I thought I should share some inside skinny on the week we spent in New York September 22-26 at the UN’s special summit on the Millennium Development Goals. We went there to try to attract some attention to – indeed celebrate – the efforts against extreme poverty in recent years, and to call for an acceleration of that progress.

Bono was frantically blogging for the Financial Times in every spare second throughout the week on his way to and from meetings with various leaders. The meetings were many: with Spanish President Zapatero to plan for their E.U. presidency in 2010; with President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia to discuss their remaining private commercial debt (think that’s sorted now); with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to push on the overall Millennium Goals project; and with President Sarkozy of France and President Barroso of the EU to push Europe on delivering an extra billion euros from the EU budget to fight hunger and invest in agricultural productivity in Africa. Bob Geldof arrived a few days into the melee and participated on the opening panel of the Clinton Global Initiative, popped up on CNN, and met with Mayor Bloomberg, Bill Gates and others along the way.

One highlight was unveiling our “Celebrate Accelerate” video to a crowd of activists and leaders (including Bill Gates, Bob Geldof, Jeff Sachs) honoring the “quietest storm in town”: the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. Another, was dropping in on the “In My Name” launch where we regrouped with will.i.am and other activist allies.

An important part of the week was passing over ONE members’ hunger petition, with 50,000 signers, to Bob Orr, the Assistant Secretary General. The petition targets Ban Ki-moon, and all the G8 leaders, asking them to finance the current $1 billion gap in worldwide agricultural financing.

In addition to all of this, Kim Smith and a team of staff and volunteers brought the ONE Bus to town and, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, parked it in some highly visible locations in the city.

By September 26th, it was clear it had been a decent week. In total there were $16 billion worth of commitments, some old, and some new, focused largely on building upon success to get more kids in school; eliminating malaria deaths by 2015 (yes, that’s got chutzpah – but by acting together it can be done); and renewing efforts against maternal mortality and hunger.

By investing in the fight against extreme poverty we can create new and stable markets where currently there are none; build strong global growth engines that can keep the global economy going when some of us falter; ensure strong health systems; and ensure that other’s instability doesn’t become ours. Above all – because it’s morally the right thing to do.

So now this piece of the campaign goes on to upcoming votes in Brussels on agriculture funding, and a key meeting about financing for development that is happening in Doha, Qatar, in the Middle East, at the end of November. We’ll keep you updated on both.

-Jamie Drummond

ONE co-founder Bono spoke with CNN’s John Roberts on “American Morning” this morning about recent successes and future plans in our fight against global poverty. You can watch the whole interview below, and read the full transcript on CNN.com.

An excerpt:

“BONO: We got good news this week. I know normally I’m on your program with bad news — the whingeing rock star — but it’s great. There’s a disease, malaria — it’s 3,000 African kids die every day of mosquito bites. Sounds mad, but it’s true. And people have committed and it looks like the funds are on the table so that that disease will be no more by 2015. That makes people like me punch the air and everyone who wears a ONE T-shirt and all our white band campaigners on college campuses all over the country — it was a great day for them yesterday so we’re celebrating that. I know it’s extraordinary, that while you’re having this meltdown on the markets, that people could even concentrate on this stuff, but I’m really grateful that they did. We had both [presidential] candidates make very powerful statements about the necessity for nonmilitary tools, for instance, in foreign policy. This is an America that both candidates want to show to the rest of the world — the greatness of America.”

Reporting to you live from outside the 2008 MDG Malaria Summit…

At the 2008 MDG Malaria Summit in New York today, global leaders in health, government and business announced over $3 billion in new malaria money to help spur the world toward ending malaria deaths by 2015 – making it the single biggest day for malaria announcements in the history of the fight against the disease.

Speakers including Bono, Gordon Brown, Bill Gates, President Kagame of Rwanda and President Kikwete of Tanzania discussed how far the world has come in recent years to combat malaria and how far we still have to go. Peter Chernin, President and COO of News Corporation and Malaria No More Chairman, helped moderate the event, adding that malaria is not an isolated disease but both a consequence and cause of extreme poverty.

