Crisis or not, there's still a world to save

Tan Dawn Wei, Straits Times 23 Nov 08;

Two months ago in New York, former cycling champ and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong told a room-full of world leaders, business elites and philanthropists that he was returning to competitive cycling.

It wasn't for the money, fame nor even the thrill of winning yet another Tour de France title, which he has snagged seven times.

It was to raise awareness of the 'global cancer burden', he said, adding that his Lance Armstrong Foundation was launching a worldwide campaign to support the 25 million people afflicted with the disease.

His was among the 250 'commitments' pledged at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting, a highly exclusive, invitation-only annual conference where well-known attendees since its inception in 2005 have included current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former United States secretary of state Colin Powell, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, rock group U2's singer Bono and actress Angelina Jolie.

Among those commitments this year: India-based Suzlon Green Power developing clean energy worth US$5 billion (S$7.6 billion) over the next five years that would supply power to 10 million people, mostly in India and China.

American consumer giant Procter & Gamble donating US$11 million worth of clean drinking water sachets to the developing world.

Accounting firm Ernst & Young helping to spread micro-loans in developing countries.

And American President-elect Barack Obama committing to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, wipe out death caused by malaria, cut extreme poverty in half and erase the global primary education gap, all by 2015.

There are lots of promises to save the world, including many big ones. In fact, if you plan to show up at the meeting, you have to come ready with a pledge to do something. And if you don't deliver, you're not asked back the next year.

Such targeted activism sets CGI apart from other conferences - a principle that the initiative started by former American president Bill Clinton prides itself on.

Fed up with attending thousands of meetings where leaders sat around and talked about urgent issues which never amounted to much action, he devised a model that brought decision-makers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) together every year to effect change.

These participants, known as CGI members, define what and how they want to contribute, on the basis that it has to be new, specific and measurable.

The commitments come from corporations, foundations, heads of states and NGOs and can be anything from funds and sharing of skills and resources to time.

It is a model that has seen tremendous results, according to Mr Brett Rierson, deputy managing director of CGI Asia, who was in Singapore recently.

In the last four years since it started, it claims to have reached 200 million people in 150 countries with US$46 billion worth of commitments.

Companies, especially, are realising that if they are making a long-term investment in a particular country, they will need an educated workforce and a stable population without civil conflict.

The best way to do that is to address issues of income and education disparity in these areas, said Mr Rierson.

Now, CGI has turned its attention to Asia. It will hold its first meeting outside the United States next month in Hong Kong over two days.

Those who have already RSVP'd include Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, action star Jet Li and Mr Victor Fung, chairman of Hong Kong's export, distribution and retail giant Li & Fung Group.

Mr Clinton will also be there.

Until CGI came to Asia, very few commitments were for this part of the world, with most going to Africa or the US.

'Asia has made unprecedented progress in a very short time,' said Mr Rierson who has lived in Asia for 20 years.

The number of people living on less than US$1.25 a day in China has dropped from 835 million in 1981 to 207 million in 2005.

The number of people without access to clean water in South Asia has been halved since 1990.

At the same time, there has also been a massive transfer of wealth, with foundations established and trying to find purpose and with lots of money to hand out.

'You got great progress, great solutions meeting with unprecedented wealth looking for something to do,' Mr Rierson said of Asia.

When the world community comes together next month in Hong Kong, the focus will be on three critical areas: education, climate change and public health.

Stakeholders will be looking for creative solutions to bridge the gap in educational disparity and deprivation, develop renewable energy and battle chronic and infectious diseases as well as meet basic nutritional needs.

Some of these innovations already exist. One of Mr Rierson's favourite examples is Barefoot College, started by Indian educator Sanjit Bunker Roy in 1972 in Tilonia, Rajasthan.

'Quite frankly, if you knew what he did, and you had a choice to meet Martin Luther King, Gandhi and him, you'd have a hard time deciding,' said Mr Rierson, who is on leave from the World Food Programme, where he launched its private-sector development activities for Asia-Pacific.

Barefoot College has trained India's illiterate villagers - many of them women - to be solar engineers, teachers, hand-pump mechanics and health-care workers in their own communities.

With two-thirds of India's more than one billion people living in rural areas where there is often no running water and electricity, much less the Internet, literacy isn't at the top of their priorities.

Power and water are.

'He's found a way to electrify tens of thousands of rural villages and the impact that has on people who can actually stay up at night to study or read is massive,' said Mr Rierson.

Mr Roy's programmes have now been expanded across Asia and Africa. He will also be at next month's meeting.

But with the conference coming on the heels of a global recession, are the commitments going to flow in?

There has not been a drop in activities from CGI members, said Mr Rierson, adding that US$8 billion worth of new commitments were made around the same time that US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed two months ago.

'The challenges will be here a lot longer than this economic crisis, and the advantage of fixing them for a stable business environment for corporations to operate in remains,' he explained.

'It's not altruism. Increasingly, in a more interconnected world, it's in everyone's interest.'