On December 17th, we delivered our petition with more than 86,000 signatures to President-elect Barack Obama’s foreign policy transition team.
The petition asked Obama to make a clear statement, through his upcoming inaugural address and budget priorities, that he intends to fulfill his campaign commitments to fighting poverty and preventable disease worldwide. View the petition here.
Senior members of the Obama-Biden Transition’s foreign policy team gladly accepted this petition, and were impressed by the 86,113 members –- at the time of delivery –- whom we mobilized on behalf of the world’s poorest people.
Although the initial delivery is complete, you can still sign the petition here. As the number of signers grows — hopefully hitting our new goal of 100,000 before the inauguration on January 20th — your signature will keep on working in our fight to alleviate global poverty and prevent diseases, including HIV/AIDS and malaria. We will continue using this petition in our advocacy efforts, taking every opportunity to encourage the President-elect to get us on track to meeting his pledges.
After the inaugural address on January 20th, we’ll be looking at Obama’s first Presidential budget request, for Fiscal Year 2010, and working hard to make sure it provides sufficient support for the proven, effective and affordable programs that give hope and opportunities to millions of people now living in desperate need.
In the last week, Bloomberg has featured a series of articles detailing the food crisis facing the developing world. The seven-part compilation delves into some of the challenges surrounding this crisis, and the importance of agricultural development that we have been highlighting on the blog. Last week the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that 963 million people are now hungry, which means another 40 million people have been pushed into hunger between last year and this one – an increased estimate from just two months ago. The Bloomberg article series provides a glimpse into some of the causes behind the food crisis, with several dominant themes.
Policies in the developed world can have serious impacts on the livelihood and wellbeing of developing communities. Among other policy topics, the series highlights the U.S. mandate that most of U.S. food aid be supplied and shipped from the United States. The result is that food aid can be delayed in reaching already-malnourished people in countries like Ethiopia. Similar food aid programs in Canada and the European Union allow the purchase of food near where it is to be distributed, where possible. Not only does this practice ensure that food is delivered in a more in a timely manner, but it supports local and regional economies in the developing world.
The series also examines the potential role of speculation in commodities markets, and of the possibility of fertilizer companies colluding to raise prices, in exacerbating the food crisis. From August to November, the price for potash, a particular kind of fertilizer, rose by 20 percent. This meant that farmers could not afford to apply fertilizer to their fields, leaving some unfarmed, and others producing smaller yields. When grain prices dropped earlier in the year, fertilizer prices remained high, further squeezing farmers in the developing world. The series also examines the topic of biofuels and how biofuel production can drive up commodity prices.
A lack of investment in agriculture is a central theme of the articles, which note that (more…)
Reuters: IFC launches private-sector aid funds
The International Financial Corp, the World Bank’s private-sector lender, launched funding facilities to ease the effects of the global financial crisis on companies in emerging markets. The IFC said it will work with sovereign wealth funds to invest in Africa. The package includes a doubling of the IFC trade finance program to $3 billion, a new $3 billion bank recapitalization fund and an infrastructure crisis facility, which is expected to mobilize at least $1.5 billion. Over the next three years IFC is expected to deploy about $30 billion through the funds and has invited other donors to contribute financing, including China.
London Times: Global aid in crisis as cash supply dries up
Jeffrey Sachs comments on the current economic conditions, “We have a terrible situation because the overall aid system is on its knees and that was true even before this global economic crisis.” International aid programs are in crisis, governments are not honoring funding promises, individual donors are skeptical about aid policies and wealthy philanthropists are losing money in the economic turmoil, the Times reports.
Guardian: Morgan Tsvangirai threatens to quit talks over Zimbabwe abductions
Secondly, the Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has threatened to quit power-sharing negotiations with the government unless authorities produce dozens of opponents who have been abducted and disappeared in recent weeks. Tsvangirai also called for fresh elections if a coalition government is not put in place soon. Mugabe remains defiant. The state-run Herald newspaper reported him as taunting other African leaders, saying they lacked the courage to use force to remove him from power.
Starting today, you may begin seeing our new ad ‘Thank You’ airing on major networks. We wanted to take the opportunity to pause and reflect on a great year for ONE and ONE Vote ’08, none of which would’ve been possible without dedicated people like you. So enjoy the ad and from all of us here at ONE, thank you for your hard work and commitment in the fight against extreme poverty.
PS- Thank you to Switchfoot, who also participated in this year’s Music Builds Tour, for loaning us their music.
Another big item on the agenda at this week’s High Level Group meeting in Oslo is financing for basic education. Education for all by 2015 is only possible if developing countries and donor governments dedicate the financial resources and political will required to make it happen. It was this spirit of mutual commitments that led to a deal between donors and developing countries at the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar: If developing countries committed the political will and domestic resources to achieve universal primary education by 2015, donors would provide the technical know-how and extra funding to support them.
