No woman should die in childbirth.  In fact, most maternal deaths are preventable. Yet nearly one woman dies in childbirth every two minutes, and 99 percent of these deaths occur in the developing world.

This month marks the first anniversary of Saving Mothers, Giving Life, a partnership intended to aggressively reduce the number of women in the developing world who die during pregnancy and childbirth.

An expectant mother’s death has a profound, cascading impact.  Her death jeopardizes the lives of her surviving children and their likelihood of receiving health care and education.  By ensuring safe births, we help to produce healthy and economically secure families and communities.

Saving Mothers, launched by then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton last June, supports and builds upon national maternal health programs in Uganda and Zambia, with the goal of reducing maternal deaths by up to 50 percent in targeted districts.

After evaluations by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as Columbia University, we know that we’ve achieved a tremendous amount very quickly.  Childbirths in medical facilities have increased, emergency obstetric and newborn care services have improved and community linkages to medical facilities have been strengthened.

In Saving Mothers, Giving Life districts, the number of women attending four or more antenatal care (ANC) visits has increased significantly. ANC visits are critical to the health of the baby. 

Saving Mothers trained community health workers, including 4,000 Village Health Team members in Uganda and 800 Safe Motherhood Action Group members in Zambia, promoted facility deliveries and birth preparedness as well as distributed supplies for childbirth and caring for a newborn. Furthermore, we helped add more than 300 new doctors, nurses and midwives to the health workforce in Uganda and Zambia, improving emergency obstetric and HIV care.

We also upgraded infrastructure. Maternity waiting shelters have been constructed and renovated, providing a safe space for women to stay before their due dates and enhancing access to maternal health services.

On my recent trips to Uganda and Zambia, I had a first-hand look at some of the challenges —and opportunities —we face.  Some of the facilities we visited handle as many as 10 childbirths per day but often face a shortage of delivery beds. The situation is challenging even when labor and births pass without complications, but is especially difficult when multiple women are in labor simultaneously.

Health workers also cope with frequent blackouts and unreliable water supplies. Ambulances, critical for serving large catchment areas, often don’t exist or frequently run short of fuel.

Addressing these problems starts with leadership and policy change at the national level.  Zambia’s First Lady, Dr. Christine Kaseba-Sata, is helping lead a national effort to reduce maternal mortality.

Safe Motherhood Action Groups work in Zambian communities to encourage women to deliver in health facilities. The risk of death from pregnancy-related complications is far greater when women deliver at home. Saving Mothers, Giving Life partners provide extensive training and support for these groups in four districts in Zambia.

A trained obstetrician-gynecologist, Dr. Kaseba-Sata is promoting policies that encourage women to deliver their children in medical facilities, train new midwives and ensure that facilities are well-equipped.  Saving Mothers is guided by national programs and priorities, and reinforces them with additional resources and expertise.

Innovation at the local level is also vital. Dr. Richard Mugahi, the district health officer in Kabarole, Uganda, embodies how a motivated, entrepreneurial leader can make a big difference.  Dr. Mugahi has challenged and motivated local health workers, creating ambulance committees to coordinate the network of vehicles that transport pregnant women to care.

We are making progress. But we have a long way to go. Millennium Development Goal 5, which calls for a 75 percent reduction in the maternal mortality ratio by 2015, lags furthest behind all eight goals.

Working together, with strong leadership at all levels of the health care system, we can ensure that more sons and daughters will be delivered safely and more mothers survive childbirth.

Want to do your part to support maternal health in the developing world? Check out Saving Mothers, Giving Life’s website and their global partners: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Every Mother Counts, the Government of Norway, Merck for Mothers and Project C.U.R.E.

For the past five years, a group of San Francisco engineers from Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA) have partnered with a Tanzanian community thousands of miles away to harness the sun’s energy to provide electricity to the town and meet the villagers’ basic human needs. Kelsey Gross, EWB-USA communications coordinator, shares their story. 

