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Frank and Lowey Debate Against the Lewis Amendment
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Late this afternoon, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) introduced a potentially devastating amendment cutting $506 million in multilateral aid from the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. In just a few hours before the amendment’s presentation, hundreds of ONE members across 60 key districts registered calls to their representatives asking for a NO vote on the Lewis amendment. Watch Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) eloquently argue against the amendment and defend U.S. multilateral aid on C-SPAN:
The vote on the Lewis amendment is slated for sometime between 6 and 6:30 this evening. Stay tuned for more news! -Emily Stivers |
Naomi Campbell: Millions of women are dying needlessly
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Bob Geldof guest-edited Sunday’s edition of the Italian publication La Stampa. In the coming days we’ll be posting English language versions of the featured articles, including this one from Naomi Campbell:
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Obama brings business to Ghana
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Sena Atoklo is a broadcast journalist and resident of Ghana who has worked with the BBC and ITV in the UK, and ETV South Africa. Over the next week, he’ll be sending in posts to the ONE Blog on Obama’s visit to Ghana and how Ghanaians are reacting to it. Trust Ghanaians to find business opportunities in even the mundane things of life. That is exactly what the U.S President Barack Obama’s visit to the country (this Friday and Saturday) offers some Ghanaians. Those who want to take advantage of the visit to make some cash are already in business. Miniature flags of Ghana and the United States of America are being produced, along with ceremonial cloth with the photographs of the two Presidents. People in the Arts and Entertainment sector are not being left out of this. Some musicians have composed songs welcoming the first Black President of the United States to our homeland Ghana. Francis Mensah sells Barack Obama souvenirs along Osu Oxford Street here in the city of Accra. I had a brief conversation with him:
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Obama speaks at the G8
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President Obama has just spoken at a press conference at the G8 summit in Italy. He was followed by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. They were talking about climate change. An update from the ground of what was said is coming right up! -Jessica Gomez-Duran |
Nicholas Stern: Poverty and climate change- the two great challenges of our century
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Bob Geldof guest-edited Sunday’s edition of the Italian publication La Stampa. In the coming days we’ll be posting English language versions of the featured articles, including this one from Nicholas Stern:
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What We’re Reading 7/9/09: G8 Summit Day 2
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New York Times: Obama Enlists Major Powers to Aid Poor Farmers with $15 Billion New York Times Op Ed: Nicholas Kristof: Would You Let This Girl Down? New York Times: Poorer Nations Reject a Target on Emission Cut The Hill: High Expectations Surrounding Obama’s Trip to Africa Reuters: White House Unhappy with IMF Limist in US Spending Bill -Grace Lamb-Atkinson |
G8 Day 1 Recap
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The G8 Summit in Italy has been going on for half a day and already the first of a reported 10 communiques has been released. In predictable fashion, the release of the communique covering the world economy, climate change and development was of great interest to us, and we quickly issued this reaction to it yesterday. While the scramble for the communique was going on, a group of over 100 journalists were shepherded into an auditorium to meet with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. On development, Berlusconi started by recalling that the Global Fund stands out as a success of the Summit in Genoa, having saved millions of lives since it was founded in 2001. He also said that the 2009 dues would be paid by the end of the year. Otherwise, he referred vaguely to a commitment to increase aid. No mountains have been moved yet, but we’re working to keep the pressure on for a better outcome tomorrow. More soon! -Eloise Todd |
URGENT ACTION: Don’t let Congress cut critical funding
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Within hours, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, will offer an amendment to the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill cutting $506 million from U.S. multilateral contributions. Please call your Representative and ask her/him to vote against this amendment, that would cut critical funding for the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), the second largest development donor in Africa. This amendment must not pass. Our funding for multilateral institutions, including the World Bank’s IDA, is money well spent. IDA supports important programs—including debt cancellation, health, education, agriculture, microfinance, business development and more—under a strong, performance-based criteria to make a real, measurable difference in the fight against global poverty. Please call your Representative now and ask them to vote against the Lewis amendment. -Tom Hart PS- For ONE members who’ve never called your member of Congress before, it’s very easy! Here’s a quick video we put together with some helpful tips: |
Growing support in the Senate to end hunger
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Yesterday, for the second time in less than a week, ONE members, staff and interns set off on the metro from our headquarters in Washington DC to Capitol Hill to meet with Senate offices about a top anti-poverty priority: global agricultural development and the fight to end hunger. We went to deliver messages from the almost 30,00 ONE members who took action through our Invest In Agriculture Campaign, which calls on senators to fully-fund President Obama’s request for $1.36 billion in global agricultural development funding. Those 30,000 messages poured in during just a few days, as ONE members went all out over the July 4th holiday weekend to convince their senators to tackle the root causes of hunger, at a time when this most basic form of poverty and suffering is on the rise. In fact, the number of hungry people in the world passed the 1 billion mark this year. Reacting to the urgency of the humanitarian crisis and buoyed by such strong backing from so many of you, nine of us, including myself, made the trek over to visit 99 Senators offices on a hot summer DC morning, knowing that we had an opportunity to make a last minute impact before the final appropriations decisions were made. In meetings with more than fifteen senate staff members, we hammered home your message that by investing in agriculture, we can not only stop hunger, but help end the instability it causes, as demonstrated by last year’s food price riots in countries across the developing world.
