Obama hunger plan to help, but must seize momentum

by Roberta Rampton, Reuters.

"The Obama administration has the right approach for reducing world hunger but must move quickly on its plan to make food security a central part of its foreign policy by helping the world's poorest farmers.
The administration wants to spend $3.5 billion over the next three years on projects to help farmers get seed, fertilizer, training and access to markets, dovetailing with pledges of more than $22 billion from other countries".

Hunger, agriculture, climate change... the unprecedented attention to the issue from the highest levels of U.S. government.

To Rebrand America, Unbrand Aid

An article by Ruth Levine, further to the great article of Bono (yes, the Singer of U2...) in the New York Times a days ago on "Rebranding america".
"And by appointing a team of people in the National Security Council, the Departments of State and Defense who have spoken out about the central position of development in U.S. foreign policy". Says Bono:
“From a development perspective, you couldn’t dream up a better dream team to pursue peace this way, to rebrand America.”

Women’s Empowerment in developing countries- a central issue to U.S. Foreign Policy

In a video message (you can click the link!), Ambassador for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer underscored the central role women's empowerment and equality play in U.S. foreign policy. Ambassador Verveer said:"Investing in women is one of the most powerful forces for international development and for advancing the causes of peace and security, democracy and prosperity around the world; and, yet, it’s a force that is still significantly untapped. Equality for girls and women isn’t only the right thing to do -- it’s also the smart thing -- for no country can get ahead if half its citizens are left behind. We still have a long way to go before women have equal economic participation, or equal political representation, or access to education and health care, or are free from violence and have the chance to follow their dreams.
http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/entires/womens_empowerment/ (text and video).

The Mount Carmel Training center, in Haifa, Israel, has major activities in the field of women empowerment, in Israel and in developing countries.

Obama's Speech to the United Nations General Assembly, September 23, 2009

Once again, the issue of development is a major component of Obama's speech, in the continuation of Cairo's speech and more recently Accra's speech in Ghana during his visit to African countries.

"At a time of such interdependence, we have a moral and pragmatic interest, however, in broader questions of development -- the questions of development that existed even before this crisis happened. And so America will continue our historic effort to help people feed themselves. We have set aside $63 billion to carry forward the fight against HIV/AIDS, to end deaths from tuberculosis and malaria, to eradicate polio, and to strengthen public health systems. We are joining with other countries to contribute H1N1 vaccines to the World Health Organization. We will integrate more economies into a system of global trade. We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year's summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time".

For the full speech:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/20270/obamas_speech_to_the_united_nations_general_assembly_september_2009.html

Global Food Security: U.S. Commitment to Action

Global Food Security: U.S. Commitment to Action
"The question is not whether we can end hunger, it's whether we will." — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Since the election of Barak Obama and the nomination of H. R. Clinton as Secreatary of State, a lot has been done in the field of international cooperation and engagement with the people of the world. The new media is a major tool used by Obama's administration in order to raise awareness of development issues and completely transform the face of American diplomacy.
Look at this clip by State Department - a good example of use of web 2.0 tools. Here's the youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TToR_NKg4k