ABSTRACT
Private voluntary organizations (PVOs) are the most crucial link between the broad American public and the peoples of the developing world. In 1947 two of the PVOs spawned by Quakers—the American Friends Service Committee of Philadelphia and the Friends Service Council of London—were given the Nobel Peace Prize, the only private relief and development organizations ever to win that famous award. Relief and development assistance for the hungry and needy in Africa increasingly has become an expression of that concern, and a PVO called Africare has emerged as its principal channel. We chose the Institute of International Education because, as the dominant higher education exchange organization, it has much to do with the flood of Third World students into the United States—a highly important aspect of American involvement with Third World development. One way to describe the American Red Cross is to call it the largest and the most enduring of all the US PVOs.
