Next we are breaking into small sessions to go over issues in depth. All the people here (about 100) are choosing between the following groups:

-HIV/AIDS, led by Jane Ascroft of CARE
-Millennium Development Goals, led by Anne Batchelder of ONE
-Hunger, led by Mike Batell of Bread for the World
-JUBILEE Act and Debt Cancellation, led by Monét Cooper of Jubilee
-Federal Budget: the pivotal next three months, led by Annisa Wanat of ONE
-Trade and the Farm Bill led by Lou Hille of Oxfam

Below are ONE newest fact sheets on our major issues. I’m running off to join a group or two and will report back!

-More and Better Aid
-Debt
-Trade
-Clean Water
-Education
-Child and Maternal Health
-HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis

Also check out: Oxfam’s fact sheet on the Farm Bill.

Jane Ascroft from CARE is talking about development assistance. Jane shares with us her families’ initial reaction to her work. Her family thought the U.S. spent 10-20% of the federal budget on poverty funding abroad. No guessed anything under 10%.

In truth, the U.S. spends less than 1% on development assistance for the 1 billion people living on less than $1 a day.

What does development assistance buy?

-$1 in development assistance saves $7 in emergency relief
-Every year of education for girls yields gains for health and economic indicators

Jane quickly walked though the budget process, and when it is the most critical for us as ONE members to contact our representatives. Annisa will go into more length on this in the afternoon.

Learn more about aid by looking through Jane’s full powerpoint presentation.

Next Mike Batell from Bread for the World is talking about fair trade.

The majority of people in the world live in rural areas and make their living through agriculture.

Right now, the U.S. taxes provide large farmers with $16 billion worth of subsidies. Most of which goes to large industrial farms. These subsidies make it impossible for small, family farms in the U.S to compete and they make it impossible for small, family farms internationally to compete.

According to the World Bank, successful completion of the Doha round at the WHO, would lift 144 million people out of extreme poverty (That’s Minnesota’s population times 30.)

“Right now, somewhere, there’s a man with a family whose only source of income is the cotton he grows. But when he goes to the market, no one will buy that cotton anymore, because now there’s cotton there that is cheaper.”

This is not the working of the free market. That cheap cotton comes from the U.S., where it has had the benefit of heavy subsidies.

We keep preaching that the path to the end of poverty is through free trade and open markets, and those poor countries have opened their markets to U.S. goods, but the U.S. has denied our markets to them. This is the antithesis of our free trade doctrine.

For every $1 poor countries receive in aid, they lose $2 due to unfair trade.

We should pursue fair trade not just because it will lift millions out of poverty, but because its in our best interest. The World Banks estimates that successful completion of the Doha rounds would result in billions more dollars in economic output, money that would benefit both poor and rich countries.

ONE members support reform to the U.S. Farm Bill. Instead of helping small farmers, as it was originally intended when it was created during the great depression, 78% of this money goes to the 8% largest corporate farms. “The U.S. is being taxed to make rich farmers richer and poor farmers poorer, both here and abroad… Changing the Farm Bill is our chance to change the system.”

Watch Mike’s full powerpoint here.

Monét Copper from Jubilee is walking us through the history of debt and its impact on people in developing countries

The debt crisis began, she tells us, in the 1960’s. The U.S. spent a lot more money than it earned, so we printed more. The eventual impact was that banks had a lot more money, and to make even more money, they started to loan that money to developing countries.

With the surplus of money to loan, banks didn’t thoroughly research who they were lending to or if countries could realistically pay the money back.

In the late 70’s, interest rates rose significantly. The U.S. was headed into a recession and many of these banks started to call these countries, saying they needed the loans paid back. Many countries just couldn’t pay them.

International banks stepped in, like the IMF and the World Bank, and designed plans to help them pay off the loans. These banks set up “structural adjustment programs” and “conditionalities.”

This meant, they started to change people for things they didn’t use to have to pay for, like water and electricity, and that they were changed user fees for things like school and healthcare. For a poor family, these fees often meant that their children no longer went to school, sick people didn’t get care, and since a family couldn’t afford clean water, they’d bath and cook in dirty, contaminated water. Perhaps their loans being paid off, but at what costs?

In 2005, the G-8 cancelled the debt for 21 countries in the global south. But it was only for 21 countries.

A study by the Jubilee Debt Campaign shows that a minimum of 61 more countries need debt cancellation in order for the world to achieve the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals.

