I’ve gone hot and cold with President Clinton. I loved him when he came into office, supported him throughout the Monica Lewinsky crisis and became upset with him when he left office for not pardoning my friend Webb Hubbell. Although I was disappointed with him for the Monica crisis, I am now amazed at the work he is doing for the world. Like most human beings, he is a mixed bag. Like many of us, his weakness is also his strength. This week, President Clinton’s weakness for women of all kinds showed up as his great strength. His Clinton Global Initiative, which took place in New York, focused on the needs of women and a commitment to empower girls around the world.

The best thing about his annual conference is that those attending must make a public commitment as to what they are willing to do for others. It is a commitment of time, money and resources. During the five years of his annual conferences, people and organizations that have attended have committed billions of dollars.

The facts that President Clinton presented are not pretty. “Women perform 66 percent of the world’s work and produce 50 percent of the food, yet earn only 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent property,” he said. It turns out that when women receive pay, she will reinvest 90 percent back into her family, compared to men who only reinvest 35 percent. This fact became crystal clear to me when I visited the slums of Kenya in 1994 and saw shacks with no running water and no electricity. One large shack, which functioned as the local bar ,was filled with all male drinkers in the middle of the day. The women were washing at the well, and the men were drinking.

For every year of education, residents of the third world increase their earning power by 10 percent. Paul Farmer, a doctor who has built clinics around the world, said that more than one billion people lack safe drinking water, two billion people lack basic sanitation and women represent two-thirds of the world’s illiterate.

These facts mean that just a little bit of empowerment can mean a huge difference in people’s lives, especially women. Amazing results have occurred with President Clinton’s Initiative through small programs which were created by people with an idea and mission. I met many individuals this week who were moved to do something and did not wait for a large organization to send a pitch letter. These people just saw a need and began a small organization to make something happen. The creativity and the business models presented were not charity as much as they were empowerment and sustainability.

All for Africa is a Non-Government Organization, or NGO, that I invested in because they have a business model for investing in the continent. Using a large donated track of land in Ghana, it plants palm trees. It take three years for the plants to produce palm oil, and after the initial investment by a non profit for the planting and care of the trees they produced the equivalent of that investment for the next 25 or 30 years. Their theory is that many mission-minded people can raise the money to build a school or orphanage but do not have the money to sustain it.

There are handicraft cooperatives that train women to make baskets and bead jewelry and then work with stores such as Macy’s to sell the work. This allows small groups of women to market and merchandise their work in a broader world market. Shoe4Africa began by sending shoes to Africa so women could begin to run. They organize races and have used their contact with women to promote AIDS education and awareness. Something simple such as Sustainable Health Enterprise provides access to eco-friendly sanitary pads. That reduces pelvic disease and increases school attendance, which increases economic growth. Other programs train nurses and increase the number of women attending college with a major in business. Every one of these programs gives the women a hand up not a hand out, as former President Clinton says. It is a far cry from the foreign aid that many of us grew up with.

The Clinton Initiative is making a huge difference in the lives of women and girls. It proves that our personal difficulties can turn into our greatest assets, and President Clinton is a wonderful example of how that can work. It is a testament to his life and work.

Former President Bill Clinton today kicked off the Clinton Global Initiative Plenary Session on Women. He entered to Also sprach Zarathustra, the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. He started by giving some facts and figures about Sub-Saharan Africa and HIV, saying that getting HIV is like walking along and then suddenly having a concrete block dropped on you. He said these girls and young women are the best ambassadors because even though they have been sexually abused they refuse to live their lives as victims.

Clinton said that women do 66% of world’s work, but they produce 10% of the world’s income and own only 1% of the world’s property. 40% of the three billion people who work are women and 70% of agricultural labor is performed by women, but women lack independence. He also said that investing in women’s health could increase productivity in Africa by fifteen billion dollars per year.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a commitment to Rwanda and talked about how women have been active there. Bloomberg said he is involved in Southern Sudan and Congo, working with an organization called Women for Women. It is an attempt to get women to contribute to their countries.

President Barack Obama’s Ambassador At-Large for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer, said that empowering women combats extremism.

