Oct 11th, 2010 7:20 PM UTC
By Kimberly Hunter
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 We just touched down in Des Moines, Iowa to take part in the World Food Prize Symposium this week. Driving from the airport, I’m struck by the important role of agriculture in Iowa, which is why holding a summit on fighting hunger and improving our food security here is so appropriate. Later today, we’ll head to Ames, Iowa to visit ONE students at Iowa State University and attend the Norman Borlaug Lecture with Bread for the World’s David Beckmann and Heifer International’s Jo Luck – both ONE partners receiving this year’s World Food Prize.
As part of the Symposium on Wednesday, ONE will be hosting a panel discussion, “Weeding Through Impressions of Hunger,” to highlight the importance of advocacy in promoting advancements in agriculture for the world’s poorest. Simple tools like seeds and farming techniques make a huge impact for farmers in the developing world to not only feed their families, but to also transform their communities with the economic and educational opportunities that agricultural growth brings.
I’m looking forward to learning more about this issue this week and meeting Iowa ONE members as well! We’ll keep you posted.
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Jun 27th, 2010 1:55 PM UTC
By Kimberly Hunter
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 Every year, approximately 350,000 mothers die from complications during child birth and 8.8 million children die before their fifth birthday. We are desperately off track to achieving the Millennium Development Goals on child and maternal health and expectations were high for the G8 summit to deliver results.
Yesterday, the G8 announced the Muskoka Initiative on maternal, newborn, and child health. Although Canada deserves some credit for putting maternal and child health in the developing world on the G8 agenda this weekend, world leaders have not done enough to truly turn the tide on this vital issue.
At ONE, we campaigned for a robust maternal and child health initiative at this year’s G8 summit and for it to be accompanied by a concrete accountability framework. We also delivered a petition signed by more than 60,000 of you to world leaders to push them to deliver for the world’s more vulnerable – mothers and children.
While we were disappointed in the total G8 pledge of $5 billion to the Maternal and Child Health Initiative, our efforts elevated this issue, raised awareness, and will raise the bar for world leaders to address this and the other Millennium Development Goals at the UN Summit in September.
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Jun 26th, 2010 4:32 PM UTC
By Kimberly Hunter
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Sheila Nix, our U.S. Executive Director, was featured on CBC’s The National, the Canadian equivalent of NBC Nightly News, as part of segment on maternal and child health. Sheila talked about her trip to Ghana and Sierra Leone, and how simple interventions can prevent the mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDs giving children a whole new lease on life.
You can watch the clip here.
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Jun 24th, 2010 2:07 PM UTC
By Kimberly Hunter
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The ONE team has arrived in Canada and is already hard at work raising awareness in the fight against extreme poverty with Toronto’s Mayor David Miller. We’re in town for the G8 and G20 Summits where maternal and child health and accountability are on the agenda. For several months, ONE has been actively engaging Canadian leadership to push for a robust maternal and child health initiative that includes accountability measures to make sure that country commitments are kept. We’re also calling for the G8 and G20 to forge a new partnership with Africa based on mutual accountability, good governance, trade and investment – a good start would be giving African countries more formal representation at the G20 to ensure that the poorest countries have a voice at global summits.
We’re currently in the Alternative Media Center which separates the NGO community and civil society from the media. Despite the logistical hurdles, we managed to meet Toronto’s Mayor David Miller, talk about ONE and our issues and give him a t-shirt to sport around town.
Today, leaders are arriving from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and, of course, Canada for the start of the G8 Summit tomorrow in Muskoka.
We’ll be checking in with updates and any news as it breaks – and we’ll be keeping the pressure on global leaders to agree to commitments that make a difference to the world’s poorest!
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