GENERAL NEWS ITEMS

Lusaka, Zambia - When first lady Laura Bush tours the Zambian capital of Lusaka Thursday as part of a four-nation swing through Africa, she'll visit a unique US-funded project that taps a network of 12,000 Zambian HIV/AIDS volunteers to distribute bed nets designed to fight another major challenge: malaria.

But the $2.5 million program is also unique in another way – half of it is being funded by American corporations, including the likes of Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and the National Basketball Association. The companies are part of an alliance that calls itself the Global Business Coalition, which is working with the US government and a consortium of non-governmental organizations, ranging from big players like World Vision and Care International to local church groups throughout this largely rural and poor country of 11.5 million people.

Model for public-private partnership

Getting corporate titans and international development workers to speak the same language is often difficult. But all sides say the partnership might serve as a model for how public-private partnerships in development aid should be structured. In this case, the partnership leveraged private sector expertise and cash, and left the development work to workers with the right skills.

"These public-private partnerships sometimes can be messy, but there was incredible will to make this work," says Bruce Wilkinson, who heads Reaching HIV/AIDS Affected People with Integrated Development and Support (RAPIDS), the US-funded NGO working with the business coalition. It's just the kind of program that the Bush administration is trying to promote as it focuses attention on the billions of aid dollars it is spending in Africa to combat disease. The administration is also asking Congress to double its HIV/AIDS funding commitment abroad over the next five years to $30 billion.

"I think all of the programs we'll see that are supported by US taxpayers are a good example of both what Americans are really like," the first lady told reporters on the plane ride to Senegal, her first stop in a trip that took her to Mozambique Wednesday and will end Friday in Mali. In Mozambique Wednesday, Mrs. Bush announced $507 million in assistance from the US-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation to build roads and battle malaria. Public-private partnerships feature heavily on her Zambia agenda. Mrs. Bush will also christen a "Play Pump" at Regiment School in Lusaka Thursday. The device, essentially a merry-go-round that pumps water out of the ground as children play on it, is also part of a $60 million public-private venture.

Mr. Wilkinson argues that talking to firms in a language they can understand and telling them where they can add to the "value chain," is crucial. "You show the corporate guys this is where you will actually add value," Wilkinson says, sitting in his Lusaka office. "Do not try to drag companies into something that takes them out of their core competency."

Here, the value added was cash and bed nets. Companies were responsive in part because malaria is seen as an eminently solvable problem – and one that costs businesses in Africa money each year in terms of lost work hours. After learning about the need for bed nets during a visit to Zambia last December, the business alliance persuaded nearly 20 companies to pony up a total of $1.25 million, and contacted the US government to coordinate a response. Manufacturer Vestergaard-Frandsen agreed to give a good price on the insecticide-treated nets.

Founded in 2001, the business coalition has focused primarily on encouraging companies to implement workplace policies on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and on using private-sector expertise to bolster anti-disease efforts. "This was a unique initiative by GBC. In general, we are not a fundraising organization," executive director John Tedstrom said via e-mail from New York.

The public-private model has limits, of course, as health-development work and big business remain two different worlds. But that could change, Wilkinson says. "Too many times, dialogue has been limited between not-for-profits and for profit worlds," he says. "Those adversarial relationships don't make sense anymore."

One thousand children may have been sold into slave labour in central China, enduring maiming and brutality in primitive brick kilns, state media says amid an expanding scandal about official neglect. The owners ran the prison-like kilns with fierce dogs and thugs who beat the children at will, state television said. One accidentally killed a child with a shovel and buried the body at night, it said.

An army of 35,000 police in central China had so far rescued 217 people, including 29 children, the official China Daily reported today. But state television said many more may be trapped, making bricks for little or no pay in brutal conditions in Shanxi and Henan provinces. As many as 120 suspects had been detained.

