THE CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE AND GLOBAL URBAN DEVELOPMENT
During September 15-17, 2005, in New York City, former U.S. President Clinton hosted the inaugural meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, a large gathering of world leaders that coincided with the special session of the United Nations General Assembly to review the five-year progress of the Millennium Development Goals. The Clinton Global Initiative is organized to address four worldwide challenges in the 21st Century: 1) Climate Change; 2) Global Public Health; 3) The Escape from Poverty; and 4) Religion, Conflict, and Reconciliation.
Global Urban Development was invited by President Clinton to participate actively in the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). Dr. Marc A. Weiss, Global Urban Development Chairman and CEO, was one of the 800 participants at the inaugural meeting of the CGI, along with three other people affiliated with GUD: Gregory Casagrande, President of the South Pacific Business Development Foundation in New Zealand and a member of the GUD Board of Directors; Dr. Hernando De Soto, President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru and a member of the GUD Advisory Board; and Professor Muhammad Yunus, Managing Director of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and a member of the GUD Advisory Board.
In addition, the CGI has selected Global Urban Development's Community Productivity Project as one of the projects it is supporting under the theme of Escape from Poverty. To view this commitment, please visit the CGI website at http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org. To see a PDF version of the Commitment Announcement from the March 2006 CGI Mid-Year Meeting, click here. A public announcement of this commitment was made at the CGI meeting, and GUD was awarded with a CGI Commitment Certificate. The Community Productivity Project will be done together with the United Nations under the Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and global development partnerships. The next four paragraphs describe the Community Productivity Project in more detail:
INCLUSIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: TREATING PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES AS ASSETS
THE COMMUNITY PRODUCTIVITY PROJECT
POVERTY REDUCTION THROUGH INCLUSIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
An
old adage states: “Give a person a fish, and he or she will eat for a day.
Teach a person to fish, and he or she can eat for a lifetime.” Public
policies for reducing poverty reflect these two approaches, providing either
subsidies or training. But what if most low-income people are already
“fishing” by working diligently to produce and distribute goods and
services, yet they simply are not earning enough? If this is the real
problem, then it calls for comprehensive solutions based on “inclusive
economic development strategies” with mainstream society actively supporting
the efforts of low-income people to enhance their incomes, productive
capabilities, and entrepreneurial opportunities. Global Urban Development, founded on the principle of “Treating People and
Communities as Assets,” is launching the Community Productivity Project together with the
Shack/Slum Dwellers International and the United Nations. The Community
Productivity Project
is designed to establish a new policy paradigm by documenting how productive
low-income people are, how hard they work, how much value they create, and
the close relationships of their economic activities to the formal economic
system.
Global
Urban Development will conduct the Community Productivity Project in partnership with
Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP), and the United Nations Human Settlements
Program (UN-HABITAT), under the framework of the Millennium Development
Goals, specifically the goal to “Eradicate extreme
poverty and hunger” by the year 2015, along with Goal 7, Target 11, “Have
achieved by 2020 a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100
million slum dwellers.” The Community Productivity Project will
be conducted in four urban low-income communities around the world over a
three-year period: Cape Town, South Africa; Mumbai (Bombay), India; Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil; and London, U.K. In each case a lead local partner will work with many
other local, regional, national, and international stakeholders. The Community Productivity Project
will develop a new template of Community Productivity Indicators to help
educate the world about the real economic potential represented by
low-income people. Further, the Community Productivity Project will use its community-based research
process as the catalyst for designing and implementing inclusive economic
development strategies in these same low-income communities. This project
will help move global poverty reduction policies toward generating environmentally sustainable prosperity, innovation, productivity, and
quality of life that includes and benefits everyone.
Former Executive Mayor Nomaindia
Mfeketo of Cape Town, South Africa supports the Community Productivity Project to help reduce poverty
and encourage development in her city. During the apartheid regime, her
mother created a livelihood by selling fruits and vegetables, yet according
to official statistics, she was unemployed. Her family received no help
from government; indeed, they were hampered by regulations. Policies
recognizing the economic contributions of the millions of people like Mayor
Mfeketo’s mother, by assisting rather than hindering their efforts, will
foster much higher rates of economic growth.
The Community Productivity Project will be
conducted in two phases. Phase One will record the economic activity in
low-income communities and demonstrate the value that low-income people
contribute to the global economy through Community Productivity Indicators. In Phase Two,
Inclusive Economic
Development Strategies will strengthen the linkages of low-income people and
communities to the formal economy, market their skills more effectively, and
identify better ways to coordinate investment, infrastructure, services,
regulations, taxes, and other tools to promote greater production and higher
incomes.
Click here for the Community Productivity Project
proposal.