President Bill Clinton and Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton will host the 11th Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting on September 26-29 in New York City.
More than 1,000 of the most influential leaders from philanthropy, business, government, and civil society will assemble at this year’s meeting, themed “The Future of Impact,” to define the next decade of solving global challenges and highlight the necessary next steps for accelerating progress going forward. Announced today are initial participants and attendees as well as session highlights.
Coinciding with the United Nations’ new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), members of the CGI community will explore how to take action on timely issues such as climate change, women’s equality, and global health at this pivotal time in philanthropy and international development.
President Clinton established CGI, an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, to convene global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions through the creation of Commitments to Action – new, specific, measurable plans to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. To date, members of the CGI community have made more than 3,200 Commitments to Action which have improved the lives of over 430 million people in more than 180 countries.
In the past year alone, CGI members have worked together to respond to and address a wide range of critical issues from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the Syrian refugee crisis to improving infrastructure and spurring youth employment through social enterprise in the United States, among others.
At the beginning of its 10th anniversary last September, CGI completed an analysis of Commitments to Action made by members of the CGI community from 2005 through 2013 in order to help commitment-makers be more effective and efficient in their work. Drawing on an update of that analysis, CGI’s Annual Meeting will explore “The Future of Impact” with sessions that highlight innovative, new approaches to global challenges, as well as feature proven solutions that can be adapted, replicated, and scaled to help members do their work as effectively as possible.
President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton will be joined by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; Joyce Banda, Former President of the Republic of Malawi; Ehud Barak, Former Prime Minister of the State of Israel; Sangeeta Bhatia, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Deborah L. Birx, Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator, Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, U.S. Department of State; Irina Bokova, Secretary-General, UNESCO; Richard Branson, Founder Virgin Group & Virgin Unite; Jim Brett, President, West Elm; Ursula M. Burns, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Corporation; Kathy Calvin, President and CEO, United Nations Foundation; Awa Marie Coll-Seck, Minister of Health, Republic of Senegal; Robert Collymore, Chief Executive Officer, Safaricom Limited; Bernice Dahn, Minister of Health, Republic of Liberia; Ted Danson, Actor, Member of the Board of Directors, Oceana; Philippe Douste-Blazy, Chairman, UNITAID; Sylvia Earle, Founder and Chairman, The Sylvia Earle Alliance and National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence; José Maria Figueres Olsen, Former President of the Republic of Costa Rica; Tin Ma Ma Htet, Teacher and Storyteller, Monastic Education Development Group, Myanmar Storytellers; Irakli Garibashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia; Julia Gillard, Former Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia; Hage Geingob, President of the Republic of Namibia; Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and The Grenadines; Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, President of the Republic of Croatia; Hugh Grant, Chairman and CEO, Monsanto Company; Ólafur R. Grímsson, President of Iceland; António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Former Prime Minister of the Portuguese Republic; Atifete Jahjaga, President of the Republic of Kosovo; Ashley Judd, Ambassador, Population Services International; Hemant Kanoria, Chairman and Managing Director, Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited; Jim Yong Kim, President, World Bank Group; Ousmane Kone, Minister of Health and Public Hygiene, Republic of Mali; Elizabeth L. Littlefield, President and CEO, Overseas Private Investment Corporation; Yang Lan, Chairman, Sun Media Group and Sun Culture Foundation; Jane Madgwick, Chief Executive Officer, Wetlands International; James A. Michel, President of Seychelles; Joseph Muscat, Prime Minister of the Republic of Malta; Deogratias Niyizonkiza, CEO and Founder, Village Health Works; Enrique Peña Nieto, President of Mexico; Sean Parker, Chairman of the Parker Foundation; Freida Pinto, Actor & Producer of Girl Rising; Susi Pudjiastuti, Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Republic of Indonesia; Edi Rama, Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania; Mary Robinson, President, Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice and Former President of Ireland; Judith Rodin, President, The Rockefeller Foundation; Marcus Samuelsson, Chef-Owner of Red Rooster Harlem, Ginny’s Supper Club, and Streetbird Rotisserie, Marcus Samuelsson Group; Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, President, Republic of Colombia; Kailash Satyarthi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, 2014; Maithripala Sirisena, President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka; Charif Souki, Chairman and CEO, Cheniere Energy, Inc.; Kathy Spahn, President and CEO, Helen Keller International; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia; Joseph Stiglitz, Professor, Columbia University; Elizabeth Hausler Strand, Founder and CEO, Build Change; Lawrence Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor, Harvard Kennedy School; Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist, American Museum of Natural History; Yanzhi Wang, President, Silk Road Fund; Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Chairman, Yunus Centre; Ernesto Zedillo, Former President of Mexico; and more to be announced.
Key parts of the program at the 2015 CGI Annual Meeting will include sessions such as:
• The Future of Impact which will build on the achievements of CGI members over the past decade and highlight the necessary next steps for accelerating progress going forward;
• Investing in Prevention and Resilient Health Systems which will explore how investing in prevention and health systems will help ensure access to quality health services for all and reduce long-term health care costs, and how this investment is key to building resilient and prosperous communities;
• Escalators of Opportunity in which leaders from the private, public, and civil sectors will discuss how income inequality and social mobility starts by investing in children—placing them on the escalator to more equitable futures—and is continued by empowering individuals to create wealth and break cycles of inequality;
• Looking to the Next Frontier where industry-leaders will demonstrate how innovations of today can impact our societies, environment, and economies of tomorrow;
• Climate Change and Resiliency: Redefining Business as Usual in which participants will discuss how investing in prevention and preparedness can mitigate the negative effects of natural disasters and climate change;
• Unleashing Women’s Economic Opportunities which will include a No Ceilings Conversation to examine priorities to advance the status of women and girls over the next 20 years, and a panel on women as sustainability leaders in which panelists will discuss how to ensure that women farmers and fishers have access to the same resources as men and are connected to global supply chains to sustainably meet future food demand and raise family incomes;
• The Future of Equality and Opportunity in which global leaders will join CGI members and youth around the world in a special closing conversation on co-creating a future rooted in justice, human rights, equality, and opportunity for all.
Erin Burnett, anchor, “Erin Burnett OutFront”; Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” and Washington Post columnist; Becky Quick, co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box”; and Shane Smith, CEO and co-founder of Vice Media, will moderate special sessions for broadcast.
On the evening of Sunday, September 27th, the 9th Annual Clinton Global Citizen Awards presented by Starkey Hearing Foundation will be held during a special ceremony to honor outstanding individuals for their exemplary leadership and groundbreaking work which has effected positive, lasting social change.
Click here for the latest program details and confirmed participants.
