Archive for September, 2008
There’s a huge amount of attention this week on Capitol Hill focused on the economy – and rightly so. The economics dominating the news affects all of us. It’s important to note that the current financial crisis could also adversely impact poor countries already suffering from both high food and fuel prices. Understandably, most of the responses to the food crisis to date have been short-term, immediate aid. Governments and aid organizations have been working to get help to the people who are suffering, and that must not be delayed. But short-term responses only treat the symptoms. We need a long-term strategy to prevent future crises from occurring.
This week in the Senate, bipartisan legislation was introduced by Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana and Democratic Senator Robert Casey of Pennsylvania to begin to target the root causes of the food crisis. This bill, the “Global Food Security Act” (S. 3529), is a smart step forward in what must be a comprehensive and global response to the situation facing millions of people.
According to the Senators’ offices, the bill would authorize $10 billion over 5 years for agricultural productivity and rural development. Drawing on the experience and expertise of U.S. land grant colleges and universities, the bill would create a new program to strengthen institutions of higher education in the areas of agriculture sciences, research, and extension programs. Investments in human capital and institutional capacity are important to developing a robust agricultural sector. It calls for increasing collaborative research on the full range of biotechnological advances including genetically modified technologies. The legislation also would improve the U.S. emergency response to food crises by creating a separate Emergency Food Assistance Fund that can make local and regional purchases of food, where appropriate. The legislation would provide USAID with the flexibility to respond to emergencies more quickly, without supplanting other food programs.
That last point is particularly important in emergency response. Too often, when a food crisis hits a region, current U.S. law limits the American response. This proposal, if enacted, would allow U.S. funds to purchase food supplies in regions much closer to the crisis zone. Instead of waiting for the first shipments of food to arrive from the United States, which can take many days if not weeks, local officials would be able to purchase food from that region’s suppliers, speeding help to the people who are starving.
ONE also believes that we have to address the root of the problem: building the capacity for people in Africa and elsewhere to grow enough food to feed their families while increasing support for long-term rural development efforts. Put simply, the United States should help to provide people with the tools that they need to fend for themselves. When we take those steps, we begin to address the core of the food crisis.
The Lugar-Casey bill is a good approach, and ONE looks forward to working with the Senators to see it approved by Congress.
-Sara Rogge, Senior Trade Policy Advisor
Bono continues his liveblogging from the UN special summit on the MDGs this week. Some excerpts from his latest entry are below. See the full post on FT.com.
The ONE campaign has two and half million members, who urge us to make the case for increased aid as a key plank in America’s new foreign policy. ONE T-shirts have been turning up in town hall meetings for 18 months now, haranguing, hassling, but ultimately endearing themselves to all the presidential campaigns. They want the world to see what America has to offer the billion people who live on less than a dollar a day – practically speaking: medicine, new seed varieties, technology, know-how; policy speaking: what should America do more of? what should America do less of?
…Anyway we’ve now met with nearly a dozen of the presidential candidates in the course of their campaigns and of the four candidates left, three have declared their positions at onevote08.org/ontherecord, if you want to check them out.
On AIDS for example, Senators Obama and McCain both cosponsored the historic $48bn US AIDS initiative this year – an effort lead by Joe Biden – who I might add also fought in the trenches for debt cancellation for the poorest of the poor when I first started down this road. So it will be interesting to find out where Governor Palin stands.
A post from Mike of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation on their “MDG Blogging Day” tomorrow.
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The biggest barrier to making poverty history is letting people know it can be done. Tomorrow, with the power of your blog, you can help change that.
Most Americans don’t know that eight years ago the United States and 188 other nations ratified the Millennium Development Goals 8 goals that represent the largest concerted effort ever to end extreme poverty. Tomorrow, world leaders will meet at the UN to tell us what we already know, that we’re far behind on meeting these goals by the target date of 2015 and that most of the rich nations of the world (the U.S. included) are not keeping the promises we made in aid, trade and debt relief.
