Last week leaders from the United States and European Union met in Washington DC for the regular US-EU Summit.

The team at ONE has reviewed the summit’s declaration [PDF] and picked out some of the key points.

Overall the document contains some very positive language on the need to work together to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015 and development has been ratcheted up the agenda as a focus for cooperation. There’s also a separate annex on Development. The main point is that the US and EU want to work together with more urgency towards the MDG Summit and up to 2015:

‘we recognize that a coordinated international effort is needed to assist developing countries accelerate progress towards the MDGs’

The Declaration itself pledges to re-launch US-EU dialogue on development, and the first meeting to re-launch of this dialogue will happen at ministerial level very soon. Ministerial level meetings will thereafter be annual, with meetings of the re-launched High Level Consultative Group on Development to be held in between.

The Annex to the declaration outlines 3 areas for close cooperation between the US and EU:

• Food security and agricultural development: initial focus on Africa, will join efforts in a Global Partnership for Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition; support for the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.
• Climate change: focus on country-driven adaptation strategies and a pledge to concentrate on the development aspects of climate change.
• MDGs: ‘recognizes that a coordinated international effort is needed to assist developing countries accelerate progress towards the MDGs’. As well as Overseas Development Assistance, policy coherence for development, aid effectiveness and new innovative financing mechanisms mentioned.There are plentiful references to measuring outputs and results of development cooperation as well as a focus on Accra and aid effectiveness.

The declaration comes at a timely moment at the beginning of a new European Commission and Parliamentary mandate in Brussels, and gives us a good kick-off to help ensure that achievement of the MDGs remains high on the political agenda in both Brussels and Washington DC.

-Eloise Todd

This past week, Australian’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, along with Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull, lifted up the role that citizens, people of faith, and governments have in the fight against global poverty at the launch of the new Poverty and Justice Bible, at the Parliament House in Canberra.

Joined by Tim Costello of World Vision Australia as well as representatives of Micah Challenge, Prime Minister Rudd highlighted Australians collective commitment to increased international development assistance, and the role faith groups have in advocating for more and better aid:

Of course, for those of us engaged in national political life, our work on policy is incomplete unless we are working arm-in-arm with the great organisations of the Church and charitable sector.

All of you in this room know full well that there is a limit to what Government can do. All of you know full well that, when it comes to dealing with poverty, at home and abroad, this is often done best when you have a creative and effective partnership between the resources of Government and the compassion of Church and charitable organisations.

…In Australia, what we have sought to do in recent times is to put our shoulder to the wheel by lifting Australia’s contribution to ODA around the developing world…

Problems abroad however, cannot be ignored. Remember, it was [John] Wesley who said ‘the world is my parish’. And so it is for us as well.

Therefore, by lifting what we seek to do around the world, and by also putting our shoulder to the wheels of other countries in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, our objective is to make a real and quantifiable difference.

Video of the speech can be found here.

-Adam Phillips

With six years to go until the 2015 deadline to achieve most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), not enough progress has been made toward reaching them, says the UN’s 2009 Millennium Development Goals Report. The global economic and food crises, as well as the growing effects of climate change have not only exacerbated the slow progress, but also threaten to reverse previously-gained successes.

Last week, the United Nations Foundation and the United Nations Millennium Campaign jointly hosted a discussion centered on the recently-released report. The discussion featured Anita Sharma, the North American Coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Campaign, Francesca Perucci from the United Nations Statistics Division, and Dan Carucci from the United Nations Foundation International Health Programs.

The panelists touched on both the successes and failures seen in the past few years. Much of the discussion focused on the consequences of the economic downturn on the MDGs. Before the crisis, explained Perucci, the main author of the report, the number of people living in poverty fell from 1.8 billion in 1990 to 1.4 billion in 2005. In 2009, however, approximately 55 million to 90 million additional people will be living in extreme poverty than was estimated prior to the financial crisis. Perucci also spoke of the “scant progress” on child nutrition that has been further eroded by high food prices and the state of the global economy. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, said Perruci, have the highest percentages of the population that is undernourished. Perhaps most severe, the MDG concentrating on combating maternal mortality has seen the least progress and is the least likely to be achieved.

The panelists asserted, there have also been successes. There has been dramatic improvement in the protection of children under five explained Curucci. Perucci added that we “are edging towards universal primary education.” Additionally, the dramatic surge in the use of bed-nets has also significantly helped to combat malaria. We have seen “progress in pockets,” explained Curucci, and although this progress still puts us far from the MDGs, it can be built upon to achieve greater success. The report advocates a strong and sustained call to action for international donors, governments, and the international community if the MDGs are to be reached by 2015.

Read the full report here.

-Pooja Gupta

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church, meeting in Anaheim, California last week, overwhelmingly adopted a budget for the next three years that allots 0.7 percent of the Church’s non-government revenue to international-development programs that support the Millennium Development Goals.

