New York City, NY — The press accreditation room at the Sheraton Hotel here on 7th Avenue is busy right now as staffers search through lists of names of reporters, bloggers, and media producers who’ve been cleared to cover the Clinton Global Initiative which runs through Thursday.
And boy is it ever needed now.
As American political”debate” and “discussion” sinks to a level of discussion often as about profound, fruitful and forward-looking as bumper sticker slogans or comments left on weblogs by ideological hack “trolls,” the Clinton Global Initiative, founded in 2005 by former President Bill Clinton, seeks a different path: it is nonpartisan and brings together top government, academic and other bigwigs from all over the United States and the world to do something you don’t see much in American politics these days.
They get together to seriously discuss issues and see if they can come up with either solutions or ideas that could at least help movement towards solutions.
The Wikipedia entry under the Clinton Foundation neatly outlines the goals and some key topics this year:
Each year, CGI hosts an Annual Meeting in September, scheduled to coincide with the U.N. General Assembly. Throughout the year, CGI helps its members – primarily corporations, NGOs, and government leaders – maximize their efforts to create positive change. CGI is not a grant-making organization.
CGI also includes CGI University, an annual conference for college students; CGI Lead, a program for rising leaders from the public, private, and civil sectors; MyCommitment.org, an online portal where anyone can make a Commitment to Action; and CGI International.
The Annual Meeting is attended by heads of state, business leaders, nonprofit directors, prominent members of the media, Nobel Prize winners, and other notable global leaders. Attendees have included President Barack Obama, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Lance Armstrong, Lloyd Blankfein, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, former Vice President Al Gore, Paul Farmer, Wangari Maathai, Rupert Murdoch, Rex Tillerson, and Muhammad Yunus. The 2009 Annual Meeting featured an opening address by President Obama and a closing address by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The 2010 Annual Meeting will take place September 21-23 in New York City.
At the Annual Meeting, CGI members discuss major global issues, share ideas and knowledge about effective solutions, and form partnerships that enable them to enhance their work. The program for the 2010 Annual Meeting will be structured around four Action Areas:
Empowering Girls and Women – CGI members will discuss how they can create progress for everyone by helping women and girls achieve equal access to education, health care, and economic opportunities. Strengthening Market-Based Solutions – At the Annual Meeting, CGI members will discuss the best strategies for bringing market-based solutions to scale, so the benefits can be felt by more of the four billion people who subsist on less than $3 a day. Enhancing Access to Modern Technology – CGI members are working to identify the best technologies in education, health care, and economic development and deploy them on a large scale, so they can reach the people who need them most.
Harnessing Human Potential – Members are identifying job creation opportunities in different industries, sectors, and regions, and developing strategies for connecting those opportunities with the people who need them most.
The Daily Beast’s Dayo Olopade wonders if it becoming a kind of General Assembly for the 21st Century:
The United Nations General Assembly kicks off today, bringing together leaders of 192 countries.
But just west of it, a competing summit will bring together thought-leaders from across the globe to tackle many of the same problems that are on the table at Turtle Bay. And even President Obama will make an appearance.
The Clinton Global Initiative, now in its sixth year, will feature Nobel laureates, CEOs, presidents, and a trio of first ladies—making it seem like a 21st century initiative that could ultimately eclipse the older institution. CGI is fast building a track record that has some wondering if its leaner model may be the better way to address the multitude of problems facing the global community.
All it needs is a standing army.
“Most U.N. organizations concern themselves with setting global policy,” says Paul Farmer, the celebrated activist and director of Partners in Health who has been involved with CGI since its inception. “But what happens at CGI is the nitty-gritty of deal-making between philanthropists and the people who get it done.”
The U.N. may have the advantages of age (it’s almost 65 years old,) a charter, a 120,000-member army, a $4.2 billion budget (excluding peace-keeping operations,) a secretariat with about 40,000 employees, and stylishly appointed headquarters with to-die-for river views. But it is also littered with problems, both real and perceived.
Last year’s U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen devolved into a chaotic standoff between developing countries and wealthy nations—producing a nonbinding document that many climate experts described as more than disappointing. Likewise, the U.N. shoulders some of the world’s largest responsibilities for treating HIV/AIDS, but took years to embrace best practices on prevention.
The biggest, most high-profile day — in terms of big names and lots of traffic in NYC — will be when President Barack Obama introduces First Lady Michelle Obama for her Sept. 23 closing session speech. The Hill:
The Clinton Foundation announced Sunday that President Obama will appear at the this year’s sixth-annual Clinton Global Initiative summit in New York City.
Obama will introduce First Lady Michelle Obama before her speech to the closing plenary on Sept. 23.
He attended the meeting and addressed the group last year.
“I’m pleased that President Obama will participate in our sixth Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative,” former president Bill Clinton said in a statement. “He’ll be joining more than 64 heads of state from around the world, and hundreds of business leaders, directors of nongovernmental organizations, and Nobel Laureates, among others, who have made commitments to take action on pressing issues.”
Clinton was also on hand Sunday to discuss the summit’s focus for this year.
Clinton has also said that this year’s CGI will also take a lot at the problems of unemployed Americans:
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s campaign against poverty in poor countries is making room this year for programs to aid unemployed Americans.
The Clinton Global Initiative, a forum to connect corporate donors with non-profit groups, will “try to spend more time on the domestic needs,” Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” today. With the nation’s unemployment rate at 9.6 percent, U.S. workers need help “with both jobs and with training,” he said.
The “biggest problem” that stands in the way of boosting employment is a “skills mismatch” in the U.S. economy, Clinton said. This means “the jobs that are being opened don’t have qualified people applying for them,” he said. If job-specific training were provided to 5 million unemployed workers, the jobless rate would fall to around 7 percent, Clinton said.
Is it possible that as the America moves further into the 21st century problems can be looked at seriously, thoughtfully and be evaluated critically without polemics? (Even a teenie-weenie bit possible?)
Or is something like the CGI going to prove to be one more exercise in intellectual debate that won’t really lead anywhere?
Can there be a serious search for solutions — are are we doomed to keep seeing and hearing the kind of political bilge that even made former New York Senator Al D’Amato recently explode?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.