ADDITIONAL FUNDS NEEDED FOR HAITI  – The Washington Post parses out the current situation for Haiti, including the good and the bad.  Part of the good: Donor nations have forgiven around 80 percent of Haiti’s outstanding debt, large commitments have been made and anti-corruption measures are being put in place.  And the bad: It remains unclear to what extent non-governmental aid organizations in Haiti are prepared to coordinate their efforts with the government and the interim reconstruction agency.  The rainy season is coming, which further complicates the situation.

CALL FOR ADVOCATES ON BEHALF OF REFUGEES IN HAITI, AROUND WORLD – Millions of Haitians and people around the world are desperate for food, water, shelter and protection from abuse and exploitation. New President of Refugees International, former Member of Congress and former chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America calls for America to act as moral leader on this issue.

DEADLY, NEGLECTED DISEASES NEED TO BE ADDRESSED – An opinion piece in Kenya’s Daily Nation draws attention to the need to address deadly diseases such as sleeping sickness, elephantiasis, leprosy, helminthiasis, trachoma, leishmaniasis, Buruli ulcers, schistomiaisis and yaws, which continue to be a deadly threat for many people living in Africa.  Africa continues to pay a handsome price for neglecting these diseases that are silently stealing the strides made in economic growth. The diseases occur in remote areas and affect the poor, a scenario made worse by inaccessibility or unavailability of healthcare for timely and effective treatment.

RACIAL TENSIONS RISE IN SOUTH AFRICA – In South Africa, a judge has ruled that a song once sung by anti-apartheid activists as a rallying cry against the white minority regime is now “unconstitutional and unlawful.” Anyone found singing “Kill the Boer,” the judge said, could face charges of incitement to murder. The ruling has touched off a bitter racial debate in a country still grappling with its racist past.

To have so many different people – influential in their own way – viewing photos of women who are reducing poverty in their countries and conversing about this issue was a great moment for me and my colleagues. But don’t just take our word for it. Check out what Cindy McCain and Connie Britton had to say about their experiences in Ghana and Sierra Leone and what you can do to help:

The photos, which were taken by ONE’s Morgana Wingard, will be on display in the Russell building on Capitol Hill through Friday, March 12. If you live in the Washington D.C. area, please feel free to stop by and learn about the incredible work women in developing countries are doing for their families, communities and countries.

On Wednesday, in commemoration of International Women’s Day this week, ONE is bringing that message to Capitol Hill with a photo exhibit called Women Who Go Beyond: Success Stories from Africa. The exhibit premiere is taking place tomorrow at 1:30 pm in Russell Building Rotunda, a beautiful space located in the heart of Capitol Hill. There, ONE will be joined by Cindy McCain, a humanitarian in her own right and wife of Senator John McCain and actress Connie Britton of NBC’s television drama Friday Night Lights. If you live in the D.C. area, please join us tomorrow for the 1:30 pm exhibit premiere, or come see it anytime this week during normal business hours.

The exhibit features photos taken during a recent trip that ONE led to Ghana and Sierra Leone with Cindy McCain and Connie Britton, along with seven other prominent women, including Dana Perino, a former White House Press Secretary and Maureen Orth, an award-winning journalist and Vanity Fair Special Correspondent. On that trip, the ONE group had the privilege to join a leading poverty-fighting organization, CARE, in Sierra Leone where the entire group was able to come together and share how they could bring their experiences and professional expertise to the movement against extreme poverty and preventable disease.

Throughout their travels, the delegation from ONE witnessed how women are a good investment and critical to making their countries better places to live. They met women who are working tirelessly to provide their families with education, access to better health care, and improving economic opportunity in their local economies. They saw that investment in women is not just smart, it’s necessary to successful, sustainable development.

As members of Congress and their staff conduct daily business this week, they will encounter the faces of women who are leading the fight against extreme poverty. This exhibit will amplify your advocacy efforts in your local district and community, so please come by if you live in the area to see it for yourselves. Otherwise, you can visit www.one.org/women to see what more you can do.

Washington Post: In Kenya, ethnic distrust is as deep as the machete scars
A striking depiction of the residual wounds in Kenya from the post-election violence.