This 0.7 percent line item, which originated in the last three-year budget adopted at the 2006 General Convention, was created both to bolster the Church’s own overseas development work and to serve as a model of best practice that Episcopalians can cite in their advocacy for similar commitments from the United States government.

Due to the difficult economic crisis, the draft budget received by bishops and deputies prior to the Convention had recommended the elimination of the 0.7 percent line item amidst sweeping across-the-board cuts. Both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops overwhelmingly passed resolutions asking that the line item be restored in response to an outpouring of support for it in open budget hearings held last week.

Bishop Robert O’Neill of Colorado, who serves as Chairman of Episcopal Relief and Development and led the supporters of the resolution in the House of Bishops, said the 0.7 percent commitment “has been the proverbial mustard seed planted in a way that has challenged individual parishes and dioceses across our church to think and act globally. It’s become a way of framing our mission collectively in a way that makes sense to and captured the hearts of our young people across the church.

“That $3 million raised out of $1 million [committed in the past triennium] has tangibly revealed our explicit and sacrificial commitment to the global healing and reconciliation and restoration that is the essence of our participation in God’s mission.”

Bishop James Mathes of San Diego said the increase “is really about leadership. What we’re trying to do here as The Episcopal Church is to say that the Millennium Development Goals is a way that we lead as a church.”

-Alex Baumgarten, International Policy Analyst, Office of Government Relations, Episcopal Church

The Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2009, was introduced in March by Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Bob Corker (R-TN).

The bipartisan legislation would make water and sanitation important pillars of America’s development policy, with the target of providing 100 million people with first-time access to safe and sustainable drinking water and sanitation by 2015.

The Water for the World Act targets underdeveloped countries with focused initiatives to improve access to clean water and sanitation, fosters global cooperation on research and development, provides technical assistance and capacity-building, and provides seed money for the deployment of clean water and sanitation technologies.  The bill would elevate water as a U.S. foreign policy priority by creating an Office of Water within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and a Special Coordinator for International Water within the Department of State.

This act builds upon earlier landmark legislation, theSenator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005, which represented the first time a Millennium Development Goal (to halve the percentage of people without access to safe water or sanitation by 2015), was written into American law.

The Water for the World Act was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 17th. With only five cosponsors, the bill isn’t receiving the attention needed for further congressional action. Ask your senators to cosponsor S. 624 now

-Rena Pacheco-Theard

On Wednesday April 9th, the European Commission launched its yearly update on how EU donor countries are helping to meet the MDGs. This year President Barroso and Commissioner for Development Louis Michel used the opportunity to make some key announcements on advancing crucial development assistance for African countries. It’s fantastic that the leadership of the Commission is putting development matters so high on his political agenda. Less than a week after the London Summit, the Commission outlined three main ways it would act to help developing countries combat the effects of this economic crash:

1. Pushing EU governments to meet their aid promises and ensuring the highest degree of aid effectiveness possible. Development Commissioner Louis Michel’s message was: “We know what we must do: meet our aid targets, advance our money to have an impact when it is most needed, refocus our existing programmes to tackle the crisis and then make every Euro count”.
2. The EU is proposing spending more cash for the poorest countries to help fill some of the financing gaps created by the economic downturn. The €1billion Food Facility was intended to be spent over 3 years- now the Commission have promised to spend €800m of it by the end of the year to inject much-needed cash into the agricultural sectors of countries most in need of support for farmers. A whopping €3billion will be brought forward for African, Caribbean and Pacific country governments and another €500m for spending on health, education and other vital social spending.
3. Thirdly aid effectiveness is the Commission’s priority. When Louis Michel spoke of ‘making every euro count’ he was alluding to some research he had commissioned which showed that just by working together more effectively, the European Commission and the 27 governments could save a huge €7billion a year which could be freed up to save lives in this downturn. The Commission wants more coordination between donors- it’s common sense that not every donor should work on every sector in one country, and we should be seeing more of donor countries playing to their strengths and taking the lead amongst donors in their specialist areas.

All in all the announcement yesterday was a very positive step- it shows the EU has not just read the G20 communique and agreed- it is doing that rare thing of acting quickly upon agreements. We hope it will convince other G20 countries to do the same, and fast- we’re particularly looking toward the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and IMF to raise more funding for Africa in grant form. Any loans that are given we will argue should be extremely concessional so they don’t spark another debt crisis. There are of course some concerns about the announcements yesterday– Will governments replenish those funds when there’s not enough in the pot next year? Ironically, if the EU alone kept to its 2010 promises, that would mean another €20 billion on overall assistance over the next two years. So the message is simple- we welcome these announcements, on the condition that EU governments stick to their ODA promises.

