President Obama came to office promising “the millennium development goals will be America’s goals.” But the global economic crisis now threatens to undermine those goals. Gains in the fight against global poverty and hunger have begun to stall or even reverse. What can the Obama administration do to reinvigorate the fight against global poverty? How can advocates most effectively make the case that meeting the needs of the global poor ought to be American foreign policy goals? What policies best work for addressing global poverty?

These questions and more will be discussed in an interactive panel discussion with Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to President Obama and Senior Director for global development, democracy, stabilization and humanitarian assistance issues at the National Security Council;* Ray Offenheiser, President of Oxfam-America; Anita Sharma, North American coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Campaign; Matthew Yglesias, fellow of the Center for American Progress and moderated by Mark Leon Goldberg of the global affairs blog, UN Dispatch. 

* Unfortinately, Gayle can not make it. We are grateful to have Virginia Simmons of the ONE Campaign on the panel to discuss her work in mobilizing online communities to fight global poverty. 

I'll be talking about this week's Congressional hearings on Sudan and the Obama administration's internal debate over the direction of Sudan policy on WDEL Radio in Delaware.   Folks outside the DelMarVa penninsula can tune in here at 12:15 eastern time.

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We won't be there in person, but we'll be Twittering the Vice Presidential debate tonight as we watch it on TV. Follow us! Or, refresh the page to follow the Tweets on our sidebar.

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