FCNL Submits Written Testimony Supporting Peacebuilding in FY2026 Budget

Prepared for the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs

Bridget Moix, General Secretary, Friends Committee on National Legislation

Chairman Diaz-Balart, Ranking Member Frankel, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of robust funding for accounts that help prevent mass atrocities and violent conflict, support urgent humanitarian needs, and strengthen resilience globally at the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Fiscal Year 2026 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations bill. I urge Congress to reject reckless cuts to U.S. foreign assistance and the dismantling of vital agencies and expertise that the administration has undertaken without legal grounding or congressional approval. More specifically, we urge you to continue investing in critical funding programs that address the urgent crises facing our country and world today. For FY26, we urge you to invest $25 million for Atrocities Prevention, $50 million for Reconciliation Programs and $270 million for Adaptation programs. Congress has a critical role to play as an independent branch of government entrusted by the Constitution with the power of the purse, and we urge you to uphold your role and your responsibility to the American people and the long-standing bipartisan support for funding an effective U.S. leadership role in the world.

The full list of FCNL’s FY26 SFOPs priorities has been included in the chart at the end of my testimony.

Founded in 1943 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the Friends Committee on National Legislation is a national, nonpartisan Quaker organization that advocates for policies informed by our faith, morality, and belief that there is that of God in every person and that all creation has worth and dignity.[i] For more than 80 years, guided by the Religious Society of Friends’ historic Peace Testimony[ii] and the voices of hundreds of Quaker meetings across the country, FCNL has continually advocated for a world free of war and the threat of war, a society with equity and justice for all, a community where every individual’s potential may be fulfilled, and an earth restored.

Violence, climate shocks, and forced displacement are some of the most significant challenges faced by the world today–and the United States cannot address them through spending cuts, program closures, or the dismantling of critical agencies. In my testimony today, I will urge you to invest deeply in the tools needed to prevent, mitigate, and respond to these crises. The programs and accounts outlined below are cost-effective, proven approaches that Congress has supported and invested in for many years to confront these challenges.

I am alarmed and deeply concerned about the drastic and far-reaching cuts to foreign assistance programs and funding undertaken by the current administration. Cutting programs, staff, and agencies will not make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous. It will not improve oversight, transparency, or efficiency. It will not save taxpayer dollars. Indeed, it is already costing human lives, undermining U.S. leadership, and destroying good will toward the American people around the world. It is making America and the world less safe, weaker, and less prosperous.

Foreign assistance programs provide food, medical aid, and shelter to millions at their most vulnerable. After only two months, experts estimate that there have been over 28,700 adult and over 3,000 child preventable deaths from HIV/AIDS due to freezes and terminations of USAID-funded PEPFAR programs.[iii] Additionally, just two months into freezes and terminations of USAID funded tuberculosis programs, experts estimate there have been more than 11,000 preventable deaths with a 28-32% increase in infections globally this year.[iv] These programs support education, livelihoods, and economic development lifting millions out of poverty and increasing opportunities for U.S. trade. They prevent violent conflict and the human suffering wrought by it, reducing instability and forced displacement. The staff and agencies provide crucial oversight of taxpayer dollars, ensuring U.S. foreign assistance funds are invested effectively and efficiently and are not diverted.

Investing in foreign assistance saves the United States in blood and treasure. For example, investing in peacebuilding and conflict prevention not only eases human suffering caused by war and violence but also supports long-term stability, mitigating future needs for high-cost, reactive emergency humanitarian spending and the potential for U.S. involvement in foreign wars. The cost effectiveness of peacebuilding and conflict prevention is exceptional – every dollar invested in preventing violent conflict saves $26-$103 on the cost of conflict according to the International Monetary Fund.[v] Additionally, as the rate and scale of climate-related disasters increases – from extreme weather events to rising sea levels – U.S. investment in climate resilience is essential to prevent instability and humanitarian crises. Research shows that every dollar invested in climate resilience and disaster preparedness saves three dollars in future humanitarian assistance.[vi]

These efforts are more crucial than ever. Globally, we have seen that contemporary violent conflicts inflict disproportionate harm on civilians through the deployment of indiscriminate weapons such as banned cluster munitions, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, conflict-related sexual violence, and systematic targeted attacks against ethnic, racial, and religious groups. The United States can and must do more to prevent, mitigate, and respond to violent conflict.

I was starkly reminded of the consequences of inaction this March, when I was invited to teach at the 2025 Global Raphael Lemkin Seminar for Genocide Prevention hosted by the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities (AIPG) in partnership with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. In touring the Auschwitz memorial and museum, I was confronted with a harrowing chapter in human history that should remind us all of what can occur when we turn a blind eye to the early warnings of violence and allow the dehumanization of whole groups of people. The cost of ignoring spreading hate and violence is all of our humanity.

Failing to invest in peacebuilding, violence prevention, and resilience is too costly a choice, in dollars and in lives. When the United States waits until the seeds of violence bear fruit, its available tools are fewer, more expensive, and less effective. The United States is left with triaging expensive but often preventable humanitarian crises while too frequently deploying securitized approaches that aim to enforce order rather than ensure justice and can exacerbate instability in the long run.

