When former US President Bill Clinton summoned world leaders to the inaugural meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI -- www.clintonglobalinitiative.org) in New York last September, the invitation came with one notable string attached.
Mindful that the event would be viewed by some as just another high-level global networking session, Clinton upped the ante by asking each participant to come ready to make a specific pledge, in writing, for action on one of four agenda items: poverty, religious conflict, climate change and governance.
Timed to coincide with the opening of the UN General Assembly, the gathering convened a global A-list crowd that one observer said resembled "Clinton's Palm Pilot come to life" -- current and former heads of state, business executives, key NGO representatives, religious leaders, noted academicians, and celebrity activists.
Through a series of panels and roundtable discussions, participants examined the four sets of challenges framed by Clinton and brainstormed possible solutions. Meanwhile, Clinton worked behind the scenes to persuade the assembled decision-makers to commit themselves and their resources to his vision of mobilizing private sector support for global development.
"One of the things that differentiates this conference from many other 'talking shops' is its absolute, bottom-line focus on results," said Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of the global nonprofit venture fund, the Acumen Fund (www.acumenfund.org). Novogratz, a CGI advisory board member and Synergos Senior Fellow, was a panelist in a CGI session on pro-poor investment strategy, moderated by Paul Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Indeed, by the end of the three-day event, participants had sponsored and agreed to fund more than 200 separate projects valued in excess of $2 billion. (See box at right for highlights of commitments announced at CGI.)
"I had high hopes for the meeting, but the results have been even better than I imagined," Clinton said in transmitting CGI's first progress report in February 2006. He has agreed to continue sponsoring CGI annually for 10 years. The next meeting will be held in New York on September 20-22, 2006.
While some pledges appeared to be a repackaging of efforts already underway, and details on others remain hazy, the strong response suggested a growing demand for new models of global cooperation and problem-solving.
"I think this is what's so great about this initiative -- we have to give opportunities for people who want to do something to do it, people who may have different interests, knowledge, and capacities," said Kemal Dervis, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). "We have to have a decentralized network of activities where people can really engage in development...and that will support the overall official effort for more resources, better trade policies, and more cooperation." said Dervis, who was a panelist in a CGI session on new approaches to aid, trade and debt relief.
At each day's plenary session, Clinton announced the latest commitments and called sponsors up to the stage of the New York Hilton to accept their signed pledges. While many of these efforts had been carefully orchestrated in advance, some emerged spontaneously out of the creative ferment of the event.
One such example was the partnership forged during the conference by Nike Foundation (www.nikefoundation.org) president Maria Eitel, to create an action agenda to champion the fate of girls in the developing world. The project was a collaboration between Nike Foundation, the UN Foundation, the Washington, DC-based International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), and C.K. Prahalad, University of Michigan professor, corporate strategist and author of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
The pledge arose as a natural outgrowth of the Nike Foundation's work to empower girls as a means for sustainable development in poor communities around the world. (See related article with update on the work of the foundation.) For Eitel, the conference presented an opportunity to expand her foundation's work by raising awareness about the role of girls in the social and economic life of communities around the world.
"I was inspired by CGI, which brought together a huge group of influential people," said Eitel. The question for Eitel was: How can we get adolescent girls on their agenda? During one of CGI's breakout sessions on poverty, Eitel happened to be seated at a discussion table that included Geeta Rao Gupta, president of ICRW, and Prahalad.
Following presentations by a panel of speakers including UNDP's Dervis, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, participants were asked to come up with specific recommendations for action.
"I was sitting there thinking that the speakers were moving and inspirational," recalls the ICRW's Gupta, "but while ninety percent of the examples cited involved investments in women, no one had mentioned the word ”?women.'"
This was a critical omission, said Gupta, since "we know now that when you invest in poor women, you get a high rate of return." As the discussion went around the table, Prahalad added that he would go a step further and say that economic development can't occur without investment in women and girls. Recognizing that a new kind of commitment was needed to get girls on the global development agenda, Eitel, Gupta and Prahalad kept the conversation going after the session ended.
