Clinton Global Initiative – New York Sept. 21 2005

I found myself at this high-powered event as a “volunteer table facilitator,” which meant that I introduced the discussions that small groups had after hearing short plenary, and had close contact with all the participants. The Clinton Global Initiative was a 3-day meeting after the United Nations General Assembly World Summit, where 170 heads of state and many other religious and NGO leaders came to NY. Clinton’s rationale was, let’s provide a forum after the UN Summit where people can really dialogue and we can also invite business leaders and other persons of influence. As a volunteer for America Speaks, an organization specializing in orchestrating community dialogue, I facilitated the “Poverty” track; other tracks included Climate Change, Religion and Governance. After literally running into celebrities like Barbara Streisand, Oprah, Jesse Jackson and Bill Clinton himself -- strolling the halls in his reading glasses,-- I was happy to run into one our NGO partners, Kathryn Wolford, Director of Lutheran World Relief.

We were able to exchange ‘can you believe this’ looks – and it wasn’t because of the frequent celeb spotting (I met Angelina Jolie and saw Brad Pitt too!), but perhaps because of the continuous emphasis of the role of business and the private sector which can make an NGO uneasy, -- or maybe it was the speech from Paul Wolfowitz, new President of the World Bank (who has also recently discovered that shock! the average US citizen believes we spend 10% of our national budget on international aid, but we really just spend <1%) – or maybe it was the simplification of poverty in general, where it was emphasized that with increased immediate spending we can end it, while there is also a bigger story to tell about justice – or maybe it was that women and persons of color were a bit too few and far between – our maybe it was just our shared conference fatigue.

But you have to hand it to him, Bill Clinton managed to get the powerhouses of the private sector in one room and have them talk about poverty. The emphasis on Corporate Social Responsibility was clear, and people were eager to use creative approaches to encouraging pro-poor growth through business investment. Many exciting announcements were made such as plans to build cell phone towers in Gaza; start large investment funds to for microfinance; create an insurance fund to protect investments in Gaza; start City Year Louisiana; train journalists in Africa, and many more.

The innovation of the CGI was that all participants that came had to make some sort of commitment – and by the conference’s close, those commitments totaled $1.25 billion. In his closing speech, Clinton focused on religion, citing texts from all the worlds leading faiths on poverty and conflict resolution. It was an impressive ending, where it seemed he truly spoke from his heart, showing a sincere thoughtfulness and dedication. He has effectively used himself as a grand facilitator, using his personal reputation as a table of trust to bring NGOs and the private sector together. As was expressed at the meeting, it can be hard to create these partnerships because one side does not know the other, and each carries false impressions. You can expect to hear from Clinton again, and I think we can all look forward to that.