International 10 for the 10th

Last weekend, at an event called “International 10 for the 10th”, Congressman Mark Kirk honored 10 people in his district who have made a difference in the world.

District residents were invited to come and hear what their neighbors had done to (among other things) empower Afghan women; build clean water wells and promote education in Africa; and to help health care systems in Mexico.

ONE was also given the opportunity to let the people in the 10th Congressional District in Illinois know how they could join the fight against extreme poverty and global disease. Volunteers Ryan Steel and Dana Salmond were on hand to answer people’s questions about ONE, and Ryan took advantage of the opportunity to invite Rep. Kirk to a ONE event he is planning at Libertyville High School in April!

-Annisa Wanat

Brits Call on World Bank to Do More For Africa

On Saturday, Britain’s International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander called on the World Bank to focus more on fighting poverty in Africa.

From Reuters:

“We want a stronger focus on poverty reduction, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and the gender issues of poverty. I have seen myself today the female face of poverty,” Alexander said after visiting a packed clinic near Makeni in Sierra Leone.

He administered polio vaccine to a baby and medicine to its mother — a gesture of help in an area where health workers said there are just two doctors for 321,000 people.

“The clinic is so tight (crowded) we have to use the ground for deliveries. It is not hygienic,” said Nabinta Koroma, a maternal child health worker, pointing to the filthy tiled floor covered in urine from a crowd of children waiting for checkups.

Britain sent troops to shore up Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown against a rebel threat in 2000, and then helped rebuild its security forces after a decade-long war fuelled by gems dug from the mud of its rich eastern diamond fields. British aid is now turning more to development projects than security in a bid to help the country’s poor, Alexander said.

Read the full piece here.

Our Top Ten List

Since September, campuses across the country have been creating ONE chapters and spurring global poverty action as part of the ONE Campus Challenge (OCC).

In just 12 hours after launching OCC, 1000 ONE Chapters were formed. Today, there are now more than 1,400 student-led ONE groups covering all 50 states.

Throughout the competition, colleges earned points for actions - like hosting speaking events, creating public displays on campus that raise awareness, contacting members of Congress and overall recruitment. All in all, these students made more than 10,000 calls to Congress, 2,000 calls to presidential candidates, provided needed support for the Jubilee Act, and successfully helped urge the IMF to honor their promise to provide debt relief to Liberia.

Finally, late last week Erin and Weldon announced the top ten point-earning schools:

Brandeis University; Campbellsville University; George Washington University; Hofstra University; Kansas State University; Princeton University; Sacred Heart University; University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Western Kentucky University; and Wilmington College, Wilmington, Ohio.

Each of these schools are receiving a $1,000 grant from ONE to craft their own poverty advocacy project.

I’m looking forward to learning how they use them - and will let you know when I do.

-Virginia Simmons

Show Me Some Leg(islative Updates)

Just a heads up that tomorrow the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations will be analyzing President Bush’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget request and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

Check back to our Feb 4 post for intel on president’s 2009 budget request.

And see Michael Gerson’s Feb 18 post here on the ONE Blog for more on the MCC.

-Virginia Simmons

Breaking the 100,000 Barrier

More than 100,000 ONE members have signed ONE Action’s “Visit Africa” petition.

Send it to a friend to keep the momentum going.

Rationing Food Aid?

The World Food Program is holding talks to create rationing plans if the costs of agricultural commodities (like wheat, corn, rice and soybeans) keeps rising at their current rate.

From today’s FT piece:

Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director, told the Financial Times that the agency would look at “cutting the food rations or even the number or people reached” if donors did not provide more money.

“Our ability to reach people is going down just as the needs go up,” she said.

WFP officials hope the cuts can be avoided, but warned that the agency’s budget requirements were rising by several million dollars a week because of climbing food prices.

Read the full piece here

-Virginia Simmons

Working Toward 100K

In just a week and a half, 97,220 ONE members have signed ONE Action’s “Visit Africa” petition.

We’re hoping to reach 100,00 by Monday at noon.

Sign on now if you haven’t already.

And send on to your friends if you have.

-Virginia Simmons

Asking Voinovich to “Measure Up!” on Debt

Today, as part of Jubilee’s “Measure Up” campaign, a group of global poverty advocates and debt campaigners met with Senator Voinovich’s District Representative in Columbus, Ohio. The purpose of the meeting was to ask the Senator to become a co-sponsor of the Jubilee Act (S 2166). Our group of 4 was made up of Katie Andrews, organizer for the ONE Campaign, Ginnie Vogts, an organizer for Results, Loretta Raiford local volunteer with ONE, and Brian Swarts, national organizer for Jubilee USA.

