The Annual Clinton Love-Fest (Perspective)

(HN, September 24, 2010) - You can be sure of one thing at the annual Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) summit: former President Bill Clinton will turn his legendary charm and persuasive powers up high to ring financial commitments out of wealthy individuals and corporations.

The summit, which just ended yesterday in New York, customarily attracts an A-List crowd of business, political and Hollywood titans: this year from US President Barak Obama and Jordan's Queen Rania to the head of CISCO and Google, Bill and Malinda Gates and Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.   

This year, Clinton was able to announce nearly 300 new commitments, valued at $6 billion. “In total, more than 1,900 commitments have been made, worth $63 billion, and they have improved the lives of nearly 300 million people," the former President boasted. (However the formula used to calculate how many people are impacted is not widely known).

New and laudable this year was the prominent status given to cancer in the developing world and the situation of adolescent girls. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deserves credit for shining light (and funding) on the long-ignored problem of millions of poor women being asphyxiated in their own kitchens by unsafe cooking stoves.

This year, however, those familiar with previous CGIs say the annual summit may be on the decline - despite record financial commitments - and that it doesn't attract the same calibre of folks from the corporate and political stratosphere as it once  did.

Indeed, on Day II, Shakira had to be replaced by none other than the Bush twins after cancelling at the last minute. And officials from the Chinese leadership - who stole the show this week during the annual opening of the UN General Assembly - were almost non-existent; save for business leaders from Alibaba. Also in short supply: corporate and political leaders from the other three super-growth BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, and India.

For a country of its small size, Jordan cast a long and impressive shadow with Queen Rania and Princess Dina Mired, Director General of the King Hussein Cancer Foundation both in attendance.

Many speakers couldn't contain their enthusiasm about the promise of mobile phone technologies to help developing countries leapfrog past barriers, a commitment championed by Cisco and Twitter.

Beyond a less stellar guest list, there was grumbling among the press corps that the annual meeting lacked intellectual innovation - that much of the discourse was recycled, developmental rhetoric commonly heard at previous rich world summits focused on the developing world. Even Bill Gates talking on stage at the closing session with the other well known "Bill" about polio eradication and new vaccines, seemed to emit an appreciation of the fact that we've been here before. But then isn't that one of the points anyway? When will we not need to have these kinds of summits anymore as the problems will have been solved?

Speaking of an intellectual vacuum: the best-attended press conference during the three-day meeting was yesterday's "Real Men" announcement on sex slavery by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. The session by the superstars (which also included Jack Dorsey, Chairman of Twitter, as well as Microsoft and Peter Buffet of the NOVO Foundation) out-numbered, by far, an earlier press conference on refugees.Bill Gates and Bill Clinton discuss polio and vaccines. CREDIT: CGI 2010

One thing hard not to notice was the large number of corporate leaders from the technology space which included current and former chiefs from the aforementioned Twitter, Ericsson, Google and CISCO; along with energy honchos such as Duke Energy's Jim Rogers.

Although the commitment and new ideas from the tech leaders is laudable, it remains to be seen if their claims that technology can be the "silver bullet" will solve the many problems of the developing world. Having just returned from Sub-Saharan Africa, where I met hundreds of students in a high-altitude village school in Lesotho who had not yet experienced the Internet (let alone radio and TV), it's hard to imagine how to bridge the gap between the enthusiastic aspirations and ideas of the private sector - and the lack of innovative spirit of aid agencies and government officials on the ground.

At the closing session yesterday, the Obamas certainly did not disappoint with their charm, humour and charisma. However many people were scratching their heads on the odd choice of the topic of First Lady Michelle Obama's keynote speech - the plight of American veterans in an economic downturn. It seemed a topic more appropriate for a Mid-West town hall meeting than a high-powered international meeting on the problems of the developing world.

Though, all in all one must give credit to the esteemed former US President who this year secured a record 291 philanthropic `commitments' worth $6 Billion US to tackle the ills the world is currently and has continuously faced in the modern age.

Even Bill Clinton himself remarked at the summary ceremony that the world would continue to deal with situations such as large refugee flows for the "foreseeable future". One wonders if the former Executive in Chief, 6 years on in his annual pledge-fest might be feeling a kinship with other global confabs he started CGI to best.

Worldwide gatherings such as the annual World Economic Forum in Davos - which in 2011 will `celebrate' its 40 year run - was designed to help solve the world's problems; but here we still are today.

The CGI was started to, and still maintains its precedant to hold donors accountable - or risk being uninvited to the annual meeting (which has happened; albeit infrequently) but again, how many years will an event such as this need to take place before we do indeed stem the crisis situation of global affairs we find ourselves in day in and day out? Stress is stress and cannot be maintained without a breaking point.

One last take-away from this summit was the micro-management - once again - of the accredited media at CGI. An army of young volunteers were recruited to keep a watchful eye on all journalists - minimizing contact between media and delegates. An online system introduced this year to short-list journalists for popular sessions failed to include most journalists who had eagerly signed up for such sessions, only informing availability of seats 30 minutes prior to the event beginning. Said one seasoned hack: "This is chaos: I've seen wars that have been better organized."