ONE Blog
The investors’ case for more transparency in oil and mining deals
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Paul Bugala, Senior Sustainability Analyst for Extractive Industries at Calvert Investments, explains why Wall Street and the developing world need mandatory oil and mining payment transparency. This piece is part of a larger blog series on transparency in the extractives industry. Stay tuned for more updates on this topic.
Imagine you had to make one decision that could change your community and livelihood dramatically. Wouldn’t you want to be 100 percent sure your decision created the best opportunities possible for you and your family? On the flip side, what if that decision involved an investment of millions of dollars? You would want all the information you could find about the possible outcomes and risks of your decision, wouldn’t you? Today, across the globe, citizens of resource-rich yet poor countries and investors in oil, gas and mining companies have a problem just like this. These odd couples both need to make very important decisions about natural resource projects and the companies that undertake them, but they don’t have enough information to make sure their choices are right. |
ONE member meets a Canadian MP with a heart for Africa
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As we continue our campaign to protect critical Canadian international development funding, ONE member Sarah Stone, from Waterloo, Ontario, reports back from meeting her local member of parliament. As a constituent and on behalf of ONE I had the opportunity recently to meet with Peter Braid, Conservative Member of Parliament for Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.  Mr. Braid had recently returned from a trip to South Sudan as part of his role as the vice chair of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, the main purpose of which is to discuss trade, aid and strengthen ties with African parliamentarians. During this trip, and on previous trips to Africa, Mr. Braid has seen firsthand the benefits of Canadian foreign aid. We discussed my involvement in the Griot Project, and my recent trip to Washington this past December to participate in #ONErocksDC, a lobby day on Capitol Hill and the White House with ONE. |
Philippines leads Southeast Asia in preventing rotavirus
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This blog post is reprinted from the Manila Times with permission from the author. For more information about the enormous burden of rotavirus disease in Asia and the introduction of rotavirus vaccines in the Philippines, check out PATH’s RotaFlash.  DIARRHEA is a leading killer and cause of illness in children in Southeast Asia, and many do not realize that a major cause of childhood diarrhea is a virus called rotavirus. The Philippines will soon become the first country in the region to provide rotavirus vaccines to its most vulnerable children. Rotavirus mainly causes illness in young children living in areas where there is a significant risk of dying from severe diarrhea and vomiting. The good news is that most of these deaths can be prevented with vaccines and managed with simple treatments, if available and accessible. |
What We’re Reading: Is malaria twice as deadly than we think it is?
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Improving Governance Through Budget Transparency – The current fiscal crises in the US and Europe has led to “greater scrutiny of the efficacy of public expenditures,” which will likely have the greatest impact on “foreign aid and development assistance, as countries demand greater accountability for each dollar or euro spent.” This scrutiny has led to a recent surge in government-led initiatives that aim to increase fiscal transparency and make “aid to conflict ridden countries dependent on improved governance.” (Huffington Post, Michael Lipsky) Is Malaria Twice as Deadly Than We Think It Is? – The news last week that malaria kills nearly twice as many people per year as we had previously thought “plunges the current multibillion-dollars anti-malaria campaign, and the push to reach a 2015 deadline for achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals, into grave doubt.” Previous statistics have underestimated the scope of the malaria problem, believing that it was a disease that primarily afflicted children. (TIME, Alex Perry) |
Proofs: A model for helping the hungry
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This piece is cross-posted from Morgana Wingard’s Wanderlust blog. In Ghana, 8 out of 10 children under the age of five and 3 out of 10 adult women suffer from some form of malnutrition, including stunting, wasting, and/or deficiencies in iron, iodine, and vitamin A. I recently visited Nyankpala Community Management of Acute Malnutrition in Tamale, Ghana, a Health Service (GHS) project that integrates and promotes community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) services and supplies. With funds from USAID and UNICEF, GHS has established support units for acute malnutrition at the national, regional and district levels. Between 2008 and 2011, Ghana has increased CMAM from two learning sites in two districts to 403 sites in 31 districts. In total, 2,040 health care providers have been trained on CMAM services and 5,973 children with severe acute malnutrition have been admitted to the program. Of these children 71 percent were cured, 2 percent died, and 1 percent did not recover; 26 percent failed to follow up.  |
Outrageous food waste infuriates ONE Blog readers
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Everyone, say hi to our new intern Paulena Papagiannis. She just graduated from Oberlin and will be on our new media team for the spring. This is her first post, so be nice!  In a recent Facebook post, we shared a staggering statistic: Consumers in rich countries dispose of 220 million metric tons of food waste every year, equal to the entire food output of sub-Saharan Africa. Like the farm ministers and policy makers who gathered last week to discuss this atrocity, our readers were infuriated, calling the waste “shameful” and “despicable” (and those were the nicest words). |
A-List: Dartmouth singers raise their voices for Horn of Africa
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Dartmouth College’s award-winning a cappella group, the Aires, partnered with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to promote awareness of the continuing famine in the Horn of Africa. The group, which placed second in last year’s NBC show “The Sing-Off,” recorded “Calling My Children Home,” a folk-inspired tune by Emmylou Harris in honor of the victims of the famine. The song alludes to separation and longing, and they sang this special song at a performance at the UN headquarters earlier this month. Listen to the song here: These themes are all too real for the nearly 13 million people affected by the famine in the region. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that upwards of 1000 people flee Somalia every day, choosing to walk to neighboring Kenya, Ethiopia, or Djibouti for refuge. Those countries, too, suffer from food shortages. “We wanted to give something back,” the Aires’ manager Ethan Weinberg told the UN News Service. “We have a larger following now and we wanted to use our reach for a good cause.” |
Blog Contributors
Hot Topics
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Fight the Famine, Feed the Future
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. -
Crisis in the Horn of Africa
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. -
The Beginning of the End of AIDS
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. -
Agriculture Accountability
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.
From Our Members
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Rep. Dicks is not the Norm… he’s a champion
Feb 3rd, 2012 | Posted by Field -
Moved by the war in Sierra Leone, an Ohio teenager finds a way to give back
Jan 26th, 2012 | Posted by Guest Blogger -
ONE Peoria links up with local Rotary group
Jan 23rd, 2012 | Posted by Field
From Our Partners
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Essay: My life as a spiritual director in Niger
Feb 8th, 2012 | Posted by Guest Blogger -
Football and secret oil deals
Feb 7th, 2012 | Posted by Guest Blogger -
Caring about the ‘very poor’
Feb 7th, 2012 | Posted by Malaka Gharib