Tragically, mass violence against civilians is already occurring in many places around the world. The State Department’s January 2025 determination that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan[vii] is a stark call for us all to do more to prevent such mass atrocities. The United States has been a global leader in atrocities prevention policy. In 2011, the United States was the first nation to establish an interagency body dedicated to atrocities prevention; in 2019, it was the first to enact a federal law mandating reporting on government-led atrocity prevention efforts (the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act P.L. 115-441); and in 2022, it was the first to release a public strategy for atrocities prevention. I urge you now to uphold this legacy and to continue to invest in this work.

Atrocities Prevention funding is an essential tool for the United States to ensure the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, of which Secretary of State Marco Rubio was an original co-sponsor and which was signed into law by President Donald Trump in his first term, moves from policy to action. Since FY23, Congress has appropriated just $6 million annually for Atrocities Prevention. As the State Department’s only funding dedicated solely to the prevention of mass atrocities and genocide, $6 million cannot match the global need. We urge Congress to match its financial support for atrocities prevention to this legacy of global leadership. We greatly appreciate the inclusion of $6 million for Atrocities Prevention in previous appropriations, and we hope the Committee will act to increase this critical funding. I urge you to appropriate at least $25 million for Atrocities Prevention.

Additionally, the first crucial step in prevention is recognition of the early warning signs and risk factors. To ensure U.S. policy and funding is most effectively and efficiently implemented, our diplomatic and development professionals assigned to countries experiencing or at risk of mass atrocities must receive training on recognizing and responding to these early warning signs, as mandated in the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act. As such, I urge you to make available $500,000 for the State Department to conduct Atrocities Prevention Training for Foreign Service Officers.

Further, one of the most important means of preventing future outbreaks of violence is addressing past instances of violence. Reconciliation Programs, previously managed by USAID’s Center for Conflict and Violence Prevention, has facilitated people-to-people dialogue in countries undergoing and recovering from conflict for over two decades. Reconciliation Programs has enabled different ethnic, religious, and political groups to come together to engage in non-violent conflict resolution, reconcile differences, and work towards common goals. With small grants, often less than $5 million, these programs seek to break cycles of violence and trauma that fuel conflict, marginalization, and oppression. The people-to-people approach directly engages groups to cooperatively address the root causes of conflict and repair social bonds.

A 2019 meta-evaluation of the reconciliation approach to peacebuilding found that such an approach can have a significant impact on the attitudes and behavior of participants, increasing mutual trust and conflict resolution skills, while decreasing acts of violence and feelings of exclusion and isolation.[viii] The meta-evaluation also found that reconciliation programs can improve community leaders’ confidence and capacity to intervene in and mediate conflicts affecting their communities. To help break cycles of violent conflict and strengthen communities’ resilience to the compounding crises of malign actors, migration, extreme weather shocks, and food insecurity, we urge not less than $50 million be appropriated to Reconciliation Programs.

Perhaps one of the most successful resilience-building tools available to the federal government lies within funding for the Adaptation program, historically implemented by USAID. Adaptation funding assists developing countries with reducing their vulnerability to extreme weather events made increasingly common by climate change. These events drive increased hunger, intensified conflict, forced migration, and poverty. From floods to droughts to extreme heat to rising sea levels, slow- and rapid-onset climate impacts are disproportionately impacting developing countries and those who have done the absolute least to contribute to climate change in the first place. Examples of adaptation funding include weather monitoring, early warning systems and the planting of drought-resistant crops in the Horn of Africa. By investing in USAID’s Adaptation account, you are investing in true U.S. global leadership to counter the challenges faced by our most vulnerable neighbors from extreme weather. I urge you to appropriate at least $270 million for Adaptation.

Advancing nonviolent ways of resolving conflict and strengthening resilience is a moral, strategic, and financial imperative. It will make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous. We urge Congress to reject the cuts to programs, staff, and agencies made by the administration and to continue your legacy of robust bipartisan investment in foreign assistance to lay the foundations for peace in all its forms.

Chairman Diaz-Balart, Ranking Member Frankel, and Members of the Committee, I thank you for the opportunity to testify.

[i] “Unity of creation.” Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/chapter/25/

[ii] “Our Peace Testimony.” Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain. https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/chapter/24/

[iii] “PEPFAR Program Impact Tracker.” PEPFAR Impact Tracker, https://pepfar.impactcounter.com/

[iv] Ronald, Issy. “Tuberculosis Is the World’s Top Infectious Killer. Aid Groups Say Trump’s Funding Freezes Will Cause More Deaths.” CNN, Cable News Network, 30 Mar. 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/30/health/tuberculosis-impact-usaid-funding-intl-scli/index.html

[v] Mueller, Hannes, Christopher Rauh, Benjamin R Seimon, and Raphael A Espinoza. “The Urgency of Conflict Prevention – A Macroeconomic Perspective”. IMF Working Papers 2024.256 (2024), https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2024/256/article-A001-en.xml#:~:text=We%20show%20that%2C%20due,27%20per%20%241%20spent.

[vi] InterAction “Adaptation” Choose to Invest FY2025 https://www.interaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Adaptation-FY2025.pdf

[vii] “Genocide Determination in Sudan and Imposing Accountability Measures” U.S. Department of State Jan. 7, 2025 https://2021-2025.state.gov/genocide-determination-in-sudan-and-imposing-accountability-measures/

[viii] Jean, Isabella. “Sub-Sector Review of Evidence from Reconciliation Programs.” CDA Collaborative, Mar. 2019, www.cdacollaborative.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/PEC-Reconciliation-Sector-Review-Final-March-2019-2.pdf.