With the exceptional support of the City of Paris, the latest ONE PSA, “The F-Word: Famine is the real obscenity” and animated video, “A Future Without Famine” were projected onto the walls of City Hall in both French and English.

The names of the more than 400, 000 ONE members who have signed the petition calling on G20 leaders to break the cycle of famine were also projected onto the building. This exceptional mobilization is living proof that ONE members’ voices can help break the cycle of famine for good.

As Mayor Bertrand Delanoë said, “Today we have reached 7 billion worldwide. The challenges of population growth are numerous, but food is particularly urgent. A few days before the G20, I seize on this occasion to call for global mobilization against hunger…”

At ONE, we hope that the voices of all our members will be heard, and that strong commitments will be taken and actions implemented by the G20 leaders.

While underlining the severity of the current economic crisis, Bono made the case that even in these difficult times, investing in effective programs that are saving millions of lives is not just the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do in an increasingly globalized world.

He highlighted the importance of the French government continuing its support for effective programs that are fighting extreme poverty in Africa and crises such as the current famine in Somalia, saying, “It is not normal to have a famine …We should be able to prevent a drought from systematically becoming a famine.”

The French have been leaders in the fight against HIV/AIDS as seen by their continued support of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and they are in a unique position to forge stronger links with Africa in the future as a trading and economic partner. And aid is making a difference: 4 million Africans have benefited from AIDS treatment since 2002.

When asked about his own political influence with heads of state during an interview with the French TV show “Le Grand Journal” on Canal+, Bono stressed that much of the power comes from his audience, many of whom are voting age, including U2 fans, and ONE campaigners. “It’s not me the politicians fear, it’s the audience,” he said, urging individuals to mobilize and keep pressure on their governments to ensure that the world’s poorest are not forgotten, even in these tough times.

At the upcoming G20 in Cannes, ONE will be calling upon global leaders to support innovative finance mechanisms for development, to prevent future food crises by smart investments in agriculture and to take concrete actions in order to improve infrastructure in Africa. Please add your voice to our petition and ensure that world leaders break the cycle of famine.

Photo courtesy of GirlsandWomen.com.

The second edition of the G(irls)20 Summit opened today in Paris, and will run until October 21. Because girls and women are half of humanity and that they are always the first affected by the different global challenges, this international summit is dedicated to women and to solutions they can provide to major global economic issues. The G(irls)20 is an integral part of the international campaign “3.3 Billion Ways,” based on the assumption that the planet has 3.3 billion women and therefore, there are 3.3 billion ways to change the world!

The G(irls)20 brings together female citizens, aged 18 to 20, from each G20 country and a representative of the African Union, bringing the number of delegates to 21. Delegates discuss, debate and design innovative solutions to global economic challenges. Representatives of civil society, the private sector and foundations are attending this 100 percent female summit and will share and discuss their ideas with each other for better integration of girls and women in the global economy.

According to Belinda Stronach, founder of the Belinda Stronach Foundation and summit organizer, “The G(irls)20 Summit is a unique platform for the girls to express their innovative ideas and to bring them to the G20 leaders.”

At ONE, we fully support this initiative and look forward to its conclusions!

For more information, please visit: www.girlsandwomen.com

Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease before his or her fifth birthday. This translates into two million preventable childhood deaths every year. The causes of this drama are well known by health care specialists as well as my fellow citizens. Complications from diarrhea and pneumonia are the two leading causes of childhood morbidity and mortality in the poorest, or low-income, countries.

These deaths are not simple fatalities. They can be avoided!

A quick, effective and inexpensive solution exists: administering, as soon as possible, two new vaccines that specifically target pneumonia and diarrhea, primarily caused by pneumococcal bacteria and rotavirus.

These vaccines are widely available in developed countries like France, but have not been introduced on a large scale in national vaccination programs of the countries that need them the most.

In Senegal, since malaria has declined, pneumonia and diarrhea constitute the two leading causes of mortality among children under the age of five. Complications related to acute respiratory failure are as deadly as complications from diarrhea.

But administering these two new vaccines to our children lies within our capability: between 2000 and 2009, my ministry was able to increase vaccination coverage in Senegal from 50 percent to 89 percent by dispensing the pentavalent vaccine that fights five diseases in a single injection.

Thus, the technical solutions exist and health care human resources can be mobilized at any moment: our doctors, nurses, and NGOs are on high alert.

One unknown still remains in solving the fatal equation of our children’s health: the sustainable mobilization of funding to rise up to the challenge of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing the under-five mortality rate by two thirds between 1990 and 2015.

These are the stakes for the upcoming GAVI Alliance Pledging Conference for Immunization, to be held in London on 13 June 2011. Mobilizing €2.6 billion over the next five years will allow 250 million children to be immunized and 4 million of their lives to be saved in the poorest countries on the planet.

