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

Bono continues his live blogging today from UN Special Summit on the Millenium Development Goals. You can see all his posts on the FT.com Blog site.

Below are some excerpts from his blogging late last night.

Aid is a leg-up, not a hand-out

“Lots of speeches etc going on inside the UN… President Bush, President Sarkozy. We’re on the outside today, meeting activists from Africa, India and Europe to talk about holding the people on the inside accountable for their promises.
The promises in question this week are the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs….

For those of you, the many of you, questioning aid on this site, you’re not wrong to suggest that it’s not the only answer. Of course it’s not. It’s trade, it’s governance, it’s private investment. But aid is critical… ask Germany, ask Ireland. See it as a leg-up, not a hand-out.
I’m not talking about the aid of the 20th century by the way. For too many years, much aid was wasted and ended up redecorating presidential palaces instead of building hospitals. That was our corruption as well as theirs. Handing over billions of dollars to a corrupt dictator because he isn’t a Commie, knowing he will use it to suppress discontent and swell personal bank accounts – that makes you complicit. But, this is a new century, and a new understanding of aid and partnership means that we are starting to see different results.”

Read his full post here.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson came to New Hampshire today to hold a foreign policy town hall meeting and speech on behalf of Senator Obama.

Gov. Richardson is very familiar with ONE from his own days on the campaign trail and this was no different. As soon as he came to the podium he saw ONE members in the front row, and immediately commended us on our tireless efforts throughout the NH Primary, and beyond, to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty.

After a brief speech, ONE’s Marine, Michael Castaldo asked Gov. Richardson if a potential Obama administration would work to ensure the full funding and appropriations for life saving programs like PEPFAR – the newly enhanced and expanded global AIDS, malaria, and TB Bill, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation which partners responsible, but highly impoverished nations with more and better aid for healthcare and infrastructure projects.

You can see it here:

Even in such a divisive political year and in the midst of economic uncertainty, ONE members everywhere should take pride in our non-partisan commitment to the world’s poorest people. Whether it’s at the UN General Assembly, or town halls in the Granite State, good people from both sides of the political aisle are realizing what our nation can do to help save millions of lives around the world.

-Matthew Bartlett, ONE Regional Field Organizer

Last week we announced our campaign to make sure at least ONE question about global poverty is asked at the first presidential debate this Friday. As of now, nearly 90,000 of you have added your voice to the Just ONE Question Campaign, smashing our goal of 50,000. With just one more day to go before we deliver the petition to Jim Lehrer’s office in Arlington, Virginia we’re quickly approaching our new goal of 100,000.

It’s more important than ever that our issues are recognized and discussed at Friday’s presidential debate. Please add your voice by clicking here. And send a message to your friends and family by clicking here.

Thank you for your voice,

-Chris Scott

Last week I went with several ONE volunteers to the Impact ’08 luncheon in Coral Gables, Florida. Impact ’08 is a national, non-partisan initiative of the Center for U.S. Global Engagement which calls on the next president to invest more in global development and diplomacy as the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy.

The foreign policy discussion, which was moderated by CBS4 Miami News Anchor Antonio Mora, featured former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and former head of U.S. Southern Command Gen. Barry McCaffrey. The program also included welcoming remarks by Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner and Florida House Democratic Whip Ronald Brise.

The panelists talked about ways to advance global health, economic prosperity and international cooperation while restoring America’s global image and moral leadership. Following the discussion, we talked to a number of the guests about the ONE campaign and our efforts in South Florida to engage the presidential candidates and campaign staff in discussions around extreme poverty.

We were really encouraged by the response to our presence at the event and the number of people that we encountered that are energized by our issues and want to spend their free time helping fight extreme poverty.

-Sara J. Paterni, FL ONE Field Organizer

President Bush just finished addressing the UN Assembly in New York. During his remarks he pushed for stronger economic and HIV/AIDS fighting initiatives in Africa. He noted that “every country and institution that provides foreign assistance including the United Nations will be more effective by showing faith in the people of the developing world and insisting on performance in return for aid ”while asking countries to “adopt a model of partnership not paternalism.”

He also spoke at length about PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief):

Every nation that receives American support through this initiative develops its own plan for fighting HIV aids and measures the results. And so far these results are inspiring. 5 years ago 50,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa were receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS. Today that number is nearly 1.7 million. We’re taking a similar approach to fighting malaria, and so far we’ve supported local efforts to protect more than 25 million Africans. …All [nations] who have made pledges to fight disease have an obligation to follow through on their commitments.

The full clip can be found here.

-Chris Scott

Bono has been blogging today from the United Nations’s Summit on the MDG’s in NYC. The below post he wrote after meeting with the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. You can read his complete posts at FT.com.

Tough meeting with the Président de la République of France. He’s a tough guy. We like tough guys because they get straight down to business. They don’t waste their time or yours. The French budget is out this Friday and in it we will see if France intends continuing its leadership role on the continent of Africa. In the last few years, French aid has been falling.

My point was that as much as Africa needs French aid and the energy that Sarkozy himself provides, he/we need Africa. Why? Africa has never been so strategically important as it is now, economically and politically. Just ask…

Read the full post here.

-Virginia Simmons

Right now, 30 countries are in immediate need of emergency food assistance and essential seeds and fertilizer.

As world leaders meet in NYC this week to discuss the Millennium Development Goals at the UN Summit, ONE members are signing a petition to the G8 leaders asking them to commit critical funding to address the world food crisis. Without addressing this crisis now – all other poverty-fighting efforts will be blunted.

If you haven’t already, please sign today. And if you have, please forward this on to your friends.

Petition text:

Please provide life-saving food and essential seeds and fertilizer to the 30 countries that need it most by filling the 2008 food and agriculture funding gap of $1 billion without delay.

-Virginia Simmons

Last Friday we visited with St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman. We thanked him for his support in declaring St. Paul a City of ONE during a multi-declaration event for the Twin Cities and the State of Minnesota last month.

We’re very glad to have Mayor Coleman, his staff, and the city of St. Paul join us in our efforts to end extreme poverty!

-Rochelle Gibbs & Kris Jernigan, Twin Cities ONE Members

All this week, Bono and Jeffrey Sachs will be blogging for the Financial Times from the United Nation’s summit on the Millennium Development Goals.

As a precursor, the Financial Times conducted a Q & A with Bono. An excerpt is below, and the full piece is at FT.com.

AB: What is this week [and the Millennium Development Goals summit] all about?

Bono: Most of us woke up on New Year’s Day 2000 with a hangover and a hazy memory of a night of pleasant fanfare and dumb parade. However, the new millennium was also celebrated by our commitment to eight goals that would change the planet and demonstrate to the developing world how we might, through a combination of know-how and resources, partner with them in efforts to help millions out of desperate poverty. We gave ourselves 15 years, we’re halfway there. How do we measure up?

AB: What are the two or three goals you want to achieve this week?

Bono: 1. Blogging for the FT, being your roving reporter in the canyons of Manhattan. While the world upends on Wall Street, I’ll be mostly midtown at the UN and the Clinton Global Initiative talking about the resilience of the world’s poor while the world’s rich find out how fragile life can be.

2. Unlock €1bn of unspent European Union Common Agricultural Policy money. This year our farmers don’t qualify for it, food prices are high. African farmers desperately need it.

3. Show what’s working as well as what’s not. Bad news about Africa travels much farther than good news. There will be a historic and innovative announcement on malaria on Thursday – watch out for it. Thanks to debt relief, aid and African leadership, 29m more children are going to school.

Read the full Q & A here.