Two of the biggest announcements were from the World Bank and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, announced $1.1 billion as funding for Phase II of the World Bank Booster Program and Rajat Gupta, Chair of the Global Fund, announced Round 8 funding recommendations for malaria control efforts totaling $1.62 billion.

In celebrating the new commitments, grassroots support and political will that is driving the worldwide effort to end malaria deaths, event host UN Special Envoy for Malaria Ray Chambers urged the community not to become complacent. While today represents a big step forward, the race to end deaths – 3,000 children every day – is far from over.

For more information on the event and commitments, visit www.MalariaNoMore.org.

-Emily Bergantino, Communications Officer, Malaria No More

World leaders have descended upon the United Nations this week for the 63rd annual plenary session of the General Assembly and the malaria community is all abuzz with excitement (pun absolutely intended). A major focus of this week’s events at the UN will be the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, including defeating malaria.

Malaria nearly 1 million people a year – mostly children in Africa – but increased funding and political will in recent years have put the world in a position to radically reduce deaths by 2015. Malaria is a key component to achieving the MDGs, as it affects so many of them (5 of 8). The elimination of malaria would boost school attendance, dramatically improve maternal and infant health, free up an estimated 40% of hospital beds in Africa to care for other sicknesses such as HIV/AIDS, and unlock billions in development potential in Africa. There can be no breakthrough in Africa without first addressing the malaria crisis.

Luckily, the crisis is due to be addressed this week in New York, as world leaders gather on Thursday for the 2008 MDG Malaria Summit for the single biggest day of funding announcements in the history of the fight against malaria. Organizing partners Malaria No More, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Department for International Development (UK) and the office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Malaria will be making major announcements toward reaching the target named by the Secretary-General on April 25—that of providing enough mosquito nets and access to medication for every man, woman and child in Africa by December 31, 2010—and the ultimate goal of near-zero malaria deaths by 2015.

It is an ambitious goal but one that can certainly be achieved. The global community will stand together this Thursday to prove that they are committed to it through major initiatives that promise to change the malaria landscape. We’ll act as your fly on the wall at Thursday’s summit and will report back with new commitments from world leaders, corporations and the public sector.

-Emily Bergantino, Malaria No More

Bono continues his liveblogging from the UN special summit on the MDGs this week. Some excerpts from his latest entry are below. See the full post on FT.com.

The ONE campaign has two and half million members, who urge us to make the case for increased aid as a key plank in America’s new foreign policy. ONE T-shirts have been turning up in town hall meetings for 18 months now, haranguing, hassling, but ultimately endearing themselves to all the presidential campaigns. They want the world to see what America has to offer the billion people who live on less than a dollar a day – practically speaking: medicine, new seed varieties, technology, know-how; policy speaking: what should America do more of? what should America do less of?

…Anyway we’ve now met with nearly a dozen of the presidential candidates in the course of their campaigns and of the four candidates left, three have declared their positions at onevote08.org/ontherecord, if you want to check them out.

On AIDS for example, Senators Obama and McCain both cosponsored the historic $48bn US AIDS initiative this year – an effort lead by Joe Biden – who I might add also fought in the trenches for debt cancellation for the poorest of the poor when I first started down this road. So it will be interesting to find out where Governor Palin stands.

A post from Mike of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation on their “MDG Blogging Day” tomorrow.

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The biggest barrier to making poverty history is letting people know it can be done. Tomorrow, with the power of your blog, you can help change that.

Most Americans don’t know that eight years ago the United States and 188 other nations ratified the Millennium Development Goals 8 goals that represent the largest concerted effort ever to end extreme poverty. Tomorrow, world leaders will meet at the UN to tell us what we already know, that we’re far behind on meeting these goals by the target date of 2015 and that most of the rich nations of the world (the U.S. included) are not keeping the promises we made in aid, trade and debt relief.

The Millennium Development Goals are the best hope we have ever had of making poverty history. And it’s up to us to spread the word about what ONE can do to make them happen.

