Last week I joined several Milwaukee ONE members to meet with Rebeca Lopez of Senator Russ Feingold’s staff, to encourage the Senator’s continued work on behalf of the impoverished around the globe. As we met, we thanked Senator Feingold for his efforts to alleviate poverty, including his support of HIV/AIDS relief.
We told Ms. Lopez of ONE’s growing grassroots force across Wisconsin with over 27,000 members and mentioned our uniting with various groups in the state- from campus organizations to the United Nations chapter in Milwaukee.
We asked that the Senator consider the effects of climate change on many underdeveloped countries and devote 5% of climate legislation revenue to the world’s poorest people to adapt to climate change.
Finally, we requested Senator Feingold sign on as a cosponsor of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2009, a bi-partisan effort to provide access to clean water and sanitation to 100 million people. Rebeca informed us that the Senator has requested of the Foreign Relations Committee that the bill be brought up for a vote this year.
Rebeca assured us that our requests and concerns would be passed on and that Senator Feingold, already an advocate for poverty-stricken nations, would continue to support the fight against global poverty.
TIME: Next Step for Microfinance: Taking Deposits
Some 30 years ago, the field of microfinance was born from a radical concept: poor people, when lent small amounts of money, will pay it back in a timely manner. Now another radical concept is starting to take hold: that the thing people really need, more than business loans, is a safe place to save their money. A number of traditional microfinance institutions, many of which have evolved into formal banks, are also assigning renewed importance to gathering deposits.
Wall Street Journal: Steinbrueck Says G-20 Should Seek Coordinated Stimulus
German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck wants the Group of 20 leading industrialized and developing countries to discuss a fair distribution of burdens that have arisen from the financial crisis, and he called for internationally coordinated exit strategies from fiscal stimulus measures that have pushed up deficits.
New York Times: The Latest Fight Over the Foreskin
American health officials said last week that they have been mulling over whether they should offer circumcision as a voluntary option for infants and even adult men who are at risk for HIV. Though they have yet to issue any formal recommendations, controversy is already brewing. On one side are public health experts who argue the benefits of what they call an inexpensive and relatively risk-free operation, and say they have the backing of the World Health Organization. On the other side are critics with deep moral and fundamental objections to operating on a baby. The debate is laden with cultural, religious and historic overtones and wrapped up in issues of identity and sexuality.
The Independent: Millions facing famine in Ethiopia as rains fail
Famine has returned to the Horn of Africa nearly a quarter of a century after the world’s pop stars gathered to banish it at Live Aid, raising £150m for relief efforts in 1985. Millions of impoverished Ethiopians face the threat of malnutrition and possibly starvation this winter in what is shaping up to be the country’s worst food crisis for decades.
New York Times: Editorial: Hope in South Africa
For years, South Africa was an international laughing stock for its tragically absurd approach to the deadly AIDS epidemic. Now, that national nightmare may be ending. According to the Times, the new government of President Jacob Zuma seems to have a clearer-eyed view of the problem, its remedies and the need to improve the overall health care system than its predecessor did.
Check out this blog post from our friends at RESULTS:
Joanne Carter, our executive director here at RESULTS and RESULTS Educational Fund (REF), was recently selected for a two year term as the Board Member for the Developed Country NGO Delegation to the Global Fund Board.
While we couldn’t be more proud of Joanne here at RESULTS/REF, her appointment to the Global Fund Board presents a tremendous opportunity to all of us involved in this work. Sitting on the Board allows Joanne the opportunity to leverage existing North and South partnerships, while also building new partnerships, for the mobilization of resources to address the Global Fund’s funding gap of US $4-9 billion and providing support for high-quality proposals to the Global Fund.
Coincidentally, the Global Fund faces this multi-billion dollar funding gap in no small part because of its success — countries are now able to do more to tackle these disease of poverty, so they are asking for more. Filling the Global Fund’s multi-billion dollar resource gap will require a bold, coordinated resource mobilization strategy. While a seemingly daunting task, the more we’re able to collaborate in our advocacy efforts, the greater the chance that Global Fund receives the full funding that it needs.
Joanne brings to the Board over 17 years of experience directing advocacy campaigns that have mobilized billions of dollars for health and development programs, and I know that she looks forward to her continued partnership with many of you as she takes her seat on the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Check out this great post from Robert Sherman, Executive Director of Mercy Corps’ Action Center:
If you travel through Niger, you may meet farmers like Namata Abba, who will tell you how the young people often go elsewhere in search of work to provide for their families.
The migration leaves behind women, children and the elderly struggling to farm in a drying landscape. It strains the resources of the cities like Niamey, Niger’s capital, which become crowded with migrants looking for a way to survive.