Community members in the rural village of Ngelenge, Tanzania, have a reason to rejoice when the hot, African sun beats down on them. Solar energy now provides solutions to a serious problem – lack of access to clean water and adequate health care.

Five years ago, women and children in the Ngelenge community spent the better part of each day walking many kilometers to collect water. Community members also had to walk five kilometers (3.1 miles) to the nearest health facility, which lacked consistent electricity, whenever they wanted basic health care.

This phenomenon of unstable energy access is all too common for many African communities. In sub-Saharan Africa, 30 percent of health facilities lack electricity. As a result, they cannot adequately store essential medicines, operate essential, life-saving medical equipment or perform procedures after the sun sets.

However, the Ngelenge Development Association (NGEDEA), a Tanzanian organization dedicated to the development of the Ruhuhu River Basin, wanted to make a change and reached out to the Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA) San Francisco Professional Chapter to do so.

After exploring many potential ways to improve access to clean water and adequate health care, EWB-USA and NGEDEA partnered with the community to build a health clinic and a water distribution system powered by solar energy.

EWB-USA members and community members celebrated the installation of the solar panels that now power the water pump and local health clinic. The solar panels have been functioning for two years and the system receives routine maintenance by well-trained community members. Photo credit: David Youmans

Tanzania receives more than 3,000 hours of sunlight each year. For community members in Ngelenge, more than 3,000 hours of sunlight each year means more than 3,000 opportunities to supply life-giving energy for their health clinic and water source.

“Ngelenge is 75 kilometers from the nearest electrical grid ,and the bumpy dirt roads make the transport of goods, including fuel for energy, expensive and difficult,” David Youmans, an EWB-USA member who was one of the engineers on the ground in Ngelenge, said. “What they do have, though, is abundant energy in the form of sunlight.”

The EWB-USA San Francisco Professional Chapter worked with local solar vendors to install the project, a localized approach that increased the capacity of the community’s solar technicians. This also helped build the local solar economy and ensured long-term sustainability for the project.

Today, every community member in Ngelenge has access to health care facilities within one kilometer from their home, whether or not the sun is shining. Additionally, the solar-powered water pump delivers water to 18 access points in the community so that every family has access clean water less than 100 yards from their home.

EWB-USA members also conducted solar energy training in Ngelenge so individual community members can maintain the solar energy technology. In addition to keeping the water pump and health clinic running, the solar energy training increased the capacity of community members to install solutions to energy poverty in their own homes.

“It was amazing to return to the village year after year and see that community members had purchased panels, batteries and controllers to put together their own systems,” Youmans said. “Many homes in the community now have a few lights to brighten up their night.”

On the community level, energy access is now a reality for Ngelenge. However, many communities in sub-Saharan Africa are still living in the dark. The solutions are there, and more than two dozen African states have already committed to support the goal of providing universal energy access by 2030. By partnering with developing communities to supply sustainable supplies of energy, we can energize the fight against energy poverty.

Interested in learning more how you can help address energy poverty in Africa? Join the conversation about how to bring energy access to the world’s poorest countries here. Keep an eye out for a new energy poverty action soon!

This post was written by Caitlin Hodes, a member of ONE’s Field team. She was one of the lucky ONE staffers to visit the White House last week.

On Friday, a group of ONE staff  members and a herd of summer interns delivered your voices to the White House. Together we met with Yohannes Abraham, chief of staff for the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, to represent the 59,664 US ONE members who signed our G8 petition asking world leaders to prioritize fighting malnutrition and increasing government transparency at the summit this week. This follows our G8 petition delivery of 342,219 EU signatures to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and more than 8,900 French signatures to French President François Hollande last week.

Taking smart action on food and nutrition will allow Africa to lift itself out of poverty and make important strides in preventing 3.1 million children from dying each year from malnutrition. The G8 leaders can also have the opportunity to spark a transparency revolution,  enabling Africans to use their resources effectively and preventing the illegal and corrupt appropriation of $20 to 40 billion every year.

