This week – with International Women’s Day on Tuesday – two of America’s First Ladies made the case that elevating girls’ education is a strategic investment. Former first lady Laura Bush spoke out on the need to sustain our development assistance efforts to educate Afghan women and girls, while First Lady Michelle Obama emphasized how education can help lift women and girls out of poverty as she announced the expansion of Let Girls Learn initiative.

Bill and Melinda Gates recently released their annual letter, which outlines the Gates Foundation’s philanthropic goals. This year, Melinda Gates tackled the topic of unpaid labor: tasks like fetching water, preparing meals, caring for children—things that need to be done, but that don’t pay. She noted that the majority of unpaid work across the world is disproportionately placed on women, and that the poor are the most heavily impacted by the imbalance.

With all eyes on New Hampshire today and the 2016 presidential horserace, it’s pretty easy to miss a relatively wonky, but actually important moment in Washington: the kickoff to the budget season with the Administration’s release of its proposal to Congress. The good news is that the two-year budget deal reached by Congress and the Administration last November spared international affairs programs from dangerous cuts from sequestration. Here are my 6 key takeaways on what the budget proposal means for America’s global leadership.

USAID is pursuing a new model of development focused on partnering with a diverse array of partners to create innovative, cost-effective, and results-oriented development solutions. And we believe the private sector has a unique and growing role to play in global problem-solving, particularly when efforts are linked to a shared value approach or inclusive business approach which engages the bottom-of-the-pyramid markets as suppliers and producers in their value chains.

As we look toward our nation’s increased engagement with Africa, we welcome legislation like the AGOA reauthorization – smart government officials and smart investors see the synergy between aid and trade. Initiatives like AGOA prove the old “trade vs. aid” debate to be a thing of the past. Such programs create growth and opportunity not just in Africa, but back here in the U.S. as well.

When official resources are limited, where can small investments from the United States have the biggest impact on helping to build and open new markets that also help create jobs at home? Some of the fastest growing economies are in the developing world, and a newly released report suggests that the developing world may also be one of the best places to invest.

The end of World War II and the beginning of the Pax Americana continue to remind us of the power we have to shape the world for the better. With the political debate heating up and polls suggesting that we spend too much on foreign aid, we should remember what we have done in the past to lead the world and how it can have an incredible impact on the future.

The International Affairs Budget is one of the smallest parts of the federal budget, but it does a huge amount of good around the world. It fights diseases, feeds the hungry, and is an integral part of who we are as Americans. It does all of this – while also promoting our economic and security interests – for the price of three cups of coffee a month.