milk and non-fat dry milk distributed by CARE USA in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Perm, and Yekaterinburg. A second program, authorized by an earmark in the Freedom for Russia and Emerging Eurasian Democracies (FREEDOM) Support Act, allows the U.S. to allocate about $10 million of the $30 million earmark to the Russian Far East for the purchase of nutritionally enriched food products for women and children. Deliveries should begin in the summer of 1993.

Private Sector Assistance. A second component of the U.S. humanitarian assistance effort has been donations by the private sector. Under the Medical Assistance Initiative (MAI)--originally called the Presidential Medical Initiative--the non-profit organization Project HOPE was authorized to solicit, collect, and distribute medicines and medical supplies within the new independent states. Since the announcement of this initiative in February 1991, Project HOPE has shipped about $54 million worth of medical items to 29 locations in Russia.

Working through non-profit contractors (Volunteers in Technical Assistance and the Fund for Democracy and Development), private voluntary organizations throughout the U.S. are able to have their donated humanitarian assistance items transported by DOD. In 1992, about 8,700 tons of food, medicines and medical supplies, and clothing were delivered to more than 48 locations in Russia. In January 1993, two airlifts to St. Petersburg of 113,000 pounds of medicines and medical supplies were valued at $6 million.