Bill Clinton has 1,000 pledges to aid world's poor

from Reuters India

By Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK, Bill Clinton's philanthropic summit has spurred nearly 1,000 commitments in the past three years from business, nonprofit and government leaders that aim to improve the lives of 200 million of the world's poor.

In a mid-year update of his Clinton Global Initiative summit held each September, Clinton gave a progress report of the commitments, including one by Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N.'s climate science panel.

"He has a little idea with massive potential implications," Clinton said about Pachauri's CGI commitment, "Lighting a Million Lives in India." Since the agreement, Pachauri's nonprofit group, called The Energy and Resources Institute, has brought 30,000 solar-powered lanterns to 300 Indian villages.

The lanterns allow children to study and adults to work past sunset in rural India, where some 78 million homes lack electricity, while eliminating unhealthy kerosene lantern fumes as well as greenhouse gas emissions.

The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) commitments focus on education, climate, health and poverty alleviation. Some 200 have already been completed, CGI said.

Other commitments range from $100,000 in support by the Hashoo Foundation for women beekeepers in Pakistan to a estimated $1.5 million in support from the United Methodist Church to fight malaria in the Ivory Coast with insecticide-treated nets.

Donning glasses to read the details of one of the commitments, Clinton said, "George Washington once said, 'I'm going blind for my country,' and I'm going blind for my candidate." It was Clinton's only reference to his wife Hillary's presidential campaign during the New York event.

CGI pledges are not required to lay out a minimum amount of money, but they are binding in a sense: parties that do not live up to them are barred from the annual summit, a glitzy mix of global leaders and celebrities.

Visa Inc on Friday made the CGI's first commitment of 2008, pledging to increase financial literacy for 10 million people over five years.

"Our products are very useful tools in enabling the unbanked to enter the formal financial system," said Doug Michelman, head of global corporate relations for Visa. He said the products can be used for small loans or salary payments, allowing people to avoid check cashing fees.

The company, which went public last month, did not reveal how much money it planned to commit.