These stakes cannot be summarized by a cold financial calculation. Vaccinating a child is investing in the future, guaranteeing his or her right to life, and also enabling mothers to access health centers while promoting an exchange of information on contraceptive methods and advising them on care for themselves and their children. From an economic development point of view, it also benefits a population that is able to work and thrive by taking away the burden of this daily fear.

Simply stated, it is the government’s responsibility to offer its citizens the means to prevent the causes of their poor conditions and poor development. My country, Senegal, and dozens of other countries that submitted an application to GAVI to introduce new vaccines, are taking this responsibility to our citizens by pledging as of today to co-finance the purchase of these vaccines.

A few days away from this much overlooked conference, with the life or death of 4 million innocent children hanging in the balance, one variable remains unknown. How much will the international community contribute? Specifically, the contribution of G8 member countries that recently met in Deauville, along with invited African leaders, including our President, Mr. Abdoulaye Wade. At that time, the heads of state took stock of their past commitments, especially last year’s commitments, to mobilize an additional 5 billion dollars for women’s and children’s health. For a change, it turns out that these pledges will be far exceeded, so why not release these funds immediately to prevent foreseeable deaths rather than cure them after the fact? A few days before the GAVI Pledging Conference, even though no donors have yet publicly announced the amount of their commitment, it is my duty to sound the alarm, on behalf of the millions without a voice who have no knowledge of these distant stakes. As the saying goes, to govern is to foresee.

-Modou Diagne Fada. Minister of Health and Prevention of the Republic of Senegal

The G8 Summit ended yesterday and here’s a quick summary of what we learned:

For the first time, freedom and democracy are headlining and ONE welcomes them. However, we are concerned that the final statements are primarily statements of good intent.

We would like first to refresh the G8′s memory regarding the $14 billion to help sub-Saharan Africa that is still missing compared to the G8′s promises in 2005.

Agriculture gets barely any attention and it has hardly been discussed. It is needless to recall the grand promises made in L’Aquila in 2008 at the height of the last food crisis: $20 billion to be disbursed by next year. Yet less than $5 billion have been provided so far.

On health issues, particularly vaccines, the G8 has until next month – when the international conference of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) will be held in London – to lead by example. The final declaration stressed the importance of GAVI and calls for its funding. We welcome this support. However, regarding the amounts of contributions, for the moment, they are neither seen nor heard.

Transparency is the real champion of the summit. For the first time the G8 supports legislation to ensure transparency in the extractive industries. This is a very important step. President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and US President Barack Obama deserve to be applauded on this issue. At ONE, we will follow closely the detail of future legislation to ensure that these efforts will not be wasted.

To conclude, despite some positive steps, Deauville failed to deliver for Africa. So will we be waiting for the 2012 G8 Summit in the US for concrete action?

Image courtesy of the G8

The Final Deauville Declaration has been made public. It is full of good intentions. Great. However, you must read between the lines to find (or not) concrete commitments, particularly on immunization, from the G8.

At ONE, we wonder if all these good intentions will change the face of the world?

Even if the G8 have expressed support for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and called for its funding, there are no firm commitments regarding the amounts to be allocated by rich countries.

It’s really time for world leaders to take concrete action. Otherwise, children under 5 years will continue to lose their lives due to preventable diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia, 2 of the biggest killers of children around the world.

Dear leaders, if the 2.8 million children dying each year because of these diseases were yours, what would you do?

Today, for the very first time, we have two new vaccines that will help stop these “serial killers”. These vaccines are already available in developed countries, but their distribution in the developing world depends on what the international community is willing to pledge at the next international GAVI conference, to be held on June 13th in London.

We have already said it and we will keep saying so: dear world leaders, by funding these 2 proven vaccines, you will help saving the lives of 4 million children in 5 years. It’s time for you to lead by example.

Take action now and sign the petition

During two days, the French capital was the world capital of the Internet. The e-G8 gathered the web elite –- from Google’s Eric Schmidt to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to Rupert Murdoch — in the Tuileries Park. Their objective? Discuss the web economy and changes happening.

For the first time, a discussion about the Internet has been put on the agenda before the G8 in Deauville that starts today.

At first, ONE welcomed the concept of such a meeting. We have all been witnessing the key role that the Internet played, in particular during the recent Arab revolutions. The web is an effective means to enforce rule of law, to increase transparency and to end poverty.

Improving Internet access and mobile connectivity in developing countries can allow farmers to consult market prices on their mobile phones, pupils and teachers to do distance learning or civil society to use social networks to fight against electoral fraud or corruption.

But unfortunately, these questions have been relegated to the second row, giving way to the predominance of the usual preoccupations: economic growth (ours), protection of children (ours), copyright (ours), etc.

This meeting could have been a historic moment for the people from the developing world, but we are far from there!

Despite this, an interesting conclusion on governance merits attention though: neither governments nor entrepreneurs nor civil society will be able to resolve the challenges of good governance on their own.

At ONE, we believe that we urgently need a new partnership: web companies, states and civil society should commit to work hand-in-hand in order to end censorship.

