The Huffington Post today features an article from Bob Geldof on the DATA Report launch and key findings. In the piece, Geldof has strong words for Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi stating, “Let us watch to see if the Italian Prime Minister understands his global responsibility. Let us see if Italy keeps faith with the world’s poor.”
Poverty must go. Without removing it, we will not have a stable world. The global financial architecture collapsed and now must be rebuilt. One of the reasons this was a failure of the system rather than simply within it was because 50% of the planet, those who live on less than $2 per day, were excluded from it. You cannot live on less than $2 a day. What is more, by excluding them from the world economy, we excluded their creativity, their dynamism, their intellect, their ideas and their productivity. We did great damage to ourselves in doing so.
We mustn’t make the same mistake again as we rebuild a newer world economy. We must include the peripheral peoples in the marginal economies, we must include Africa and Africans if only so that they can buy our stuff and we can buy theirs. And then, as happens anywhere else, the aid question disappears.
We are not there yet. So, for now, aid stabilizes the poor of this world at a base level. It manages sometimes to get to some people so that they get to stay alive with a little bit of food, so they get to stay alive with a little bit of medicine, and so they get a little bit of education. Then with a coherent state they can begin to get going. And to help with that, we look primarily to the G7 — the world’s richest economies, the countries of plenty.
Yesterday, as you know, ONE launched the 2009 DATA Report in London and CNN was there to cover the event. They sat down with panelist Bill Gates to discuss the Report and the state of global development this year.
Thanks to the handy work of our Weldon and Kimberly, we now have videos from this morning’s launch of the ONE DATA Report 2009 in London.
Here’s a 6 minute highlight reel of all of the speakers.
[Panelists: Bill Gates, co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bob Geldof anti-poverty activist and ONE adviser, Dr. Francoise Ndayishimiye, Senior Gender Adviser, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, Arunma Oteh, Vice President for Corporate Services, African Development Bank, Archbishop Desmund Tutu, ONE's International Patron and Jamie Drummond, ONE's Executive Director]
The 2009 edition of the DATA Report, ONE’s annual assessment of the G8′s progress on their commitments to global development, is launching this morning in London at a special kick-off event featuring Bill Gates, co-Chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bob Geldof, anti-poverty activist and ONE principal, Dr Francoise Ndayishimiye, of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria; Arunma Oteh, of the African Development Bank, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Each year, ONE publishes a DATA Report, an annual assessment of the extent to which the G8 are following through on their commitments to global development. Tomorrow we will be launching ONE’s 2009 DATA Report, with a special kick-off event in London.
We have an amazing panel to help launch this report: Bill Gates, co-Chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bob Geldof, anti-poverty activist and ONE principal, Dr Francoise Ndayishimiye, of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria; Arunma Oteh, of the African Development Bank, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
In Germany, we’re planning a press briefing with Tobias Kahler, Andreas Hueber (both ONE staff) and Elizabeth Missokia from HakiElimu in Tansania. Tobias will outline the 2009 DATA Report while Andreas will focus specifically on aid effectiveness. Ms Missokia will offer insight into how donors and partners cooperate in Tanzania to scale up education, and what the Tanzanian civil society is doing to make sure that all funds by donors and government are used in the most effective way possible.
In Rome, we will be briefing journalists at around the same time as London, and telling the story of how this year’s G8 hosts are faring worst on living up to their aid commitments. We will also be highlighting that as the only existing member of the G8 who signed the G8 communiqué in 2005 in Gleneagles, Berlusconi has a personal obligation, as well as a national one to deliver on his promises.
In Washington DC, ONE will be meeting with policy makers throughout Washington to inform them of the findings in the Report.
In the coming days and weeks we’ll have much more on the 2009 DATA Report including an interactive website, a blog series detailing numerous features in the Report, and much more. So be sure to check back often!
This Thursday, we’re releasing the 2009 DATA Report, our annual report on the G8’s delivery on their promises to Africa. At that launch the panelists will answer questions, including one submitted and voted on by ONE members, and Bob Geldof is here to explain why:
In just a short amount of time, ONE members all over the world sent in hundreds of thoughtful questions to be asked at the launch of our 2009 DATA Report. We narrowed down the options and picked out five of the most important questions, and now you get to have the final say on which question will be asked.
The effort to eradicate polio received an influx of $635 million today to intensify vaccination campaigns in India and Nigeria over the next five years. Rotary International, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the governments of Germany and Britain provided this new money for the two countries that account for more than 80 percent of the remaining 1,633 polio cases. This is good news for the polio eradication effort, which has suffered setbacks, but could help polio to join smallpox on the list of eradicated diseases.
Polio has proved to be a challenging disease to eradicate. Polio often lies ‘silent’ in the body, which means that people may not show signs of illness and thus may not know they are infected. The virus can spread widely through a community during this time. Since polio causes paralysis in only 1 of 200 people, public health authorities may not be aware of the infection until it has spread extensively. Also, to successfully eradicate polio, all three strains of the virus must be eliminated. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) uses a vaccine that contains weakened forms of all three strains. This vaccine can successfully immunize people against future exposure to the polio virus and eventually lead to eradication.
Recognizing this potential, in 2005 the G8 committed to contribute $829 million between 2006 and 2008 to the polio eradication effort. Since then, donors have begun to close the financing gap. ONE’s 2008 Data Report describes this progress, and notes that the United States, followed by the UK and Japan have been the largest G8 donors to the GPEI. Hopefully, with this new $635 million donation to the fight against polio, eradication can become a reality.
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The 2009 edition of the DATA Report, ONE’s annual assessment of the G8′s progress on their commitments to global development, is 
