Archive for July, 2010
Check out this great post from our friends at Concern Worldwide, and if you haven’t already, give your senators a call in support of the Global Food Security Act:
Despite the fact that women produce up to 80% of food in the developing world, they often aren’t able to grow enough to feed themselves and their families.
Agatha Akandelwa is one of these women. These days, she takes care of 21 people in her Zambian village, including her grandchildren and several children of sick and deceased relatives. But sometimes it’s hard to find food for her large family.
“Our food situation becomes very difficult every year, starting in about September and lasting right through until January. During that period we only get about one meal per day. I really don’t feel good during that time. As an adult, I can go all day without food and then get up and go to the field the next day, but I get really concerned for the children during the hungry times.”
Concern Worldwide works daily with women farmers like Agatha through our ‘Women for Development’ program. We help provide them with tools and a little money to invest in seed—and so far the women farmers have seen lots of success. They’ve not only been able to grow enough to feed their families, but they’ve also been able to use the income from their extra food to send their children to school and keep their families healthy.
To hear more stories like Agatha’s, click here. And to learn more about Concern’s “Women Can’t Wait” campaign, which is calling on world leaders to make sure poor women are supported in their efforts to overcome hunger, click here.
-Natasha Adams, Campaigns and Parliamentary Officer, Concern Worldwide UK
The Obama administration has just released their plan for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. As most ONE members are probably aware, this is the plan President Obama promised back in September at the UN General Assembly.
We’re still in the process of looking through it, but we’ll have some analysis for you after the weekend. In the meantime, you can check out the plan here.
ONE is hitting the campaign trail to find out where candidates in New Hampshire, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Florida stand on extreme poverty. Stay tuned for more updates like these from our field team and organizers on the road.
Last night, New Hampshire Senate candidate Bill Binnie held an event at the baseball stadium here in Manchester, N.H. I went with some ONE members to talk to him about ONE and let him know more about our efforts to encourage continued bold US leadership in the fight against AIDS, malaria and hunger in Africa.
As soon as we got to the stadium we were greeted by our New Hampshire ONE Vote Republican Chair, John Lyons, who kindly took a quick photo with us for the ONE blog.
I also saw many former political staffers who got to know ONE during our ONE Vote effort in 2008. People from Mike Huckabee’s campaign, John McCain’s campaign and others all remembered and complimented ONE’s bipartisan efforts to celebrate recent US efforts to fight AIDS and poverty — like the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria Act that passed the Senate in 2008 — with support from Democrats like Sens. Biden and Kerry and Republicans like Sununu and Coburn.
Known to many ONE members as PEPFAR, the plan that President Bush originally announced in 2002 has helped prevent the spread of HIV, putting more than 5 million people on 40-cent pills to fight AIDS. This is something that all ONE members and all Americans should take great pride in!
Americans from everywhere are coming together and uniting with ONE to support urgent, life-saving action and stand tall with proud Africans who struggle each day to overcome extreme poverty and beat back corruption. Good people from both sides of the political aisle and both sides of the oceans have stood tall in the past few years to help save lives and build a better and more prosperous world for all.
Today, with ONE Vote 2010, we celebrate those great efforts and aim to make sure that our leaders continue to enact better policy for the world’s poorest people in the future!
Be sure to connect with other ONE Vote 2010 New Hampshire members on Facebook and Twitter.
We must do better against malaria, says President – Following this week’s African Union summit, Tanzanian President, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, asserts that leaders must do more to eliminate all preventable malaria deaths, starting with the goal of reaching universal mosquito-net coverage by the end of this year. (The Guardian)
New TB test must reach more people, says WHO – A new diagnostic tool that reduces to two hours the time needed to detect drug-resistant tuberculosis must be made available to populations vulnerable to the disease, a World Health Organization expert said. “These tools are very expensive, but the scale up should be carefully planned,” said one WHO adviser. (Reuters)
Millions awarded for TB and HIV/AIDS fight in Uganda – The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation has been awarded $38 million by USAID to provide integrated TB and HIV/AIDS services in the southwest region of Uganda. The new program seeks to support health service delivery at the district level to provide comprehensive services in the region.” (Rosebell Kagumire, The Independent)
African leaders must focus on maternal health – Ex-Irish president Mary Robinson urged African leaders to boost support for maternal health, during a visit to Sierra Leone where mortality rates are among the highest in the world. “If the African Union succeeds in fulfilling its commitment to maternal health, it will benefit the economies of countries to have healthy populations,” she said. (AFP)
Flower power in Kenya – Slate explores the burgeoning flower industry in Kenya’s Rift Valley, where ambitious plans of turning the country into a global powerhouse are blooming into reality. Though environmentalists may disagree with some of the growing methods, one farmer asserts, “We are branding ourselves as a flower-growing country.” (Alexis Okeowo, Slate)
Akayema reading a plan
Oxfam America’s Porter McConnell shares her analysis of the White House’s Millennium Development Goals action plan.
