Americans learn from others by helping them

By Hillary Rodham Clinton

It comes in a foil packet no larger than the palm of one's hand. But the simple mixture of salt and sugar has saved the lives of millions of children around the world.

I saw firsthand the miracle of this solution when I visited the International Center for Health and Population Research in Bangladesh last year. The center, which is partially supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is a pioneer in the use of the solution, called Oral Rehydration Therapy, to treat children suffering from serious cases of diarrhea.

Walking through rows of beds at the center, I was surprised to meet a doctor from Louisiana. He had traveled all the way to Bangladesh to learn how this inexpensive therapy could be used to treat patients in America. It costs just US$7 a day to administer the solution at home, compared to $800 a day for intravenous rehydration treatments in a hospital.

The program in Bangladesh is but one example of how American foreign aid supports efforts to promote health, education, economic self-sufficiency and democracy in nations around the world.

Although polls show that many Americans think foreign aid accounts fro as much as 20 percent of the federal budget, these expenditures actually amount to less than 1 percent. Not only does this small investment in the developing world strengthen our democratic interests overseas, we reap other benefits at home -- benefits we never anticipated.

Even here, in the world's richest, most prosperous nation, there are still thousands of families and children struggling with the same challenges their counterparts in developing countries face -- from diarrhea to illiteracy to low childhood immunization rates to infant mortality.

The debilitating problems of poverty know no borders. Solutions shouldn't, either.

A few years ago, Brian Atwood, the director of USAID, realized that our foreign aid efforts are not a one-way street. Just as we provide support and technical assistance for projects overseas, we can learn from simple and cost-effective innovations being devised in developing countries to improve economic and social conditions.

That's why he started Lessons Without Borders, a program that brings USAID's decades of experience working with poor communities on the other side of the globe home to our own cities and rural areas. This week, the first annual Lessons Without Borders conference took place at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and I had the change to speak there.

Baltimore was an appropriate place for students, faculty, citizens and development experts to join together for a discussion of what we can learn from the experiences of other countries.

Under Mayor Kurt Schmoke, the city became one of the first in America to adapt strategies based on successful programs in the developing world.

Aware that the city's childhood immunization rates were lower than those of many developing nations, Baltimore officials went to Nairobi to see why Kenya's immunization efforts were so successful. It was clear to them that they had not been doing a good enough job of educating parents at home about the importance of immunizations. So they followed Kenya's example, going door to door to encourage parents to bring their children to local immunization sites. As a result, Baltimore boosted its immunization rates from 62 percent to over 95 percent.

In my travels abroad, I've observed many creative approaches to addressing poverty that can enhance our efforts to help families in America. I've visited hospitals in the Philippines and Brazil that are developing innovative techniques to care for premature babies, to encourage breastfeeding, and to promote bonding between mothers and their newborns.

But creative approaches are not limited to health. One idea that got its start in the developing world is already flourishing in several cities in America. It's called "microlending" a fancy name for a very simple concept: community banks that offer modest loans for women to start small businesses in poor neighborhoods. For many women in American, access to traditional lines of credit is still very difficult to obtain.

Providing credit to small entrepreneurs who have a market in communities that other businesses shun is one of the best investments we can make to revitalize our inner cities and lift people out of poverty. While small loans have helped women in South America and South Asia start businesses raising milk cows, making fishnets or baking bread, modest loans in America can help women open child care centers, catering firms or word-processing businesses.

Lessons Without Borders helps us distinguish the good ideas from the totally impractical. Mostly, it enables people around the world to share their ideas, experiences and innovations in ways that benefits us all.

-- Creators Syndicate