The Millennium Development Goals are the best hope we have ever had of making poverty history. And it’s up to us to spread the word about what ONE can do to make them happen.
That’s why tomorrow — Sept. 25 — Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation are asking you to join with bloggers around the world to post about making poverty history. More than 300 bloggers have signed up already. Your post can be whatever you like. It can be information about the MDGs. It can be a story of extreme poverty from your own life or travels. It can be a poem, a podcast, a video clip, a jpg of a piece of art, a prayer, an open letter to your leaders … whatever your way of raising your voice to let people know about the 1.2 billion people who live on less than $1 a day — and that it is within our grasp to lift them out of that poverty if we act now, if we act courageously, if we act as ONE.
All you have to do is go to www.mdgbloggingday.org and follow the instructions, add a badge to your blog, and join the webring. Then on Thursday, pour your passion into your post … and help make poverty history by letting people know that, if we work as one, it can be done.
You can take your pick of the badge you want to use as art with the post from the ones here.
-Mike Kinman, Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation
We just got back from delivering our “Just ONE Question” petitions to the NewsHour office in Shirlington, VA, where Jim Lehrer is currently selecting his questions for Friday’s presidential debate. Specifically, we handed all 103,000 signatures over for NewsHour’s Senior Producer of Research, who is accepting them on behalf debate moderator Jim Lehrer.
As you know, only two questions about global poverty have ever been asked in the history of modern presidential debates. Thanks to your efforts, we may get a third. Keep your fingers crossed!
(And don’t worry, we’ll continue to update their office with new signers as they roll in, and as debate particulars may change, so keep sending this online petition along to your friends.)
-Ranna Lanagan
Sep 24th, 2008 3:19 PM UTC
By Field
The ONE bus rolled onto the campus of George Washington University on a crisp morning last Thursday, September 18th. With the bus parked on a highly trafficked street between GW dormitories and the Lerner Auditorium, a day of recruiting for the ONE Campaign began!
The GW ONE campus chapter was out in full force, supplying energetic volunteers and free pizza to entice passersby to step up to the table. Students handed out wristbands, water bottles, and leaflets encouraging people to join ONE in fighting to make global poverty a top priority in the upcoming election. From GW students and faculty, to campus police and local coffee vendors, the response was huge. Nearly 600 people signed the ONE Declaration and put on a white wristband for the first time!
-Paige Engebretson, ONE Intern
Just wanted to let everybody know we just passed 100,000 signers on our petition to get Just ONE Question asked at Friday’s first presidential debate. Thanks to everyone who signed up and got your friends, family, and coworkers to sign up too!
If you haven’t signed up yet, there’s still time! We’ll be delivering the petition today.
As always, thank you for your voice
-Chris Scott
Today’s New York Times features a piece drafted by the Times’ editorial board calling on world leaders to keep their pledge to cut extreme poverty in half. The board makes a sharply nuanced case that living up to these promises made at the turn of the millennium would not only succeed in alleviating global poverty, but also strengthen our and other nations’ national security.
Some excerpts below, but the whole editorial is definitely worth checking out
Today, even as soaring energy and food prices exacerbate the suffering of the world’s poor, the richest nations are falling far behind on their aid commitments — and behind their past giving.
The current financial turmoil could make it even less likely that the wealthy nations will fulfill their promises to the poorest of the poor. Without that money, many of the development goals announced with such fanfare will go unmet.
Many countries tie too many strings to their largess — such as requirements to buy supplies from donor countries. (Aid flows are often swayed by domestic politics in the donor nations, making them unpredictable and difficult to manage by receiving nations.)
Aid isn’t the only area where the developed world is failing. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, wealthy countries acknowledged that poverty can be a fertile ground for terrorism and pledged to open their markets to exports from the world’s poorest nations. Those promises collapsed along with global trade talks this year.
-Chris Scott