"Now our conservative estimate is that at least 1000 minors from Henan have been trapped and cheated into back-breaking work in these Shanxi brick kilns," a reporter from Henan said on the current affairs program Oriental Horizon. The program showed workers who had been recently rescued -- ragged, emaciated and mute and some bearing injuries.

But even amid the high-profile rescue effort, criticism is rising of official indifference to the poor farming families. Local media reports and websites have cited what they say is a petition from fathers of boys kidnapped from Henan. They complained that Shanxi police were unwilling to help Henan authorities to find and rescue the children. "We are too weak and our children face constant threats to their life. We can only beg the government," said a copy of the document.

By 2010, PlayPumps International will donate 4,000 PlayPump systems to rural and peri-urban communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Each community with a PlayPump system will also have access to public service messages through open-air messaging platforms located on the PlayPump system water tank. Communities will benefit from messages around HIV/AIDS awareness, hygiene education, and basic health.

BACKGROUND

A child dies every 15 seconds from diseases related to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. The 2006 Human Development Report released by the UN Development Program states that 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water. It is estimated that over 76 million people will perish from water-related disease by 2020 unless urgent action is taken. These staggering statistics and many others which shed light on the severity of the water crisis depict the great need for access to clean water. If immediate actions are not taken to help provide children and families with water, the situation will only worsen which may lead to more death, disease, economic depression, and social and political instability.

In 2005, a Case Foundation senior executive attended CGI and found it to be extremely informative and a tremendous networking opportunity. As a result, the Case Foundation felt the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative would be the ideal platform to announce its commitment to PlayPumps International in partnership with the US Government.

GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE

South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Lesotho, Ethiopia

Plans are underway to complete piloting the first 6 of the 10 expansion countries by the end of 2007. For each new site, the following is considered:

* Relationship development with government of the host country
* Quantity and quality of water at site
* Availability of community representatives and NGOs working in the areas of health and education in order to develop partnerships
* Installation process of the PlayPumpTM water system.

PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

The most pressing needs for PlayPumps International are charitable contributions and viable boreholes. To achieve its objective of donating and installing 4,000 pumps in 10 countries by 2010, PlayPumps International needs to secure additional funding commitments from foundations, corporations, government entities and individuals. Donations may be made to adopt a PlayPump system, as well as to fund operating expenses for the expansion process.

Pastor's wives gathered in February to share, pray, and learn together during a women's conference held by Bibles for the World's Mawii Pudaite. It was well attended she said. "These dear pastors' wives came from far and near. Some whose husbands are stationed in remote areas of the hills, walking days on foot."

Some of the topics included responsibilities at home, at the church, and serving together as husband and wife. "We also had a lady doctor who brought to us wonderful and practical information on how to take care of our bodies, which are the temple of God," said Pudaite.

She shared what God has taught her about using all circumstances as a platform to see God's love, power and wisdom. "We all go through life with all these challenges, joyous times and difficult times. By God's grace, we can make every circumstance, good or bad, a pulpit to experience the depth of God's love. [Then we can] use that very situation to share about His love, to introduce others to Him, and to strengthen those who are already believers in Christ," she said.

The circumstances these women face are related to the strain put on their husbands. With 300 churches and only 60 ordained pastors, they often must travel by foot to remote congregations. This leaves the wife to take care of home and church responsibilities.

The women were reminded of their identity in Christ. "They have never been acknowledged, so to speak. So here we gave them a special recognition. We loved them, we reminded them how important their lives are for the Lord and for their husbands' ministries," said Pudaite. Many women expressed that they felt they could have been more helpful to their husbands, so she emphasized the importance of spending time with the Lord.

She desperately wanted to love and spoil the women. Though perfume and lotion were too heavy to bring from the U.S., the Lord made a way once she reached New Delhi. "I asked the Lord and he spoke to me, you know, ‘Why don't you go and get those silk scarves?' When we gave out those silk scarves, so many of them just wept. They said, ‘I have never had anything like this in all my life,'" she said. "Little is much when God is in it."