An Amazing Panel

(UPDATED: I added video.)

Yesterday afternoon, I attended the National Democratic Institute’s global poverty panel at the DNCC. It was moderated by Gayle Smith, who’s a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

The speakers were:

Madeleine K. Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State and NDI chairman
Ben Affleck, actor, director, and advocate
Nancy Birdsall, president of the Center for Global Development
John J. Danilovich, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Account
Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority Leader and Co-Chair of ONE Vote ‘08
Hernando de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy
Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili, vice president of the Africa Region of the World Bank
Donald Payne, U.S. representative
Tim Wirth, former U.S. senator, and CEO of the United Nations Foundation
James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank.

Josh Lozman of our policy staff is going to be sending in a post about the panel a little later.

I also took a small camera with me and shot some simple video, so I’ll post a couple clips here to give you a sense of what it was like to be in the room. The 1st is of Senator Tom Daschle answering a question about his recent trip with ONE through Rwanda.

This second one is of Ben Affleck talking about his new perspective after having visited Africa- and what he thinks that new perspective means for how we should message effectively. After, President of the Center for Global Development Nancy Birdsall talks about the incredible progress we’ve seen.