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Last night, if you happened to be watching Billboard.com’s live stream of the Daughtry concert, you might’ve seen one of the band members sporting a very familiar shirt. Check it out: |
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has just issued a statement regarding Dr. Rajiv Shah, President Obama’s selection to be the next USAID Administrator. You can read ONE’s take on the pick here. Gates Foundation statement:
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As you might know, December 1st is World AIDS Day. To commemorate this annual event, the World Bank will be hosting a forum in Washington, DC on “Linking HIV/AIDS, Food Security and Maternal and Child Health.” Speakers and panelists will include US Global AIDS Coordinator Eric Goosby, Executive Director of the Global Fund for AIDS, TB, and Malaria Michel Kazatchkine, and many others. Today is the last day to RSVP, so if you’d like to attend please do so here. It promises to be a really great panel. |
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As you know, the FAO World Food Summit ended yesterday in Rome. Check out the articles below to see a variety of reactions to the Summit: World leaders’ low turnout hits UN food summit (Reuters Africa) What is the point of the world food summit on food security? (The Guardian Blog) Food security – collective race against crises (This Day; allAfrica.com) Declaring a vision for world hunger (Oxfam International Blog) |
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Check out this post from Erin Swanson of Water.org: Remember playing the Oregon Trail game growing up? You chose your companions, forded rivers with your oxen, went hunting, and occasionally had a brief funeral for someone on your team lost to measles, a snakebite, dysentery, typhoid, cholera, and diarrhea. Would you believe that MILLIONS of people are suffering from some of those same diseases today? Yes: dysentery, typhoid, cholera, and diarrhea. And what do they have in common? They are the result of unsafe drinking water and no safe place to defecate, no toilet. This is why these preventable diseases kill millions of people, mostly children, in the developing world today. This is why today, November 19, is World Toilet Day. To raise awareness of the fact that one in four people on this planet don’t have access to a toilet. To raise awareness to the face that lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection. And In India alone, the number of people who practice open defecation is double the population of the U.S. Just as you were in that wagon with your companions on the Oregon Trail, risking your life for the promise of a better one, so we invite you to hop on our wagon today. Our vision: global access to safe water and sanitation. We have been working steadily towards this vision for 20 years. Join us and many other organizations on World Toilet Day to acknowledge the life-saving power of the toilet and appreciate the toilets in our lives. Join us as we raise a stink about the global lack of sanitation that causes not only embarrassment, concerns for safety, and lack of dignity, but preventable disease, illness, and all too often, death. Seeing these diseases eradicated is possible, today. Will you “ford the river” with us? Sign this online petition demanding action from global leaders to urgently address the sanitation crisis. Learn more about World Toilet Day and sign up for monthly updates from Water.org here. |
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On Tuesday, Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing on the International Aspects of Climate Change. The hearing included testimony from Dr. Michael Levi from the Council on Foreign Relations, Nigel Purvis from Climate Advisors, Karen Harbert from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Taiya Smith from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Jake Colvin from the National Foreign Trade Council. As climate negotiations in Copenhagen draw near, the witnesses discussed how domestic and national efforts fit into a broader international agreement. Witnesses touched on a broad range of climate-change related issues, including the role of China and India and the importance of durable U.S. domestic policy. Panelists generally agreed that while robust U.S. legislation is important, a cooperative international framework is essential, as is working with international partners. They made clear that international efforts should facilitate smart domestic policies and the domestic policies should be transparent, accountable and measurable. Panelists emphasized that the U.S. must empower those who will work with us. Colvin and Levi both warned against measures such as taxes on carbon which could alienate potential allies, such as China and India. Harbert and Smith agreed, emphasizing that the U.S. cannot solve global climate change problems alone: India, China and other developing countries must be part of the solution. Witnesses agreed that, as we move closer to negotiations in December, the U.S. should concentrate on incorporating domestic targets into a global framework so to produce a robust, inclusive and nationally-appropriate political deal in Copenhagen. |
