From Tuesday, April 28 through Thursday, May 7, President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton will visit the sites of several Clinton Foundation projects and CGI Commitments to Action that are improving the lives of thousands of people across Africa, concluding with the Clinton Global Initiative Middle East & Africa Meeting (CGI MEA) in Morocco.
This trip will highlight many of the issues that the Clinton Foundation has long worked on — economic growth and empowerment, climate change, empowering women and girls and global health and conservation. President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton will visit projects from the Clinton Development Initiative, the Clinton Global Initiative, and convene a conversation of No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project. President and Chelsea Clinton will also visit projects of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, an independent, affiliated initiative.
In 1998, President Clinton took an 11-day trip to Africa – the longest visit by a sitting American President at that time. President Clinton’s trip followed a trip that Chelsea and then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton made the year before. In May 2000, he signed the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which led to a new era of opportunity for African countries by enabling deeper trade and investment ties. He also pushed for larger and faster debt relief through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative.
Additionally, the Clinton Administration invested heavily in the global fight against AIDS and Tuberculosis. Since then, exports under AGOA have increased more than 500 percent, reaching $53.8 billion as of 2011.
Since their initial trips, President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton have continued to build upon their longstanding commitment to Africa through the work of the Clinton Foundation, providing investment, opportunity, and health access to underserved communities. In July 2012, both President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton traveled to Africa to visit Clinton Foundation and CHAI projects in South Africa, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Uganda, and in October 2012, Chelsea visited Nigeria for the launch of the Nigerian government’s Save One Million Lives Initiative to reduce child mortality. In 2013, President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton returned, visiting Clinton Foundation and CHAI projects in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania (including Zanzibar), Rwanda, and South Africa marking President Clinton’s ninth trip to the continent since leaving office.
PROGRAM VISITS – SUBJECT TO CHANGE
Some of the Clinton Foundation’s work on this visit will include:
ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
The Anchor Farm Project is a commercial farm in Tanzania operated by the Clinton Development Initiative (CDI). Upon taking over, CDI introduced improved seeds, fertilizer, and liming, a spraying procedure that increases soil pH and fertility. Due to CDI’s efforts, 1,000 acres of crop have been planted and are expected to produce 5-6 ton yields—compared to the 30 acres that were planted in the past. CDI also restored and revamped all of the buildings on the property. Additionally CDI also supports thousands of neighboring smallholder farmers by providing them with access to quality inputs for maize and soy production as well as training and market access. The project’s farmers have access to improved seeds and to training in advanced agronomic techniques.
Members of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) have made 1,018 commitments that include Africa in their geographic scope and 498 that designed to help Africa exclusively. These have a total estimated value of $35.4 billion. The largest portion of these commitments is addressing global health and empowering women and girls. This trip will highlight several of these commitments including:
The Solar Sisters program which empowers women in Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Uganda to be entrepreneurs. These women generate income by selling environmentally friendly products in their community, such as solar lights and cookstoves. Solar Sisters connects these women to training opportunities, and micro-financing groups to increase savings and investment.
Wings to Fly, a CGI Commitment to Action in Kenya, was launched in 2010 by Equity Bank Limited and the MasterCard Foundation. The commitment aims to build the financial capacity and entrepreneurship of youth and women throughout the country. The program expands access to financial services to young people, ensures gender equity, and provides transformative leadership training. Since it was launched, Wings to Fly has provided 10,000 secondary students with training, with 98 percent of those students graduating secondary school and 94 percent going on to college.
GLOBAL HEALTH
The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) supports the government of Tanzania in a program that procures the pneumonia and rotavirus (the leading cause of diarrhea) vaccines. The program has strengthened the supply chain for these vaccines, and ensures that they are effective by keeping them at the proper temperatures from delivery to health facility storage.
CHAI has been supporting the government of Liberia in combatting HIV/AIDS, improving maternal and child health, and overall health system strengthening for the past decade. They also provided integral support during Ebola epidemic, including assisting the Ministry of Health in selecting and prioritizing items of the greatest need, placing orders for essential drugs to jumpstart essential health services, and coordinating supply chains. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) also played a critical role as they coordinated members for early support for Ebola, including securing the delivery of medical equipment and supplies.
EMPOWERING WOMEN & GIRLS
At the 2014 CGI Annual Meeting, Secretary Clinton announced a Clinton Foundation collaboration of more than 30 companies, civil society organizations, multilaterals and governments to improve learning and leadership opportunities for young women and girls. This collective effort, CHARGE – Collaborative for Harnessing Ambition and Resources for Girls’ Education – has committed over $600 million dollars to reach 14 million girls over five years. In Kenya, President and Chelsea Clinton will visit a school that is a part of the CHARGE initiative and lead a conversation on participation of women and girls globally, as part of the Clinton Foundation’s No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project.
CONSERVATION
The Partnership to Save Africa’s Elephants is a CGI Commitment to Action launched in 2013 by Save the Elephants and other partners to prevent further elephant poaching by directly targeting the chief drivers of poaching. This commitment has facilitated anti-poaching enforcement in Africa, supported efforts to crack down on international ivory markets, and raise awareness of the impact and risks of ivory sales to the survival of the African elephant. A key component of the innovative technology Save the Elephants created is a tracking system which uses GPS collars and technology to monitor elephants’ hourly movements and uploads it into a system which can be accessed anywhere with internet access. This way they can monitor if the elephant is moving too fast, which could indicate they are being chased by a poacher, or if they have stopped moving which could indicate injury or death. This technology has given Save the Elephants a major advance in terms of combating poaching.
