When the Democratic and Republican parties meet for their conventions at the end of August and early September, they’ll be unveiling their parties’ new platforms – and we want to make sure that the fight against extreme poverty is an important part of both of those platforms.

That why our ONE Vote ‘08 Co-Chairs, Senators Bill Frist and Tom Daschle will be meeting with leaders of both parties, and taking a petition from ONE members urging them to make poverty-fighting a priority for both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Click this link and we’ll add your name to the petition

Petition Text:

As a proud American, I urge you to make ending extreme poverty and global disease in the developing world a core part of your 2008 platform by including commitments to:

• Fight AIDS, TB and malaria and improve basic health services, particularly for mothers and young children
• Ensure access to clean water, basic sanitation and sufficient food supplies
• Spur economic growth through equitable trade and investment policies
• Modernize and increase development assistance, focusing on partnership, transparency and accountability
• Achieve universal primary education

Yesterday afternoon, President Bush signed into law new PEPFAR legislation, finalizing months of work by ONE members, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, advocacy organizations, foreign policy experts and medical professionals who worked together to pass historic new funding levels to fight AIDS, TB and malaria.

ONE Campaign Co-founder Bono issued this response:

“Americans, whether they know it or not, are literally saving the lives of millions of people in the poorest places on the planet. In the last five years, America has prevented 1 million women from passing on HIV to their babies…funded care for 3 millions AIDS orphans…and provided desperately needed medicine to more than 1.4 million people suffering from HIV/AIDS. You are my heroes and not just for what you’ve done, but for what this new law promises.

This has more to do with hard heads than soft hearts. America’s global AIDS plan has proved to be a smart investment, paying dividends in live saved, communities stabilized and America’s reputation in the world growing a little bit brighter. This stuff works and leaders from left and right — leaders like Senators Biden and Lugar, Representatives Berman and Ros-Lehtinen, President Bush, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid – put aside their differences and agreed to do more.”

ONE’s Legislative Deputy Director Maryamu Aminu is sending in live updates from the PEPFAR signing at the White House.

3pm:

-Very exciting atmosphere in the east gold room. They usually have state dinners in here.

-The procession just arrived and are standing on stage. Primary cosponsors: Biden, Berman, Kerry, Payne, Sununu, Brownback, Lugar, Lee, Pence, Dybul, and Enzi.

-People in the room:

Africa diplomatic corps and 15 focus-country ambassadors
Mrs Lantos, for whose husband the bill is named
Malaria coordinator- Anthony Zeimer
The African Children’s Choir
Peter Piot, head of UNAIDS

-President and the First Lady just arrived – to applause. (more…)

President Bush is signing PEPFAR at an event at the White House today. This is a bill that will provide $48 Billion in funding in the global fight against AIDS, TB and Malaria for the next 5 years.

ONE’s Legislative Director Tom Hart sent in this post right after arriving at the signing event:

I’m sitting in the East Room of the White House, with its 3 massive chandaliers and gold trim, as the president signs a nearly $50b reauthorization of PEPFAR. I feel like this room couldn’t be big enough to hold all the support this effort has, especially from ONE members around the country. In DC, we read every day of conflict, partisan bickering and good things stalled. Not today. Republicans, Democrats, Congress, the White House – all found a reason to work together and get this lifesaving initiative done.

As I filed through one of the holding rooms prior to the event, I ran into ONE’s old friend, Agnes from Uganda. What a surprise. The President invited her to this ceremony as one of his “special guests”. Agnes works for this amazing organization in Uganda named TASO, where PEPFAR has supported many many people on ARVs. Agnes is also HIV+, making the signing of this bill all the more meaningful. In fact, the rest of the pomp and glitz don’t really matter…it’s really about Agnes and the millions of others this bill has touched and will over the next 5 years.

-Tom Hart

More newspapers are picking up on the positive new global AIDS numbers we reported yesterday:

In today’s LA Times:

The number of AIDS deaths worldwide dropped 10% in 2007 because of increasing access to treatment, as did the number of new infections in children, the United Nations reported Tuesday.

Condom use and prevention efforts increased in many countries and adolescent sexual intercourse declined in some of the most heavily affected regions, the report says.

“In a surprisingly short period of time, there has been a tripling of prevention efforts in some countries,” said Dr. Paul De Lay, director of evaluation for UNAIDS…

“The lesson here is that where there is investment, prevention and treatment work,” said the Rev. Canon Gideon Byamugisha of the Hope Institute in Uganda.