AllAfrica.com: Uganda: Aids Patients’ Agony As Global Fund’s U.S.$4.2 Million Yet to Be Released
A story from an East African paper provides an on-the-ground perspective on how difficulty accessing funds for AIDS programs is affecting Ugandans.

Financial Times: Private sector goes into development finance
The first tentative moves by western banks and fund managers into microfinance are gathering momentum. Most of the big banks have set up divisions that provide financial services to low-income clients in emerging markets, particularly to those who have or wish to set up businesses. The infrastructure involved is burdensome and the returns uncertain, but this does not dim the belief of many in the sector that microfinance will outperform in the future.

NYTimes: Goodbye, Copenhagen
A New York Times blog gathers a colorful collection of opinions on Copenhagen from bloggers and climate change thinkers.

COP15: Climate-Change Conference
But although many will remember the Copenhagen climate summit as an unmitigated disaster, that’s too simple an assessment. For all its limitations, however, the Copenhagen Accord is the first real step to fighting climate change in the 21st century. The real value of Copenhagen of the summit may lie in what it teaches us about dealing with climate change — and much more. TIME outlines five outcomes from the summit.

Wall Street Journal: Time for a Climate Change Plan B
Lord Lawson, former U.K. chancellor of the exchequer in the Thatcher government, suggests that the time has come to abandon the “Kyoto-style folly that reached its apotheosis in Copenhagen last week, and move to plan B.” Plan B, he says, is that, “first and foremost, we must do what mankind has always done, and adapt to whatever changes in temperature may in the future arise…Beyond adaptation, plan B should involve a relatively modest, increased government investment in technological research and development—in energy, in adaptation and in geoengineering.”

Washington Post–U.S. pledges billions; China says climate pact is doubtful:
Secretary Clinton announced that the United Station would help build a $100 billion annual fund by 2020 to help poor countries cope with climate change, but said its commitment depended on whether the nations gathered here could reach a substantive pact that includes “transparency” on tracking emissions cuts.

Reuters: EU woos emerging nations for climate alliancel:
European leaders are courting some African, Asian and Latin American nations to counter the clout of China and the United States at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, French officials said. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his EU allies were wary of letting Beijing present itself as a spokesman for emerging economies, they said. This would be based on China’s ties with the G77 bloc of developing nations which is chaired by Sudan, an ally of Beijing.

Reuters: United States pledges $2.7 bln for Kenya HIV battlel:
The United States committed $2.7 billion on Wednesday to help fight HIV infection in Kenya where more than a million people are living with the disease. The pledge is part of the largest U.S. foreign aid programme devoted to a single disease — the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — and has been lauded as a bright spot of former President George W. Bush’s tenure.

Politico.com: Shah to meet with Coburn (Laura Rozen):
In what’s seen as one of the few remaining steps before he could come up for a Senate confirmation vote, USAID chief nominee Rajiv Shah is due to meet with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) tomorrow. Coburn — like Shah, a physician — and one of the most fiscally conservative members of Congress, proudly highlights on his Senate website a 2006 medical journal article describing him as the “host of several of the key hearings exploring USAID’s regrettable failings.”

BBC News: Millions at risk as East Africa rains fail, Oxfam says:
Rains across swathes of East Africa have failed for the sixth year in a row, leaving millions of people facing hardship, Oxfam has warned. The charity says Somalia’s drought is the worst for 20 years, and November rainfall was less than 5% of normal in parts of Kenya and Ethiopia.

Washington Post: Poor nations stall talks on global warming
Global warming talks were suspended for hours Monday because of a walkout by developing countries, as rich and poor nations struggled to reconcile the divisions that have dominated international climate policy for decades. The conference’s Danish chairman, Connie Hedegaard, resolved the issue by establishing a series of small working groups where ministers could tackle key issues such as global emissions targets and money to help poor countries cope with climate change. Tim Wirth, president of the U.N. Foundation, said the delay would not undermine the possibility of a deal, which is supposed to be finalized Friday when more than 110 world leaders convene in Copenhagen.

Wall Street Journal: Time for a Smarter Approach to Global Warming
Bjorn Lomberg, director of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center, looks at the cost of climate change, and what those costs could mean for developing countries that face much more immediate problems. “There is no question that global warming will have a significant impact on already existing problems such as malaria, malnutrition, and water shortages. But this doesn’t mean the best way to solve them is to cut carbon emissions,” says. Instead, Mr. Lomberg suggests that the global community should radically increase spending on research and development for green energy.

