Archive for February, 2008
More than 100,000 ONE members have signed ONE Action’s “Visit Africa” petition.
Send it to a friend to keep the momentum going.
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
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
Feb 22nd, 2008 10:50 AM UTC
By Field
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
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.)
(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
(Taylor works on the ONE Communications team and is currently traveling with President Bush, First Lady Laura Bush and Live Aid and Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof. Read all her posts so far from the trip here.)
A lot happened in Accra, Ghana today. First, President Bush met with President Kufuor of Ghana and they held a joint press conference. They about talked about, among other things, the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). Ghana has received a compact from MCA to build roads and improve infrastructure. MCA compacts go to well-governed countries, countries who fight corruption and invest in health and education for their citizens.
Then it was on to a lunch with Peace Corps workers in Ghana. Ghana was the first country in the world to welcome the Peace Corps. The first 52 Peace Corps workers arrived here on August 30, 1961. Since that time, more than 3,700 volunteers have served in this country (including two of my good friends Monica and Alex Smith – who met when they both served as Peace Corps workers in Ghana and the Cote d’Ivoire and later married. Monica was a water and sanitation specialist and Alex educated people about HIV/AIDS).
The Ghanians have a special bond with Americans who serve in the Peace Corps and gave them a big welcome at lunch. The lunch guests, including President Bush and Bob Geldof, heard harrowing tales of Peace Corps life in rural Africa, including one woman who was bitten by a cobra and then discovered that the local clinics had run out of both poison anecdote and pain medication! (Don’t worry – she survived and told her tale to the President in person today.)
After lunch was my personal favorite part of the day: a tee ball game! We watched some Ghanian youngsters play ball – the Little Dragons vs. the Little Saints. I;m not sure my travelling companion, Sir Bob Geldof, understood the intracacies of the game, having grown up in Ireland, deprived of the World Series…but we all enjoyed it, nonetheless.
We also (more…)