ONE’s Senior Director for US Campaigns Laurie Moskowitz delivers the G8 petition signatures to White House Chief of Staff for the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs Yohannes Abraham.

World leaders have arrived in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland for the 39^th G8 Summit and will discuss the most pressing global issues in these next two days. Thanks to the support from ONE members like you who are pushing G8 leaders to act this week, we will be one big step closer to getting world leaders on board to virtually end extreme poverty by 2030.

We at ONE have been preparing for this moment for months now, and we’re glad to send your voices in. We’ve been taking action and building momentum to get the ball rolling, so that the G8 leaders can get the job done as efficiently as possible.

The summit may have started, but that doesn’t mean that this moment is over. Add your voice in the fight against extreme poverty by visiting one.org/protestsongs.

Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held an important hearing on H.R. 1983, the Food Aid Reform Act, which was introduced last month. If passed, the reforms outlined in the bill would not only improve the speed and efficiency of delivering US food aid in humanitarian crises but also save tax dollars on food and transportation costs. (Read more why we’re trying to get it passed in this blog post, “Fight for the 4 million“).

The hearing made it clear that food aid reform is desperately needed and there is political will to get it done, even in the face of opposition from members of Congress and organizations that prefer to maintain the status quo. However, it also proved that we’re not finished yet.

We need to fight global malnutrition, particularly during food crises. Between 2010 and 2011, 44 million people were pushed into poverty due to food price increases. By 2050, seven out of 10 people will live in a country that doesn’t produce enough food for its population. We can no longer ignore that food security is a problem and that it’s worsening.

If we want to see these common-sense, bipartisan reforms become a reality, the Food Aid Reform Act needs more support. Thus far, much of the push for passing the bill is thanks to outreach from thousands of passionate activists from dozens of NGOs—including over 14,000 ONE members who have called, emailed and tweeted—all clamoring for these reforms.

Within the next week few weeks, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., will propose the reforms as an amendment to the Farm Bill, the all-encompassing legislation related to US agricultural policy.  Let your voice be heard in support of food aid reform and ask your Representatives to co-sponsor the bill and support the food aid reform amendment as well as the Food Aid Reform Act.

Want to learn more about food aid reform and how you can get involved? Read up on the fight for global nutrition here.

“The proper function of a man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” – Jack London

I stumbled across this quote the other day by the great author, Jack London, and I cannot get it out of my head. I loved reading his books as a kid; fantasizing about adventurers he describes in the great North . . . dog sledging, gold mining, fighting for survival.

Truly being a tough guy.

Photo Caption: Mark with his wife Kristen and four children: Kembe, Karis, Jafta and India.

Today, I am a husband, an active dad of four young kids, and guy who works hard in a private practice as a psychotherapist. My life is busy and full. However, in the business, it is easy to allow the obligations of my life lull me into mere existence. To simply go through the motions of being alive.

I’ve been thinking about London’s quote and how to apply it to my life. I don’t believe it’s suggesting that I close up my practice, pack up my family and get on a dog sledge to the North Pole. Rather, I think It’s a forceful reminder that I want to live my life with great intentionality. It’s a motivator to avoid letting life just happen around me. It’s a call to embrace the great challenge of learning to see the adventures within my life as it is.

Of course, there’s a part of me that want to experience more adventure. To seek out and embrace challenges, opportunities, and new experiences. (To my wife’s chagrin I was actually looking at motorcycles online last week.) I can look for those types of adventures in nature or in travel, but also find them in my work, in my marriage, and in fostering the tender minds and hearts of my kids. While adventure I might look differently in five or ten years, I’m convinced I want to live every chapter of my life with intentionality, fighting the temptation to merely exist.

This Father’s Day weekend I want to use my time embracing the adventure of Fatherhood.