Politico.com: Africa cool on Obama in Copenhagen
President Barack Obama proclaimed he had “the blood of Africa within me” during his emotional trip to Ghana this summer. But to African climate negotiators in Copenhagen, he’s just another U.S. president pushing a preachy, penurious agenda.

ABC News: Africa’s Culture War: The Fight Over Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill
ABC’s Dana Hughes reports from Nairobi on the proposed anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda. She examines its connection, if any, to the U.S. evangelical movement and its potential to reverse progress on HIV/AIDS awareness and treatment.

Associated Press: Malaria cases likely half in third of countries
Malaria cases appear to have been slashed by half in more than a third of countries battling the disease following a renewed push by the United Nations to eradicate it, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. In a new global report on malaria, the U.N. health agency said it was cautiously optimistic the mosquito-borne disease’s spread is slowing, even though its information is patchy and based largely on modeling.

New York Times: AIDS Prevention Gel Fails in Trial, Researchers Say
A microbicide to protect women against infection has failed in the largest trial of its kind, researchers said Monday. That failure, according to some, was the last nail in the coffin for this type of microbicide — gels that could prevent the virus from setting in once entering the body. Attention is now turning to gels and rings that release constant doses of antiretroviral drugs to kill the virus or stop it from reproducing.

On Monday, Prime Minister Harper announced that Toronto, Canada, will host the G-20 Summit on June 26 and 27, 2010. He was joined by President Myung-ba, who announced that Seoul, South Korea, will host a second G20 in November 2010.

Since 2005, the G8 has long been a place where world’s wealthiest countries make commitments to partner with developing countries to fight poverty and eradicate preventable disease. In Gleneagles, Scotland, seven of the current G8 countries made a series of commitments designed to bring the world closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. You can read more about that meeting here.

The transition from the G8 to the G20 could be beneficial, especially since the recent global economic downturn taught the international community a painful lesson about the inter-connectedness of financial sectors. However, the world leaders participating in these summits need to provide more clarity about how development issues will be addressed.

During Monday’s announcement, Prime Minister Harper briefly referenced these concerns about developing countries, saying, “We have demonstrated leadership by providing new resources and guarantees to strengthen international financial institutions, namely innovative new capital arrangements to help ensure the Inter-American Development Bank and the African Development Bank have resources they can count on throughout the crisis. We intend to continue playing a role in defining the path forward in 2010.”

This acknowledgement is a good step in the right direction. ONE, along with organizations and individuals around the world, will be working proactively to make sure that these twenty nations follow through on plans to strengthen the financial institutions that can help finance poverty-fighting initiatives – institutions like the African Development Bank.

AllAfrica.com: Experts Seek Inclusion of Agriculture in Climate Talks
More than 60 prominent agricultural scientists and leaders have decried the almost total absence of agriculture in the climate talks, warning that the climate deal to be reached next month could lead to widespread famine and food shortages in the years ahead. Signatories of a statement issued at the weekend in Rome, Italy, by leading thinkers in development include five World Food Prize laureates, former heads of development agencies, former Ministers of Agriculture, and heads of the world’s leading alliance of agricultural research centres.

Washington Post: The ultimate crop rotation
Countries in the Horn of Africa nation are becoming one of the world’s leading destinations for the booming business of land leasing. Governments across Southeast Asia, Latin America and especially Africa are seizing the chance to attract this new breed of investors, wining and dining executives and creating land-leasing agencies and land catalogues to showcase their offerings of earth. Increasingly, though, purely profit-seeking companies are snatching up land, making a simple, if somewhat grim, calculation. As one Saudi-backed businessman here put it, “The population of the world is increasing dramatically, so land and food supplies will be short, demand will be higher and prices will rise.”

The Guardian: Global body needed to direct green technology, G77 says
A green technology body with powers to direct a worldwide transition away from a high-carbon economy is needed to combat climate change, according to the world’s developing nations. While most negotiations ahead of the UN’s climate change summit in Copenhagen next month have been concerned with which nations should slash greenhouse gas emissions and by how much, the method in which these cuts will be achieved has received far less attention. Yet the importance of green technology – from wind turbines to electric cars to zero-carbon buildings – is enormous.

