U.S. policies have a huge impact on global development, and more successful development is crucial to U.S. goals. But global development has often been missing in the U.S. political debate. On Monday, January 28, President Bush will deliver his final State of the Union address to Congress, the American people, and to a global audience seeking to understand America’s priorities in the world.

The Center for Global Development’s State of the Union Bingo will be helping people from Washington, D.C. to Dhaka track global issues in President Bush’s last State of the Union address as his thoughts turn to the legacy he hopes to leave behind. Will he mention malaria, trade, poverty, climate change? Several of the 2008 presidential candidates have discussed the need to restore America’s image in the world and ensure our own national security, and point to our global development policies as one way we can work to make a better, safer world. Will President Bush make similar overtures? Will there be more or less attention to global development than in his past remarks? To help you keep track we prepared these handy printable State of the Union Bingo cards (pdf, 116k).

Some global development issues have sometimes been prominent in President Bush’s State of the Union addresses–HIV/AIDS and trade, for example. But a quick analysis of past speeches suggests that none has been a recurrent theme. This year, we encourage you to use the New York Times’ State of the Union Word Tracker, that counts and graphs the number of times the president has uttered “poverty” (6), “Africa” (15), “economy” (88), or “global warming” (0) among the 34,000 words used in his State of the Union addresses.

Global Development Matters’ founding organization, the Center for Global Development, will be hosting a State of Union Bingo party in Washington, DC. In past years, friends of the Center have hosted their own Bingo parties as far away as Dhaka, Bangladesh; Lexington, KY; and Napa, CA. Organize your own State of the Union Bingo party, perk up your ears and get your ink dabber ready to mark off mentions of malaria, trade, poverty, and maybe even global warming in President Bush’s final State of the Union address.

Post your plans or a report on your festivities as a comment on this blog, or tell us about it here; include a photo and we will be happy to post it.

If State of the Union Bingo sparks a heated discussion about why global development matters for the U.S., check out CGD’s Rich World, Poor World: A Guide to Global Development to help inform your debate!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 6:08 pm and is filed under George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Center for Global Development, policy, Events, Media, Global Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.