NEW YORK, N.Y…. The ONE Campaign today applauded Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama for their commitments to end malaria deaths and address extreme poverty around the world.  The candidates made the commitments during separate addresses at the Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting occurring this week in New York City.

“The world is focused on everything John McCain and Barack Obama are doing and saying.  And the candidates chose this moment to underscore their commitments to the world’s extremely poor and vulnerable people.  That is leadership,” ONE President and CEO David Lane said.

In remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting in New York City today, Senator Obama and Senator McCain pledged to target global poverty and preventable disease. Both candidates voiced their commitments to ending deaths from malaria. Both candidates have made a priority of helping the world’s poorest people to help themselves, with new tools, support, and partnerships that can transform the planet’s most vulnerable places.

For months, ONE, a global advocacy group focused on addressing extreme poverty and preventable disease, has been working with the presidential campaigns to identify ways in which the candidates can build on America’s strategic foreign assistance successes around the world. As a result of this work and the efforts of many other organizations and individuals, there are fresh, substantive commitments on development from the candidates today at CGI, even as they focus on other critical issues.

“Great nations can focus on more than one critical issue at a time. John McCain and Barack Obama today demonstrated that the United States can address the concerns about Wall Street without abandoning concerns about the world’s extremely poor,” Lane said.

“Now it is our job – the job of the voters, advocacy groups and aid organizations – to make sure that the candidates follow-through on these commitments after the election,” Lane added.

In his remarks at CGI, Senator McCain reiterated his commitment to work to eradicate malaria. He pledged to build on America’s successes in curbing malaria and work to end deaths caused by malaria. He also called for the United States to lead the international effort to improve child and maternal health around the world, with a special focus on providing food and nutrients to vulnerable communities. Senator McCain also called for a more concerted effort to address tuberculosis and to dramatically increase agricultural productivity in Africa. McCain believes that the U.S. needs to ensure that the financial assistance it provides to developing nations gets to the people it is trying to help, and is not siphoned off through corrupt officials and contractors. Finally, Senator McCain pressed for more balanced trade and economic opportunities, including addressing subsidies that have harmful effects on farmers in poor countries.

“Promoting development, creating opportunities, and eliminating disease do not only serve our national interests; they also accord with our deepest American values. We are a great and generous country, and we believe that all men and women, everywhere, are created equal and endowed by God with certain rights. In fighting disease, and sparing unnumbered lives across the world, we serve not only strategic interests. We serve our moral interests, and we show the good heart of America,” McCain said.

In his CGI remarks, Senator Obama detailed a strategy to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline. He pledged to increase foreign assistance to meet that deadline, create more effective public-private partnerships in Africa and throughout the developing world to boost job growth and health-care delivery systems. Obama would start with the manufacture of 730 million anti-malarial bed nets, the training of medical professionals in underserved regions, and distribution of low-cost malaria drugs to all who need them as part of his goal to end all deaths from malaria by 2015. He also addressed corruption, wanting to ensure that U.S. support is well-invested and not lost to bribery and graft. Obama committed to erasing the global primary education gap (currently, 72 million children around the world do not have access to primary education), pledging to start a $2 billion global education fund.

“The scale of our challenges may be great. The pace of change may be swift, but we know that it need not be feared. The landscapes of the 21st century are still ours to shape. We see the potential for progress every time someone starts a job creating new energy, or an idea carries a community out of poverty; we see it every time a girl walks through the doors of a new school, or a boy lives to see another day because he had a simple net around his bed.  These are the dreams that we must make our own,” Obama said.

ONE Vote ’08, ONE’s presidential outreach initiative, is a project of the ONE Campaign and ONE Action.  It is not endorsing or opposing any candidate, but is encouraging all presidential candidates to address these critical issues.