Reuters: Denmark says 65 leaders enrolled for climate talks
Sixty-five world leaders have confirmed they will attend next month’s U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen which Danish officials hope will bring strong political commitment for a new treaty to combat global warming. Though hopes of reaching a legally binding agreement have slipped into next year, Denmark 10 days ago upgraded the December 7-18 climate talks by inviting 191 heads of state and government to attend the final two days of the Copenhagen meeting to muster forces for a political deal. It remains unclear if U.S. President Barack Obama will attend.

Reuters: World’s poor see few job benefits from trade boom
The boom in global trade over the last two decades has not improved the quality of most jobs in poorer countries, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and United Nations labour agency (ILO) said on Monday. Their joint report, whose conclusions may make a new global free trade pact even harder to swallow for some, found most workers in developing countries continue to face low incomes and limited job security, even in sectors tied to exports.

The Guardian: How will the world feed itself in 40 years’ time?
Alex Renton, writing from his report for Oxfam International on the impacts of climate change on humans, examines the connection between food security and climate change. He posits that rich countries are already getting richer. At the same time, a warmer climate is less likely to negatively impact richer countries as they will poorer countries (particularly poor countries in tropical climates). This means that there is likely to be greater food wasting in richer countries just when poorer countries have greater need for that food.

The Independent: Paul Collier: The flight of finance from Africa
Paul Collier accounts for the recent flight of finance from Africa across the spectrum. He says that a collapse in letters of credit has hit Africa far harder than any other region, leaving the continent desperate for investment. For decades Africa has been investing only around 20 per cent of national income, which means that almost regardless of returns, Africa will continue to fall further behind the emerging market economies. Yet Africa simply cannot afford to finance a substantial increase in investment from its internal resources because a domestically financed increase in investment could only come at the expense of consumption. So if international finance is essential and private international finance is fleeing, the only option is international public finance.

Reuters: China says rich countries undercut climate talks
China accused rich countries of undermining key elements of an international climate change agreement that nations hope to agree by the end of 2009, adding to a chorus of discord over the negotiations.

BBC: Pledge for more IMF help for poor
The French and British governments have announced a $4 billion (£2.5bn) allocation to the International Monetary Fund to help poorer countries. The money will go to the IMF’s new loan facility to help countries which do not have enough money to pay for imports as a result of the economic crisis. It will come from a $250bn (£157bn) allocation distributed a few weeks ago.

Reuters: World Bank to invest $215 million in African internet
The World Bank unveiled its $215 million Central African Backbone program on Tuesday, to bring reliable, high-speed, low-cost internet access to the region for the first time. Cameroon, Chad and the Central African Republic will take part in the initial $26.2 million phase, the World Bank said.

The Guardian: Carbon emissions will fall 3% due to recession, say world energy analysts
A cut in greenhouse gas emissions provides countries with a unique chance to switch to less carbon-intensive energy sources, says International Energy Agency.

Washington Post: Nations Cast Plan for Expanded IMF
The push to reinvent the International Monetary Fund took a significant step forward this week, with nations agreeing to a rough timetable to come up with plans to reform its governance and expand its role in the global economy. The agreements, reached during the IMF’s semiannual meeting in Istanbul that ends Wednesday, come as the mission of the 65-year-old Washington-based institution is re-examined in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Reuters: Trade slump hits poorest countries: study
The slump in world trade this year in the wake of the financial crisis has hit the poorest countries’ export earnings particularly hard as prices tumble and volumes stagnate, a study released on Tuesday showed.

The Guardian: Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe calls for ‘friendly relations’ with west
The Zimbabwean president offered a rare olive branch to the west today, with a call for “fresh, friendly and co-operative relations” with former enemies. Robert Mugabe, subject to targeted sanctions by America and the EU, made the unusually conciliatory remarks in a speech at the opening of Zimbabwe’s parliament. But the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which is in a power-sharing deal with Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party, played down the comments, saying that the president’s words were yet to be matched by deeds.

Forbes.com: Help Women, Help The World (Op-ed)
Two authors write in Forbes Magazine to emphasize how women must play a strategic role in development planning. The piece cites statistics from Girl Effect, a popular program for women interested in development.