Eitel stepped in with a pledge of $1 million from the Nike Foundation to start a campaign on the value of investing in adolescent girls in developing countries. Gupta, Prahalad and the UN Foundation signed on to support the partnership, with the UN Foundation bringing another $250,000 to the table. Eitel then scrambled to get an agreement prepared and signed to present to President Clinton before the end of the conference.
On the final day of the meeting, the new campaign made its debut as President Clinton called Eitel, Gupta and Prahalad to the podium to acknowledge the partnership's pledge.
"We all know that in the developing world, an extra year of education, for example, can lead to a permanent lifetime increase in earning capacity of 10 to 15 percent a year, and that girls are the most likely to be left out of this," Clinton. "So any kind of grassroots development program that results in more girls having a chance to get equal access to schools -- and ultimately to the workplace -- will lead to a more sustainable population and a more just society in addition to a more profitable and productive one."
Each member of the partnership brings something valuable: Nike's communications savvy and brand recognition worldwide; the UN Foundation's access to global leaders; Prahalad's management and marketing expertise; and ICRW's data and technical skills. Eitel said the partners are fleshing out details of the campaign and seeking support from additional sponsors.
Meanwhile, Clinton faces the challenge of making sure that the commitments made at the meeting are fulfilled and the promised projects move forward. For this, CGI has hired a staff of 10 to monitor the projects, and will rely primarily on four former officials from Clinton's administration who helped organize the conference.
To ensure that the partnerships forged last September move forward, CGI staff are keeping in touch with project sponsors to monitor progress and provide support. Letters have gone out to the Nike Foundation and other sponsors of CGI commitments to inquire about the need for assistance, and all pledge sponsors have been asked to submit a report for next year's CGI meeting.
"I go to a lot of conferences, and I expected good networking, but little else to come out of it," said ICRW's Gupta, whose expectations were exceeded by the end of the three-day CGI meeting. "I ended up being very impressed by the format and the way the event was organized." By design, CGI gave the projects and partnerships that were launched greater visibility, and a broader network of support.
"Every single thing we've done that is a success is because of the quality of our partners," said Gupta. "I'm a great believer in partnership, and that's what the CGI is all about ."
CGI bottom line: a focus on results
President Clinton's call for pledges of action from the private sector to address poverty, religious conflict, climate change and governance in developing countries has yielded nearly 300 commitments valued at more than $2 billion.
Nonprofits represented the biggest source of funding (39% of the pledges, or $970 million), followed by corporations (30%) and individuals (12%). The greatest percentage of funds went to address poverty (39%) and climate change (36%).
Some of the commitments are fully funded, others are actively seeking funding and are listed on the CGI website, www.clintonglobalinitiative.org.
Following are some highlights of the pledges made during the inaugural meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.
Mohammed Ibrahim, chairman of CelTel, which provides mobile communications in 13 sub-Saharan African countries, pledged to establish a $100 million private enterprise fund to support socially responsible African development. The Sudanese native says profits will be reinvested to develop infrastructure in Africa and create social dividends.
Elizabeth Funk, vice chair of Unitus, and Maria Otero, president of Acción International, committed to working together to deliver microfinance services to 15 million of India's underprivileged people by 2015. Bangalore's first microfinance center was opened in October 2005.
Tom Hunter, knighted in 2005 for services to philanthropy and entrepreneurship in Scotland, committed to invest $100 million over the next decade to create a successful model for sustainable development in an as-yet unidentified country in Africa. Hunter was a major supporter of the Band Aid and Make Poverty History campaigns.
Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund, a global nonprofit venture fund that serves people living on less than $4 a day, pledged to commit up to $1 million during the conference to deliver clean water, health and housing to the poor; that amount was matched dollar-for-dollar by Cisco Systems and the Sapling Foundation at the CGI meeting.
Swiss Re, one of the world's largest reinsurers, has pledged to facilitate emissions reductions in greenhouse gases by developing a Greenhouse Gas Risk Solutions unit and by offering structured products for emissions trading. The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCE) has agreed to serve as a trader on the exchange. CCE is a greenhouse gas emission reduction and trading pilot program for emission reduction and offset projects in the US, Canada, and Mexico.