Blog Contributor:
Sam.Worthington_President_CEO_of_ InterAction
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 InterAction member organizations have raised more than $200 million for Haiti relief efforts from millions of donors across America. Whether through faith-based groups like Catholic Relief Services, American Jewish World Service, Lutheran World Relief and World Vision—or broader-based organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Save the Children and Heifer International—more than 80 of our organizations are a crucial part of relief efforts in Haiti.
InterAction members do not make up the totality of the US NGO response in Haiti but they do make up 80-90% and they are the sole group that has agreed to meet the highest global NGO standards. InterAction’s 193 members work with 1800 corporations, they represent 13.7 million people in red and blue states, and they come from all faith groups. These NGOs will be in Haiti for the long haul and we urge Americans to support the full diversity of NGOs that are committed to rebuilding Haiti. Click here for more details.
-Sam Worthington, InterAction President and CEO
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 The 2009 Pittsburgh Summit, also known as the G-20, will continue its focus on resolving the global economic crisis when it meets next Thursday and Friday, September 24 and 25. Recent financial indicators have led many economists and U.S. policymakers, including President Obama, to become increasingly optimistic about the global financial outlook. While the situation may be improving, there is still work to be done.
Given that the financial crisis – which started in the U.S. – has disproportionately affected poor and developing countries, InterAction believes developing nations’ economic concerns should be well-represented at the G-20. As the largest alliance of U.S.-based international development and humanitarian NGOs, we have been organizing the NGO community to advocate the G-20 for pro-poor policy reforms. Our strategy has been two-fold:
First, several NGOs came together to write policy briefs that outline two key concerns (Climate Change and Economic Crisis) and recommendations for addressing them. In August, these briefs were hand-delivered and discussed with the U.S.’s lead representative to the G-20 Summit.
Second, we have established an NGO Hub to provide workspace for some of the many organizations that will be present in Pittsburgh next week. While only one representative per NGO has been promised access to the Summit, it’s important that they are on hand to amplify key messages to policymakers and the media. Having our voices heard in the media is key to ensuring that the economic concerns of the developing world are not forgotten amidst discussions about how to stabilize the global economy.
The InterAction alliance and several partner organizations will be on-the-ground and plan to be a strong, vocal presence. Visit http://www.interaction.org/pittsburgh-g20-summit for more details.
-Sam Worthington, InterAction President and CEO
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On Wednesday, at the height of the Republican National Convention, I joined former USAID Administrator Brian Atwood and former Chairman of the House State, Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Jim Kolbe on the Kojo Nnamdi radio show to discuss “Global Poverty and the Next President.”
The conversation focused on the role of grassroots organizations like ONE and Bread for the World in promoting a bold agenda for development, as well as the possibility of totally restructuring the systems that the U.S. government uses to implement and administer development assistance overseas.
You can listen to the 30-minute segment on WAMU’s website here.
-Sam Worthington, President & CEO, InterAction
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A post from former ONE regional field organizer Annisa Wanat, who’s now in Afghanistan
When I was in high school, every April the principal would get on the PA and give his annual speech about “rams butting heads” – which was his way of telling the boys to keep their tempers under control. Fights always seemed to peak in the springtime. Fifteen years after I first heard the speech, I found myself living in the Balkans. The speech would always be in the back of my head when I spoke with my colleagues about how we hoped for a late winter thaw to minimize the potential for springtime fighting. Today, I find myself in Afghanistan.
Right after I arrived – just around the time that Josh Peck started sending emails about the global food crisis and ONE members could help – the demonstrations began in Afghanistan about the skyrocketing food prices. At the time, I was admittedly too busy trying to get used to a new job, making new friends, and adjusting to the altitude to do more research about how extreme poverty affects the Afghan people. But over the last couple months, I have talked to more people and a picture has begun to form.
