Reuters: Obama set to unveil plan on global food security
The Obama administration will unveil its long-awaited global food security plan during the next few days with the United States expected to focus on helping farmers in poor countries feed themselves through better productivity, research and infrastructure. According to Reuters, instead of counting on food donations, “they want to focus on helping small farmers feed themselves and neighbors through research such as creating seeds better suited to local conditions, boosting production and infrastructure to get crops to market.” The issue will take center stage when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discuss food security on Saturday in New York.

The New York Times: All Together Now (Op-Ed, Gordon Brown)
In an editorial for the New York Times, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown emphasized that “the next six months will test international cooperation more severely than at any time since 1945.” In addition to a commitment to tackling climate change and stabilizing the international banking system, Brown said that he will be “calling on every country in the developed world to help poorer nations trade their way out of recession and deliver essential health care to the most vulnerable,” and asked that leaders make good on our pledges to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The Washington Post: A Bold New Strategy for Smart Aid
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton is slated to discuss new global aid strategies at the Clinton Global Initiative conference this week. In an article by Matthew Bishop, New York bureau chief for The Economist magazine, Clinton has said that “the State Department is going to forge new partnerships with philanthropists to achieve America’s foreign policy goals.” Says Bishop, “The CGI is not about the old government-to-government aid model. Its members aim to deliver smart aid, based on partnerships between business, philanthropists, and social entrepreneurs. Mrs. Clinton’s speech is the perfect opportunity to show that government is ready to work with the CGI crowd to rethink how it does aid.”

The Washington Post: For G-20 Summit, Old Issues Give Way to New
The leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies are set to discuss whether it is time to wind down stimulus efforts and talk about what can be done to prevent a repeat of the crisis. Since the last meeting in April, countries have begun to see results from their efforts to cut key interest rates and pump hundreds of billions of dollars into their economies to jump-start growth. According to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, “We’re doing something that hasn’t been done before. At the earliest stage of a recovery, we are working to get the world to embrace a framework to help prevent the next damaging bubble.”

The Associated Press: US praised for helping countries escape poverty
The presidents of Tanzania and Burkina Faso and the prime minister of Albania thanked the U.S. government and American taxpayers at the United Nations for helping with economic development, saying that U.S. aid is having a major impact on the development of their countries. According to the Associated Press, “The three countries are among 38 nations in Africa, Asia, Europe and Central America that are receiving grants totaling over $7.3 billion from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an independent agency created by Congress in 2004 to help fight against global poverty.

The Los Angeles Times – The G-20’s new world (Op-Ed, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva)
Brazilian President, Luiz da Silva warns that while global leaders were able to avert economic disaster, “now is no time to go back to business as usual.” In an editorial for the L.A. Times, Da Silva writes that because of measures adopted at the G-20 summit in London in April, the worst threat to the global economy in decades was contained. However, “We want the kind of governance that makes our interdependence an inducement for self-interested solidarity instead of a pretext for the strong to always come out ahead,” said da Silva. “The G-20 offers an extraordinary chance for us to prove that this is no rose-tinted daydream.”

The Guardian: UN climate summit: Leaders take small steps towards action on climate change
According to journalist, Suzanne Goldenberg, an outpouring of new pledges of action was precisely what UN chief Ban Ki-Moon intended when he called the summit on Climate Change this week. Frustrated by the pace of talks for a treaty to stop global warming, Ki-Moon emphasized in his opening session that “The world’s glaciers are now melting faster than human progress to protect them – or us.” A number of countries, including China, Japan and France and America committed themselves to finding a solution.

-Robyn Mitchell