By now, I’m sure you’ve received our email about our latest petition to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). We’re urging them to run a fair, transparent and merit-based process as they choose a new boss.
It seems like a no-brainer, but the vetting process for the world’s biggest financial institutions — the IMF and the World Bank — have been run as a sort of “gentleman’s agreement.” In complete layman’s terms, the US usually chooses the head of the World Bank, and Europe usually chooses the IMF’s leader. This process completely unfair, and as the Economist says, a “disgrace.” It simply closes out qualified candidates from all corners of the globe.
The first-in-the-nation presidential primary is in full swing in New Hampshire. Governor Jon Huntsman just finished up a five-day swing through the Granite State and met ONE members along the way.
I spoke with him at the home of Bobbie and Jarvis Coffin in Hancock. He spoke with ONE members at the 2008 RNC National Convention and we wanted to reintroduce him to ONE. I was able to chat with him about our founder, Bono, and told him that we are most concerned with saving lives in poor countries around the world.
He told me he was good friends with Bono and that we should keep up the great work. Tom Leary spoke with him later in the day at the VFW in Concord. Tom thanked him for remarks he made recently during a commencement speech at the University of South Carolina:
Jyl Johnson Pattee, ONE mom blogger, mompreneur and founder of Mom it Forward, reflects on the marvels of modern medicine, a luxury that only a fraction of the world has access to. Without it, she would have had a harder time becoming a mom.
I played a lot of things when I was a child. School. I was always the teacher. Hospital. I was always the nurse. And family. I was always the mom. Sense a theme here? Yes! I loved to be in charge. And being in charge meant that I got to decide who the students were in my classroom. Who the patients were in my hospital.
Jose W. Fernandez, assistant secretary of economic, energy and business affairs at the US State Department, talks to ONE in honor of the OECD’s 50th anniversary in this exclusive interview.
The US is launching a new DF4D program. Could you tell us more about it?
President Obama announced the new DF4D initiative this past March during his trip to El Salvador and Secretary Clinton will speak to the basic components of DF4D at the OECD ministerial conference today [26 May]. Briefly, DF4D represents the United States government’s combined and elevated focus on three separate, but mutually reinforcing areas of its development agenda: enabling developing countries to self-finance more of their own needs or “domestic revenue mobilization,” improving fiscal/budgeting transparency, and fighting corruption.
Sara Kianpour from our ONE France office reports live from the G8 in Deauville.
The G8 Summit ended yesterday and here’s a quick summary of what we learned:
For the first time, freedom and democracy are headlining and ONE welcomes them. However, we are concerned that the final statements are primarily statements of good intent.
We would like first to refresh the G8′s memory regarding the $14 billion to help sub-Saharan Africa that is still missing compared to the G8′s promises in 2005.
Last week, the Group of Eight countries concluded their annual meeting and issued the requisite communiqués and reports. It’s getting to be a sad affair. For those of us focused on extreme poverty and global health, these summits can bring important promises such as the commitment at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit to double assistance to Africa and provide “universal access” to AIDS treatment and prevention. But more and more, the G8 leaders shy away from making new bold promises, probably because they’re aware as the rest of us that those promises are usually broken.
Sara Kianpour from our ONE France office reports live from the G8 in Deauville.
The Final Deauville Declaration has been made public. It is full of good intentions. Great. However, you must read between the lines to find (or not) concrete commitments, particularly on immunization, from the G8.
At ONE, we wonder if all these good intentions will change the face of the world?
Even if the G8 have expressed support for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and called for its funding, there are no firm commitments regarding the amounts to be allocated by rich countries.
It’s really time for world leaders to take concrete action. Otherwise, children under 5 years will continue to lose their lives due to preventable diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia, 2 of the biggest killers of children around the world.
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.
The Final Deauville Declaration has been made public. It is full of good intentions. Great. However, you must read between the lines to find (or not) concrete commitments, particularly on immunization, from the G8.