The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Summit is coming up in September. World leaders will discuss how to end hunger, send kids to school, keep mothers and their babies healthy, stop HIV/AIDS from becoming a death sentence, and all kinds of other poverty-fighting goals.
It’s a tall order. So President Obama asked USAID to produce a plan for doing the United States’ share to meet the MDGs. Today, the White House releases that MDG action plan.
A plan to fight the MDGs is a great stepping stone in fighting global poverty, but it’s not the whole story. If the US is committed to fighting global poverty, President Obama needs to deliver a global development strategy at the upcoming MDG Summit.
I’m happy to report that the MDG action plan mentions a new “development policy” coming out soon. Why is it so important that the US come up with a plan to fight poverty? Until the US has some kind of mission statement, all of these piecemeal reform efforts are like a ship without a compass. Why bother investing in “game changing innovations” if we don’t know what destination we’re trying to get to? Which innovations? To do what? How do we know when we’ve succeeded?
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ONE is hitting the campaign trail to find out where candidates in New Hampshire, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Florida stand on extreme poverty. Stay tuned for more updates like these from our field team and organizers on the road.
Already, New Hampshire ONE members are taking action to ensure that our elected leaders know that with continued leadership, our nation can help save millions of lives in the developing world.
The other day, ONE member Trey Schaft was at work when New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch came to visit. Trey, fresh off his engagement with New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg was able to speak briefly with Gov. Lynch and thanked him for his past support of ONE.
Gov. Lynch has already made New Hampshire a ONE State, and even spoke at our ONE event with the African Children’s Choir at the New Hampshire State House. Gov. Lynch was complimentary and supportive of our bipartisan efforts and took time to take a photo with Trey – who of course, was wearing his ONE band – and with New Hampshire state Sen. Bob Odell as well as Kate Managan who also is a ONE member!
And this past Tuesday, ONE member Jason Bloxham attended an Americans for Prosperity event in Exeter and wore his ONE shirt. He was able to speak with many of the Senate candidates, and took time to snap a quick photo with Jim Bender, who put the photo on his Senate campaign Facebook page!
All over New Hampshire and across America, ONE members are letting our elected leaders know that US efforts in Africa are helping to end deaths from malaria, turn the tide against HIV/AIDS and help fight corruption in the poorest places on earth. Good people from all backgrounds, faiths and political parties are uniting to ensure that America stands tall with those in Africa who struggle to overcome extreme poverty.
Be sure to connect with other ONE Vote 2010 New Hampshire members on Facebook and Twitter.
In the wake of the G8 in Canada, during which wealthy nations gathered to discuss and pledge their commitments to maternal, newborn, and child health, African leaders met this week in Uganda for the 15th African Union Summit. Dr. Jotham Musinguzi, Africa regional director of Partners in Population & Development, gives us his take on the Summit’s discussions and how he sees momentum from the Summit carrying forward into this fall’s MDG Summit in New York City and beyond.
No more excuses. That was the main message coming out of Kampala this past week after the 15th African Union Summit brought African leaders and high-ranking ministers together under the auspices of “maternal, infant and child health and development in Africa.”
In a debate session that lasted more than twice the allotted time, African leaders discussed the critical role of maternal health in moving the African continent forward. Leaders also agreed to renew the Maputo Plan of Action (PDF), a critical framework that ensures the rights and health of women and girls on issues of education, safe abortion, family planning and economic opportunity. Having it signed, in place and ready to be actualized is absolutely imperative.
No more excuses — we must address maternal health and women’s rights issues in Africa. While there has been outstanding leadership on these issues from all over the continent, our maternal health indicators continue to dwindle at the utmost bottom, globally. The vastness of the African continent, coupled with the severity of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the levels of poverty in many parts of our countries mean that the road to improving maternal health could not be harder.
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