CEO of Sojourners Jim Wallis has an excellent piece at CNN.com today in which he calls on President Obama to commit $6 billion to the Global Fund over the next 3 years.
In his piece, he writes:
The result of bold American leadership led to nothing short of a historic wave of success. Today, nearly four million Africans are on life saving HIV/AIDS medicines, up from 50,000 in 2002. President Bush’s legacy in the fight against global AIDS is strong, but much more needs to be done.
Barack Obama campaigned on a promise to continue that leadership. But today, his promise has yet to be kept. Fortunately, it’s not too late for him to do so.
The economy is complicated and there are lots of conflicting opinions as to what the best policy is to get it headed in the right direction. The health care system has been a mess and improvements to it are going to take a while and will be pretty complicated. Immigration reform is simply being blocked by Republicans and Democrats haven’t had the courage to lead on it.
But when it comes to turning back the AIDS pandemic and ending extreme poverty, we have a very clear path forward. There are 192 nations that committed to the Millennium Development Goals in 2001. They are a series of eight targeted goals that would produce dramatic results in turning back the tide of global pandemics and reducing extreme poverty, and they gave us a roadmap as to how this all could happen by 2015.
U.S. leadership on these goals and the work to back them up have received broad bipartisan support within Congress. Countries across the world are now in tough economic straits, so if the United States falters in its leadership the huge successes these goals have already accomplished could stall.
Unfortunately, one major source of funding to fight AIDS, The Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) has been neglected.
During his campaign, President Obama made a promise to increase PEPFAR funding by $1 billion a year if elected. Last year, the White House recommended a small increase of funding from $6.6 billion to $6.7 billion. It looks like PEPFAR will receive only a small increase this year. That’s a broken promise.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is an international public-private partnership that’s leading the global fight against these diseases. In the past decade the Global Fund has provided AIDS treatment for 2.8 million people, TB treatment for 7 million people and provided 122 million bed nets to protect families from malaria.
Please read the whole thing here. It’s absolutely worth it, I promise. Also, join Jim Wallis and ONE in calling on President Obama to support the Global Fund here.
Amidst the current global economic crisis, Jim Wallis of Sojourners argues that the wrong question is: “When is it going to end?” The right question remains: “How will this economic crisis change us?”
This weekend, while riding out what look to be an historic DC snowstorm, I’m reading Wallis’s new book, Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street.
Rediscovering Values comes out of sessions that Wallis, a long-time ONE supporter, led at last year’s World Economic Forum in Davos. Having just returned from the 2010 World Economic Forum, Wallis recently wrote:
“… even before this crisis, the global economic system was already failing half of God’s children — three billion people living on less than $2 per day. This is the time to bring them in and include them in the global economy.”
In the end, a full economic recovery will be a global economic recovery.
You can read his whole reflection on Davos 2010 here.
This week over 1,000 Christian pastors and lay leaders and activists will converge on Washington, DC to attend Sojourners’ “Mobilization to End Poverty.” ONE has joined with World Vision, the ELCA, and Oxfam America as the major cosponsors of this mobilization.
The 4-day event focuses on both domestic and global poverty, and ONE is the lead cosponsor on the international agenda. Arjun Mody from our Government Relations Team and Mikki Imai and Josh Lozman from our Policy Team have done great work in hammering out the global agenda.
The attendees are a natural audience for ONE. Many ONE members are already attending and we hope to make many others ONE members at the event.
ONE will participate in key ways during the event:
ONE President & CEO David Lane will speak during a plenary session today at 1:30 EST in a session called “Half in 10 and the MDGs – Are these Goals Achievable?”
Arjun will lead the training on international issues for the Lobby Day on the Hill.
ONE will host an evening reception on Tuesday at 8:30. This is another chance to introduce those attending to ONE.
During the only workshop on global poverty, I will moderate and Kenyan Professor Ndunge Kiiti will present. Prof. Kiiti is a leader from the partner organization Micah Challenge.
ONE will keep a constant presence throughout the event at the ONE table. Thanks to the ONE intern crew for helping with tabling!
This promises to be a terrific event, and we’ll bring you more updates as they occur in the coming days.
It’s conference season in our nation’s capital! Several of ONE’s partners are hosting national conferences, trainings and advocacy workshops for poverty-fighting activists like you! Check out the list below and sign up to attend!
It’s gearing up to be an exciting summer for poverty-fighting activists here in the nation’s capital! ONE works closely with several organizations that are hosting national conferences, trainings and advocacy workshops in Washington, DC in May, June and July. Please check them out and spread the word!
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
Amidst the current global economic crisis, Jim Wallis of 
