NEWSGLOBAL POVERTY

The following post comes from Jamie Drummond, the Executive Director of ONE.

It’s over a month since famine was declared in Somalia and alarm bells clearly rung about serious food shortages across Northern Kenya and Southern Ethiopia. 12 million people in the Horn of Africa are in desperate need of food, clean water and basic sanitation and we are all asking: how can this be happening again? In this past month we have seen differing responses locally, regionally and globally to the crisis. Already there are lessons we must learn about how to stop famine happening again.

As Richard Dowden noted previously on this blog there are many political factors that complicate the situation in Somalia. Any lasting solution will require a regional roadmap out of the Somali cycle of failed statism. Eritrea and others must be brought around a table with other regional governments, and representatives from wide cross section of Somali civil society. Maybe this famine will reenergise the too often stalled process. However politics is not the only factor here and there are other lessons to learn.

Contrary to the view expressed in a recent OpEd in the New York Times by David Aaronson, the conflict mineral provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act has not caused or exacerbated the dire economic and social situation in eastern Congo. It is over fifteen years of conflict, decades of governmental mismanagement and neglect, a legacy of corruption and exploitation, and lack of impunity, all in the face of a multimillion dollar minerals trade financing armed groups and perpetuating violence that has terrorized the population for decades.

Rather, Dodd-Frank offers real opportunity for reform in eastern Congo by confronting the key economic driver of conflict – the trade in conflict minerals. This momentum must be seized, and your voice can help ensure these critical steps are taken.

The well-documented connection between the minerals trade and violence - from the money made by commanders to the proximity of attacks to mining communities - is absolutely impossible to ignore, and one can literally see it without even looking. Just spend a day in Goma, look at the “coltan” houses – mansions sprouting up in the middle of some of the poorest shanty towns in the city, and ask who lives there and why. The answer? People like Bosco Ntaganda, a general in the Congolese Army who is also wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. He and others like him reap daily the economic benefits of some of the largest mines in the region.

This has been occurring long before Dodd-Frank, but the bill’s passage has provided a necessary jolt to this status quo. In fact, there is much local support for the legislation because it has already set in motion what is needed for change in not only the mining sector itself but also for a broader set of reforms, as reported by the United Nations. Dodd-Frank has proven to be a first step to squeeze out armed groups, to cut their millions in funding, and, with further support, will help create the space for a legitimate mining sector to emerge that actually leads to development and a better life for people in eastern Congo. This momentum must be seized, and there are clear, tangible steps forward for which the United States can and should be a leader.

To start, these systems need to be strengthened and expanded, and brought together under the umbrella of a credible, international certification system that ensures minerals on the market from eastern Congo or surrounding areas are not financing armed groups. Traceability, transparency, independent monitoring – it’s all beginning to happen, but requires full buy-in and follow through to achieve the highest impact.

The United States must not back down now. We have an obligation to follow through on what was started with Dodd-Frank because it has the ability to improve the lives of millions of people today and for future generations. In a conflict as complicated as Congo, it is rare to have such momentum and opportunity for real change. What we can do now as citizens is demonstrate to our leaders that there is a real political demand here in the United States for their action on Congo.

Join us in calling on Secretary Clinton to be a leader for certification of the region’s minerals, and encourage her to take the next step needed for peace in Congo. This is a real opportunity for peace in Congo. Take action for that.

Photo Credit: Julien Harneis

This is a post from Erin Hohlfelder on the ONE Blog about a campaign for child vaccines, which ONE is also running here at Change.org with 35,000 signatures and counting.

We formally launched our child vaccines campaign in the US last week. Many of you have already sent in blog comments, Facebook posts and tweets sharing your enthusiasm and passion for this cause, and we have to admit that we’re excited too. As advocates, we think the opportunity to support GAVI (The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations) in their efforts to save 4 million lives in the next 5 years through vaccinations is pretty incredible. GAVI is hosting a global pledging conference in the UK on June 13th to raise the money needed to achieve this goal — and we think the US will be weighing its contribution in the next few weeks — so that’s why we’ve chosen to focus publicly on this issue, right now.

I won’t lie, I love getting homemade cards from my kids, and flowers from my husband.  But every mom knows, thebest Mother’s Day gift is healthy and happy children.  More of us than you might expect have come close to losing that chance.

I was not your typical mother of a micro-preemie baby.  I was 32, well-educated, and had top-flight prenatal care at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth.  But in a matter of 24 hours they almost lost me and my firstborn.

