Global Solutions for Global Poverty
President Obama came to office promising “the millennium development goals will be America’s goals.” But the global economic crisis now threatens to undermine those goals. Gains in the fight against global poverty and hunger have begun to stall or even reverse. What can the Obama administration do to reinvigorate the fight against global poverty? How can advocates most effectively make the case that meeting the needs of the global poor ought to be American foreign policy goals? What policies best work for addressing global poverty?
These questions and more will be discussed in an interactive panel discussion with Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to President Obama and Senior Director for global development, democracy, stabilization and humanitarian assistance issues at the National Security Council; Ray Offenheiser, President of Oxfam-America; Anita Sharma, North American coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Campaign; Matthew Yglesias, fellow of the Center for American Progress and moderated by Mark Leon Goldberg of the global affairs blog, UN Dispatch.
Matthew Yglesias is a Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. He holds a BA in Philosophy from Harvard University. His first book, Heads in the Sand, was published in May 2008 by Wiley.
Gayle Smith is Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director at the National Security Council, where she is responsible for global development, democracy, stabilization and humanitarian assistance issues. She was previously a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Co-Chair of the ENOUGH Project, and Co-Founder of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network. During the Clinton Administration, Smith previously served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the NSC, and as Senior Advisor to the Administrator and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Raymond C. Offenheiser is the president of Oxfam America, a non-profit international development and relief agency and the U.S. affiliate of Oxfam International. Mr. Offenheiser is a recognized leader on issues such as poverty alleviation, human rights, foreign assistance, and international development. Before joining Oxfam America, he served for five years as the Ford Foundation Representative in Bangladesh and, prior to that, in the Andean and Southern Cone regions of South America. He has also directed programs for the Inter-American Foundation in both Brazil and Colombia and worked for Save the Children Federation in Mexico.
Mark Leon Goldberg anchors the United Nations and global affairs blog UN Dispatch. He hosts a weekly program on BloggingHeads.tv. From 2004-2006 Mark was a writing fellow at the American Prospect where he wrote numerous articles on foreign policy, the United Nations, the conflict in Dafur and international human rights issues. In addition to the Prospect, Mark’s work has appeared in The Guardian, Foreign Policy, The New Republic and a number of other outlets. He is a former Dan Dutko Memorial Fellow and Humanity in Action Senior fellow.
Anita Sharma is the North American coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Campaign. In this capacity she engages with civil society, government leaders, the private sector, faith groups, and individuals in the United States and Canada in an effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
