Yesterday I attended a live taping of “The Kojo Nnamdi Show” at InterAction’s Forum. The two one-hour panel discussions focused on international development and featured well-known development experts and spokespersons.
One of the panels focused on the importance of agriculture and food security in the fight against poverty in the developing world. Etharin Cousin, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture (FAO) stressed the critical need for the U.S. and other donors to invest in long-term, sustainable, country-owned agriculture and food security programs, as agreed to at the G8 summit last summer via the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative principles. Josette Lewis, the Director of Agriculture for USAID, reiterated that the Administration’s “Feed the Future Initiative” reflects these principles by supporting host countries’ leadership and providing assistance with technical capacity-building. The initiative would also help to empower women, who make up 60-80% of farmers in the developing world, by providing them access to land rights, seeds, credit, extension services and training.
On Monday night, several ONE staff and I attended a dinner hosted by the US Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) honoring Secretary Clinton for her extraordinary leadership. Clinton delivered a powerful speech about the importance of a balanced, smart power approach to foreign policy based on strengthened development and diplomacy tools. She stated that it has been her goal as the 67th Secretary of State to “make sure that diplomacy and development were elevated alongside a strong defense.”
She praised USGLC and others in the development community for advocating for a robust International Affairs budget and educating Americans about the importance of development and diplomacy. You can find the full transcript of her speech, photos from the event and media coverage here.
Remember- this Thursday (December 10th) is Human Rights Day and the Global Campaign for Education’s (GCE) National Day of Action. ONE has joined GCE partners to demonstrate support for universal quality education in honor of the nearly 75 million children across the globe who are unable to attend primary school this year.
Please join us by signing a petition that lets President Obama know that you support his call for a fully endowed Global Fund for Education. If you have a few minutes to spare, also consider making a phone call and leaving a message with the White House. And ask your friends and family to do the same.
You can find more information about the December 10th Day of Action here.
Check out the “You Can End Poverty” video, which has been released in advance of Stand Up and Take Action (Oct 16-18). Learn more about how you can get involved here.
It was a great weekend in Virginia Beach, and not just because of the unusually beautiful October beach weather! At the Physicians for Peace Gala Reception this Saturday, ONE received the annual Charles E. Horton Humanitarian Award for Global Health for our grassroots efforts to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease. ONE is especially honored to receive this award from one of our strongest allies in the fight against global poverty, Physicians for Peace, a Norfolk-based non-profit that has been training health care professionals and finding sustainable ways to heal and save countless lives throughout the developing world for two decades. The award serves as a living legacy to their founder, the late Dr. Charles E. Horton, an internationally acclaimed and recognized humanitarian.
Sheila Nix, ONE’s US Executive Director, accepted the award on behalf of all of the outstanding ONE members who raise awareness and engage their elected officials on issues of global poverty as advocates for the world’s poorest people.
The first ever Horton award recipient, Dr. Jeffery Sachs, recorded a special message for the event to congratulate ONE:
We would especially like to thank General Ron Sconyers and the PFP team for this great honor and a wonderful event this Saturday. Look forward to posting about future collaborations with Physicians for Peace!
Check out this update on what’s happening in Zimbabwe from our friends at Amnesty International USA.
-Margaret McDonnell
Zimbabwe is locked in an increasingly downward spiral of diminishing civil rights, decaying infrastructure, violent farm seizures, food insecurity and mass displacement of persons through government destruction of property and those escaping violence and poverty. The situation came to a head last year following Presidential and Parliamentary elections when a run-off election instigated mass violence perpetrated against members of the opposition candidate party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and human rights defenders in an attempt to sway the election results.
A power sharing agreement was negotiated in September 2008 between President Mugabe of the ZANU-PF party, Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC-T and Arthur Mutambara of the MDC-M, calling for a return to the rule of law, an end to harassment of political parties, respect for human rights, a new constitution and prosecutions of perpetrators of the election violence.
Since the new government was sworn in February of this year, there have been some small changes in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe now uses a monetary system based on the US dollar or South Africa rand which has curbed inflation but it means many people can’t access hospital care because they have no foreign currency. Additionally, Zimbabwe’s healthcare system cannot provide the services necessary to sustain the population due to serious shortages of basic clinical equipment and medications.
Zimbabwe also faces a continuing cholera epidemic that has seen 100,000 cases and claimed more than 4000 lives since initials outbreaks in August 2008. The epidemic’s severity is traced to lack of functioning hospitals, abject poverty due to the collapse of the nation’s economy and infrastructure and the rainy season that caused raw sewage to seep into wells used for drinking water. Crisis levels of the outbreak will resume when the rainy season returns in October 2009 if the water treatment plants and sewer systems are not repaired.
Zimbabwe’s education system, once a model in southern Africa, is in a state of near collapse. Compulsory school fees are not affordable by most of the population. Educational supplies are not sufficient to promote a conducive learning environment, with children required to bring chalk, paper and other materials to the classroom. The current Education Minister David Coltart reports an average of 30 pupils share one text book in rural areas while in urban areas it is mostly 15-1 or 20-1. An assessment by UNICEF in February 2009 reported “eighty-six percent of schools reportedly open were not fully functional; 54% of the opened schools were conducting no classes at all. Ninety-two schools visited were completely closed: of the total 94 schools reportedly “open,” only 14% of schools reported teaching at full capacity.”
