About the Author: Caroline Raclin is a Special Assistant in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) at the U.S. Department of State. She traveled with a joint State Department-USAID delegation to Turkey, Jordan, and Kuwait January 22-31, 2013.

It was near midnight. We were driving in the desert with no headlights, and Syria was 20 feet to my left. To the right was a mass of shapes — it took me a minute to realize I was looking at 850 Syrians who had just crossed safely into Jordan. One man was carrying designer luggage normally seen in airplane cabins; one girl had no shoes. I walked amongst these scared, war-numbed people, and it hit me that this was only a tiny portion of those leaving Syria.

Roughly 763,000 people have fled Syria — 240,000 to Jordan — and an estimated 2.5 million are displaced internally. Before that night, those numbers seemed horrific, but had little real meaning to me. They are round statistics, indicators of an escalating war. But after hearing a woman recall her husband’s death and a family describe their village being leveled by barrels of explosives, I better understood the scale… more »

Syrians Transition to Safety in Jordan

More: Responding in Times of Crisis — Syria

On January 27 and 28, 2013, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne C. Richard, and USAID Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance Nancy Lindborg visited Syrian refugees in Jordan. They visited the Zaatari refugee camp, a refugee processing center at a Syria-Jordan border crossing, and a food voucher distribution center.

The United States is committed to helping the innocent children, women, and… more »

U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford discusses his visit to Islahiye Refugee Camp and provides an update on the humanitarian situation in and around Syria during his travel to Ankara, Turkey, January 25, 2013. Read more about his trip here.

About the Author: Luke Forgerson serves as DipNote’s Managing Editor.

Our “Photo of the Week” comes to us from Laurens Vermeire, a public affairs colleague accompanying a State Department and USAID delegation to Turkey and Jordan. The delegation includes U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford; Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne Richard; and USAID Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, Nancy Lindborg.

The photograph shows the delegation’s visit to the Islahiye Refugee Camp for Syrians near the Syrian-Turkish border in Turkey on January 24, 2013. During the visit, the delegation members spent several hours talking with camp residents… more »

About the Author: Connie Tzioumis and Robert Haynie serve as Senior Advisors in the Office of the Secretary’s Global Partnerships Initiative.

Continuing our series on global partnerships, today’s entry highlights major achievements for diaspora engagement in 2012. We also spotlight a brand-new flagship — the culmination of three years of work — that is now being piloted in Brazil. Check out our infographic highlighting these partnerships, read more about our efforts, and share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

International Diaspora Engagement Alliance

In July, we co-hosted with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the second annual Secretary’s Global Diaspora Forum,… more »

About the Author: Robert Blake serves as Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs.

Rabia Mariam is a businesswoman who employs an all-women workforce to manufacture scarves and rugs from silk, cotton-silk blend, and wool in Mazar-e-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan. Working with the USAID IDEA-NEW program, she employs nearly 1,000 women — many of them widows. Many of these Afghan women raise silkworms at home and boil cocoons, and go to weaving centers to weave the scarves and other handicrafts. Rabia’s work is bringing economic opportunity and hope to Afghan women.

I had the privilege of meeting Rabia and learning about her work at the South Asia Women’s Entrepreneurship Symposium, which was held in Dhaka, Bangladesh last month. The event exemplifies several of our bureau’s highest priorities… more »

Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
January 8, 2013

The U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice program is offering rewards for information on two individuals involved in the January 1, 2008 murders of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) diplomat John Granville and USAID employee Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama.

The Department has authorized rewards of up to $5 million each for information leading to the capture of Abdelbasit Alhaj Alhasan Haj Hamad and Mohamed Makawi Ibrahim Mohamed, two of five individuals convicted in Sudan for the murders.

Granville, a U.S. citizen, and Abbas, a Sudanese national, were leaving a New Year’s Eve celebration in Khartoum, Sudan, when gunmen opened fire on their car, killing both of them. Granville worked on democracy and governance programs for USAID. He was credited with being the driving force behind the distribution of over 200,000 solar-powered radios used to inform citizens in remote areas of Sudan of their rights and responsibilities under the historic 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and subsequent 2010 national elecions. Abbas was born in Juba, now the capital of South Sudan, and began his USAID career in 2004 as one of the original members of the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team for Darfur. MORE

About the Author: Dr. Rajiv Shah serves as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and Todd Park serves as Assistant to the President and U.S. Chief Technology Officer.

A remarkable new tool is becoming increasingly available to help end extreme poverty and ensure dignity and opportunity for people around the world — a tool that few people think about when they consider how to bolster international development efforts. That tool is data, and in particular “open data” — data freely available in formats that are easy to use in new and innovative ways, while rigorously protecting privacy.

The possibilities are truly endless — it could be regional epidemiological statistics being made available to community health workers; or real-time weather information being made available to small-holder farmers; or loan information being made accessible to first-time borrowers. In these and countless other arenas, open data has the potential to not only improve transparency and coordination,… more »

About the Authors: Monjur Ahmed serves as Project Management Assistant for Communication in USAID/Bangladesh’s Office of Population, Health, Nutrition and Education, and Linda Quamar serves as Development Outreach and Communication Assistant in the USAID/Bangladesh Program Office.

Kajol, like many other young women from rural Bangladesh, came to Dhaka in search of employment. With the false promise of employment, she was abducted and forced into the sex trade. Later, Kajol came across one of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) HIV Prevention peer educators and was encouraged to leave her profession to pursue “a different life which would offer her acceptance and respect in the society.” Presently, Kajol works as a trainer for commercial sex workers (CSW) in USAID’s… more »

Dr. Rajiv Shah, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), travels to Turkey to discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria and assistance for those affected by the crisis, November 2012. A text transcript can be found at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/usaid/201164.htm.