The Clinton Global Initiative

A group of influential world leaders attending a conference organized by former US President Bill Clinton committed $1.25 billion to help address some of the world’s most pressing problems. Attendees at The Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York City included heads of state, business and economic leaders, academicians and members of the media.

The non-partisan gathering, coinciding with UN-sponsored World Summit in September 2005, focused on four major areas of concern:

• reducing poverty

• using religion as a force of reconciliation and conflict resolution

• implementing business strategies and technologies to combat climate change

• strengthening governance.

The $1.25 billion committed during the conference resulted from nearly 200 formal pledges of action from attendees. Pledges included a $300 million committed from Swiss Re, an insurance and financial services organization, to start an investment fund for $100 million toward creating a model for sustainable development in an African country in collaboration with the Clinton Foundation.

Mohmed Ibrahim, a businessman from Sudan, said he would give $100 million for an investment fund for African businesses.

The World Vision Group and the Global Business Coalition announced the creation of Impact!HIV/AIDS, which will spend tens of millions of dollars in the next five years to help fight the disease through micro-enterprise development for women and caring for orphans and vulnerable children. Other commitments included a plan to set up a mobile phone network for an emerging Palestinian state and $ 1 million to benefit children in the Gaza Strip.

Former President Clinton said he planned to hold another summit next year and hoped this might become an annual event. As one attendee, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated: “The Global Initiative is important in that it recognizes that change requires collective action.”

(Source: www.clintonglobalinitiative.org and: Share International November 2005, pg5)

Share International: these initiatives demonstrate that here is an increasingly powerful undercurrent sweeping the world in the direction of synthesis, sharing and co-operation, of new relationships and new approaches.