Ambassador Robert Zoellick said that he is trying to help with the Adolescent Girls Initiative, an organization that hopes to work with 3,000 girls and mentor them to make sure that education is connected to a job.

Zainab Salbi talked about wars and children. She said 80% of refugees in the world are women and children. Even after rape these women succeed because they have children. They are the ones who are keeping the children going to school. The only group of people who are keeping a society going are women, and they do not have a seat at the table and they are not being heard.

Rex Tillerson from Exxon Mobil talked about technologies. He said low technologies can impact on a local level. He said they are working on what types of technologies work.

Edna Ismail was the first nurse practitioner in Somalia. She said they do not even need advanced technology. The age that a woman marries and nutrition are important to overall health. Genital cutting information is not reaching the grandmothers and people who have kept this tradition. Senegal has passed a law outlawing this, but a law does not change behavior on a village level.

Diane Sawyer asked what the biggest failure was, and Zainab Salbi asked said it was a challenge. But girls at the age of nine get cows as a dowry. She said you must be able to educate women so that there is incentive for women to be educated so they are more valuable to the family than cows.

There are a million young women in the sex trade. The United States passed one of the first laws to prevent human trafficking. It is hopeful because the business community is getting involved. One cent of every development dollar goes to girls.

Some programs make the payments directly to women, such as incentives to go to school. Must turn incentives so that the legal structure reflects the situation.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation Tuesday that seeks to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

Former President Bill Clinton emailed Nadler mid way through the press conference and Nadler read off President’s opinion. (0:34)

 

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Former President Bill Clinton explains why he feels it is a great time to be young in America, and praises President Obama and Congress. However, he also warns that the public should realize how difficult the issues facing America are and “cut them some slack” if they make mistakes “along the way. (0:39)

 

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Minutes before attending a White House conference to honor LGBT Pride Month, Stonewall Riot veteran Jerry Hoose says that he will give President Barack Obama the “benefit of the doubt.” He says the has been disappointed in the past by politicians such as Bill Clinton failing to follow through on promises to the gay community. (0:49)

 

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Former President Bill Clinton opened up about the 2008 election Tuesday evening, stating that he never doubted a Democrat would win the Presidency.

“I remember on the morning of the [2006 mid-term elections] I told Hillary ‘if we don’t nominate a convicted felon, we’re going to win’. The Democratic nominee will be the president of the United States,” said Clinton during a gala honoring retiring Democratic Leadership Council founder Al From.

The former President credited the shift in U.S. culture as an important aspect of President Barack Obama’s 2008 victory.

“We’re not a bi-racial country anymore, we’re a multi-racial country. We don’t have time to do anything or celebrate our differences,” Clinton explained. “We are wholly intolerant now of the staples of American politics for much of the last 40 years.”

He expressed his gratitude for Obama’s acceptance of a number of projects from the Clinton era, including extending the community service group AmeriCorp and providing a national loan program to make college more accessible. He also touched upon the challenges facing the Obama administration.

“I think we’re going to get a health reform bill. I’ve been waiting all my life for this. I think we’ll be able to get one that has some republican support that won’t be filibustered. But if we just have universal coverage without doing something to break the cost spiral, five years from now we won’t have universal coverage anymore because we won’t be able to afford it,” said Clinton.

Former President Bill Clinton explains why he believes President Barack Obama’s election was possible. He says the United States is no longer a biracial country, but that the U.S. is instead a multi-racial country. He also says that the American people are intolerant of the staples of traditional politics. (0:17)

 

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Former President Bill Clinton explains that he knew the Democrats would win the Presidential election in 2008. He said he told Hillary that if the Democrats didn’t nominate a convicted felon then the nation would elect a Democrat for President. He also said that the culture of the country has shifted, and as a result people believe in the promise of their country again. (0:29)

 

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Former President Bill Clinton says that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his wife, wants to revolutionize foreign aid. According to Clinton, half of all foreign aid is spent within the U.S. before going over-seas. (0:18)

 

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Former President Bill Clinton says he believes the U.S. is going to have a health reform bill soon. He said if the U.S. has universal coverage we must do something to break the “cost spiral”. Otherwise, it would be too costly to continue for more than five years. (0:42)

 

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