Clinton Global Initiative Winds Down

By Dan Estabrook - September 26, 2008 What a week it's been. With that said, the Clinton Global Initiative ended today.  In case the event was buried amongst more serious news items and you don't know about it, CGI is Bill Clinton's annual non-partisan conference that serves as a catalyst for action that brings together a community of global leaders from various backgrounds to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Good things (what this blog is all about) came out of the conference.  Among the announced projects that caught my eye are:

• India-based Suzlon Energy said it planned to dedicate $5 billion in funds over the next 10 years to developing clean energy projects that would bring power to 10 million people, largely in India and China
• AREVA and Duke Energy unveiled a joint partnership named ADAGE Biopower, which will build at least 10 wood-waste biomass energy plants in the United States in the next six years
• The PepsiCo Foundation will donate $7.6 million to WaterPartners and the Safe Water Network to provide clean and sanitary drinking water to the developing world
• Procter & Gamble committed to provide $11 million worth of their clean drinking water sachets, or enough to provide a billion liters of clean water to the developing world
• Yum Brands, the corporate parent of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC, unveiled a plan to donate $80 million to the U.N.'s World Food Programme, aimed at providing 200 million meals for school children around the world
• The Seva Foundation announced the launch of the So One Million Eyes See Again campaign, a plan to ramp up cataract surgery technologies at 100 hospitals so that they can perform a million more surgeries per year by 2015
• Wal-Mart and the Environmental Defense Fund are teaming up to take on plastic bag waste. The company will work with the NGO to reduce plastic bag use, increase the recyclability of plastic bags, and educate customers on reusing non-plastic bags for shopping. Together, the campaign aims to cut overall plastic bag use by one-third in the next five years, a potential savings of 9 billion plastic shopping bags per year
• Green Mountain Coffee, a division of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. and Root Capital announced an innovative partnership to improve the financial literacy and management skills of rural-based businesses in Latin America and Africa, which include many of Green Mountain Coffee's coffee suppliers

Both Barack Obama and John McCain spoke, as well as Al Gore -- an all-star cast for sure.  It will be interesting to see the change that these initiatives will bring to the developing world and in solving poverty, improving social welfare, enhancing health and improving education. I will keep you posted... Via GreenBiz.com; Wall Street Journal; New York Times