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Earlier this week, I had the chance to talk with Thomas Awiapo, a Ghanaian from the country’s Upper East Region and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) staff member. As a child in Ghana, Thomas was a beneficiary of CRS school feeding programs. Now, as an adult, he works for CRS Ghana and travels to the U.S. annually to tell his inspiring story to American Catholics at schools, parishes and communities. A powerful story to help wrap up our Food Security in Focus series this week! Food security is a personal issue for you, isn’t it? I lived hunger. I suffered it. I lost two siblings to malnutrition. I saw them die—skinny and bony. Every single day I fought for a bowl of food. There was nothing called breakfast or lunch. We were just lucky to get one bowl of food a day. The only reason I survived was because I went to school. Catholic Relief Services built a school in my village, but I hated it. No one in my family had ever been to school. I didn’t know the benefits. So I went there merely to search for food. I thought the food was free—but it wasn’t. If you wanted snack, you were sentenced to one class and if you wanted lunch, you were taken hostage in another class. As CRS kept fixing lunch, I kept going to school, and today I hold a master’s degree in public administration. That’s the power of a little snack. Today, I put three meals on the table for my children—and they stay in school because I understand that education is liberation from hunger. Education is the way to break the chains of poverty and hunger. I lived it. I survived to tell the story. So is food security an issue you still deal with on a daily basis? Every day: Now we’re working with local farmers—training them, giving them better seeds, helping to teach them how to produce more in their villages. Before, people were mostly just producing food for subsistence. But now we’re trying to encourage farmers: if you grow peanuts, how can we help you? What seeds, training and equipment do you need? How do you find the best markets? Farmers often sell their items at the wrong time, when the price is cheaper. But we help them find a market where they can sell their goods at a good price and make as much profit as possible. How has climate change impacted farmers in Ghana? Most people didn’t understand what climate change was. But now you can see so clearly. There was always a rainy season and a dry season. Each lasted six months. Every year it was the same. But now if we get three months of rain, we’re lucky. And the rain that comes is either too late or too early or too much. Farmers can work as hard as they want, but without rain they are lost. When I visited Wisconsin, I saw them using sprinklers. It seemed so easy. But our government in collaboration with local and international NGOs is trying to support and educate farmers, creating awareness about issues of global warming. Are they educating just about climate change? They’re providing education on many issues—like deforestation. Trees here are a source of fuel. You cut down trees to build homes. You need them to survive. But with education, we are trying to teach that if you cut this tree, then plant another in its place. The education is slow, but we’re making progress. How have the farmers reacted to this help? They are very excited. Ghana is said to be comparable to Oregon in size. Oregon has 4 million people. Ghana has 21 to 22 million people. The need is great but resources are limited. But I believe there are enough resources in Ghana to feed Ghanaians, just like the United States has enough resources to feed all Americans. We just need to continue to advocate for more just and accountable systems and structures that are beneficial to all without exception. We’re all working together—government, NGOs, universities and other stakeholders—to try and provide support. But we must remember what President Obama said when he visited Ghana—aid is not an end in itself. The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it is no longer needed. We have to make sure we have the right systems, the right people with the right intentions and many good things can happen. The trick is how to find all three. |
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The Washington Post today has a great interview with Melanne Verveer, the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. During the interview, Ambassador Verveer touches on the economic arguments for empowering women around the world, stating that “women are the drivers of economic growth” and when women are able to access the tools that they need, they can make an enormous difference in their countries. A couple months ago I got to see Ambassador Verveer when she participated in a panel on empowering women and girls at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting. You can read more of our coverage on Ambassador Verveer here. |
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Dr. Sherri Porcelain, senior lecturer with the Global Public Health Department at UM kicked of the event and moderated the panel discussion which covered topics such as resource scarcity, increased spread of diseases like malaria from more active mosquito populations, to the mass migration of people from coastlands and other areas affected by climate change.
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AllAfrica.com recently posted an interview with Aaron S. Williams, the new US Peace Corps director. During the interview, Williams discusses the current state of the Peace Corps as it approaches its rather remarkable 50th anniversary. He notes an 18% increase in applications this year alone. Williams also touches on a subject ONE Blog readers are no doubt familiar with: food security. Excerpts below, full interview here.
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The ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with frequent contributions from volunteers, members and partner organizations.
The ONE Blog updates readers daily with the latest in global development news and analysis and what ONE members and our partners are doing around the world to influence world leaders in the fight against global poverty.
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TAGS: Chris Daughtry, Music