The Final Push July 6th, 2005 Our morning began with a visit from George Clooney who spoke of the goal of the One Campaign to be all inclusive. Clooney shared that while he and TV evangelist Pat Robertson agreed on ending poverty in Africa they had very little else in common. He encouraged everyone to reach out to others to mobilize to make poverty history. What was unclear is how commitments from people like Pat Robertson to end poverty will translate in terms of public policy or support of candidates in the future. In the Afternoon St. Johns Anglican Church hosted a rally where One Campaign delegates and leaders of organizations from other countries gathered to share resources, issues, and strategies. It was then on to the Final Push Concert that in additon to the variety of music included many celebrities making statements such as Anne Lennox, Bono, Bob Geldof, Susan Sarandhan, Wangari Mathai, and Nelson Mandela. Bono shared that U2 has very few rules as a band but one rule they do have is to never play Golf. He assured the crowd that even though he met at one of the most famous golf courses in the world that he didnt play golf. He also said that it was inappropriate for the G8 leaders to play poker with their bluffs, for the stakes are to high with so many lives at stake. Bono also shared that he was asked on what authority he demanded action of the G8 leaders to end poverty. Bono said he had 37 million endorsements from Live8 and other some 140 million from the campaign. Wangari Mathai urged people to make the connection with poverty and the environment and to plant trees to combat global warming. Our day ended with a meeting with White House officials from the National Security Administration who were here at the G8 as part of the U.S. delegation. We met with both a policy specialist in development and a communications officer. A good dialogue pursued with many good questions. I personally asked about the U.S. levels of commitment being far short of the 0.7% of GDP that the U.S. has agreed to but not delivered, new policies that prohibit the use of military C-130s for humanitarian aid, and U.S. policy related to arms exports. Of the G8 nations only Italy is lower than the U.S. in percentage of its GDP it gives to foreign aide. The U.S. gives only about 0.15 percent of the goal of 0.7 percent. The White House policy analyst responded that the U.S. actually gives close to 3 percent when you count private donations and benefits of trade agreements. He also implied that if the U.S. gave more money that they might not know what to use it for. This spin was not convincing to any of the One Delegates. First of all 5 nations in the world have achieved the 0.7 percent of giving and people like Jeffery Sachs, the special Advisor to U.N. Secretary General Koffi Annan have detailed specifics that aid can be used for. On the question of the use of C-130s the White House officials seemed to be caught of guard not knowing that the policy of using military planes for transportation of humanitarian items has changed. Previously NGOs could apply for use of the military C-130s to add their containers to flights the military was already doing. New policy has limited this assistance only the Tsunami disaster areas and Iraq leaving Africa, the poorest continent in the world left unserved. The White House officials promised to look into this policy change. Finally, the White House policy expert agreed that exporting small arms to Africa particularly in places like Sudan, Uganda, and the Congo made in much more difficult to maintain good governance and rule of law. They agreed that this problem needs to be addressed but then could not identify any proposal that the administration had for the G8 meeting or elsewhere to do so. The White House delegation did not want to offer a prediction of what might happen at the G8 meetings but did say that the opportunity to make history was still real.