Songs that inspire Mark to be a better parent. Listen on Spotify:

Mark and his family live in Orange County, CA. He and his wife Kristen have been married for 15 years and have four beautiful children. You can find him at www.markhowerton.com or @markhowerton on Twitter. Photos in this post are courtesy of Mark’s wife Kristen Howerton (www.rageagainsttheminivan.com). 

Energy poverty is a time bomb, an issue that receives little attention but is contributing so much to poverty and slow economic growth in many countries around the world. Thousands of opportunities are lost due to lack of affordable and reliable energy, and, as much as the situation is worse in developing countries, developed countries do not escape the effects.

Photo caption: Just having a simple source of light can make all the difference in the world. A woman with the MwangaBora lamp in Kenya. Photo credit: Evans Wadongo. 

Having grown up in a rural village without electricity, I experienced first-hand the effects of energy poverty. My brothers and I used kerosene lamps for studying everyday. We were lucky that our parents could afford kerosene but, even so, the supply was not steady and guaranteed.  We also had to travel long distances to access the kerosene. I used a tin kerosene lamp with an open flame, often referred to as ‘Koroboi’ in Kenya, and developed eye problems due to frequent exposure to the smoke from the lamp. A lot of my neighbors were extremely poor and could only afford kerosene occasionally; children from such homes could not study at night. I walked long distances to school everyday, and the school had no electricity, too. Back then in my primary school, corporal punishment was the order of the day. Imagine the frustration of being punished for not doing your homework, and yet it was not your fault but rather an unfortunate situation of lack of kerosene at home. A lot of my friends dropped out of school for this reason.

In developing countries, school performance for children attending rural schools without electricity is always way below that of children attending urban schools with electricity. Out of the whole class who sat for the national examinations when I was in eighth grade, only two of us managed to go a good high school and later on attended university.  Children who perform poorly in many rural schools often end up impoverished, continuing the cycle of poverty and lack of economic opportunities in rural areas.

Children should not have to study in the dark. Photo credit: Evans Wadongo.

Kerosene has adverse effects on our environment. According to studies conducted at the Berkeley Laboratory at the University of California, kerosene consumes 77 billion liters (20.3 million gallons) of fuel worldwide each year, costing its predominantly impoverished users a total of $38 billion annually. Furthermore, if a single kerosene lantern burns for an average of four hours a day, it emits over 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of carbon dioxide a year. The combustion of fuel for lighting consequently results in 190 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, equivalent to one-third the total emissions from the UK. Indoor air pollution from kerosene wick lamps can cause fatal respiratory problems over time and deaths from accidental fire are also all-too common, particularly among rural households in developing countries, which are often grass-thatched.

It is because of my childhood struggles that I thought of a simple solution that can make access to clean energy for rural communities easy and affordable. I designed a simple solar lamp dubbed “MwangaBora” in order to enable children to study at night and poor families to avoid unnecessary expenses on kerosene. MwangaBora is made from 50 percent recycled materials, and its simplicity means youth with informal education can construct the lamp with only simple tools.

After I distributed the MwangaBora lamps to a few villages, I realized that although performance for school-going children has improved, their parents could not afford their secondary schooling or college fees. I therefore developed an innovative model called ‘Use Solar, Save Lives’ through which we distribute the MwangaBora solar lamps to rural communities via women groups. We then train the women on micro-enterprise development and eventually help them to establish small businesses from the money they would have otherwise spent on kerosene. I later set up a NGO, Sustainable Development For All, through which we have directly helped over 130,000 people in Africa. We are also working with local community partners in Northern Kenya to set up and support special evening classes for children who work as shepherds, who are culturally denied a chance to attend daytime school in order to herd livestock. We help provide learning materials, teachers and the MwangaBora solar lamps, which the children use in the classes as a torch to scare off wild animals and at home as a source of light.

