[…] The USS Kearsarge is the primary facility for the Caribbean phase of the humanitarian mission Continuing Promise 2008, a collaboration of the United States, partner militaries and nonprofit groups. The ship's facilities include four operating rooms. Volunteer medical specialists with the Virginia-based nonprofit Operation Smile provide free reconstructive surgery to patients with cleft palates and cleft lips.

[…] During an August 20 visit to four internally displaced person (IDP) collective centers in northwest Tbilisi, the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) noted that nearly 90 percent of the residents of the largest site were women and children.

[…] The U.S. relief effort is part of a much larger international push by foreign governments and nongovernmental organizations to assist the estimated 100,000 people displaced by the conflict.
Aid has begun to flow into Georgia from the United Nations and the Baltic states and such countries as the United Kingdom, Norway, Turkey, Poland and Ukraine.

[…]A C-17 cargo plane from the U.S. military’s European Command will arrive in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi the evening of August 13 with medical supplies, according to the State Department’s acting deputy spokesman Robert Wood. A second C-17 flight will land in Tbilisi August 14 carrying 104,000 doses of antibiotics requested by the Georgian Ministry of Health. The value of these two C-17 shipments is approximately $1.28 million.

[…] The U.S. government and a humanitarian organization devoted to helping the Palestinian people have established a mechanism to channel private American donations into programs that benefit the Palestinians. A memorandum of understanding was signed August 1 in Washington by the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Henrietta Fore, and Ziad Asali, the founder and chairman of the American Charities for Palestine.

[…] USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore called for the Zimbabwean regime to "immediately and completely rescind the June 4 NGO suspension order" that blocked nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from providing humanitarian assistance. Zimbabwe's government ordered all humanitarian aid groups to suspend their operations, which relief agencies estimate will deprive 2 million people of food aid and other basic assistance.

[…] Ten Nicaraguan women established their forestry cooperative so they could earn enough to improve their families' lives. At first, their Co-Fochinorte tree nursery struggled, and the women had to take on other jobs. But then, in 2007, the nursery received a contract to supply trees under a commercial forestry project funded through the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation's five-year aid agreement with Nicaragua. The agreement aims to develop Nicaragua's rural economy.

[…] James Kunder, acting deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), told the subcommittee that the overriding principle that guides USAID in its far-reaching work is that human suffering should be addressed wherever it is found.
In the past five years alone, Kunder said, USAID has responded to 355 declared disasters in all regions of the world.
Many of these disasters largely go unnoticed by the rest of the world, he said.

[…] The African leaders are meeting with the G8 to review pledges made at the 2005 summit in Scotland. There they pledged to double aid to Africa by 2010, President Bush said July 2 while explaining his hopes for the U.S. agenda at the annual economic summit. "America is on track to meet our commitments," Bush said while taking reporters' questions at the White House. "And in Japan, I'll urge other leaders to fulfill their commitments as well."

[…] Those most affected by the current global food crisis are the poor, particularly in developing countries, international agencies and independent experts agree, and a large number of people for whom steep food prices spell disaster live in South Asia.
Rice, an important staple, is in short supply. The United Nations reported in June that Nepal, which imports much of its rice, has 2.5 million people in immediate need of assistance and 3.9 million more whose welfare may be compromised by rising prices.

[…] With funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), TfH provides pharmacists, doctors and other health workers with training to ensure they have both the knowledge and the supplies to offer quality family planning and reproductive health services. Training includes topics such as human physiology, the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods of contraception, and family planning counseling.

[…] The world is in the midst of an unprecedented food crisis, a situation that underscores the need for a transformation of African agriculture, a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) official told agribusiness conference attendees. To create real growth in African agriculture and feed the hungry, he said, investments must be made along the entire value chain of key food staples. USAID’s Franklin C. Moore, speaking June 26 at the 2008 U.S.-Africa Agribusiness Forum in Chicago, said that the current situation calls for more than “business as usual.”

[…] Most of Iraq’s internally displaced persons (IDPs) live in homes rather than refugee camps, says Denise Herbol, the deputy mission director in Iraq for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). “There are approximately 2.7 million displaced persons in Iraq,” Herbol told reporters during a June 27 press conference at the U.S. Department of State. “An estimated 80 percent of Iraqi IDPs live in rented housing or with host families while the remaining 20 percent have found shelter in public buildings or other informal settlements.”

[…] The USS Boxer returned home to San Diego on June 27 after a two-month humanitarian journey, visiting Guatemala, El Salvador and Peru to provide medical care and construction help to thousands of people in need. Volunteer medics, backed up by the ship’s military personnel, treated 24,000 patients in the three countries, dispensed nearly 40,000 prescriptions and taught 123 classes in preventive medicine and industrial hygiene. More than 2,800 livestock were treated by veterinarians traveling with the ship.