The Guardian: Europe offers to cut emissions 95% by 2050 if deal reached at Copenhagen
Europe attempted to reassert its international leadership in the fight against global warming today, offering to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95% by 2050 and by 30% by 2020 if a climate change pact is sealed in Copenhagen. According to The Guardian, Britain, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands supported this view, believing that Europe had more to gain from seizing the leadership in the run-up to Copenhagen. However, Germany and Italy were reluctant to name a figure publicly so early, believing this could weaken the European bargaining position.

New York Times: Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow
Scientists and development experts across the globe are racing to increase food production by 50 percent over the next two decades to feed the world’s growing population, yet many doubt their chances despite a broad consensus that enough land, water and expertise exist. Agronomists and development experts who gathered in Rome last week generally agreed that the resources and technical knowledge were available to increase food production, but are unsure whether the food can be grown in the developing world where the hungry can actually get it, at prices they can afford.

Reuters: USDA to play “modest” role in hunger plan-Shah
The U.S. Agriculture Department will play an “important but modest role” in the new U.S. plan to fight world hunger, but will take its lead from developing countries and the State Department, a senior USDA official said on Wednesday. The USDA plans to tap into its own network of scientists as well as researchers funded by grants to help developing countries on agricultural research and education. The Obama administration has said it will make food security a key plank in its foreign policy, and wants to spend $3.5 billion over three years on projects to help farmers boost food production.

Reuters: Global immunizations hit record but miss millions
Global efforts to immunize children against life-threatening diseases set a record high last year but failed to protect millions of youngsters in the world’s poorest countries, health officials said on Wednesday. A joint report by the World Health Organization, United Nations and World Bank provides a snapshot of an immunization boom that has tripled the global vaccine market to $17 billion in eight years and set off a renaissance of vaccine development aimed at AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and dengue fever.

Today is World Food Day—a day established by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1979 to raise awareness about the issue of hunger and food insecurity worldwide. Below are some relevant news clips, including an op-ed from Secretary of State Clinton.

To learn more, check out our Food Security in Focus hot topic. And remember, not just today, but every day, there are over one billion people around the world suffering from hunger and food insecurity.

The Guardian—Seeding a safer world (op-ed by Hillary Clinton)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton writes about hunger and food security in the developing world in today’s Guardian. She writes, “The Obama administration sees chronic hunger as a key priority of our foreign policy. Chronic hunger threatens individuals, governments, societies, and borders. We know that development works best when it is seen as investment, not aid. Revitalizing global agriculture will not be easy. But it can be done. It is worth doing. And if we succeed, our future will be more prosperous and more peaceful than our past.”

Financial Times—Gates’ charity to focus on food security
In a speech yesterday, Bill Gates put the focus of his multi-billion-dollar foundation firmly on food security, saying that making poor farmers more productive will have a “massive impact” on hunger. “Helping the poorest smallholder farmers grow more crops and get them to market is the world’s single most powerful lever for reducing hunger,” Gates said as he announced $120 million in one-off grants for research and development. While the foundation has already provided $1.4 billion to food security projects, the new grants and Mr. Gates’s speech point to a bigger prominence for agriculture, the Financial Times writes.

Washington Post—Gates’s Fields of Dreams (op-ed by Michael Gerson)
Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson writes about the Gates Foundation’s focus on agricultural investment. Gerson writes, “Approximately three-quarters of Africans are employed in agriculture, but about 30 percent of people on the continent suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Over the next few decades, African farmers will need to feed a growing population without expanding into ecologically important lands, while adapting to climate disruptions that make drought, pests and floods more common. They will need Gates’s help, and more.”

L.A. Times—Hunger breeds violence (op-ed by Sandy Berger)
Former U.S. National Security Advisor Sandy Berger connects the fight against hunger to the fight against terrorism and extremism in an op-ed in today’s L.A. Times. He writes, “Every six seconds a child dies of hunger. Those who don’t die face a childhood of worry and desperation. Many of them end up foraging in the streets or garbage heaps, where they are prime targets for recruitment by extremist groups or other criminal organizations. That is simply not acceptable when most live in a world of plenty.”

Wall Street Journal—Starving for Freedom (op-ed by Julian Morris)
An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal offers a slightly different perspective on food security, arguing that much of the blame for famine and hunger is due to trade restrictions, not climate change or a lack of Western aid. Julian Morris writes, “Instead of carping about climate change and more aid, the World Bank, Western governments and all those charities in Africa should learn the lessons from one of this year’s economics Nobel laureates. (Their) work emphasizes the need for markets and institutions to be built from the bottom up, without interference from higher levels of government.”

Other news:

Financial Times—Affluent Africa
The Financial Times looks at the growing class of powerful African businessmen and women that has emerged in the past decade thanks to increased money being invested domestically on the continent. The Times writes that mobile phone entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim personifies this trend; his company and others proved it was possible to build a business on a regional scale that could be profitable providing services and connecting the lives of the rich and poor, a new step in the emergence of African entrepreneurs on to the world stage.

Reuters—Poor states seek cotton safety net due to slump
The world’s poorest countries on Friday urged other World Trade Organization members to set up a safety net for cotton producers in poor nations, to help address losses arising from the world economic slump. Trade Ministers from some 30 members of the Least Developed Countries also asked for quick action on removing trade-distorting subsidies and duty- and quota-free market access to cotton and cotton by-products from poor countries.

Financial Times: Pittsburgh should be a turning point for the poor (Op-Ed, Robert Zoellick)
World Bank President Robert Zoellick writes in an editorial in the Financial Times that world leaders need to recognize that developing countries are a key part of the solution to the global economy. Writes Zoellick, “With access to finance, other developing economies can help boost a global recovery. Many have the fiscal space to borrow, but cannot get the volumes they need at reasonable prices without crowding out their private sectors.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – Panel presses summit leaders to recommit to Africa
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette covers yesterday’s panel discussion co-hosted by ONE in anticipation of the G20, focusing on the opportunity Africa presents to the world as part of the solution to the global economic recovery. The story quotes ONE President David Lane, “There are pragmatic reasons for the leaders of the world gathered here to include Africa in the dialogue.” The article also mentions ONE’s ask that the G-20 to hold an upcoming summit in Africa as “a first step in showing that Africa is part of the solution to our global problems.”

UK Press Association: PM unveils Africa healthcare aid
U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a £250 million UK investment in free healthcare, saying that “the world must be shamed into action to prevent child deaths in developing nations.” He was co-hosting a United Nations event in New York where six African countries, including Zambia, Malawi, Ghana, Liberia, Burundi and Sierra Leone – and Nepal – announced they would expand access to health services, which Mr Brown hailed as an “historic step”. The extra aid from the UK is part of a fund which will invest in struggling health systems and is part of a wider £3.2 billion global effort to improve health services in the poorest nations.

The Guardian: Obama to press G20 leaders to cut fossil fuel subsidies that benefit big business
President Obama will propose to leaders at the G20 summit to end the billions of dollars of subsidies that encourage the use of fossil fuels around the world and help drive climate change. The White House said elimination of the subsidies would be a “significant downpayment” to ending global warming. But according to the Guardian, “an end to the subsidies would bring world leaders into conflict with powerful fossil fuel lobbies as well as developing nations where the subsidies make fuel affordable.” Mike Froman, the national security adviser for international economic affairs, said: “We are working with the rest in the G20 to see if we can forge an agreement that would make significant contributions in direction [of removing subsidies].”

The Washington Post: Balancing Act (editorial)
In an editorial, the Washington Post expresses relatively high hopes for Obama and the leaders of the G20, citing the successful steps taken to break the fall of the global financial crisis, which came out of the last meeting in London. Among a number of goals they hope to see accomplished in Pittsburgh this week, the Post believes it would be “useful to establish a system for monitoring imbalances, perhaps overseen by the IMF, to nudge countries gradually to change course.” The editors also maintain that “the G-20 remains the best available forum for tackling its global repercussions and for discussing, if not actually deciding, long-term strategies.”

The Washington Post: AIDS Vaccine Experiment Yields Unanticipated Results
An experiment in Thailand involving 16,000 men and women has demonstrated for the first time a small but measurable protective effect of an AIDS vaccine. According to the Washington Post, the vaccine, “a complicated mixture of shots, reduced a person’s risk of becoming infected by about one-third compared with people getting placebo injections.” Though the results were “barely significant on statistical grounds,” researchers are calling the first positive results for an AIDS vaccine after two decades of experimentation a milestone.

-Steve Wilson

I’ve been on the road for the last two weeks signing up new ONE members at music festivals in New Hampshire and upstate New York. First up was SoulFest in New Hampshire, where we got drenched for two days straight and I ruined two pairs of shoes in what became a giant mud pit. But it was definitely worth it for the more than 1,000 new ONE members we signed up. SoulFest wrapped up at midnight Saturday night and we immediately set out for Kingdom Bound in upstate New York, about an 8 hour drive away. We arrived early in the morning and set the booth, and I’ve never been more happy to see the ONE booth set-up on concrete as I was after the mud pit we just left (though when it wasn’t raining, NH was gorgeous). At Kingdom Bound, ONE signed up another 1,000+ new members. All in all, a great experience and I’m very happy to be back in ONE’s DC office (mud and bug-free!).

-Kimberly Cadena

Forbes Magazine this week features an article by Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Paul Kagame, Seretse Khama Ian Khama, and Abdoulaye Wade (the presidents of Liberia, Rwanda, Botswana, and Senegal respectively.) In the piece entitled “Partnership, Not Patronage” the presidents discuss the challenges and opportunities confronting Africa as Secretary of State Clinton embarks on her 7-country, 11-day trip through the continent.

The presidents also discuss the need to curb corruption, reduce poverty, and address the global recession. You can read excerpts below, full piece here. Be sure to follow our coverage of Secretary Clinton’s trip here.

Just three weeks after President Barack Obama’s triumphant return from Africa, the real challenge to achieving strategic change lies in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s own upcoming visit. Left unsaid as the president boarded Air Force One is the fact that Africa seeks not patrons but collaborators who will work “with” rather than “for” the continent. If the Obama administration wishes to truly make a difference, it must do so as an equal partner, addressing several low-cost, high-impact priorities.

Ultimately, Africa’s quality of life will depend on the health of its citizens. The centerpiece of U.S. support for HIV/AIDS in Africa–the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief–has helped expand life-saving treatment. President Obama has an opportunity to make PEPFAR more effective by moving from emergency to long-term support–as in the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s five-year partnership model, with each country taking ownership of the design of its programs.

Finally, we need more effective and predictable development lending. The U.S. remains the main exception to the common donor practice of channeling development assistance through financial systems of recipient countries. Done with sufficient safeguards, this strengthens country ownership, responsibility and accountability. The U.S.’s reluctance to embrace shared multilateral approaches limits the impact of its foreign assistance.

President Obama’s charisma, oratory and heritage have excited Africa as never before. Now substantive action that realizes the promise of his visit needs to be on Secretary Clinton’s agenda during her visit to seven African countries.

-Chris Scott

Congressional Quarterly: Reorganization of USAID is Focus of Senate Bill
CQ reports that a bipartisan group of leaders on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee offered a significant addition to the debate on overhauling U.S. foreign aid Tuesday with legislation aimed at rebuilding the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The bill is designed to restore USAID as a center of technical expertise and development practice, a preliminary step to a broader revamp of aid programs. The story prominently quotes representatives from MFAN, a reform coalition composed of international development and foreign policy practitioners, policy advocates and experts, concerned citizens and private sector organizations in which ONE takes part.

New York Times: New Effort to Fight TB in South Africa
Celia Dugger reports that multidrug-resistant TB \ in South Africa is posing a grave threat to millions of HIV-positive South Africans whose immune systems are weakened. Under the country’s current treatment policy, patients are taken to isolated hospitals for a grueling regimen of toxic, hard-to-tolerate pills and injections. Some of the hospitals essentially imprison their patients: they are surrounded with barbed wire fences and issue court orders for people who leave. But a new program run by Doctors Without Borders is attempting to treat patients in impoverished communities without removing them, even while they are still infectious.

Reuters: Emerging Nations Need up to $900 billion Reserves: IMF
The International Monetary Fund yesterday estimated that reserve needs of emerging countries (excluding China and oil producers) could reach between $400 billion and $900 billion over the next five years as countries rebuild from the global financial crisis. It said international reserves had been substantially drained as governments have tried to protect their economies. The IMF board has approved a staff proposal to allocate $250 billion in special drawing rights to the Fund’s member countries.

Guardian Editorial: International aid: Feeding Africa
The Guardian writes that the World Bank has finally come to recognize the urgency of investment in global agricultural productivity and, after two decades of neglect, the importance of governments in delivering it. It says that the question now, as world recession eats into aid budgets, is how to get the most out of the money that is available. The editorial concludes that growing more food is only part of the answer but, as a billion people feel the effect of high prices and climate change, it is the part that matters most.

AP: South Africa Launches New AIDS Research
South Africa launched a new initiative Tuesday aimed at stimulating scientific studies into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS. The government has pledged $5.8 million over the next three years for the project. South Africa launched an AIDS vaccine created by its own researchers last week but the proud moment was marred when it emerged that state funding for the trial had been halted. Research into an AIDS vaccine has run into so many problems that some experts have questioned sinking funds into it, saying the money might be better spent on prevention and education.

-Grace Lamb-Atkinson

ONE member and New Hampshire State Rep. Jeffery St. Cyr has an opinion piece in today’s Concord Monitor. In his piece he highlights the MCC, Global Fund, as well as agricultural development and basic education too.

Excerpts below, full op-ed here

Thank you to our U.S. senators for fighting against famine, starvation and preventable diseases.

As a member of the global anti-poverty advocacy group ONE, and as a New Hampshire state representative, I am proud of the continued leadership by New Hampshire’s senators in the fight against famine, starvation and preventable diseases like malaria – literally death from a mosquito bite that kills more people each year than the population of our state. While many issues divide people across party lines, in the struggle to save lives and safeguard security in the poorest places on earth, it is not a question of political party, but of political will and leadership.

One of the champions of the world’s poorest people, former senator John Sununu, recently went on a trip to Africa, where he saw U.S. programs that he helped create and champion while in Congress. Some of these efforts include prevention of mother-to-child HIV/AIDS transmission, disbursement of anti-malaria bed nets and infrastructure development.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has signed her support for the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria around the world, a program that has won bipartisan support in its responsible, accountable and results-driven approach to combatting some of the biggest plagues that needlessly kill millions of people in desperate, poverty-stricken countries. Shaheen has also co-sponsored the Durbin-Corker Water for the World Act, which would help coordinate efforts to bring clean water to millions of people deprived of this simple necessity to a healthy life.

-Matthew Bartlett

New Hampshire native, Jim Bednar, the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s resident Ghana director, has a great op-ed in today’s New Hampshire Union Leader – the only state wide newspaper in New Hampshire.

In addition to the progress that is being made in Ghana, Jim notes former NH Senator Sununu’s recent trip to Ghana with ONE. Mr. Bednar speaks of his interest in international development as the same “pragmatism [that] defines why Americans should remain engaged in making the world better.” As you know, President Obama will be visiting Ghana later this week. Check back on the ONE Blog for further coverage of the trip.

Excerpts below, full op-ed here

The interconnected global community means that the prosperity of others is closely tied to our own. The severe economic crisis and the recent threat of a health pandemic are stark reminders that borders cannot insulate us. That’s why smart U.S. engagement in the fight against global poverty and disease matters as much to the poor in Ghana as it does to Americans in New Hampshire and the other 49 states.

Ghanaians strive for a better tomorrow. Here in West Africa, their commitment to stability and growth means greater development and trade. The country’s poverty rate dropped from 52 percent in 1992 to 28.5 percent in 2006. Yet there’s still more to do. Ghana’s poor live a reality of poverty few Americans can fully fathom. In a country where agriculture is the economy’s backbone, employing 60 to 70 percent of workers, a typical farmer knows the burden of extreme poverty.

…..

I think many Granite Staters would agree with MCC’s approach: We expect partner countries to lead their development through homegrown ideas and local implementation. This creates sustainable solutions of their own making. We demand practical results that deliver change in the lives of the poor. Such transparency and results-driven accountability ensure the responsible stewardship of U.S. tax dollars.

I can see how the Ghana-MCC partnership is beginning to make a difference for the poor. Road repairs will help farmers reach markets. The first of 60,000 farmers to be trained through MCC programs have learned to think more as business men and women, and banks are giving them credit. Seventy-five schools have been renovated, with hundreds more to be built.

-Matthew Bartlett

Last Friday, ONE was featured on a segment of WMUR-TV Channel 9’s show called New Hampshire Chronicle. The segment explains what ONE is, as well as highlighting our historic efforts during the 2008 First in the Nation New Hampshire Primary and beyond.

Tom Hart, ONE’s Director of Government Relations also makes an appearance, as does “ONE’s Marine”, Michael Castaldo.

All ONE members should know: We are not there yet, but we are headed in the right direction!

Go ONE!

-Matthew Bartlett

ONE’s Marine, Michael Castaldo, recently led a district meeting at the Portsmouth, NH, Office of Sen. Judd Gregg where he was able to advocate for full funding for international life saving and poverty reducing programs like PEPFAR, the Global Fund, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. He told me that the staffer he met with was very familiar with ONE from his own work during the New Hampshire Primary.

Michael’s meeting was even featured on the blog NOW Hampshire.

Well done Michael!

And for all ONE members living in New Hampshire, please tune into WMUR Channel 9 TV on May 15th at 7:30pm to see ONE featured on NH Chronicle. ONE’s Marine, Michael Castaldo will be on and so will ONE’s Director of Government Relations, Tom Hart.

Go ONE!

-Matthew Bartlett