The Dakar agreement gave rise to the first ever global compact on education, the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (FTI), The goal of FTI is to “fast track” countries seriously committed to achieving universal primary education by providing coordinated and increased donor support. Under the FTI framework, developing countries produce national education plans and mobilize domestic funding to finance them. Once their plans have been technically vetted and endorsed, donors step in to provide coordinated and increased financial and technical assistance to help implement them.
Where developing countries and donors have delivered on their promises, remarkable progress has been made. UNESCO points to Ethiopia as an example- international aid helped Ethiopia increase its education spending from 3.6% of GNP in 1999 to 6% in 2006. Over the same period, the number of Ethiopian children out-of-school was cut nearly in half, dropping from 7 million to 3.7 million. Statistics also suggest that the FTI model is working on a broader scale- in its annual report released this past Monday, FTI announced that African FTI countries alone had seen 15 million more children go to school for the first time between 2000 and 2006, a 52 percent increase. This is compared to a 23 percent increase for non-FTI African countries.
To date, 36 countries have answered the call from Dakar by developing FTI-endorsed education plans and mobilizing over 70% of the financing to implement them. Donors, however, have not kept up their end of the bargain, and as a result many countries are struggling to fully implement their education plans. Aid to basic education has stagnated at $4 billion per year, less than half of what is needed to achieve universal primary education and only one-quarter of the $16 billion required annually to realize all the Education for All goals. Estimates are that FTI countries will face a resource gap of $1 billion in 2009. This gap will grow as more countries are endorsed- by 2010, if all thirteen expected countries receive endorsement the gap could grow $2.2 billion.
Participants here in Oslo are hopeful that the discussions this week will inject new momentum into financing education for all. There have been some signs in recent months that some donors are committed to doing this: at the launch of the Class of 2015 partnership in September, $4.5 billion in new commitments were announced by different donors. Here in the U.S., President-elect Obama has committed not only to capitalizing a $2 billion Global Education Fund, but also to endorsing the Education for All Bill (championed in the Senate by Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton) which would put $10 billion into basic education over 5 years.
The need to revive the global education compact is more critical than ever in the current financial climate. As poor countries begin to feel the effects of the global economic crisis, the temptation to cut spending on education will be high and some of the recent progress made in getting children in school could be threatened. If the world stands a real chance at education for all by 2015, donors need to renew faith in the global education compact by keeping up their end of the deal and standing by their commitments to basic education.
Earlier this year, malaria experts, prime ministers, presidents and celebrities joined together in New York to launch the Global Malaria Action Plan. This plan, if followed and funded, is supposed to lead us to a world without any deaths from malaria by 2015. This year, close to 900,000 people will die from the disease – 85% of them will be children under five in Africa.
In development, we can get a bit cynical about these big plans – there are many commitments made by donors that are not kept. But, the fight against malaria has a lot of momentum. Funding has increased significantly in the past few years; victories across Africa are showing that success is possible; and perhaps, the most significant step yet, a vaccine now looks possible.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (and their grantee, PATH’s Malaria Vaccine Initiative) and GlaxoSmithKline have worked together on a vaccine candidate that has now been shown to cut illnesses in infants and young children by more than half. These results were published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. The Gates Foundation has spent more than $100 million supporting this initiative thus far. Though the vaccine still has to go through phase III trials, if all goes well, it could be ready for approval in 2011.
Having a working vaccine could change the map for malaria. Billions of people across the world live in areas that put them at risk for the disease. The possibility of a successful vaccine is reason for hope that the real progress being made fighting malaria will continue.
Last week, ONE members and faith leaders from across the country got together for a conference call on ONE Sabbath, which along with companion programs ONE Seva and ONE Sadaqa is rallying believers of all faiths, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and others, to learn and take action on behalf of people living in extreme poverty and dying from preventable diseases.
On the call, we talked about successful ONE Sabbath events that have already happened and how ONE members can host their own ONE Sabbath events within their faith communities. We were joined by a great group of faith leaders, Kim Steitz, Director for International Policy at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Rick Pelay, from the Jubilee Community Church in Miami, FL, Herley Jim Bowling, a member of the Church in Ocean Park, Santa Monica, California, and Pastor Michael Hidalgo of Denver Community Church.
This call was focused on our Christian ONE Sabbath supporters, but we’re looking forward to launching similar efforts through the Jewish ONE Sabbath, ONE Seva and ONE Sadaqa programs, soon.
If you’re interested in getting your faith community involved in ONE Sabbath, make sure to check out the call, and sign-up to receive more information:
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
