Shakira! Clinton! Bono! Gearing Up to Fight Global Poverty and Disease
21 hours ago

What do Shakira, Annie Lennox, Bono, Sir Bob Geldof and Antonio Banderas have in common? They are all goodwill ambassadors, or, really, foot soldiers in a battle that most Americans aren't aware has been fought since the turn of this century.

Starting Monday, those celebs -- along with almost 150 heads of state, former heads of state and a cross section of the globe's most impressive leaders -- hope to change that, focusing attention on a campaign that parts of the world are relying on to shape their future. These luminaries will attend (or, in the case of Bono and Lennox, both ultra-involved but unavailable this week, throw their name and reputation behind) the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit, addressing an ambitious agenda the United Nations set up 10 years ago to halt the spread of global poverty and disease. The 15-year plan involves a package of objectives known to wonky development types as the MDGs -- Millennium Development Goals.

Bono, Global Development GoalsThe United States is among the 189 countries that signed on (though, during the Bush years, the government balked at continuing the commitment) to the MDGs, which were intended to radically overhaul how wealthy countries view development, how commitments are made by donor countries, and how commitments are made by recipient countries to meet expectations based on that help. "We must not fail the billions who look to the international community to fulfill the promise of the Millennium Declaration for a better world," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report titled "Keeping the Promise," issued in advance of the summit. "Our world possesses the knowledge and the resources to achieve the MDGs," Ban said. He called not meeting the goals "an unacceptable failure, moral and practical."

Below is an advance look at what, exactly, the goals are, what progress is being made (we're faltering on some, terribly behind on others, grudgingly successful with a few) and what happens this week when those leaders and celebrities descend on Manhattan to focus poverty reduction, lifting up women and girls globally, changing the lives of children, and halting or radically reducing disease infection rates.

"When the MDGs were formulated in 2000, some criticized them as not ambitious enough, and some that they were pie in sky," Olav Kjørven, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations Development Programme, told a group of journalists gathered last week in the offices of the United Nations Foundation for a three-day intensive immersion, a study plan to bring the conduits of information up to speed on what they'll hear about this week. "The MDGs can actually be achieved. If we put our minds to this it will not even cost that much money. And create huge dividends in terms of a future for all."

What are the goals? Here's the list:

MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. (The goal was to halve the number of people living on less than $1.25/day by 2015.)

MDG 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education

MDG - 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women.

MDG - 4: Reduce Child Mortality

MDG - 5: Improve maternal health

MDG - 6: Combat HIV/AIDS Malaria, TB, and other diseases

MDG - 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability

MDG 8: Global Partnership for Development

While all of these goals were meant to be a package, some have surged ahead while others have proven intractable. "The value of the MDGs is that they are a coherent set of objectives," said Robert C. Orr, assistant secretary-general for planning and policy coordination since 2004. Nonetheless, he said that "we have to be steely-eyed" as to why some are succeeding and others not. Maternal and children's health are among those lagging, and "there is an echo effect if a mother dies in the process of giving birth: One can assume the family from which she comes, the extended family can be affected in many ways."

This focus on women and children, and by extension families, will be a theme repeated throughout the week. Canada, which hosted the G8/G20 summit in June, has put infant and maternal health front and center. The United States, with its broad-reaching Global Health Initiative, has focused on the importance of maternal and infant health as a foreign policy goal. Also, in June, a massive three-day Women Deliver conference gave the needs of this group a broader platform, with the oft-repeated assertion that "no woman should die giving birth."

Asked why, after 10 years, women and children are only now moving into the forefront of the MDG package, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute (as well as a Columbia University professor and adviser to the U.N. secretary-general), said plainly: "There is no mystery to any of this. Politicians like to pick and choose, so they picked AIDS, TB and malaria. And with [The Gates Foundation], they picked immunizations, and those areas got funding. The basic point is that if you put resources in, in a sensible way, you get big results. . . . This year mother/child health is high on list."

"I personally don't like the idea of one" point of emphasis, Sachs continued, saying that "it's hard to focus on eight [goals], but actually we need eight and they are all important."

The problem, he said, is that for the journalists who must spread the information to the public, it's a complicated, sprawling picture to cover, with many interconnections. Maintaining women's health, for example, requires infrastructure. "We need to be able to do several things," he said. "Life demands food and safe delivery and roads and power and hospitals."

An example of the integrated effort needed to achieve the MDGs will be launched by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week during the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual event also being held in New York. A "Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves," a public-private partnership to be lead by the United Nations Foundation, will aim to put an end to the 2 million deaths that occur each year from toxic smoke from open fires and open cookstoves in developing countries.

That's just one of dozens of smaller initiatives being put forth these days. Non-profits and non-governmental organizations are tacking on their own plans to the MDG Goals Summit. Another will be launched this week by ONE (the advocacy organization founded by Bono): No Child Born With HIV by 2015, an effort to stop mother-to-infant transmissions (totally preventable yet currently occurring at a rate of about 1,000 infections per day).

Greg Adams of Oxfam told reporters last week that President Barack Obama has chosen to focus on the MDGs, and he pointed out again and again that achieving these goals is a question of "security, prosperity and values." Nearly 90 percent of Americans polled believe that achieving these goals is the right thing to do, and "we want Obama to clarify the mission," he added, noting that aid is a tool, not an end in and of itself.

