Sachs Speaks at CARE Conference

Last Wednesday night, a few of us at ONE had the chance to hear Jeffrey Sachs speak at the CARE National Conference. It was a really exciting opportunity to hear from someone who has done so much research and reflection on the challenges of fighting global poverty and more specifically, meeting the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. It was great to hear his insights on both the looming food crisis and the upcoming election.

Sachs cited a lot of data that really put the crisis of global poverty into perspective. He compared the American defense and foreign assistance budgets to demonstrate how little we give to Africa as a percentage or our GDP (we give 1/100 of the defense budget in foreign assistance.) He also mentioned the food crisis as an example of the need to support local farmers and empower their growth instead of limiting our activities to emergency aid.

Sachs concluded his speech by sharing his wish to see the Millennium Development Goals in the next president’s inaugural address as a way of expressing our solidarity with the world’s poorest people. His message and enthusiasm were heard and embraced at the conference, leaving us with yet another voice encouraging us to keep pushing our leaders in such a significant year.

-Sarah Wald, ONE Intern

Poverty-Fighters Networking in Boston

The Millennium Campus Network held a conference this past weekend to discuss global poverty and health. ONE’s former intern, Sam Vaghar, helped create this new network of Boston area colleges and universities, and their conference hosted over 700 students and included top global health experts like Ira Magaziner, Dr. Paul Farmer, as well as an event with musician John Legend and Dr. Jeff Sachs.

I attended the first day of the event at MIT and immediately noticed a few ONE shirts and many, many ONE bands. After opening statements and a very good speech by Sam, the keynote address was given by former presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards. In his speech, Sen. Edwards spoke about his travels to Uganda and the extreme poverty he witnessed in Africa. He spoke about the need to fight AIDS and malaria to help bring stability to poor nations and citied America’s moral standing in the world.

After his speech, I was able to briefly speak with Sen. Edwards and thanked him for raising the issues of global poverty while on the campaign trail. We even talked about the global poverty speech he gave in New Hampshire.

From the campaign trail to the colleges campuses, people everywhere are organizing and realizing that in today’s world, that we have the resources to fight global disease and end extreme - less than a dollar a day - poverty.

-Matthew Bartlett

Sach’s Talk

From my colleague John Ryan:

Hey Ginny,

Check this out, might be good for the blog. It’s a talk that Sachs gave on the Millennium Development Goals.

It’s pretty interesting, lots of good information. He reviews the last seven years since the MDGs were laid out and goes into what needs to happen if we are to meet them by 2015. I got it through an iTunes podcast (Uchannel) but anyone can listen to it or download it here:

http://uc.princeton.edu/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2089&Itemid=1

Poverty Point Counterpoint: Sachs and Easterly Tee Off

In today’s Christian Science Monitor, economists Jeffrey Sachs and William Easterly tee off on global poverty once again.

For those of you just tuning in, Sachs and his supporters maintain that given a sufficient level of effective aid, foreign assistance can indeed prove the catalyst to end extreme poverty. Easterly, on the other hand, argues that ending extreme poverty must ultimately be a home-grown effort, through democratic reforms, improved governance, and free markets. Some prominent African opinionmakers, among them Kenyan economist James Shikwati and Tanzanian journalist Ayub Rioba, have even suggested that aid in fact does more harm than good.

Read the article and make up your own mind.

-Porter McConnell