Their written testimonies will apparently be made available here, shortly before or after the hearing.

Worth a read:

President Obama also asked President George W. Bush and me to lead a joint fundraising effort to engage Americans and citizens around the world in supporting recovery and rebuilding efforts. We established the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, with funds allocated for reputable organizations providing direct relief and assistance to survivors, including medical care, food, water, shelter, and education, in areas like Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Saint Martin and Martissant.

Already, we’ve raised more than $20 million from people like Robert who has been unemployed for seven months; Frank, who is giving what he can from his social security check; and Dawn’s class of third-graders who saved $31.74 in pennies for an ice cream party, but decided to donate it to Haiti relief instead. You can donate at www.clintonbushhaitifund.org.

In addition to private citizens and NGOS, the international business community is playing an enormous role in recovery, not just in aid but for job generation. Several sectors will be ripe for opportunities to do business, including agribusiness, tourism, textiles, crop processing, call centers, and alternative energy. Jobs could be generated by addressing other challenges throughout the country, including projects focused on rural infrastructure and communications, rural access to power, and reforestation.

Before the earthquake hit, I believed for the first time in my life that Haiti finally had a chance to create a modern economy and a just society, a nation worthy of the abilities, hard work, and dreams of its people. The President and Prime Minister remain committed to that goal. Continued support from government and international donors, NGOs, the private sector and individual citizens can still give Haiti that chance. But we have to stay focused on the work ahead; we have to keep the aid and assistance flowing; and we have to do so in a way that is coordinated, effective, transparent and accountable, to help the most people in the short run and do the most good over the long run.

An excerpt from a related story in the Washington Post:

“Obama is asking former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to coordinate efforts to involve more Americans in the recovery and rebuilding effort that’s needed in Haiti.”

Excerpts below, full report here

The former Democrat president warned in an address at a “Global Progressive Forum” that in the “profoundly unstable” and “profoundly unequal” world, the current development situation was “non-sustainable”.

He cited the situation in Haiti where AIDS victims die because “they do not have access to health systems” and the problems related to climate change.

Clinton urged “progressive” leaders present in Brussels to consider how they could translate their good intentions into concrete action.

-Chris Scott

Partial transcript below:

MR. BROKAW: When you ran successfully for president in 1992, the unofficial slogan was, “It’s the economy, stupid.” It’s hard to imagine, given the political and especially the financial climate that we’re all living in now that someone can say it’s about aid to Africa, stupid, or it’s about AIDS, stupid, or it’s about doing something about poverty, stupid. Is this not going to be an issue, your great work here as the Clinton Global Initiative, in this campaign? Is it going to have to be set off to the side?

PRES. CLINTON: Well, I think the answer is it will not–it’s not nearly as big an issue for the two thirds of American people who are having trouble paying their own bills and are worried about their future. On the other hand, I think there–the two great issues in America in this election are how to restore economic strength and broadly shared prosperity and how to restore America’s position in the world. I think–if I were making the CGI argument in a political speech, I’d say we’re not going to have the America we want unless prosperity is broadly shared, and to do that, we have to have economic opportunity in the poorest parts of America. And in the world, the places where America is popular today in the world, really popular, 10 countries in central and eastern Africa. Look at the Pew poll. Wildly popular. Why? Because they see us through the prism of President Bush’s AIDS and malaria programs and the work the Gates Foundation does, the work that I do, the work that others do. So we can–this should be presented to the American people that as a part of our participation in the interdependent world, we actually make more partners and fewer enemies.

MR. BROKAW: One of the concerns that the Gates Foundation has, that everything coming out of Africa that is reported is doom and gloom, and they say there are real success stories there.

PRES. CLINTON: Absolutely.

MR. BROKAW: And the American people need to hear about that.