-Eloise Todd

A World Bank report released on 8 March projects that global GDP will decline this year for the first time since World War II. The new report revised earlier estimates that emerging markets would sustain and grow the world economy even as the economies of developed countries contracted. The report was released ahead of the G20 finance ministers’ meeting to be held in London later this week. The report predicts that developing countries face a financial gap of $270-$700 billion caused by the global recession, and warns that even at the lower end of this range, international financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF cannot by themselves currently cover the shortfall that includes mounting public and private debt and trade deficits.

The report also highlighted earlier analysis that poverty (people living below $1.25 per day) will increase by around 46 million people in 2009 (and by 53 million for those living below $2 per day), caused by adverse effects on employment and wages as well as slowing remittance flows. The crisis will be a major setback to the progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, as the long run consequences of the crisis may be more severe than those observed in the short run. For example, when poor households withdraw their children from school, there is a significant risk that they will not return once the crisis is over, or that they will not be able to recover the learning gaps resulting from the missed months or years of school attendance. The World Bank also warns that infant deaths in developing countries may be 200,000-400,000 per year higher on average between 2009 and the MDG target year of 2015 than they would have been in the absence of the crisis, according to its preliminary analysis.

The report concludes that stabilization, protecting longer-term growth and development, and protecting the vulnerable will be the main challenges for developing and emerging market countries, but pursuing these objectives requires significant resources which low income countries lack. As a response to the crisis, the World Bank is calling on developed nations to dedicate 0.7% of the money they spend on stimulus programmes (the G20’s announced fiscal stimulus collectively amounts to almost $1 trillion for 2008 and 2009 as of end of January, with a further $650 billion in 2010) toward a Vulnerability Fund to help developing countries absorb the shock of the financial crisis. Some G20 countries such as the UK have expressed interest in this idea, but to date, none of the countries has committed to it. The upcoming G20 finance ministers’ meeting will be an important moment to discuss this proposal.

-Mikiko Imai

Director Douglas Busby and Damascus Films recently put together a video with the cooperation of The Millennium Challenge Corporation explaining the MCC’s work, the progress they’ve made, and their hopes for the next administration.

Founded in 2004, the MCC is “based on the principle that aid is most effective when it reinforces good governance, economic freedom and investments in people.”

Be sure to take a few minutes and check it out:

-Chris Scott

Last week, we wrote about World Toilet Day. John Sauer from Water Advocates passed along this great post about raising awareness for better sanitation practices, and what we can do to help:

Public indifference to the HIVAIDS epidemic was chronicled in 1987 in And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. As the author Randy Shilts lamented, “Everyone responded with an ordinary pace to an extraordinary situation.” Thankfully now there is attention to this deadly disease, but it wasn’t always the case.

Another pandemic—namely more than two dozen diseases associated with poor sanitation—now faces the same kind of unresponsiveness. Every 20 seconds a child dies of sanitation-related diseases, which kill five times as many children as HIVAIDS. As an article in the New England Journal of Medicine documents, pathogens that cause diarrheal diseases, tracoma, and guinea-worm are among the culprits. You didn’t think you can die of diarrhea did you? Well you probably can’t but those living where open defecation is the norm can. Human excrement: it is the last taboo.

Pushback on this topic is very real. A TIME Magazine review of Rose George’s new book on sanitation suggested that “a series of articles was plenty on this topic.” One US government official refused to release a statement on World Toilet Day because of objection to the word “toilet.” Progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving the proportion of people without basic sanitation by 2015 will not be met, at current rates, until 2115. In fact, the original version of the MDGs didn’t have a sanitation target.

(more…)

Hi there, my name is Adam Phillips. I recently joined the team at ONE as Faith Relations Manager. From time to time I’ll let you know what’s going on with our faith partners in The ONE Campaign. Before I joined the team in DC I have posted here in the past as a local pastor in Chicago and as co-chair of ONE’s partner, Micah Challenge USA .

I wanted to let you know about some significant commitments that were made on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the recent World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) general assembly in Pattaya, Thailand. 500 evangelical church leaders, representing some 128 national evangelical alliance groups from the US and around the world, passed major resolutions, on such issues as HIV/AIDS, poverty, the environment, and the global financial crisis.

Recognizing that the MDGs “echoed the mind” of teaching in their own tradition, the WEA called on government leaders in both the Global North and Global South to “significantly scale up their efforts to achieve the MDGs” – seeing the on-going crisis of global poverty as a critical threat to peace and security. Beyond calling their elected national leaders to act, though, the church leaders called on their own faith groups, congregations, pastors and laity to join and collaborate with The Micah Challenge. This was a major conclusion of the assembly as they saw it as a response “ to Love and Justice” in a time where economic challenges abound.

This moment in Thailand by a diverse group of global church leaders is just one of many that show how, working together as ONE, we all have a role to play in making poverty history.

-Adam Phillips