The group highlighted for Khisha Fallon, the District Representative, the importance of reducing global poverty and the effectiveness of debt cancellation. Katie spoke about debt is holding back a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa from reaching the Millennium Development Goals. Ginnie pointed out that reducing poverty is critical to increasing global security, as impoverished countries are more vulnerable to political instability and even terrorist activity. Loretta shared her experiences working in refugee camps in Uganda, and seeing the heart-breaking need there for increased investment in health care, education and clean water. Lastly, Brian emphasized the fact that it makes good economic sense to take pro-active steps to fight poverty in places like sub-Saharan Africa, where many countries are so poor that they cannot reduce poverty through economic growth alone - cooperation from other countries is essential.

While Senator Voinovich has not issued a statement on the Jubilee Act, Khisha has said that she will pass on our ideas to him. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Voinovich would be joining Ranking Member Richard Lugar (IN) and Senator Johnny Isakson (GA) in co-sponsoring the Jubilee Act.

-Brian Swarts, National Field Organizer, Jubilee USA

Blogging From Bread

I’ve been watching the news coverage of President Bush’s trip to Africa with some interest, as I hope many others have too. A presidential trip always garners much press coverage but this time it has been slightly different and for good reason. There is a lot of good news to report from the countries that the president has visited!

Some of it reflects the progress made partly because of things the president has done during his two terms. President Bush focused more attention on Africa than most expected when he took office and more than any other president in recent memory. His initiatives on HIV/AIDS, malaria and the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account will have a lasting impact on the continent, on the lives of individual Africans. One particular story focused on the progress made against malaria and what an amazing difference bed nets were making in reducing the incidence of the debilitating and sometimes deadly disease. Essentially the story showed that additional resources, targeted properly can transform lives.

The president’s trip has, in my mind, served at least two purposes - it has refocused the country’s attention on these important issues and it has demonstrated that with effort, determination and a relatively small amount of money (the total budget for poverty-focused development assistance in 2008 is $15.4 billion—which is less than one half of one percent of the federal budget, of this just over $4 billion goes to Africa), the lives and futures of millions of poor people can be dramatically improved.

There is still so much to be done to reduce hunger, poverty and disease in Africa and around the world. Nearly a billion people around the world live on less than $1 a day and 854 million are hungry. I hope that the stories coming out of Africa in the last few days help motivate us all and provide the presidential candidates with a sense of what is possible. We can meet the Millennium Development Goals. Leadership matters.

-Asma Lateef

(Asma Lateef is the director of the Bread for the World Institute. She blogs regularly at Bread for the World Institute Notes.)

Going Going Ghana

(Martin Edlund of Malaria No More joined President Bush’s on the Ghana portion of the president’s trip to Africa.)

It was a day of firsts for me. My first time meeting a sitting president. My first time racing through streets in a presidential motorcade. My first time seeing malaria education set to music.

President and Mrs. Bush made malaria a big focus of their stop in Ghana, where they were joined by American Idol Winner Jordin Sparks and Malaria No More. Sparks opened a noontime event at the U.S. Embassy with a Super Bowl-sized rendition of the national anthem that made the speakers whimper and moved patriotic listeners to tears.

President Bush took the mic to praise American Idol for raising $17 million for malaria during last year’s Idol Gives Back charity special and share some exciting news:

This spring, Fox and American Idol will once again appeal to viewers to help defeat malaria. On April 9th, the show will raise money to fight malaria in Africa and support other worthy causes in the second round of “Idol Gives Back.” Laura and I hope, and Jordin hopes, that America’s generosity will still pour forth, and we ask our fellow citizens to contribute to this worthy cause. (Applause.)

(Read the full transcript here, including the President’s shout out to Malaria No More.)

It was a short event – half hour all told - but plenty long for us to sweat through our suits in the soupy afternoon heat. “This reminds me of what it’s like to campaign in Texas in August,” quipped a glistening Commander in Chief. Still, he took the time to press the flesh with the hodge-podge audience of scruffy PeaceCorps volunteers, Ghanaian women in traditional dress, and Idol-loving tweens.

Lunch was served on the Embassy lawn flanked by mini-golf versions of the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument while the bar offered bottles of Schweppes tonic in a subtle (okay, probably unintended) homage to the days when the quinine in tonic was used to ward off malaria.

From there, we raced off to Maamobi Polyclinic on the outskirts of Accra where Jordin and Mrs. Bush were greeted by a traditional durbar—a Ghanaian community gathering complete with song, dance, and umbrella-wielding day-glo chiefs.

Jordin and Mrs. Bush did a bed net demonstration and kids sang a malaria song withwith mosquito-wing choreography. It’s what happens when well-intentioned public health professionals try their hand at pop song. Sample lyrics:

From home to home
From school to school
Children are saying
Give us treated bednets
To keep us protected
But if malaria attacks
For lack of protection
Give us early treatment
To save our lives

Somewhere Simon Cowell is scowling fiercely. For my part, I’ll stick with Jordin’s single “Tattoo” which I’m rocking on my (Product)Red iPod as I write this.

-Martin Edlund, Malaria No More