New York – Former President Clinton and first lady Laura Bush kicked off Clinton’s annual summit of world political and business leaders Wednesday by collecting pledges for hundreds of millions of dollars in funds and programs to combat global ills.
Among the largest commitments was $500 million from the group Opportunity International to help 50 million poor people work their way out of poverty by 2012. The pledge is part of the group’s goal to raise $1 billion for 100 million people in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
The Clinton Global Initiative “was designed to tackle big global challenges in bite-sized pieces,” Clinton said. “While we certainly like commitments with lots of zeros behind them, when you consider the hundreds that were made and kept over this past year, some of those with smaller budgets had very large impacts indeed.”
The more than 1,000 people attending the initiative at a Manhattan hotel included the leaders of nonprofit groups, philanthropic tycoons Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan, and about 50 current and former heads of state.
Others expected include former President Carter, cycling champion Lance Armstrong and News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch.
This year’s three-day initiative is a series of workshops and meetings intended to produce beneficial commitments in four areas: energy and climate change, reducing poverty, resolving religious and ethnic conflicts, and global health.
Last year’s inaugural summit fetched more than 300 pledges worth $2.5 billion in funds and programs.
On Wednesday, Laura Bush announced the first commitment of the 2006 summit, a $16.4 million investment – $10 million from two U.S. aid agencies over three years and the rest from two foundations – to bring clean-water pumping systems to sub-Saharan Africa.
