Today, at 10:15 AM ET, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah and our CEO David Lane will be talking about the future of the Millennium Development Goals in a live, online discussion hosted by the State Department and the Bureau of Public Affairs.

You can tune into the livestream below to watch today’s DC panel discuss the report’s results.

Live streaming video by Ustream

The panel includes ONE President and CEO David Lane, ONE Board Member and former White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, and Senior Professional Staff Member on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Pearl-Alice Marsh — and is co-hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the University of Miami Center for International Media.

ONE’s Lauren Clanin is at the event and will be sending back recap posts soon. You can read a ton more about the DATA Report here.

Yesterday, ONE’s President and CEO David Lane discussed the campaign with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjY1oagy20g[/youtube]

In Pittsburgh, a group of local young people are literally drawing even more attention to ONE’s message of the need to bring the G20 to Africa. The Moving Lives of Kids Community Mural Project is almost done with a vibrant mural that will “deliver” our petition to the world leaders who are meeting nearby. Check out photos of the mural-in-progress here and while you’re at it, add your voice to the petition to hold a G20 Summit in Africa.

But why Africa? As Nora Coghlan shared earlier today, this continent of 53 states and 1 billion people is brimming with potential. Up until the recent financial crisis, 18 non-oil exporting African economies were growing at an annual rate of 5.5% or more from increased investment, trade, and economic diversification. Africa’s natural resources could help offset global emissions and with proper agricultural investment, the continent’s 800 million hectares of unused, cultivable land could turn Africa into the breadbasket of the world.

Check back soon for more updates as the G20 swings into full gear tomorrow.

-Sydney Skov

Speakers will include:

Tim Adams, former Under Secretary for International Affairs, Department of Treasury
Nancy Birdsall, President, Center for Global Development
Donald Kaberuka, President, African Development Bank,
David Lane, President and CEO, ONE
Dr. Louis Picard, Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, moderator

The room is filling up and we should starting in just a few moments. I’ll update you on how it’s going in just a bit.

-Virginia Simmons

You can watch the video below, and cast your vote for favorite video here. The winner will have their ideas presented to President-elect Barack Obama, and voting ends in 12 days.

-Chris Scott

I captured video of Cindy McCain and First Lady Laura Bush’s speeches and quickly uploaded them to YouTube. You can check them out below. We got higher quality video of the speeches as well, but it may take a couple days to get that up – and I want to share this experience with ONE Blog readers ASAP.

First, Cindy McCain:

Next, First Lady Laura Bush. (You can also read her full remarks here.)

Here’s a photo of (from left to right) Cindy McCain, David Lane, First Lady Laura Bush, Princess Zulu and Senator Frist assembling care kits.

In the course of a couple hours we packed 2,500 kits, all with simple but essentials supplies like flashlights, wash clothes and basic drugstore medications, to be given out to AIDS caregivers around the world. Below is a very short video clip to give you a sense of the what it was like to be in room at the height of kit-assembly commotion.

-Virginia Simmons

Right now, volunteers are running off to prepare kits for AIDS caregivers around the world.

The kits include simple items like wash cloths, cotton balls, soap, petroleum jelly. The kinds of things we take for granted everyday in America. And the kinds of things that can literally save lives around the world. Each bag of cotton balls, for example, will be washed and re-used for months.

I’m attaching photos below. They include photos of the supplies, assembly lines and packing up. Note the ones of people writing notes, every kit includes a handwritten note from the volunteer who assembled it – to the caregiver who will receive it.

I’m taking a bunch of video now too, but have to wait until I have silghtly better Internet to upload them.

This one is of our CEO David Lane talking to journalists about the ONE Campaign and why it’s so important that we listens to Africans so that we can become more effective advocates.

“We don’t pretend to speak for Africans. We can’t. It would be inappropriate for us to. Which is why listening to Africans is extremely important, and that’s the purpose of our visit this time…”

“Here’s the thing I want to say in Rwanda, just about this trip in particular. Much has been said about President Kagame. I met with him myself in November when I was here and he’s a very impressive man. What I think has our entire delegation dazzled is the quality of leadership at the working level. From the nurses at this hospital to the leaders of this hospital to the ministers and the mayors. It’s not an overstatement to say that we are dazzled by the quality of leadership.