That’s why tomorrow — Sept. 25 — Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation are asking you to join with bloggers around the world to post about making poverty history. More than 300 bloggers have signed up already. Your post can be whatever you like. It can be information about the MDGs. It can be a story of extreme poverty from your own life or travels. It can be a poem, a podcast, a video clip, a jpg of a piece of art, a prayer, an open letter to your leaders … whatever your way of raising your voice to let people know about the 1.2 billion people who live on less than $1 a day — and that it is within our grasp to lift them out of that poverty if we act now, if we act courageously, if we act as ONE.

All you have to do is go to www.mdgbloggingday.org and follow the instructions, add a badge to your blog, and join the webring. Then on Thursday, pour your passion into your post … and help make poverty history by letting people know that, if we work as one, it can be done.

You can take your pick of the badge you want to use as art with the post from the ones here.

-Mike Kinman, Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation

Bono continues his live blogging today from UN Special Summit on the Millenium Development Goals. You can see all his posts on the FT.com Blog site.

Below are some excerpts from his blogging late last night.

Aid is a leg-up, not a hand-out

“Lots of speeches etc going on inside the UN… President Bush, President Sarkozy. We’re on the outside today, meeting activists from Africa, India and Europe to talk about holding the people on the inside accountable for their promises.
The promises in question this week are the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs….

For those of you, the many of you, questioning aid on this site, you’re not wrong to suggest that it’s not the only answer. Of course it’s not. It’s trade, it’s governance, it’s private investment. But aid is critical… ask Germany, ask Ireland. See it as a leg-up, not a hand-out.
I’m not talking about the aid of the 20th century by the way. For too many years, much aid was wasted and ended up redecorating presidential palaces instead of building hospitals. That was our corruption as well as theirs. Handing over billions of dollars to a corrupt dictator because he isn’t a Commie, knowing he will use it to suppress discontent and swell personal bank accounts – that makes you complicit. But, this is a new century, and a new understanding of aid and partnership means that we are starting to see different results.”

Read his full post here.

President Bush just finished addressing the UN Assembly in New York. During his remarks he pushed for stronger economic and HIV/AIDS fighting initiatives in Africa. He noted that “every country and institution that provides foreign assistance including the United Nations will be more effective by showing faith in the people of the developing world and insisting on performance in return for aid ”while asking countries to “adopt a model of partnership not paternalism.”

He also spoke at length about PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief):

Every nation that receives American support through this initiative develops its own plan for fighting HIV aids and measures the results. And so far these results are inspiring. 5 years ago 50,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa were receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS. Today that number is nearly 1.7 million. We’re taking a similar approach to fighting malaria, and so far we’ve supported local efforts to protect more than 25 million Africans. …All [nations] who have made pledges to fight disease have an obligation to follow through on their commitments.

The full clip can be found here.

-Chris Scott

Bono has been blogging today from the United Nations’s Summit on the MDG’s in NYC. The below post he wrote after meeting with the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. You can read his complete posts at FT.com.

Tough meeting with the Président de la République of France. He’s a tough guy. We like tough guys because they get straight down to business. They don’t waste their time or yours. The French budget is out this Friday and in it we will see if France intends continuing its leadership role on the continent of Africa. In the last few years, French aid has been falling.

My point was that as much as Africa needs French aid and the energy that Sarkozy himself provides, he/we need Africa. Why? Africa has never been so strategically important as it is now, economically and politically. Just ask…

Read the full post here.

-Virginia Simmons

Right now, 30 countries are in immediate need of emergency food assistance and essential seeds and fertilizer.

As world leaders meet in NYC this week to discuss the Millennium Development Goals at the UN Summit, ONE members are signing a petition to the G8 leaders asking them to commit critical funding to address the world food crisis. Without addressing this crisis now – all other poverty-fighting efforts will be blunted.

If you haven’t already, please sign today. And if you have, please forward this on to your friends.

Petition text:

Please provide life-saving food and essential seeds and fertilizer to the 30 countries that need it most by filling the 2008 food and agriculture funding gap of $1 billion without delay.

-Virginia Simmons