Bono

ONE co-founder Bono’s most recent column for the New Year Times, on 10 ideas for the next 10 years, was published today. I wanted to share it because it calls attention to a few ideas that are in our area of work, including the rotavirus vaccine and the upcoming World Cup in Africa.

Below is an excerpt. You can read the full column here.

Happy New Year!

-Kathy McKiernan

Taking the Fight to Rotavirus

The thing is, they exist, these vaccines. They’re not a mere hope, like an AIDS vaccine. And one of the brightest bits of news in 2009 is that rotavirus vaccines have been shown to work not only in nations with low child mortality, but in the poorest countries, where diarrhea (not a killer in our house) caused by rotavirus infections takes the lives of 500,000 children a year. The World Health Organization just this summer issued a strong recommendation that rotavirus vaccinations be part of every nation’s immunization program. From this vantage point, I like the look of the next decade.

The World Cup Kicks Off the African Decade

It’s getting easier to describe to Americans the impact of the World Cup — especially the impact it will have in Africa, where the tournament is to be held this summer. A few years ago, Ivory Coast was splitting apart and in the midst of civil war when its national team qualified for the 2006 jamboree. The response was so ecstatic that the war was largely put on hold as something more important than deathly combat took place, i.e. a soccer match. The team became a symbol of how the different tribes could — and did — get on after the tournament was over.

This time round, for the 2010 World Cup, naysayers thought South Africa could not build the stadiums in time. Those critics should be red-faced now. South Africa’s impressive preparations underline the changes on the continent, where over the last few years, 5 percent economic growth was the average. Signs point to a further decade of growth to come. Canny investors will put more capital there. This in turn has the potential to shore up fragile young democracies across the continent.

It would be fitting if Nelson Mandela, who has done more than anyone for Africa’s rising, would kick off the opening ceremonies. If he shows up, the world will weep with joy.

ONE co-founder Bono is a contributing columnist for the New York Times and his latest column appears today.

Written as a screenplay that spans 20 years, the piece focuses on both the artistic process and some important work in Germany during the 2007 G8 summit. Below is an excerpt from a scene at the 2007 G8 in which Bono, Bob Geldof, Youssou N’Dour and ONE’s policy team speak with Chancellor Angela Merkel about Germany fulfilling its aid commitments. You can read the full piece here.

Excerpt:

The atmosphere is tense. The activists are not getting what they want. The leaders are not getting what they want, either, which is to be left alone by the activists, including the Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, Bono and another grizzled Irish rocker, BOB GELDOF, and their policy team from ONE. The organization took its name from the song — over the protests of the songwriter, who felt that if history eventually repeats itself as farce, then irony, the next time around, sounds annoyingly earnest.

BOB (whose humor and intellect more than excuse the percussive expletives that pepper even the most formal meetings) Chancellor, what Germany has done is awe-inspiring. You’ve spent most of the last 20 years spending something like 4 percent of your G.D.P. on reunification … and yet you’re still willing to commit 0.7 percent of G.D.P. to global economic development. The lives of people you will never know or meet will be owed to this decision…. The 2008 budget backs that up, but the rest of the world will need to see ’09 to know you’re serious.

BONO (interrupting) Trajectory is everything. If the ‘09 is like ‘08, Germany will show the rest of the G-8 that they have to put money on the table as well as words.

MERKEL (who has met these men before and appeared to enjoy the encounters, but today is running out of patience with anyone who threatens to rain on her G-8 parade) I’m not prepared to commit beyond 2008. We will of course do our best.

BONO (at his least appealing) Let me just say, Madam Chancellor, that, like Bob, I’m intoxicated by the new Germany. Fifty thousand turned up today to stand in solidarity with the world’s poor. You yourself are so committed…the government…the coalition. And we absolutely take you at your word, but if the others don’t come through … well, you know nothing creates cynics faster than when leaders accept applause for commitments they then fail to meet. It’s one thing to break a promise to yourself or to your own electorate, but to break a promise to the most vulnerable people on the planet is profane.

MERKEL (in a quiet, calm voice) My father taught me a very important lesson when I was a girl growing up in East Germany. He said, “Always be more than you appear and never appear to be more than you are.”

This weekend was the annual Global Day of Action when people all of the world Stand Up and Take Action to end global poverty and at last night’s U2 concert in Norman, Oklahoma, 50,000+ U2 fans stood up to show their support.