Over 1.2 billion people are still without access to electricity worldwide, this includes about 550 million people in Africa. The number of people without access to energy in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to rise to 90 to 100 million individuals in 2030. Without access to energy service, the poor will be deprived of the most basic of human rights and economic opportunities to improve their standard of living. People cannot access modern hospital services without electricity or feel relief from sweltering heat. Food cannot be refrigerated, and businesses cannot function. Lack of access to energy has a direct, negative effect on infant mortality, illiteracy, rural-urban migration and security. Children cannot study at night, and the list of deprivation goes on.

Energy poverty is a global problem that affects every person. It is therefore important for governments and the private sector to increase their investments in sustainable, especially renewable, energy. We can ignore the gross effects of energy poverty and ultimately continue to pay higher prices in each and every sector or decide to take concrete action by paying attention to and advocating solutions that can drive millions out of poverty.

Interested in learning more about Evans’ work and how you can help address energy poverty in Africa? Follow Evans on Twitter at @evanswadongo and join the conversation about how to bring energy access to the world’s poorest countries here. Keep an eye out on ONE.org for a new energy poverty action soon. 

For the past two-and-a-half years or so I have been working with my father, his partner Will and a team of passionate social entrepreneurs for Two Degrees Food, which is dedicated to the eradication of childhood hunger. Our company sells gluten-free and vegan snack bars in flavors like apple pecan, chocolate peanut and cherry almond [Editor's note: They're really yummy!] — but with a special catch. For every product we sell, we donate a meal to a hungry child through one of our nonprofit partners in Haiti, India, Kenya, Malawi, the United States and others.

In fact, we are the first buy-one-give-one food company, putting two degrees of separation between the consumer and the child who benefits from the purchase (hence the name “Two Degrees”). Many of the meals we give these children include Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (a nutrient-dense peanut butter paste that is 95 percent successful in curing malnutrition in young children) and other life-saving, nutrient-rich foods.

Up until last month, I would repeat this mission without grasping what that really meant. Intellectually, I understood the scope of the problem. There are an estimated 200 million hungry and malnourished children around the world,  including here in the US. But I hadn’t met any of these malnourished children for myself, or witnessed the impact of Two Degrees on the ground.

But all that recently changed.

Last month I visited Haiti with IMA World Health, one of our fantastic nonprofit partners that provides medicines and supplies, fights disease, develops health and information systems and distributes meals to people in need all over the world.

I learned and and saw a lot in my short trip, but three lessons stuck with me most:

1) Haitians are fiercely industrious. Unlike many US cities, where panhandling and homelessness are fairly common, I never saw this in Haiti. Everyone was busy! Port Au Prince felt like a bustling ant colony of people working hard to both make money and improve their city.

2) There is no “quick fix” for helping Haiti rebuild. Unfortunately the problems that exist in Haiti are not merely surface level. Deep-rooted cultural and political issues prevent socioeconomic growth in Haiti. Thousands of relief and aid organizations poured into Haiti after the 2010 earthquake with workers, money, food, medicine, building materials and the like. However, these are ultimately bandaids and often short term fixes. Real change needs to come from within– Haitians need to lead their growth and development from within if long-term change is going to occur.

3) Empathy. Not sympathy, but empathy. Understanding and feeling the plight of another. Too often we “feel bad” for others, when we should be striving to feel with others. During my trip I rarely ate. Not simply because I was trying to macho, but because we were in places where there were no gas stations or restaurants within a few hours of us. Because the thought of chomping away at a meal in the face of such poverty made me feel sick. Empathy is sitting with another person and trying to feel their experience with them — physically and emotionally.

I listened to the stories of countless mothers who talked about both their struggles to simply feed their children and also of their hope for a better future. Those stories are now deeply ingrained in my psyche and will continue to drive my own work with Two Degrees Food, which provides meals to these families and is working to eliminate hunger in their countries, toward a more equitable world for years to come.

