Afro-Netizen covers the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative: What a difference a year makes

By Mary Dillard
Guest Contributor

On Wednesday morning, I attended the first full day session of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an annual meeting of world leaders, corporate executives, NGO representatives, foundations and research institutions.  Timed to coincide with the opening session of the UN General Assembly, CGI’s goal is to link these various organizations in an effort to direct resources towards sustainable solutions to some of the most vexing global problems. 

This is my second time blogging for Afro-Netizen about CGI.  I attended last year and was impressed by Bill Clinton’s ability to assimilate a wide range of information, to bring disparate perspectives together in the same room and to speak intelligently on a wide range of topics.  Last year, I diligently followed the education panels because I wanted to hear up close and personal about the latest innovations in girls’ education, especially in Africa. 

What a difference a year makes. 

Last year, Clinton sang the praises of Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki for his efforts to provide universal primary education to all of Kenya’s children.  Today, Kenya is still recovering from its own political crisis at the end of 2007 which displaced thousands of families and set the country back tremendously in terms of its educational and development goals.

The opening panel session featured Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Queen Rania al-Abdalla of Jordan, former U2 member and co-founder of the ONE campaign Bono, E. Nevill Isdell the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Coca Cola, and former Vice President Al Gore.  President Clinton heaped praise on President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson for the tremendous growth of Liberia’s GDP since she became Africa’s first female head of state in 2006, after the country ended fourteen years of civil war.  President Sirleaf-Johnson’s background as a senior loan officer at the World Bank has certainly enabled her to tap into the various multinational entities that are interested in participating in Liberia’s postwar recovery. 

Investors have flocked to Liberia because as President Johnson-Sirleaf stated “We are not a poor country, we have tremendous natural resources.”  She argued however, that the country still faces tremendous challenges, particularly in rebuilding infrastructure. In addition, the lack of coordination among donors has hampered smooth implementation of redevelopment efforts. 

Surprisingly, the most fiery speaker of the morning session was former Vice President Al Gore who linked the current economic crisis in the United States to the continuing climate crisis.  Gore suggested that for years, the American public received misinformation about the potential hazards of sub-prime lending practices.  The Vice President argued that similar misinformation is still being spread by entrenched fossil fuel industry interests about the dangers of climate change and suggested that these companies were committing a type of securities fraud by telling investors that their products were not harmful to the environment.  He then called for civil disobedience by young people to fight the building of any new coal burning power plants.

Bono began his statements by pointing out that the U.S. government can find $700 billion to bail out Wall Street, but the entire G-8 can’t find $25 billion to make sure that thousands of children don’t continue to die every day of preventable diseases.

His comments highlight the fact that part of the potential of CGI is that it can help to create the political will to divert more resources to alleviate poverty, bolster global health initiatives, support education and address the question of climate change.  In this respect, CGI is a very important forum for bringing key players together.  However, there also tend to be a lot of contradictions in these types of gatherings.  The winner of today’s “Clueless Africa Comment” prize must go to Bono. 

Addressing Queen Rania al-Abdallah of Jordan as “your majestyness”  he said, “The biggest problems of your continent are three types of extremes: extreme politics, extreme poverty, and extreme ideology.”  He continued, “Take a situation like Darfur.  I’ve been there. There is nothing there.  It’s just dirt.”

Clearly, his point was not well made but his words are also a reminder to many Africa specialists of the problems that arise when moderately informed celebrities end up being the last word on African politics.  First of all, Jordan is NOT in Africa.  Secondly, this kind of language obscures the real roots of political conflicts in Africa, giving the impression that Africans are once again fighting over things that don’t really matter.  Do the people of Darfur think there is nothing there? 

The Chinese government clearly sees something other than dirt in Darfur, or else it would not be continuing to expand its political and economic relationship with the Sudanese government.  Most troubling to me in the many invocations of Darfur that occurred today, was the complete silence on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s largest war to date.  Could it be because Canadian and American companies (among others) are still benefiting from their trade relationships in Congo?

There is obviously a lot of good that can come from this summit.  The rest of the week will feature announcements by CGI partners of funding commitments that they will make this year.  I for one, have returned more skeptical this year and will attend the remaining events hoping to hear more informed analyses about Africa and the Caribbean. 

Mary Dillard is Associate Professor of African History at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.