They’re joining millions of people around the world – a Guinness Book of World Records 116 million stood up last year! – to show solidarity with the world’s poorest people and demand action on meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving poverty and disease worldwide by 2015.

Check out ONE members Standing Up at the show, after a long day of taking action against global poverty and signing up more than 2,000 new ONE members:

-Aaron Banks

In Sunday’s edition of the New York Times, ONE co-founder Bono has an op-ed column entitled “Rebranding America.” Part of his series with the paper, the column focuses on President Obama’s September speech at the UN, in which he re-committed America to the Millennium Development Goals. Specifically, Bono highlights these 36 words from the President:

We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.

Excerpts from the piece below. You can read the full column here.

They’re not my words, they’re your president’s. If they’re not familiar, it’s because they didn’t make many headlines. But for me, these 36 words are why I believe Mr. Obama could well be a force for peace and prosperity — if the words signal action.

The millennium goals, for those of you who don’t know, are a persistent nag of a noble, global compact. They’re a set of commitments we all made nine years ago whose goal is to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Barack Obama wasn’t there in 2000, but he’s there now. Indeed he’s gone further — all the way, in fact. Halve it, he says, then end it.

Many have spoken about the need for a rebranding of America. Rebrand, restart, reboot. In my view these 36 words, alongside the administration’s approach to fighting nuclear proliferation and climate change, improving relations in the Middle East and, by the way, creating jobs and providing health care at home, are rebranding in action.

These new steps — and those 36 words — remind the world that America is not just a country but an idea, a great idea about opportunity for all and responsibility to your fellow man.

On Sunday night in New York City, our friends at (RED) hosted “Hal Willner Presents: An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends,” a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall.

In part a birthday celebration for Gavin Friday, a notable Irish musician in his own right, the night welcomed an array of performers and was also part of the (RED)NIGHTS concert series, generating support and awareness of (RED)’s goal to eliminate AIDS in Africa. Learn more about (RED)NIGHTS here.

As the evening unfolded, the members of U2, Scarlett Johansson, Shane MacGowan of the Pogues, Lady Gaga and Rufus Wainwright and others all took their turns on stage. Lou Reed also stopped in for an impromptu performance along with his wife Laurie Anderson and numerous other special guests.

What a show.

You can read more about it here.

-Chris Geer, NY Field Organizer

You’re not going to want to miss “An Evening with Gavin Friday,” a star-studded concert our friends at (RED) are hosting this Sunday, October 4 at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

The concert features Laurie Anderson, Antony, Elizabeth Ashley, Bono, Adam Clayton, Andrea Corr, The Edge, Flo & Eddie, Joel Grey, Bill Frisell, Guggi, Scarlett Johansson, Shane MacGowan, Eric Mingus, Larry Mullen Jr., JG Thirlwell, Martha Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright, Chloe Webb, plus other special guests.

You can buy tickets to the show here.

Hal Willner presents an “Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends” which is part of the (RED)NIGHTS concert series. Each show contributes a portion of the proceeds directly to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. You can learn more about the (RED)NIGHTS series here.

Hope to see you at the show Sunday.

-Chris Geer

I just returned from the U2 show at FedEx Field just outside of Washington, DC and as anyone who’s been to a concert on the U2 360 Tour can attest to, it was quite an amazing experience.

In front of a sold out crowd, Bono dedicated the song “One” to the United States congress and the leadership of President Bush “for the 4 million souls that are now very much alive because of ARV drugs paid for by the United States…God Bless America.” He mentioned people in the audience who had lost friends or relatives to AIDS in America and singled out Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul, who were early campaigners against the pandemic in San Francisco. Bono also praised President Obama’s commitment to the fight against poverty in Africa and paid special respects to Senator Ted Kennedy for his leadership on peace in Northern Ireland and Eunice Kennedy for being a mentor to him.

Behind the scenes, ONE members and volunteers were busy spreading ONE’s message and recruiting new members in the fight against extreme poverty. Our efforts were no doubt greatly supported by Bono’s several shout-outs to ONE and the hard work of millions of people around the world to end global poverty.

We’ll have more tomorrow including pictures and one-on-one interviews with some of the fantastic ONE volunteers we met.

-Chris Scott

Last week, while attending the Clinton Global Initiative meeting, I saw Jessica Alba join Bono, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan and others onstage to pledge commitment to 1GOAL: Education for All. It was a really cool moment in a week full of really cool moments, which I wrote about here.