PRES. CLINTON: The American–first of all, I wish we could have a cessation in the use of the word Africa for just 18 months while America learns that Africa is a continent that just in sub-Saharan Africa has 48 separate countries, and that it’s not just the geography, it’s the politics, the culture, the language, everything is different, and that yes, there’s been bad news in Darfur, yes, there’s been bad news out of Zimbabwe, but you have country after country after country with very high growth rates and remarkable progress. I mean, Rwanda, genocide in ‘94, 10 percent of the country dies in 90 days. Four years later, their per capita income still well under $300 a year, 10 years later, $1,000 a year. Nearly quadrupled their per capita income. That’s the real Africa. That is far more representative of what the African people are doing and can do tomorrow than the other, and I really wish every time we talked about it–you should discuss it with your news people–whether we would mention a country. You might say, “Oh, by the way, it’s in Africa,” but we’ve got to stop thinking of Africa as a monolith.

MR. BROKAW: Mr. President, thank you very much.

-Chris Scott

Reading through the article, one part stood out to me. Even in the face of an often overwhelming crisis, there remains a tremendous glimmer of hope: young people.

There were calls for innovation and recruiting more young investigators to the AIDS field. As Alan Bernstein, executive director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise in Manhattan, put it, “The engines of discovery are new people.” Bernstein noted that recruiting new workers should be less of a problem than in the past because of an explosion of interest on university campuses about global health.

You can read the full article here.

President Clinton travels to Africa once a year and his first trip was while he was president in 1998. Due to ONE members’ “Visit Africa” campaign in February, both Senators McCain and Obama have pledged, that if they’re elected, they’ll visit the continent during their presidency. Check out their pledges here.

During his stump speech President Clinton looked over to us and addressed ONE’s issues directly – citing the need to fight extreme global poverty and the fact that 1 billion people live on less than $1/day and over half the world’s population lives on less than $2/day.

President Clinton also talked about how his Clinton Global Initiative has teamed up with other NGOs such as ONE to supply inexpensive HIV/AIDS vaccines to Africa and the developing world.

We were able to snap a photo with him after the event to which he proclaimed, “I love the ONE Campaign!”

-Rebecca Hoffer

It can be hard to reach a candidate or politician here in New Hampshire as the crowds grow bigger as we near the primary. President Clinton undoubtedly had many ONE members in his crowd, but Michael sent me this ONE report:

This time it was a familiar news crew who gave me a tip off led to my interaction with President Clinton. They told me that the “still pen” was right by where President Clinton would be coming in, and they encouraged me to take my camera up there and act like I belonged. The secret service agent that was positioned there did not seem to mind, so I hung around right at the rail where he was due to arrive.

When he entered he paused for a minute to size up the crowd and looked around. He saw me in my ONE shirt up front he made a circle on his own chest and gave me the thumbs up!

After his speech, he made sure to reach out to me and accept a ONE band and shake my hand. I thanked him for his work in reducing the cost of ARVs, and he thanked me for supporting ONE.

-Matthew Bartlett, ONE Regional Organizer

On Friday, I traveled waaaay north in New Hampshire, and through a surprise snowstorm, to see and hear President Bill Clinton campaign for Hillary…and make sure that he heard from ONE Vote ‘08 while he was in the Granite State.

Before the principal of White Mountains Regional High School introduced President Clinton, he told a quick story about President Clinton’s and President Bush’s speech at the 2007 UNH Graduation Ceremony. He said that one of the biggest things that struck him during President Clinton’s speech was when he spoke about a rural tribe in Africa. In that tribe, when someone greets another person, they respond in their native language with what is translated in English to mean, “I see you” – a recognition of a person’s humanity and an affirmation of each other. I thought this was also a fitting notion for our work with the ONE Campaign, as we use our collective voices for those that do not have such a voice in the global community.

After a brief speech, President Clinton made his way through the crowd and I was able to speak with him and remind him that Bretton Woods, NH, was just down the road, the place where the free world gathered in 1944 and the roots of the Marshall Plan were created. I told him that it was important to renew that Bretton Woods promise by fighting AIDS, Malaria and TB in Africa today, and we discussed his own efforts in the most desperate places on Earth.

From the snowy mountains here in New Hampshire, all the way to sub-Saharan Africa, people are realizing that we can save lives and beat extreme poverty, when we come together as ONE.

-Matthew Bartlett, ONE Regional Organizer