Amnesty International’s Secretary General visited Zimbabwe last month and noted that repression of human rights defenders, political activists, lawyers and journalists continues. In fact, while she was there, members of civil society group Women of Zimbabwe Arise held a protest near the building Ms. Khan was simultaneously conducting a press conference. Police converged on the protest, arresting and beating many people severely, including a grandmother and a mother with her 9 month old baby.
Zimbabwe is approaching new elections in less than a year’s time. The new constitution process requires it to be ratified by the Zimbabwe people in a vote which should occur around July 2010. Further, if the new constitution alters the current structure of the power sharing agreement, such as eliminating the new Prime Minister position or calls for new Presidential elections, there is potentially a second election in Zimbabwe as well. Considering that the violence never ceased in Zimbabwe, the chances of a dramatic increase during the next year are high.
You can help.Amnesty International USA and Physicians for Human Rights are calling for the United Nations and African Union to deploy human rights monitors on the ground in Zimbabwe NOW. These monitors will assist in compiling investigation reports of the violence that occurred during the elections last year, assure that humanitarian aid flowing into Zimbabwe is distributed equitably, monitor and report on-going incidences of human rights violations and hopefully remain on the ground throughout 2010 to assist with monitoring human rights conditions during the coming elections.
-Sarah Hager, Amnesty International USA
Sign the petition here calling for human rights monitors to be deployed to Zimbabwe. Listen to Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Kahn discuss her visit to Zimbabwe.
I wanted to report back on another interesting session that I attended during last week’s UN Conference. It was titled “Recovering from Global Crisis: Towards an Action plan for Africa and the Least Developed Countries” and included Dr Dipu Moni, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh; Dr Asha-Rose Migiro, UN Deputy Secretary-General; and Mr Cheick Sidi Diarra, UN Under-Secretary-General, Special Adviser for Africa and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries (as represented left-to-right in the photo).
At the start of the session, Mr Cheick Sidi Diarra stated that Africa and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) will likely be hit hardest by the global financial crisis. Many of these countries lack the “fiscal space” to pursue countercyclical measures to protect their industries (think “bail outs”) and to fund social safety net programs (think healthcare, education and social services). He warned that a reduction in Official Development Assistance (ODA) would make the prospect of meeting the MDGs even more remote and urged donor governments to: 1) deliver on the commitments they made at Gleneagles in 2005 as well as the recent G20 meeting; 2) resist protectionist trade policies; 3) finalize the Doha trade agreements; and 4) pursue reforming the global financial system, as to protect against instabilities and guard against future collapses. As he said, these steps are critical “to laying the foundation for future growth and sustainable development.”
Dr Asha-Rose Migiro echoed the call for G8 countries to meet their 2005 Gleneagles commitments, mentioning that aid to Africa is about $20 billion short of the 2010 target of $50 billion per year. As she stated, “there is abundant evidence that aid can help transform lives and must remain a central part of the global development agenda.” She outlined what the UN considers their highest funding priorities, which are: 1) to close the funding gap for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations; 2) to provide agricultural development, including that for subsistence farmers; 3) to improve health systems and infrastructure for the world’s poor; 4) to ensure universal access to education, in support of the Education for All’s Fast Track Initiative; 5) to improve water and sanitation systems; and 6) to meet the gap for clean energy development. That being said, she said that we all must recognize that aid works best in conjunction with market forces.
Dr Dipu Moni picked up on this statement, arguing that trade ¬can be the engine for growth and calling for the conclusion of the Doha Development Round, which could boost the global economy by at least $150 billion and would help fulfill its development mandate. She pointed out that even though the G20 countries pledged not to turn inward, at least 17 of them have already broken their promises and have instituted protectionist and nationalistic trade policies, such as tariffs, trade-distorting subsidies and buy national requirements that favor domestic goods. She said that the current crisis will have a serious impact on trade and that the outlook for 2009 is pessimistic, with the World Trade Organization (WTO) estimating that global trade volumes will fall by 9% in 2009, the largest decline since World War II.
Dr Asha-Rose Migiro ended the session by calling Member States to build upon the Conference to forge a new multilateralism and stronger global collaboration so that we can enter 2010 and the decade beyond with the global financial crisis behind us, a climate change plan in hand and working towards the achievement of the MDGs.
-Margaret McDonnell
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Zimbabwe is locked in an increasingly 
Zimbabwe also faces a continuing cholera epidemic that has seen 100,000 cases and claimed more than 4000 lives since initials outbreaks in August 2008. The epidemic’s severity is traced to lack of functioning hospitals, abject poverty due to the collapse of the nation’s economy and infrastructure and the rainy season that caused raw sewage to seep into wells used for drinking water. Crisis levels of the 