In the words of Shakira: "Making poverty history: It's completely nonsense that every few seconds a kid dies from avoidable causes. That 50 percent of the worldwide population earns less than $2 a day."

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/19/shakira-clinton-bono-gearing-up-to-fight-global-poverty-and-d/?icid=main|main|dl1|sec1_lnk3|171698



You know until you read that there are people in the world without clean drinking water and safe sanitation, you tend to take things for granted.

nice article,, its easy to forget the wonderful things people do, because those types usually dont call for and arent afforded the attention that complainers and blamers get,,,,

The only reason Clinton is gonna be there is so he can check out Shakira's a$$.

It is all for a good cause.

A group of racists and bigots. They are only interested in making a political & social statement.

You wont see them giving up any of THEIR money to help the poor!!

unlike those who just arent interested in doing ANYTHING, but complaining,,,

When you say "most Americans", which Americans are you talking about?

I welcome the work of celebrities in the fight against poverty, but they are far from the first people to try to do something about poverty.

Sir Bob Geldof is probably best known as being the person who organized the famous Live Aid concert of the 1980s. That concert brought the problems of poverty to the front burner of public discussion. Yet, Sir Geldof was a latecomer when it came to the fight against global poverty.

What set off the celebrity-led version of the war on poverty (a version that I applaud) was a video recording of something that was happening in Africa. A British news organization filmed the work of a Christian charity that was at work fighting poverty in Africa. That film was then shared with the British public. To his credit, Sir Geldof saw the film and decided to help.

Yet the fight against global poverty had been going on long before then. For example, when the Korean War took place, it created thousands of homeless orphans. In 1952, two American men saw the suffering of those orphans and decided to do something for them. Upon returning to the USA each man organized a relief effort to help children trapped in poverty. The men did not have any help from the media, but the men were able to recruit others to participate in the fight against poverty.

Those two men are not famous. They were never celebrities, and they were never wealthy, and yet the work that they started grew until thousands and thousands of Americans became foot-soldiers in the war against poverty.

Perhaps you have never heard of Bob Pierce and Everett Swanson, but perhaps you have heard about the poverty-fighting organizations that they started: World Vision and Compassion International*.

Indeed, there are many Americans who are foot-soldiers in the fight against poverty, but they did not become foot-soldiers in response to the pleading of celebrities. They became foot-soldiers in response to the teachings of their common faith - the Christian faith.

While some people insist that tax dollars be used to combat poverty, other people are using their own money to combat poverty. These foot-solders know that they cannot personally rescue everyone trapped in poverty. Yet each of them knows that she or he can rescue one person. These foot-soldiers are using their own money to sponsor children trapped in poverty, and (contrary to what you may have been told) child sponsorship works.

The UN goals mentioned in the OP are noble, but they are nothing new. For decades Christians in America have been working to achieve those same goals, and they have been using their own money in order to accomplish those goals.

You do not have to wait for the U.N. or any nation's government to fight global poverty. You have the ability to personally enter the fight, using some of your own money as ammunition. Complaining about global poverty never put food into a hungry child's mouth. Investing your personal time and money into a child's life is what puts food into the mouth of a hungry child.

If you truly are concerned about global poverty, then nothing prevents you from putting your own money where your mouth is.

By the way, anyone who has read my Mingle2 profile (or my book at www.angelfire.com/ok3/dwr ) knows that I walk my talk.


[*“In response to the Great Commission, Compassion International exists as an advocate for children, to release them from their spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enable them to be come responsible and fulfilled Christian adults.” - Compassion mission statement]

Okay, no soap box from me.

It is good to see people who can help, help. There are those like me who financially cannot help but I can help in other ways.

I thought the article was a good article and I admire and encourage what they are doing.

I will not help Haiti or any Muslim/Arab country or people.

The Christian groups,and charities have been fighting these issues out there since the early 1900's and are probably the only ones who keep doing it year after year.If you see a ad on TV for feeding the poor children and building houses for poor people it is Christian related.


Funny how the names mentioned like Bono wants these things yet he is 100% against the Iraq/Afganistan War which is accomplishing...

MDG 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education

MDG - 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women.

MDG - 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability

MDG 8: Global Partnership for Development


This article is wishful thinking at best.Anything that mentions the United nations I know it is going to be a flop.I hope it does accomplish some of it's goals much like the very sucessful farm aid concert.

If Bono really wanted to do something he could do more than make a appearance.He could start donating some of the millions he has made over the years.Nothing like preaching fighting poverty and having a bank account with 200 million in it.Show me Bono throwing in 40 million of his own money and maybe I can take this article more seriously.


I also don't like that cheap shot at Bush.Bush did more to fight Aids than any president in history.

While I like Shakira, Annie Lennox and Antonio Banderas; Bob Geldof is a deal breaker. I don't know why I hate him so much, but every time I see him on TV (or a Pink Floyd documentary) I get so annoyed. I HATE BOB GELDOF! RAWR!

How do we know what he gives or doesnt give? I know the time he spends advocating and promoting positive causes is time he LOSES money, which is more than alot of people are willing to do.