Another video and post from ONE’s Tom Gavin from last week’s trip to Rwanda.

Monday, July 21:

The U.S. launched PEPFAR – the American global AIDS strategy – at the Masaka Clinic in 2004, so it made for a good place for the ONE delegation to visit and assess how things are going. Our delegation met with doctors, nurses, local officials, and patients seeking treatment and counsel from the clinic’s staff. We heard, time and again, the difference that America’s partnership in health care was making in Rwanda and throughout Africa.

The DATA Report, which ONE released earlier this year, shows the progress being made. It points out that, across Africa, nearly 2.12 million people were on antiretroviral therapy by last December, a huge jump from the 50,000 people on treatment in 2002. That means 30 percent of Africans in need of treatment are receiving it. But there remains a major challenge ahead. An additional 1.7 million Africans became infected with the HIV virus in 2007.

After touring the Masaka Clinic, some of the ONE delegation discussed the site visit and the overall trip with reporters.

-Tom Gavin

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and philanthropist Bill Gates announced plans to raise $500 million for a campaign used to kick Big Tobacco – you guessed it – in the butt.

This is particularly significant for developing nations, as they are becoming popular targets for cigarette companies’ market demographic.

From the New York Times (Op-ed):

[Bloomberg and Gates’] target is a worthy one: tobacco companies and government-owned tobacco enterprises trying to addict hundreds of millions of new customers in the developing world as sales stagnate or shrivel in the industrialized nations…. The goal [of the campaign] is to reverse the rapid rise of smoking in such countries as China, India and Russia and to head off the epidemic in Africa before it can become entrenched.

Many countries have become addicted to the revenues generated by tobacco taxes or government-owned tobacco companies. They will have to be persuaded that the long-term health damage caused by tobacco far exceeds any short-term gain from tobacco revenues.

Bloomberg and Gates have already committed $375 to begin burning-out the competition – and plan on getting to the neediest countries before Big Tobacco does.

-Betsy Avila

Earlier today, UNAIDS released its 2008 report on the global AIDS epidemic. The report, which is published every two years, takes a detailed look at the state of the epidemic and progress towards scaling-up access to treatment, prevention and care around the world.

An important finding in this year’s report is that some progress is being made on the prevention side. BBC reports:

“The report says prevention programmes have seen changes in sexual behaviour, and a drop in infection rates in countries such as Rwanda and Zimbabwe. Condom use is also increasing among young people with multiple partners in many countries. This has been seen in seven of the most affected countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia…. The report also reveals that the percentage of HIV-positive pregnant women receiving antiretroviral drugs to prevent transmission of the virus to their child rose from 14% in 2005 to 33% in 2007.”

The report also found that expanded access to life-saving antiretroviral treatment is helping to reduce deaths. In 2007, the number of AIDS-related deaths dropped to 2 million, down from 2.2 million in 2005.

Stay tuned here for a closer look some of the report’s findings.

-Nora Coghlan

I am delighted to let you know that we have just launched the ONE Africa Award, an exciting new $100,000 grant for African individuals and organizations, based in Africa, leading the fight against poverty. ONE aims to showcase civil society working on bringing about change amongst the poorest people in Africa. This award for best practice will consider accountable organizations that can demonstrate their commitment and success in assisting Africans to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

African civil society has an extremely important role to play in advancing the development agenda, either through their own action, or as a monitoring body of government implemented programs, ensuring that money goes where it is most needed. We launched the call for applications on July 15th and will continue to receive applications until August 15th. This is our first award, and through this effort, we hope that we can best showcase the individuals and organizations that are doing amazing work, everyday, for African people.

I would be delighted if you could pass on this information on to individuals and organizations that you think would qualify. More information is available here.

-Edith Jibunoh, ONE’s Africa Outreach Manager, Abuja, Nigeria

Saturday was a big day for me. Not only was it my first time officially volunteering for the ONE Campaign, it was also my very first live concert! Dierks Bentley, along with Miranda Lambert and Halfway to Hazard, played a concert at the Jones County Fair in Monticello, Iowa. Dierks is a big fan of ONE and invited us to set up a ONE table at the show. There were over 15,000 people there so we spoke to many concert-goers about ONE and how they can get involved.

Many fans were really excited to see Dierks Bentley’s new CD where he is clearly wearing his ONE band in 3 photos! We even (more…)