Kate was born 15 weeks early and she weighed less than 1 pound 7 ounces.  She was 12 inches long, about the size of a Barbie doll. She spent 112 days in the neonatal intensive care unit, and most of that was on the critical list.

More than 8 million kids around the world die each year before their 5th birthday. Two of the biggest killers of these kids are pneumonia and diarrhea — which kill more than AIDS, TB and malaria combined! Here’s the illustrated story of two villains (pneumonia and diarrhea), two superheroes (vaccines), and why we need your help!

For years, pneumonia and diarrhea ran rampant across the developing world — Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South East Asia — killing children and making it difficult for families and communities to stay healthy and prosperous.

Bouts of pneumonia and diarrhea are bad enough anywhere in the world, but in these regions, a lack of clean water, improper hygiene and poor access to health facilities and treatment contributed to so many children’s deaths from these two diseases.

As US politicians worked for the last month to avert a government shutdown, Republican leaders took an ongoing war on women to global ends by insisting on policy riders that would have reinstated the Global Gag Rule.

After many groups sprung into action, including on Change.org, the Global Gag Rule was left out of the final spending bill signed into law last night.

YAY!

This is not, however, a clear cut victory. Along with a smorgasbord of problematic budget cuts, funding for family planning did receive disproportionate cuts in the final deal, setting the stage for another fight ahead over the 2012 budget.

Activists at Population Action International, which led the charge, asked us to pass on their thanks to those who organized to tell Obama and Reid to support international family planning. The cuts, they said, could have been much worse.

"Thank you for standing with women and sending letters to the President and Senate Majority Leader Reid supporting international family planning," said Craig Lasher, the Director of U.S. Government Relations at Population Action International, to all the Change.org members that joined the campaign. "Your activism helped stave off the severe funding cuts and damaging policy restrictions proposed by the House.  As a result, women in developing countries will have better access to the contraceptives they need to plan their families."

The 4th graders at Crescent Elementary School in Sandy, Utah recently won a contest run by a local radio station. They were the class that entered the most anti-bullying pledges on the stations website, and their prize was a visit from Miranda Cosgrove, star of Nickelodeon's popular show iCarly, and a rapidly rising tween star in her own right.

Cosgrove spent an hour taking photos with the 90 excited 9 and 10-year-olds and signing pictures for them. Many of the students are even more committed to standing against bullying after the visit.

"People don’t realize it’s hurting them and they grow up being afraid of people," said 9 year old Cameryn Bennion.

In the fervor to reduce deficits lawmakers are making a whole host of poor choices. One such error is the effort to cut foreign assistance, which is why campaigning group ONE has launched a petition on Change.org to make sure it doesn’t happen.

This is a fight about the help that the US gives to help people around the world to lift themselves out of extreme poverty – the type of poverty that has mothers putting their children to bed with empty stomachs for weeks on end. This type of aid has done massive good for the world. For example; nearly 4 million more Africans are on life-saving AIDS medications since 2002, 46.2 million more African children started going to school since 2000, and malaria rates are down by 50% or more in 38 countries.

As a Haitian farmer, Jacqueline Morette knows about challenges. Although about half of Haiti’s workforce (including 75 percent of low-income Haitians), relies on agriculture to survive, just one farmer in ten has access to irrigation. Most farm on small plots of land, and few have the luxury of using machines or fertilizers.

“Most Haitians are food insecure,” said Morette during a US speaking tour last October. “A lot of our kids are malnourished.”

As Morette explained, it’s also hard for Haitian farmers to earn an income by selling their crops. Roads are bad, and food can spoil on the way to the market. Fluctuating food prices - caused in part by a flood of low-cost imported products like rice - mean that growers might not get a fair price.

Nickelodeon, the largest children's television network, reaches 214 million homes in the United States, and they're about to reach a whole bunch more in Ukraine.

Viacom, Nickelodeon's parent company just struck a deal to bring 200 episodes of their live action shows to the eastern European country for the first time. The line up will include shows like True Jackson, The Troop, and Drake & Josh.

It will also include episodes of iCarly, the popular program about a girl who creates her own online show. Unfortunately iCarly also features frequent insensitive jokes about 'hobos', teaching young people that it is okay to make fun of the homeless and those who are less fortunate.

If you think making fun of hobos is as tasteless and unfunny as we do, please sign our petition asking Nickelodeon to apologize.