The two days of debate have ended without any agreement on concrete actions. The so-called leaders of the Internet are content with a simple state of play that will be presented at the G8 today and tomorrow. One can only hope for the leaders of the richest countries on earth to finally act: as long as the most marginalized are forgotten, the promise of the Internet will be unfulfilled.

Video and photo courtesy of e-G8.

Following the tradition started last year at the G8 in Canada, this year’s French presidency prepared an accountability report together with the other G8 countries, which outlines the state of delivery and results of the G8’s commitments on fighting extreme poverty.

Let’s start with the positives: it is commendable that the G8 continues with preparing such reports. Great promises are one thing, but keeping them and proving to have kept them is equally important. This is exactly what ONE has been saying for years (and showing the example for) with the DATA report.

It is also good to draw attention to the commitments on food security and maternal health, the focus of this year’s report. The report has the merit of establishing a baseline for the different commitments, reporting back on disbursements already made and giving a time line for outstanding disbursements. So far, so good. But…

There is a massive “but”. The G8 have found an artful way to embellish their performance. The report puts the spotlight on figures in today’s prices and tracks progress against them. It is a major issue, because current prices cannot be compared properly across years. This is why the OECD recommends using constant prices, prices that take into account changes in exchange rates and inflation from year to year and give an honest picture of the real efforts that were made. To put it simply $1 in 2010 doesn’t buy as much as $1 in 2005.

The result of tracking progress in current prices? Forgetting inflation suddenly makes the G8 look much better than it really is. Gleneagles’ targets are missed, but only by a “little” $1.27 billion. Great success. Pat on the back. Except that taking inflation into account shows a very different picture. The G8 shortfall is in fact $19 billion!

Careful readers will notice that the report also mentions the $19 billion shortfall. Very careful readers, in fact. The figure is dropped in passing, immersed in a sea of data and tables all in current prices. Predictably, it is a blessing for countries that haven’t performed well and can conveniently quote the report to avoid facing their failure. Take Germany. The Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development issued a press release yesterday, which selectively quotes the report to give itself a pass, when Germany’s under performance is in reality costing $4 billion to the developing world.

As ONE’s Executive Director, Jamie Drummond, said yesterday:

“We cannot allow countries who are breaking promises to the world’s poor to hide behind misleading figures. When the G8 leaders gather in France next week they must acknowledge that accountability is more than just a PR exercise.”

This year’s G8 meeting on Africa (with the African Union and founding members of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development – NEPAD) will also examine the first accountability report prepared by the African side. We can only hope that Africa will have the courage to look shortfalls in the eyes.

How to sum up the last three days in Europe?

Stamina.

Not mine, but Bill Gates’… It’s unreal. He flew in overnight on Sunday, and in just two and a half days travelled to three cities, delivered three powerful Living Proof presentations, lobbied Presidents, Chancellors, and Ministers, gave numerous media interviews and rallied activists. He is a testament to the ability of a committed person to change the world. Of course, he has a few more resources at his disposal than most – but all the more impressive to think he could just be sat on a yacht sipping down piña coladas.

As I expect he himself would say however, Bill Gates isn’t what the trip should be about. What’s important is the impact, did we make a difference? Well, there have already been impressive outcomes from this visit, including Germany and the European Commission pledging to increase their funding for vital vaccines. This extra support will save thousands of children’s lives and free up health systems in developing countries to build healthier, more productive communities.

However, the news yesterday on broken promises shows us how fragile our gains can be and reminds me why this is just the start of our Living Proof campaign…

So, if there is one thing you do today please pass on some Living Proof to a friend, colleague, politician, or loved one (you can find plenty of food for thought on our new website), or simply use the widget below, and encourage them to do the same.

As my grandmother always said you catch more bees with honey than you do with vinegar…

Last night ONE hosted a Living Proof event in Paris event aimed at convincing French politicians that development is worth their investment, and that they should stick to their promise of reaching 0.7% of Gross National Income on development assistance by 2015.

As I mentioned in my first blog in this series, if Living Proof is to succeed it needs to touch both the head and the heart. Bill Gates and prominent economist Esther Dufflo both made powerful arguments – one of the most interesting was about whether by saving lives we contribute to overpopulation. Bill himself had questioned this when he first got in to development work and after researching the issue came up with some surprising findings.

He found evidence to support the view that when families know their children have a better chance of surviving they choose to have fewer children. This was illustrated on a visual by the graphical and global health guru Hans Rosling (see his TED Talks), which you can see here in an earlier presentation:

You’ll see that as life expectancy goes up, family size goes down…

And so to matters of the heart…If a good hour of facts and figures hadn’t won you over then cue Mamadou Touré a softly spoken man from Cameroon and head of the Africa 2.0 initiative (which mobilizes young African leaders to create change from within). Mamadou stood up to ask a question, and as he did explained that part of the reason he was there and creating his own change was thanks to the opportunities afforded to him thanks in part to aid – he said he himself was ‘Living Proof’.

Sometimes it’s the unexpected things that are the most powerful.