AT the Clinton Global Initiative, there are so many people who have so much to say that everyone has to talk fast. In a meeting this morning, the education minister from the United Arab Emirates puts her hand up midway through her speech to stop people clapping. “Please,” she says. “If you applaud then I will run out of time.” Time is money, and the money that gets pledged at the Clinton Initiative goes further than your average dollar.
Previous commitments made at this annual Davos-with-a-purpose add up to an impressive list of achievements in overcoming poverty and promoting development.
We’re proud of what we’re doing but with people’s support we can do a lot more. That’s why we’re here. So are about thirty presidents and prime ministers and hundreds of business leaders. The opening session sees Lance Armstrong, Al Gore, Michael Bloomberg, Queen Rania of Jordan, Bono, and more — and Clinton himself. It’s impressive. These people could be talking about a lot of other things but here they are talking about how they can make things better in their world, and doing something about it. George Soros is sitting just in front of me. Down near the front are Gerry Adams and Hamid Karzai. Suddenly Muhammad Ali is picked up by the camera in the audience and appears on the big screen. It quickly all feels quite normal.
Later we sit down with our friends from Oxfam to put the finishing touches to the In My Name event — a big new push to raise the voices of people around the world calling for action on poverty.
It’s looking good — will.i.am, the lead singer of the Black Eyed Peas, has recorded a brilliant song especially for the event. As always, the devil is in the detail. Someone realized that when celebrities sign their names on the huge piece of see-through plastic at the climax of the event, the watching journalists on the other side of the perspex will see it all back to front. That means Bono comes out as Onob, which is obviously not ideal.