And that’s one of our messages as well: it’s not appropriate to impose. We may think we have the answers in the United States, but an important part of our advocacy is to say that we want to support African leadership that’s working.”

You can also check out this post to see our petition delivery to the White House last week.

UPDATE: What David says:

Thanks for being a part of our hunger crisis campaign. Since I first wrote to you about this crisis three weeks ago, your response has been overwhelming and made this one of our most successful campaigns ever.

137,000 ONE members have signed our petition to President Bush, asking him to lead the G8 – a group of the world’s richest and most powerful countries – in taking action to alleviate the impact this crisis is having on people around the world.

Rising prices for staple foods and low crop yields for the world’s poorest farmers have created a silent tsunami that threatens to push 100 million people deeper into poverty.

The petition you signed asked for two things:

1. For the G8 to prioritize issues of global poverty, including the world hunger crisis, on the agenda of the G8 Summit this July in Japan.

2. And for President Bush to secure commitments at the G8 summit for additional resources for all types of food assistance and increased agricultural productivity in developing countries.

Last week, we delivered your petitions to the White House adding your voice to the growing call for action. I am pleased to be able to share with you some of the work that’s already being done to help end the hunger crisis.

Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda put the global hunger crisis on the agenda for the G8 summit, as part of a broad commitment to fighting global poverty. That is an important victory, because Japan is hosting this July’s G8 summit, where international commitments to fight poverty will be made.

In the United States, President Bush made an initial pledge of $200 million in American food assistance and followed that up last week with a call for Congress to approve $770 million in food assistance and investment in agricultural infrastructure in the developing world.

Getting the hunger crisis onto the G8′s poverty fighting agenda, and securing pledges of increased food assistance and investment in agricultural development adds up to a big win. It’s a testament to the power of grassroots action against even the toughest challenges global poverty presents.

Our next step is to secure commitments at the G8 Summit this summer and at other funding opportunities, for the fight against extreme poverty and global disease.

Thanks for adding your voice to the call for action to end the hunger crisis.

You, as a ONE member, drive everything we do. I look forward to continuing to work with you on this issue and many others in the months to come. Visit ONE.org to find out the latest.”

This is an exciting moment. In large part because of the advocacy work done by ONE members and other organizations involved in the fight to save lives, President Bush and the Congress have made major strides.

The number of Africans surviving HIV/AIDS thanks to life-saving medical treatment has increased ten-fold.

There are 4.7 million bed nets protecting African children from malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

There are more jobs and greater opportunities, especially for women and families to break away from the cycle of brutal, extreme poverty.

And there are new governments who are working hard to increase democracy and opportunity for their people in countries like Liberia, where President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has made transparency and accountability a driving force in her government reform plan. ONE members played a big part in winning the cancellation of Liberia’s debt by the IMF just a few months ago.

These are major improvements of which we can all be proud. But none of us should be satisfied.

President Bush’s trip to Africa is an opportunity to take a hard look at what still remains to accomplish. Yes, we have achieved a great deal, but 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africans continue to live on less than $2 a day. Experts report that, last year alone, 35 percent of all people living globally with HIV lived in Southern Africa, where 32 percent of all global new HIV infections and AIDS deaths occurred. Tens of millions of people still go hungry each day. In this region alone,13,150 children under age 5 died from preventable childhood diseases and malnutrition.

While in 2000 the U.S. joined 188 other countries to sign onto the Millennium Development Goals, we are falling behind in reaching their 2015 targets.

A few days ago, we asked you to lend your voice to a new challenge for the candidates, calling on them to visit Africa and see first-hand the opportunities and the challenges that people in those countries face. Already, more than 52,000 people have signed that petition, and we are not finished yet. In the next few days, we will take these petitions and deliver them to the presidential candidates, and see if they are willing to step up and make fighting extreme poverty and preventable disease a real priority. If you haven’t signed the petition, add your voice today.

Check back each day as we chronicle President Bush’s trip to Africa. And let us know your thoughts. Join the discussion here on the ONE Blog.

-David Lane, CEO and President of ONE