25 years of war. Landlocked country with extreme summers and extreme winters. Low water tables. Dilapidated, bombed out, under-funded, or non-existent schools. Ditto for health clinics. 70% illiteracy rate – as a population – female literacy rates are the lowest in the world. TB. 40% of the population has access to clean water. Malaria. 53% of the population lives below the poverty line. Highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Unexploded land mines. 40% official unemployment. Life expectancy of 43. The opium trade and the resulting crime. Internally displaced persons.
Afghanistan is a country full of vulnerable groups – widows, orphans, victims of war, IDPs, youth, woman. But there is one vulnerable group that doesn’t get mentioned enough – military-aged males. Boys who are just becoming men and about to make pivotal decisions about their futures. Do they choose the “straight and narrow” path – full of the struggles outlined above – unemployment, food insecurity, lack of access to health care and education for their families? Or do they choose the “easy” way out and join with one of the criminal and anti-government elements so prevalent through the country?
ONE members know the OV08 tag-line – “Saving lives, securing our future” – but increased funding for international development is not just a talking point. Although I see examples of the positive impacts of international development daily in Kabul, I have been thinking about the “securing our future” portion a lot of the last couple days as international news sources carried stories of the prison break in Kandahar. Many of them began with a phrase like “the summer violence in Afghanistan starts with a bang.” Again, I was reminded of my high school principal and his springtime speech. And then I thought of all the military-aged males here who are trying to decide what to do with their futures.
Poverty breeds instability.
As ONE members step up their engagements with presidential candidates this summer and fall – keep these boys in mind when you band the candidates. The “saving lives” part is easy to remember – providing basic medicines, increasing access to education, supplying clean water. But remember that its not just securing Americans’ futures. Giving choices to teenage boys is securing everyone’s future – so the boys then don’t have to resort to “butting heads” every spring to provide for their families.
-Annisa Wanat
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If you’re a DC area ONE member or are going to be in the area on June 20th, you won’t want to miss the regional premiere of “A Powerful Noise,” co-hosted by ONE and CARE. This moving documentary by Tom Cappello follows four women – Nada Markovic, Bui My Hanh, and Jacqueline “Madame Urbain” Dembele – as each of them go about the daily business of empowering, educating, and seeking justice, weaving through locations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mali, Vietnam and to tell a tale of hope much larger than the sum of its parts.
You can get all the information and purchase tickets here: http://silverdocs.com/festival/films/2008/powerful-noise/
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InterAction President and CEO Sam Worthington wrote this post from the first day of the FAO emergency summit in Rome on the food crisis.
 The concern is the current global food crisis, affecting millions of people in both developed and developing countries all over the world. The scene is the FAO Food Security Summit in Rome.
After more than fifteen speeches on the food crisis by various heads of state, the themes begin to blur. Some talk about the need for a new North-South partnership based on solidarity between the world’s rich and poor. The idea that poor African countries, rich in water and arable land, would unite with rich dry countries in a partnership to address this food price crisis is interesting. If it had been proposed by a Gulf state, rather than the President of Benin, maybe it would become something more than another paper speech sitting outside the plenary room.
Some speeches were sadly very disconnected from reality. To hear President Mugabe talk about how his policies have contributed to food security reflected a significant cognitive disconnect. Western NGOs, he said, are causing all the political discontent in Zimbabwe.
Overall the speeches were quite good and reflected the world’s widespread recognition of the urgency of the food crisis and the timeliness of the high-level conference. They acknowledged that limited progress has been made since the 1996 World Food Summit, and that the world can’t continue business as usual. There is widespread recognition that issues with food distribution, price, access, and production could slow or even reverse our progress towards achieving the first Millennium Development Goal.
Behind all the words, there is a sense of overall commitment to address this crisis and to doing it in a way that is sustainable. Unfortunately, such a solution still eludes us. The fall of the government in Haiti, caused by food riots, left a void that concerns many conference attendees.
-Sam Worthington
Sam Worthington is the President and CEO of InterAction, the largest coalition of U.S.-based international NGOs focused on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. More information about InterAction’’s response to the food crisis is available at: http://interaction.org/foodcrisis
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