The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting kicked off yesterday with an Opening Plenary hosted by President Clinton. Thanks to Lori's crowd navigation skills we were able to be in the room for the plenary (instead of watching it on TVs in the press room) and even sat within 100 feet of the podium.
In his opening remarks President Clinton told CGI members this is the only conference they will attend where the gift bag is just that - a bag. Sounds like every activist conference I've been to!
Gary White and Matt Damon (*swoon*) spoke about access to water and sanitation. Many of us in the U.S. take clean water for granted. For much of the world, though, access to water is perhaps the largest health issue. White and Damon were there to promote water.org and their new focus on Haiti.
Linda Lockhart, founder of Global Give Back Circle, spoke about her work on education for girls in Kenya. Lockhart said, "Our goal was never to be the voice of the girls. It was to give them a voice." This was demonstrated through a video (which reminded me of this) and a powerful spoken word performance by three young women from St. Martin's School for Girls.
The plenary included a panel consisting of President Clinton, President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke, and Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent. Rudd is a strong advocate for the G20 over the G8. He stated that representation from a much more diverse group of countries than "basically America, Europe, and Japan" leads to many important issues coming up that are not addressed by the G8. Bachelet was awesome, discussing supporting women as the heads of households and reforming Chile's health care system to create universal coverage. She got in a great dig: "I know health reform is difficult to talk about in this country." This led to Clinton expressing frustration at the state of the U.S. health care debate, especially given the disparity in GDP of the two countries: "If I was in Congress I'd be embarassed Chile can insure everyone and we can't." Wal-Mart eliminating 5% of packaging and Coca-Cola producing 100% recyclable bottles made out of 30% sugar cane were both presented as important steps for combating climate change. I find this odd; both are examples of slightly decreasing each company's detrimental impact on the environment, but neither is an example of pro-active action that actually creates improvements.
The panel had to wrap up because President Obama was scheduled to speak next and was on a tight schedule. Of course he wasn't actually there in time, so we were treated to about five minutes of President Clinton stalling, which was incredibly awkward and pretty amusing.
And then President Obama walked in and spoke. Even after his very full day of events it was clear in comparison to the other leaders, most of whom are excellent orators themselves, that our current president has a gift. The speech touched on a lot of the president's favorite points, but I was genuinely moved to hear him speak in person. One statement from Obama's speech really stood out to me: "The purpose of aid must be to help create the circumstances where it's no longer needed." I think this is an important sentiment to bring to a room full of wealthy funders. They should not be creating structures where there is a constant need for their support. Rather, they should be contributing to the production of a world that is not so extremely divided by wealth.
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Or, as Homestarrunner put it, Reducing Your Business's Carbon Footprint Is Not A Matter of Buying Everyone Smaller Shoes
Is Jessica going? And if so, did she remember to leave her boobs at home? You know what happens when Jessica's boobs and the Bill Clinton are in the same room . . . chaos ensues!! Specifically, incriminating photos of Jessica will be taken - evidence that she does, in fact, have BOOBS!!!!
/snark
just a joke about boobgate.