A couple of Jubilee’s main asks:

-The G-8 debt deal only included 3 banks. Jubilee wants all the major international financial institutions to commit to debt cancellation.

-An end to conditionalities.

-Debt Audits: Jubilee wants the world to look at how much of this money was lend to dictators? How much was illegitimate? How much was odious? And how much can we cancel?

So what can we do? Support the Jubilee Act.

Monét passed out some documents about debt and the act, which you can find below.

-Why Drop the Debt 1
-Why Drop the Debt 2

-Jubilee Act FAQ
-Jubilee Act Summary

Anne is welcoming everyone! She’s talking about ONE, our training series, today’s agenda and introducing our speakers, stipend winners and even me.

Having been traveling with Anne from city to city for these trainings, I know how passionate she is about organizing and it’s exciting to see her sharing her knowledge and passion with everyone here today. Anne was one of the first
ONE staff members and has helped empower so many people fight for the campaign’s core issues: fair trade, debt cancellation and more and better aid.

Below, find some fact sheets on the ONE basics.

-Basics of ONE
-Millennium Development Goals
-The ONE Declaration

With more time to kill before we start the show, I walked around and met a few more ONE members.

Anamica Bed is from Columbia Heights in Minnesota. She joined ONE back in 2005 and found out about the training from an email.

Martin Russell is a pastor from Omaha, Nebraska and another ONE Scholar! Through his work he has been working in Tanzania and the issues ONE fights for align perfectly with Martin’s work and beliefs.

Michael Lawyer is a ONE member from Minneapolis. When he heard the training was right in his backyard, he knew he had to come.

I also ran into Monét Cooper setting up some materials. Mónet is the blogger at Jubilee(!) and will be speaking today about debt in developing countries.

We’re here at the Minneapolis training site setting up! One of the first people to walk through the door was ONE stipend winner Christine McNunn.

At the registration desk I met Ben Flaskrud from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Ben Kaster (St. Cloud Minnesota) and John Mary Lugemwa (Uganda). Ben Kaster and John work for the “Uganda Rural Fund USA, Inc.”, a nonprofit working to support orphans and communities affected by HIV/AIDS in rural Uganda.

On my way back to my laptop I bumped into Christie taping ONE signs to the doors around the training. Christie signed up for ONE years ago at a U2 concert and has been volunteering with the Chicago ONE group ever since.

ONE was featured in the Huffington Post yesterday.

“Last Friday, the ONE Campaign’s 2.4 million members, and our many partner organizations, worked together to reverse a $2.2 billion cut to the 2008 international affairs budget…Significantly, this comes on the heels of many other recent wins for ONE members…

If you haven’t been following these developments, this is a moment to note, because these wins reflect an ongoing shift in the way that global poverty is viewed and treated in American politics. The unification of millions of Americans, and humanitarian organizations, coming together to fight extreme poverty is working, and we have a consistent string of truly remarkable victories to show for it.”

Read the full piece here.

We want as many people to attend the 2007 ONE member trainings as possible, so last month, we asked ONE members to apply for one of eight $250 travel stipends. Over 2,500 people applied, and today I get to announce yet another ONE scholar:

Christine McNunn of Des Moines, Iowa!

Hi, my name is Christine and I am headed from Des Moines, Iowa, to the Minneapolis ONE training this weekend. As the owner of an independent fair trade store, I am well aware of the challenges farmers and artisans face in developing countries.

Making trade fair and ending the dumping of subsidized crops are important parts of helping improve the lives of many in Africa. Eliminating corruption and debt cancellation are also vital pieces of the puzzle.

At the training I hope to learn more about the anti–corruption measures and the debt cancellation initiatives the ONE Campaign supports. I am also hoping to gain insight on the best way to become more involved in effecting change through the political arena. As the Iowa caucuses approach, we have the unique opportunity to influence opinions at the highest level!!

Christine McNunn, ONE member, Des Moines, Iowa

The House of Representatives passed their budget resolution yesterday which included $35.3 billion for the international affair budget. This is $1.2 billion below the president’s request and what the Senate passed on Friday.

Over the next two weeks or so, the House and Senate will conference (come to a compromise on their budget numbers) to finalize the FY08 budget resolution.

Similarly, the Senate passed the FY07 supplemental budget yesterday, which the Democratic leadership will try to get through the conference quickly, but they have to iron out several differences between the two chambers’ bills.

Both bills include items President Bush has vowed to veto.