And the timing of your messages to the Senate could not have been better. We delivered your messages just before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State-Foreign Operations met to deal with the very bill that controls this critical agricultural funding. This campaign is also poised to have a global impact. When President Obama meets with the other world leaders the second half of this week at the G8 Summit in Italy, one of the central issues on the agenda will be the global response to the scourge of rising food prices and the plummeting agricultural yields in the developing world. If the Senate decides to fully fund President Obama’s request for $1.36 billion in global agricultural development funding, it will set a powerful example for the rest of the world and help build global momentum toward our ultimate goal of ending hunger. But our work on this important issue isn’t done. The subcommittee has marked up the bill and now it moves to the full Appropriations Committee, so we’re making one last push today to make sure our senators know that as ONE members and constituents we’re counting on them to Invest In Agriculture. -Tyler Rattray |
We met with key staff in the offices of Senators Burris, Bayh, Menendez, Murkowski, Reed, Bill Nelson, Voinovich, Shaheen, Pryor, Barasso, Hagan, Cantwell, Inhoffe, Johaans, and Johnson. The reception we got was enthusiastic and universally impressed with the passion and commitment ONE members are showing in speaking out on this important issue.Waiting for Obama
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Sena Atoklo is a broadcast journalist and resident of Ghana who has worked with the BBC and ITV in the UK, and ETV South Africa. Over the next week, he’ll be sending in posts to the ONE Blog on Obama’s visit to Ghana and how Ghanaians are reacting to it. Anyone arriving in my country, Ghana for the first time, will know right away that Ghanaians are expecting an august visitor in the month of July. The beautification that’s currently taking place in the capital Accra and the ancient capital Cape-Coast tell it all. In Accra, trees along what we call ceremonial roads have been given a new lease of life. They have either been painted or white washed with emulsion paint, or have been draped with paraphernalia of U.S President Barack Obama and that of the Ghanaian President, John Evans Atta-Mills. The drains and other gutters that usually harbor stagnant water and mosquitoes are being worked on tirelessly to ensure that they are clear and free flowing. This is all because Ghana at this time of the year is experiencing its rainy season so one can imagine the amount of work being done by Zoom Lion personnel. Zoom Lion is a private waste management company tasked with ensuring that the city of Accra is clean all the time. You remember your first date and how badly you wanted to look your best and put up your best behavior in a bid not to lose him or her? Well that is exactly what I am talking about. This is the state of my country Ghana today. My country is preparing to receive the first black president of the United States of America Barack Obama on Friday. Accra is seeing a facelift temporarily with daily cleanup exercises, patching up of pot holes on our roads in anticipation of Barack Obama. But how Ghanaians wish for more high-profile visitors so that those responsible in Ghana will continue to do that for which they are paid. -Sena Atoklo |
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About the Blog
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.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE or ONE Action. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
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TAGS: ONE Members, Policy News, Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. Jerry Lewis, Rep. Nita Lowey