FORT KNOX, Kentucky — Voter edification is essential to a functioning democratic republic. The USGLC operates in Washington D.C. as an organization founded to educate the American voting public and policymakers. At its core, the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition goals include establishing “diplomacy and development” as major parts of U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy.
The USGLC is comprised of over 500 organizations including private businesses and nongovernmental organizations. Experts from all backgrounds and in all 50 states further the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition goals.
USGLC has two functioning arms with two fundamental missions — advocacy and education.
The U.S. Global Leadership Campaign acts as the advocacy branch, which supports the first of the two primary U.S. Global Leadership Coalition goals. They lobby their partnership organizations to raise awareness and influence political leaders. The FY 2016 budget consisted of a request for $50.3 billion to support Department of State and USAID funded programs — that’s about one percent of the federal budget.
Leading the advocacy arm are two co-chairs: Carolyn Miles and Sarah Thorn. Miles is the President and CEO of Save the Children, “an organization that gives children in the United States and around the world a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm.” Her counterpart, Thorn is the senior director of global government affairs at Wal-mart. The two co-chairs are representative of the advocacy arm’s NGO and business partnerships.
Why is increasing the budget important? USGLC highlights three main reasons: protecting national security, building economic prosperity and strengthening humanitarian values.
The second of the two U.S. Global Leadership Coalition goals focuses on education. The Center for US Global Leadership’s education arm “develops dynamic programs” targeted to “educate the American public and engage foreign policy and national security leaders about the importance of America’s civilian tools of development and diplomacy.”
The Honorable Dan Glickman leads the education arm and is the Chairman of the Board for the USGLC. Glickman is also the executive director of the Aspen Institute, which is an nonpartisan NGO committed to educating U.S. Congressional leaders. A former U.S. Congressman from Kansas and previous Secretary of Agriculture, he was also chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. in the late 2000s.
The education arm created ‘Impact 2016,’ a website devoted to “give you, the voter, a full understanding” of the presidential election and where each candidate stands on international issues.
Impact 2016 features articles from news sources, as well as synopses of speeches to highlight a politician’s stance on an international issue. One Huffington Post article actually pointed out many similarities between the Clinton and Trump campaigns regarding foreign policy.
On voting and democracy, the United Nations emphasizes the importance of voter education “for an election to be successful and democratic, voters must understand their rights and responsibilities, and must be sufficiently knowledgeable” to contribute in the intended way to the process of electing officials.
While ambitious, the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition goals seek to make the world a safer place with the United States leading international efforts.
– Tim Devine
Photo: Flickr