In addition to hearing firsthand accounts like Namata’s, learn more about how global warming threatens Niger’s future and what you can do about it by watching the Niger online training at Mercy Corps’ Action Center. Learn how the water sources that support the area’s farms, fisheries and wandering herds are disappearing, including Lake Chad.
Once the third largest lake in Africa – and a major water supplier for the region’s roaming livestock herds in Niger, Chad and Nigeria — Lake Chad has shrunk by more than 90% over the past 50 years. It is likely to disappear this century, placing the food security and survival of millions of people in the region in jeopardy and intensifying the competition for ever-dwindling natural resources.
Niger is already one the driest places on earth. But in 2005, a particularly severe drought compounded by locust swarms caused much of Niger’s crops to fail. The drought wiped out livestock, which in turn sparked a food shortage that left millions of people hungry and in need of emergency assistance.
Mercy Corps and other humanitarian aid organizations were there to provide help, but the situation is likely to worsen as one of the poorest countries on the planet gets drier and competition for resources intensifies.
Yesterday, Philadelphia became a ONE City. Below is video from the event and comments from Pastor and ONE member Matt Staniz.
Today, Philadelphia once again lives up to its name by placing the name of our city side by side with ONE, an advocacy organization of more than 2 million strong committed members to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease. ONE is a vital movement in the world today. It reflects the type of love that we must have for each other: a love that is reflected in justice, equality, and action. This is Philadelphia-style “brotherly love” at its finest!
I want thank Deesha Dyer and the PA ONE members she worked with for making this day possible. Every letter, every phone call, every ounce of effort and every second of time that you gave has produced results. Thank you. Everything that begins today, begins because of you.
And thank you to Mayor Michael A. Nutter for hearing Deesha and the PA ONE members. It really is a natural fit. Thank you, Mister Mayor, for declaring the city of Philadelphia a ONE city . It was just a few blocks east of this building on Independence Mall where ONE was launched in 2004. A year later, it was few blocks up the Benjamin Franklin parkway where over a million of us gathered for “Live 8″ and raised our voices to “make poverty history”. Philadelphia has been at the heart of this movement. Today we proudly celebrate that this movement reflects the heart of Philadelphia.
This declaration reflects visionary leadership rooted in hope for a future shaped by action today. As we celebrate this commitment to fight extreme poverty, Mister Mayor, we also look forward to working together to keep these promises being made today to our poorest sisters and brothers around the world. I am also convinced that as we make these commitments to the poor around the world, it will also guide our continued efforts to care for our friends and neighbors right here in the city of brotherly love. Raising a voice on behalf of the poor is how faith creates action, it is how compassion creates justice, it is how concern creates change.
Today we stand together as ONE. We stand as ONE with the poor. We stand as ONE with the billion people trying to survive on less than two dollars a day. We stand as ONE with the thousands who are dying of preventable and treatable diseases. We stand as ONE with millions of people committed to changing these realities. Today we stand together as ONE Philadelphia.
We are the city of brotherly love, and we are a ONE city! Thank you.
Last week, I, along with nine fellow Colorado Springs ONE members met with Annie Oatman-Gardner, staff member for Senator Michael Bennet, to discuss the efforts of Coloradans in the fight against extreme global poverty and preventable disease.
Ms. Gardner wanted to know about ONE’s presence in Colorado. We told her we’re over 30,000 strong in the state and have organized regionally in the major cities and college campuses. We also had a large presence at the Democratic National Convention last year. Like the 10 of us, ONE members come from all walks of life and are committed to non-partisanship.
During our meeting, we asked Sen. Bennet to lend his voice in the US Senate for the world’s poorest people by supporting proven, effective programs like the Global Fund, which directs resources to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria to the neediest people in the world. We requested that he support the highest possible level of funding for the Global Fund as the House and Senate conference this fall.
We also asked that Sen. Bennet remember the world’s poorest as the Senate begins work on its climate change bill, by supporting a 5% allocation of any climate related revenue to go directly towards helping them adapt to the consequences of current and future climate change (i.e. frequent drought and floods, water scarcity and increased health challenges). After all, the world’s poorest are most adversely affected by changes in climate.
We thanked Annie for meeting with us, and expressed to her that we hope to work with Sen. Bennet in the future to ensure that the US implement smart, proven and effective programs to help raise the world’s poorest out of extreme poverty, creating a better, safer world for us all.
-Megan Marsh, ONE Member
Photo (L-R): Ida Zanmiller, Christie Garrison, Megan Marsh, Erin Swanson, Mark Hopewell, Annie Oatman-Gardner, Andrea Staebell, Kelly Hedgecock, Regina Hopewell, Lenore Swaim, Dave Swaim
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
Joanne Carter, our executive director here at 
