"Urgent Action - Ask Your Senators to cosponsor the Global Poverty Act" -- from Bread for the World

Ask your senators to cosponsor the Global Poverty Act (S.2433) and pass the legislation before the end of this congressional session. Call 1-800-826-3688 as soon as possible but no later than July 25.

[Note: This toll-free number will connect you to the Capitol switchboard, where you will ask to be connected to your senator's office in order to leave your message. Find out who your senators are.]

Please cosponsor the Global Poverty Act. (If your senator is already a cosponsor--click here for the list--your talking points will be different. Read the list of talking points for senators who have signed on as cosponsors.)

With time running out on the legislative calendar, Senate leadership needs to see a robust list of cosponsors to move this important bill to the floor.

The Global Poverty Act seeks to bring clarity, coordination, and accountability to our foreign assistance programs. It has already passed through the House and has bipartisan support in the Senate.

The act would require the president to develop and implement a coordinated strategy of U.S. aid, debt relief, and trade policies to meet the goal of cutting by half the number of people who live on less than $1 a day by 2015.

Background

As Congress approaches the end of the current legislative session, the Global Poverty Act (S. 2433) still awaits passage by the full Senate. This bill must be passed before the session ends, or the process will have to start all over again in the next Congress. The Global Poverty Act has already passed the full House and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; it is now time to push Senate leadership to move this bill to the floor for full Senate consideration.

The best way to make the case to leadership that the Global Poverty Act should be considered by the full Senate is to have a strong bipartisan list of senators cosponsoring the legislation. Presently, the bill has been cosponsored by 24 senators. To see if your Senator is already a cosponsor, click here.

The Global Poverty Act seeks to bring clarity, coordination, and accountability to our foreign assistance programs. Currently, U.S. global development policies and programs are scattered across more than 25 different federal agencies. Increased coordination is sorely needed to be more effective. The act would require the president to develop and implement a coordinated strategy of U.S. aid, debt relief, and trade policies to meet the goal of cutting by half the number of people who live on less than $1 a day by 2015. The legislation would require regular reports to Congress on U.S. efforts to fight extreme poverty.

The Global Poverty Act does not establish any new programs. Instead, it highlights the fact that extreme poverty won't be solved by aid alone, but needs to be supported by good trade policy, debt cancellation, and public-private partnerships. These functions are currently scattered across the U.S. government. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the bill would cost less than $1 million to implement.

The Global Poverty Act (H.R. 1302) was introduced in the House of Representatives by Reps. Adam Smith (D-WA) and Spencer Bachus (R-AL) and collected 84 bipartisan cosponsors before it was passed on September 25, 2007. The Senate bill, S. 2433, was passed by the Foreign Relations Committee earlier this year and awaits the full approval of the Senate.

Thanks to EGR advocacy team member Madeleine Beard for forwarding this alert from Bread.

Bread for the World president David Beckmann on Bill Moyers

Yesterday, PBS aired a wonderful Bill Moyers interview with the Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World about the challenges of combating hunger.

Beckmann is an amazing guy. He's been president of Bread for 15 years, leading large-scale and successful campaigning to strengthen U.S. political commitment to overcoming hunger and poverty. Before that, he served at the World Bank for 15 years, overseeing large projects and driving innovations to make the Bank more effective in reducing poverty.

Beckmann is also president of Bread for the World Institute, which does research and education on hunger-related issues, including agriculture and trade policy. He founded and serves as president of the Alliance to End Hunger, which engages diverse U.S. institutions – Muslim and Jewish groups, corporations, unions and universities – in building political will to end hunger.

The conversation is worth a watch, listen or read.

Watch it streaming on your desktop here.

Listen to the podcast here.

Read the transcript here.

Going to Cornerstone? Volunteer for ONE!

Are you considering going to the Christian rock extravaganza known as Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, IL June 27-30? Cornerstone will be an excellent opportunity to reach hundreds of people with the message of Bread for the World and the ONE Campaign!

Cornerstone's organizers say of the Festival:

"This event called Cornerstone Festival is far more than a massive musical experience. It is more than a collection of hundreds of solo artists and bands representing every style and sub-genre on the current musical landscape. It is more than a gathering of expert thinkers and speakers offering over twenty separate seminar tracks on an amazingly diverse range of subjects. It is more than the sum of its parts, as is the body of Christ.

Cornerstone Festival is the annual gathering of a community of believers that is spread out all over the world. From young children to senior citizens, Christians of all ethnicities and backgrounds migrate to a patch of 500 acres in central Illinois for four days of fellowship, entertainment, education and edification. One way of looking at Cornerstone is to see it as a continuation of a Jesus movement that began in the first century and remains a beacon of joy and spirit as we move into the next millennium."

If you are thinking about attending the Festival and would like to do volunteer outreach with Bread for the World and the ONE Campaign, please send me an email, and we can discuss the details.

Peace,

Annie Gill-Bloyer
ONE Campaign Faith Outreach Organizer
Bread for the World – IL/IN/MO
1-800-4470-BFW
agillbloyer@bread.org
www.bread.org/one