By Kathy Bushkin Calvin, COO of the UN Foundation
Today, at the closing session of the Clinton Global Initiative, the United Nations Foundation's Nothing But Nets campaign will announce a major commitment to send over 600,000 long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed nets to vulnerable refugee populations living in 27 temporary camps in East Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
This commitment will offer some critical relief to a population already ravaged by war, poverty, and famine and facing down the coming rainy season, when malaria infections skyrocket. Malaria is the largest killer of refugees, who can suffer mortality rates from the disease as high as 25 percent.
Here at CGI, the United Nations Foundation - Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, along with Merck & Co, Inc, the Kessler Family Foundation and the American Red Cross, announced a $9 million commitment to vaccinate 76 million children in 25 countries.
In the photo below, representatives from groups committing a combined $9 million to the Measles Initiative.
Learn more about the Measles Initiative
At a panel discussion this morning on poverty, the Nobel Prize winning pioneer of micro-lending (and UN Foundation Board Member) Mohammed Yunis explained why he decided to take his Grameen Bank to the United States. Initially, he brought micro-lending to the United States in 1986, when then-Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton invited him to the state to help him combat rural poverty. More recently, Grameen supports the working poor right here in New York City. According to its website, Grameen supported microfinance institutions have provided over $300,000 of small loans to nearly 400 people. As with micro-lending across the world, the loans primarily go to women, and the default rate is virtually zero.
Asked why he brought his Grameen Bank to New York, Yunis replied that the city provides banking to the world, so why not to its neighbors?
It is no wonder he won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Here at CGI, the World Food Program and Yum! Brands announced an $80 million commitment to fight world hunger. In partnership with the World Food Program the World Bank committed for the first time to open its $1.2 billion global food crisis fund so that developing country governments can provide school meals and de-worming to more than 5 million children. Wyclef Jean, who founded the Yele Haiti NGO, and World Food Program Ambassador Against Hunger Drew Barrymore were on hand for the announcement.
From the left, Wyclef Jean, Yum! Brands CEO David C. Novack, Drew Barrymore , WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran and World Band President Robert Zoellick.
More pics below the fold.
While the speeches of many other countries' leaders before the UN General Assembly focused on important global issues like the financial crisis, terrorism, and poverty, the main topic for the President of Macedonia the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was...the name of his own country.
The reason that President Branko Crvenkoski's small Balkan state must officially go by such a cumbersome name is that Greece, its neighbor to the south, objects to using the name of its northernmost province, "Macedonia," for an independent country. Athens senses an implication of irredentism in Macedonia's use of the name, a worry that is particularly acute for the Greeks given the substantial "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonian" population in the province of Macedonia.
The dispute may seem silly, but it is serious -- earlier this year, Greece torpedoed Macedonia's EU and NATO bids because an acceptable compromise over the latter's name had not yet been reached. President Crvenkoski, in his speech to the GA, acknowledged the "obvious absurdity of the issue," but pledged gamely to work "actively and constructively" in negotiations with Greece, which have been moderated since 1999 by UN Special Envoy (and American) Matthew Nimetz. Tensions over the name, however, date back to Macedonian independence in 1992, as well as even to the time of Alexander the Great, who was...well, from one of the Macedonias, anyway.
Let's hope the issue is resolved at least by the next Olympics, so that the Macedonian delegation no longer has to march between those of fellow "f" countries Finland and France.
(Image from flickr user Thomas Roche using a Creative Commons license)
Just a quick run-down of the commitments that Senator Obama just made at CGI:
- Climate - Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 through a cap and trade system and a $50 million a year investment (over 10 years) in alternative energy. He also gave a shout-out for biofuels.
- Poverty - Embrace the MDGs by increasing our foreign assistance and focusing it on the "right priorities."
- Education - Erase the primary education gap by 2015, partially by creating a $2 billion global education fund.
- Global Health - End deaths from malaria by 2015, partially by helping to provide 730 million bed nets, training medical professionals in the developing world and giving them incentives to stay, and investing in malaria drugs.
As Matt mentioned earlier, across the city from where world leaders are gathering today to take stock of the Millennium Development Goals, Democratic nominee Barack Obama announced earlier that as president he would commit to ending deaths from Malaria by 2015.
This is big news.
Malaria kills 1 million people each year, the vast majority of whom are children under the age of five living in sub-Saharan Africa. The thing is, these deaths are entirely preventable. A relatively modest investment in preventative measures like bed nets and in treatments like ARV drugs can have a profound impact on the health and welfare of poor, Malaria endemic communities. First Lady Laura Bush has been an outspoken advocate on Malaria. It is very heartening to see that one of the two men who may become president has committed himself to ending this global scourge once and for all.
There will be more news on Malaria coming out of CGI today and tomorrow. In the meantime: Send a Net, Save a Life.
Drew Barrymore is on stage right now with President Clinton. She and others were representing WFP and the "Fill the Cup" campaign, launched earlier this year to raise funds and awareness about the 59 million children who go to school hungry. The symbol of the campaign is a red cup, "based on the millions of plastic cups that WFP uses to handout [sic] porridge or other food rations."
Today WFP's efforts were bolstered by commitments made by a five-year, $80 million pledge by YUM! Brands. The lion's share, $50 million will go to WFP to provide 200 million meals to school children.
WFP made some commitments itself, including to increase by a million the number of meals provided to school children each day.
Clearly, given the fact that the current economic crisis can only exacerbate the rising price of commodities, this is welcome news.
The following appeared as an op-ed in The Guardian Online on Thursday, September 25th.
This week, over 150 world leaders are gathered at the UN for the opening of the general assembly. If recent years are any indication, news outlets will focus on the disagreements aired on Tuesday, when George Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the podium.
But the real drama occurs today (Thursday), when the same global leaders that butted heads earlier in the week take stock of one of the most far-reaching and noble statements of international cooperation ever agreed upon, the millennium development goals.