ONE Vote ’08 Praises Senator Brownback for Focus on Extreme Poverty

WASHINGTON, D.C.-ONE  The Campaign to Make Poverty History today applauded U.S. Senator and Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback for presenting his policies to target extreme poverty in Africa and around the world.

“Extreme poverty costs millions of lives around the world.  It takes the life of a child every three seconds.  This suffocating poverty is erasing an entire generation of people from the globe, and we must do all that we can to defeat it.  The ONE Campaign calls on all presidential candidates to take a stand on these critical issues,” ONE President & CEO Susan McCue explained.

In a speech at Boston  University and a subsequent interview with the Boston Globe this week, Senator Brownback, R-Kansas, expanded on his plans to focus more attention on policies that can help to end extreme poverty and debilitating, preventable diseases on the African continent.

Brownback has been vocal on the links between a more aggressive approach to combating poverty and disease in developing countries and the effort to keep American safer from terrorist attack.  The Senator’s speech at BU was titled, “Africa, Al Qaeda, and U.S. Security: How Better US – Africa Relations Benefits U.S. Security Interests.”

“Right now, we are witnessing humanitarian crises across the African continent: genocide in Darfur, violence in Northern Uganda, lack of access to basic health care, and a continent-wide AIDS epidemic that steals thousands of lives each month,” Senator Brownback said.  “America is a great nation and we have a responsibility to continue to lead the fight to alleviate the unnecessary suffering of so many.  History will judge us harshly if we and other developed nations do not act quickly and compassionately to help the less fortunate.”

“We thank Senator Brownback for discussing his plans to fight global poverty.  The 2.4 million Americans who are part of ONE know that we must not close our eyes to the world around us.  America has a tradition of compassion and leadership.  We must embrace that tradition and carry it forward in this 21st century,” McCue added.