Today Jessica Alba has a great article in the Huffington Post reflecting on CGI, global education, and 1GOAL. Excerpts below, full piece here. We’ll have more on 1GOAL soon!

I was part of a CGI commitment with 1GOAL: Education for All to talk about the 75 million children denied access to education around the world today. If you’re keeping count, that’s as if every school in the U.S. and Europe combined decided one day to close their doors. Joining Global Co-Chair Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, ONE co-founder Bono, FIFA and private sector leaders, I signed up to be US Co-Chair of 1GOAL and help work for a breakthrough on global education centered around the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The 2010 World Cup will be the first hosted by Africa, and 1GOAL views the world’s biggest sporting event as an opportune platform to persuade the millions of fans who peacefully come together to share the love of soccer to also unite on educating the world’s children. Our goal is to sign up 30 million World Cup supporters to call on our leaders to make education for all children a priority and reality. Name by name, we believe we can bring attention to global education disparities and make change a reality.

In the US we take for granted that our children have a right to education and the opportunities education provides. But for tens of millions of kids in the developing world, children who are just like our kids, the chance for an education is a hope and a dream, but not yet a reality. These could be our next generation’s leaders, athletes, doctors, teachers, and parents. They’re ready to do their homework, but school fees, conflict, working in factories and farms, losing their parents to sickness, the cost of a school uniform or simply being a girl can keep them from being able to attend school.

Bono, ONE co-founder, just joined Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan and others in a commitment to 1GOAL: Education for All at the Clinton Global Initiative Meeting. Together with FIFA, 1GOAL is committed to ensuring that the legacy of the 2010 World Cup will be universal access to education for all children. As President Clinton said, “this is a staggering opportunity” to make a big difference for girls and boys around the world.

Read more about 1GOAL Education for All here.

After the announcement, Queen Rania immediately joined a panel moderated by Nicholas Kristof and went on to further make a passionate case for universal education. According to Queen Rania, an educated child is 50% less likely to contract HIV, just one of many ways education affects every other sector. She also pointed out another statistic so incredible that Nicholas Kristof made her repeat it: the developing world needs approximately $11 billion dollars to put every child into primary school– the same amount the US spends every 3 months on their pets. However, because education isn’t particularly “dramatic” it rarely gets the attention it deserves.

Nicholas Kristof, Queen Rania, and Hilda Solis join in a panel on Creating Good Jobs and Strong Communities

US Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis addresses the CGI Meeting

-Chris Scott

Recently, Willow Creek’s Pastor Bill Hybels sat down with Bono at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit for a conversation, amongst other things, on the church’s role in the fight against extreme poverty. Reflecting on his conversation, Pastor Hybels wrote “What Bono Taught Me About Fighting Poverty” this week in US News and World Report.

“Nearly two weeks ago, I stood before 7,000 people—and an additional 60,000 connected via satellite feed—who gathered for the Willow Creek Association’s annual two-day conference the Global Leadership Summit to hear from diverse faculty on the subject of how to get better at leading whatever it is that we lead. Part of the assortment this year included Bono, who agreed to a follow-up discussion to our 2006 interview, during which he called out the local church for being inexcusably late to the game of fighting extreme poverty and treatable disease.

The evangelical church has taken a lot of justifiable heat in recent years for being vocal about the things we hate while staying silent about some of the most pressing needs in our world. There are times when I believe the church should be the conscience of our culture, but to Bono’s point, a reframing must occur, one where the divisiveness that once defined us as people of faith gets edged out by a unity around great societal causes. And what has to unite us in this day and age is the fight against poverty and disease. Faith leaders the world over expected this day would come. What we didn’t expect was that it would take an Irish rock star to demand the dawn.

Since Bono’s clarion call three years ago, well-resourced churches have banded together to take a bite out of poverty, pouring vast amounts of resources into building orphanages, clinics, schools, and sports fields through partnerships with underresourced churches around the globe. Not that the ultimate judge comes in the form of a leather-clad superstar in shades, but still it was gratifying to hear Bono’s assessment of progress to date: “I knew [the church] was a sleeping giant, but I didn’t know the giant could run so fast.”

In some parts of Africa, malaria deaths have been halved. Antiretroviral drugs are being shipping back because villagers have what they need. Education is having an effect. These are all good changes, but admittedly more must be done….”

Full article may be found here.

-Adam Phillips