The concept of poverty is a complicated and sometimes uncomfortable one to tangibly wrap your mind around, as is the statistic that 2.4 billion people live on less than $2 US a day, which helps us define what poverty means around the world. However, these are people, not mere data points, who live in extreme global poverty. They are mothers, fathers and children with ambitions and dreams just like you and me.

I want to help bridge the gap between our seemingly different worlds. We share a common humanity, and it can be easy and affordable to help save lives. The work of large nonprofits and corporate giving isn’t enough. There is a huge, churning vehicle of social impact opportunity that is waiting to be harnessed for social good – and that’s why Two Degrees Food (along with many other social ventures) offers products that can help make real progress in eradicating childhood hunger.

There’s nothing sadder and more humbling than holding a severely malnourished child. However, while there is a huge gap in the supply and distribution of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food  …  we, Two Degrees Food and the ordinary people who buy our  products, are saving lives everyday. We are offering hope.

Interested in helping eliminate childhood hunger? Visit Two Degrees Food to purchase their snack bars or donate meals online.

All photos can be credited to IMA World Health Senior Communications Director Chris Glass.

One of the oldest and best known stories in the world is the story of Exodus. Moses, encouraged and directed by God, leads the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Sinai desert. The way is difficult – there is little food, water, or time for rest or comfort. But Moses perseveres for two reasons: the glory of God, and the good of His people.

Rasoa, a small farmer in rural Kenya, relies on her faith to stay strong through tough times. Photo credit: Roger Thurow

We’re seeing a similar story unfold in Kenya today. A small community of farmers has been under the heavy yoke of extreme poverty and hunger. Through a steadfast faith in God, and radical new methods to revitalize their farmland, they are leaving a land of ministry, and eagerly looking forward to a new landscape – one where they don’t need to make the choice between school fees and bread for their table.

RSVP for our Faith conference call now. Just click here.

So what’s the problem? These farmers don’t exist in a vacuum – they live in a world that’s inextricably connected, and the policies that the American government puts in place can make the difference between a community flourishing or being crushed by overwrought, heavy-handed, outdated political gambits. But if our leaders adopt smart, forward-thinking food aid and development policies, that keep in mind the capabilities and resources of local communities, we can make a real difference.

This fight isn’t new to people of faith. We read about an obligation to help the hungry in Exodus, Micah, Proverbs and the Gospels – more than 2,000 passages on the poor are highlighted in the Bible. Thanks in part to US-funded programs that are saving lives, we’ve seen incredible progress in the fight against poverty. Since 1990, the global extreme poverty rate has been cut in half. Millions of children have access to food, clean water, and life-saving medicines than ever before. Through it all, people of faith have been at the forefront, pursuing radical and innovative policies that are changing our world.

ONE has always recognized the impact that people of faith can have in this fight – and that’s why we would love for you to get involved. We have a special opportunity for new ONE members, and leaders in faith communities who want to help us win this fight – a chance to speak with Roger Thurow on a special conference call Friday June 7th, at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard/11 a.m. Pacific. It’s an opportunity to learn more about the work ONE does, and a great chance to learn about some of the ways the world is changing. We’d love to have you – just RSVP here.

Jim Kim and Ban Ki-moon greeting each other in Kinshasa at the very beginning of the trip. Photo credit: © Dominic Chavez/World Bank

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo – Over the last week, violence flared up again around this city in the eastern part of the country. The fighting started just before UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and I began an unprecedented joint trip through the region.

In the hours before we entered Goma, the warring groups declared a short cease-fire, apparently a signal of deference to allow the trip to go forward.

But we were coming anyway.

We traveled together for three days – the first time that the heads of our organizations have ever taken such a mission  – to Kinshasa and Goma in the DRC; Kigali, Rwanda; and Entebbe, Uganda. Following the Secretary-General’s strong leadership to bring peace and security to the region, we were there to send a powerful signal that the years of conflict, instability, and a broken regional economic system had to end.

