Hillary Clinton and Ben Affleck team up to eliminate preventable child death
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, actor Ben Affleck, and Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman are all joining together this week for a major conference devoted to preventing childhood death. The U.S., Ethiopian, and Indian governments are the hosts of the two-day Call to Action for Child ...
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, actor Ben Affleck, and Pakistani Ambassador Sherry Rehman are all joining together this week for a major conference devoted to preventing childhood death.
The U.S., Ethiopian, and Indian governments are the hosts of the two-day Call to Action for Child Survival, being held Thursday and Friday at Washington’s Georgetown University. Other notable speakers at the conference include Sen. Johnny Isaakson (R-GA), Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake, the first lady of Mozambique Maria Da Luz Guebuza, Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, and many others.
More than 700 leaders from the private sector, government, and civil society will be there, including representation from more than 80 countries, with over 50 countries represented at the ministerial level.
"Every child deserves to have a fifth birthday and even this year more than seven and a half million children will die before their fifth birthday," Shah told The Cable in an interview.
"We’ve brought together experts around the world to create a new partnership that will be launching to really help eliminate preventable child death," he said. "We think that goal is achievable and we’re having this call to action on Thursday."
The event will follow another large development conference going on in Washington this week. Wednesday was the last of three days in the first annual Frontiers in Development conference, also hosted by USAID at Georgetown.
Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) spoke at the Monday-morning kickoff session of the conference and made a detailed argument in favor of U.S. foreign aid budgets despite the nation’s fiscal woes.
"Amid these financial threats and budgetary realities, it is inevitable that some will question the role of the United States in global development," he said. "But I would assert this morning that development assistance, when properly administered, remains a bargain for U.S. national security and for our own economic and moral standing in the world."
The conference also featured speeches by Joyce Banda, President of Malawi, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, Atifete Jahjaga, President of Kosovo, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Adm. James Stavridis, NSC Senior Director Gayle Smith, former Irish President Mary Robinson, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides, former presidential daughter Barbara P. Bush, and actress Mandy Moore.
"We think development is going through this amazing transformation and it’s a transformation based on absolute demand for results when we spend taxpayer dollars and when we work abroad," Shah told The Cable. "This conference is one step in that direction. It’s intended to bring thought leaders from around the world together."
No taxpayer dollars are being used for the event, Shah said. It’s funded privately by groups such as the Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
"They recognize we are at a pivotal moment where we can either elevate development and make it a serious part of how America projects values abroad in an effort to build a safer and more prosperous world, or we can turn the other way and cede our historic leadership role in this space to other emerging economies in Asia and elsewhere," he said. "It’s our choice."
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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