Hillary Clinton's Confirmation Hearing

In the days preceding Hillary Clinton's high-profile Secretary of State confirmation hearing on January 13th, 2009, ONE asked its members to call their senators on the Foreign Relations Committee and urge them to make global poverty a focus of the hearing.

After receiving hundreds of calls from ONE members, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee surpassed ONE's expectations with ten out of fifteen senators raising issues related to global poverty and preventable disease -- and that's not even counting the strong opening statement delivered by Hillary Clinton herself.

Hillary Clinton's strong and consistent statements on global poverty and preventable diseases, along with the attention these issues received from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, bode well for anti-poverty programs under the Obama Administration.

Every time these issues come up in public discourse, especially on a prominent stage such as the Secretary of State's confirmation hearing, we are one step closer to normalizing them as high priorities. The idea that humanitarian funding is not just something extra in the budget, but that it is essential, necessary and indeed, a critical priority, is gradually becoming an accepted fact.