Now is the time for the leaders and people of this region to work together to advance the 11-country framework agreement, signed in February, and push forward not only peace but a peace dividend as well.

Some reporters questioned whether the renewed fighting showed that the peace agreement wouldn’t work, and whether the World Bank Group’s injection of an additional $1 billion to boost energy, trade, education, and health in the region – announced last week – would work.

Our answer: The framework agreement, combined with new efforts to bring development, provides the region’s best chance for peace in years. The best way to secure peace is with development.  Leaders now need to translate the security and peace framework into economic development that is spurred by public funding, which could help attract all-important private sector investment.

The more I thought about it, the more strongly I felt about the importance of pushing for development now. We can’t wait for conflict in one part of the region to completely end. We need to move to support the countries’ leaders while we have backing for the peace process.

As I traveled throughout this region – on the ferry across the wide Congo River, in the streets of Goma, up and down the hills of Kigali, and along the shores of Lake Victoria – I thought about how much of the region’s potential remains untapped. Several officials in the DRC told the Secretary-General and me the same line:

“We are a rich country with the poorest people.”

What they didn’t say was that the DRC is a rich country with people thirsty for peace.

We saw this firsthand in eastern DRC. As the Secretary-General and I drove in our convoy in Goma, we looked out the windows and saw crowds of people. Some waved in welcome, while others held high huge signs with simple messages. One woman’s sign said: “Peace Peace Peace, Please!”

Jim Kim meeting disabled ex-combatants in Rwanda. Photo credit: © Dominic Chavez/World Bank

At Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Dr. Jo Lusi, the director of a program called Heal Africa, brought us to meet several women who were victims of sexual violence during the conflict. We listened to their stories. They were heartbreaking. They also told us that this epidemic of sexual violence in the eastern DRC had to end.

What has happened to women in the eastern part of this country is an outrage. We left humbled and even more determined to do what we could to end the violence.

What can we do? The World Bank Group and the United Nations have great global reach and influence. We will be combining our forces of goodwill in a way that we have not done before. The Secretary-General and I agree wholeheartedly that we must find new ways to work closely together on the ground in order to support country leaders to secure the peace and build economic development.

If people in Goma and elsewhere in the region have good jobs, if they can send their children to a school that promotes learning, if they can access quality health care, they, too, will push for peace and stability. I’m an optimist, and I believe this can happen.

A school in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 70 percent of the country lives below the poverty line. Photo Credit: © Dominic Chavez/World Bank

But I’m a pragmatist, too.

We have picked an area of the world engulfed in conflict and insecurity that for too many years has been neglected by world powers. Now is the time to focus on cross-border trade; develop new energy sources through hydro-electric and other clean sources of energy; build new roads; and create jobs. Now is the time for the leaders of countries to secure the peace and to begin the hard work of putting together the policies and the regional agreements to build an economic growth plan.

We all know the Great Lakes region of Africa is rich. We know, too, that there’s no reason for its people to be poor.

Follow the World Bank on Twitter. 

For the past few weeks, the German Youth Ambassadors, a group of committed ONE activists based in Germany, have been raising awareness around “Ich schaue hin!”, a ONE campaign around the German elections.

But two Youth Ambassadors, Miriam and Jannis, decided to do something a little extra special. Earlier this month, they joined up with the Western Youth Choir of Namibia to perform a choir version of Miriam’s self-composed ONE song “Be ONE of Us” in front of 400 people at a small town near Dortmund, Germany.

We were so impressed by her song that we decided to share it with our ONE members in America and Canada. We think you’ll find it beautiful to listen to.

After the moving performance, Youth Ambassador Miriam shared her views: “This song means a lot to me, because it is about changing the world and fighting extreme poverty together. When the choir developed their own interpretation of the song, it really became unique.”

What did you think of the song? Share it with Miriam, Jannis and the Western Youth Choir of Namibia in a comment below.