Rep Ed Royce (R-CA)

[Commentary] One of the major roadblocks to the Liberian Ebola response efforts was the lack of reliable internet access across the country, as community health centers struggled to coordinate efforts. One of the most economical and efficient ways to increase access is to prioritize a “build-once” policy in the developing world. If a United States development project supports the construction of a rural road in a developing country, or updating preexisting infrastructure, let’s invite the private sector to lay down cable before we pour the concrete.

This is a proactive, efficient approach we are calling for through the bipartisan Digital Global Access Policy Act — a.k.a. the Digital GAP Act — passed by the US House of Representatives. The Digital GAP Act would increase internet access with a relatively minor communications change. It would require U.S.-supported infrastructure projects to be made more transparent, so that the private sector can coordinate their investments in internet infrastructure. The Digital GAP Act stretches American aid further and has the potential for a long-lasting impact by narrowing the digital divide that holds so many people back.

[Commentary] “We are not going to cooperate.” That one sentence letter from the director of Russia Today, Moscow’s state-run news agency, to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees US international broadcasting, kicked the Voice of America off the AM dial inside Russia.

VOA will now have to work around this block.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine is in overdrive, an effort reportedly costing Moscow over $100 million. Following Russia’s invasion of Crimea, Putin’s government seized more than a dozen television and radio stations and began to broadcast around-the-clock news and information that was misleading, at best, and hateful incitement at worst.

US broadcasters -- the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia -- are competing against Russia, China, Iran and others with a hand tied behind their back. That’s because the bureaucratic structure over top of these radios, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, is badly broken. In this 24/7 era, the BBG meets only once a month to make management decisions. Directives can languish if the Board does not have a quorum, which is often, rendering it “rudderless,” according to the Heritage Foundation. Indeed, then-Secretary Clinton told the Foreign Affairs Committee that the BBG is “practically defunct.”

[Rep Ed Royce is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee]