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

Yesterday, ONE members in 16 states launched a campaign to get PEPFAR going in the Senate. PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) is America’s primary vehicle for working with countries in the developing world to treat and prevent HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. In its first five years, PEPFAR has saved millions of lives, and now it’s up for reauthorization for five years and $50 billion dollars, a substantial increase in America’s commitment to battling these deadly, but treatable diseases. Unfortunately, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) and six other senators are blocking all action on the bill. Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and John Sununu (R-NH) have written an urgent letter seen below at the bottom of this post) to the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, asking them to do whatever it takes to get PEPFAR reauthorization to the floor of the senate.

Coburn’s concerns should be debated out in the open, not hidden behind a procedural block. There is a now a serious chance that PEPFAR reauthorization won’t happen until next year. Millions of people across the developing world can’t wait that long. The challenge to us is to convince key senators to sign that letter and show that there is strong, bipartisan support for reauthorizing PEPFAR this year, and continuing America’s commitment to moral leadership in the fight against global AIDS.

Live in Texas, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Utah, Mississippi, Wyoming, Georgia, Iowa, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Minnesota, Virginia or Missouri? We need you to write to your senator or senators and ask them to sign the Lugar-Sununu letter and get PEPFAR going: http://www.one.org/pepfarletter

If you’re not in one of those states, you can still ask your senators to co-sponsor PEPFAR here: http://www.one.org/pepfarsenate/

Make sure to follow our progress on the PEPFAR Co-Sponsor Senatometer

You also learn more about PEPFER here: http://www.one.org/pepfar

April 30, 2008

The Honorable Harry Reid
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Minority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Mr. Majority Leader and Mr. Minority Leader:

We are writing to urge you to act expeditiously in scheduling floor time for the consideration of S. 2731, the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008.

As you know, the programs the Act would reauthorize — the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and tuberculosis programs — have had an enormously positive effect in combating these diseases in Africa and throughout the developing world. PEPFAR is on schedule to achieve its topline goals of supporting treatment for 2 million AIDS patients with life-saving antiretroviral therapies, preventing the transmission of 7 million new cases of the disease, and supporting care for 10 million people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, including orphans and vulnerable children. Through its multilateral efforts, the U.S. will have also supported the distribution of 46 million mosquito bed nets to protect families from malaria.

Since its inception, PEPFAR has enjoyed broad bipartisan support and strong cooperation between the Executive and Legislative branches. PEPFAR also has served as a powerful demonstration of U.S. leadership and compassion throughout the world. As the President witnessed during his recent trip to Africa, U.S. investments in PEPFAR are paying major dividends both by creating a more positive global perception of the United States and by bringing stability and hope to strategic regions across the globe.

By passing this legislation in the next few weeks, we will enable the President to take this commitment to the G-8 meeting in Japan in early July and to use it to leverage additional commitments from our international partners. Moreover, we need to act now in order to send a clear message to PEPFAR recipients that the United States is fully committed to continuing the success of this program and to expanding our efforts to fight the pandemics of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Thank you for your consideration, and we hope that you will act swiftly to bring this critically important piece of legislation to the floor.

Sincerely,

Senator Richard Lugar
Senator John Sununu
Senator Elizabeth Dole
Senator Gordon Smith
Senator Bob Corker
Senator Chuck Hagel

-Aaron Banks, ONE.org

Update: We’re now up to 14 signers to the letter.

Senator Richard Lugar
Senator John Sununu
Senator Elizabeth Dole
Senator Gordon Smith
Senator Bob Corker
Senator Chuck Hagel
Senator Thad Cochran
Senator Mel Martinez
Senator Orrin Hatch
Senator John Warner
Senator Susan Collins
Senator Olympia Snowe
Senator Arlen Specter
Senator Norm Coleman

Last week, “UNH for ONE” set up tables at the University of New Hampshire and asked their fellow students to sign letters to NH Senator Judd Gregg, asking him for a robust international affairs budget. They collected over 50 letters that I will deliver to Senator Gregg’s Office later today.

“UNH for ONE” is now phone banking on campus to thank NH Senator Sununu for signing onto the “Smith-Feinstein Amendment” and calling Senator Gregg’s Office to ask that he support the amendment that would restore over 2.6 billion dollars to the international affairs budget.

On relatively short notice, “UNH for ONE” was able to spring into action to help save critical funds for the poorest of the poor. Please call your senators today and make sure your name is on ONE’s petition.

-Matthew Bartlett

On Thursay, ONE’s Marine Michael Castaldo asked NH ONE members to write letters encouraging NH Senator John E. Sununu to sign on to the Global Child Survival Act. In just one day, more than 250 Granite Staters took action.

The next day, we went to Senator Sununu’s Office to present his staff with the letters. On our way, we stopped in unannounced at NH Senator Judd Gregg’s office to request a meeting about the upcoming US budget and while we were there we ran into a staffer who was already wearing his ONE band!

When we arrived at Senator Sununu’s office, I immediately noticed the award that “UNH for ONE” presented Senator Sununu for his leadership in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa. Many ONE members know Senator Sununu best for his support of the Jubilee Act, his work to fully fund the Millennium Challenge Corporation, his efforts to help restore and secure more than a billion life-saving funds in the 2007 CR, and his recent World AIDS Day speech at Dartmouth.

After thanking Senator Sununu’s staff for all of his work on behalf of the world’s poorest people, we presented the letters on the Global Child Survival Act to his State Director Pam Kocher, who is also a NH ONE Vote ‘08 Ambassador.

Strong leaders on both side of the aisle are taking bold steps to make sure that our country is doing all we can to save the lives of millions of people in developing places around the world, and to make extreme – stupid poverty…history!

-Matthew Bartlett