The following post appeared in the Center for Global Development’s blog, Views from the Center on December 6th:

Late last week, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her global development agenda, promising to fight HIV/AIDS, end malaria deaths, continue her leadership on basic education for all, expand women’s opportunity and children’s health, eliminate poor country debt, and improve U.S. development assistance. Advance market commitments for vaccines and consideration of a cabinet-level poverty and international development agency are also part of her global development agenda.

The Clinton campaign says:

America has a long and proud history of fighting poverty and encouraging economic development around the world. But that commitment has lagged relative to our own wealth, and in comparison with other prosperous nations. We need again to reclaim this great tradition, which is a testament to the kindness, generosity, and wisdom of the American people. America has long represented the ideal of opportunity. We must once again reclaim our leadership in promoting opportunity around the world. We do this first and foremost because it is right. And we do it also because it is smart. Gnawing hunger, poverty, and the absence of economic prospects are a recipe for despair. Globalization is widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots within societies and between them. Today, there are more than two billion people living on less than $2 a day.

Committing to global development because it is right and it is smart are dual rationales echoed in the Center for U.S. Global Engagement’s Impact 08 framework, Smart Power: Building a Better, Safer World, ONE Vote 08’s campaign, and CGD’s own Global Development Matters website.

Other highlights of Clinton’s global development agenda include:

1. Investing $50 billion for global HIV/AIDS by 2013 to ensure universal access to treatment, prevention and care.

2. Committing to the goal of ending all deaths from malaria in Africa, beginning with a $1 billion per year investment in addition to U.S. commitments to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and encouraging the use of research prizes and advance market commitments to spur innovation to address diseases in poor countries.

3. Continuing Hillary Clinton’s leadership in achieving free basic education for all, with a specific focus on girls in poor countries and the opportunities created through secondary as well as primary education.

4. Increasing women’s involvement in economic, political, and social sectors around the world as a tool for development and expanding access to health care, reducing maternal mortality and improving access to reproductive health and family planning services.

5. Improving health and opportunity for children through investments in nutrition, vaccines, public health and anti-trafficking.

6. Eliminating debts of the poorest countries including complete debt cancellation for all Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and expanding HIPC to an additional 20 poor countries.

7. Maximize the impact of U.S. development assistance by spending an additional 1% of the U.S. budget on foreign assistance; reviewing all U.S. foreign assistance efforts, in consultation with field experts, and considering consolidating program authority under a single cabinet-level poverty and international development agency; improving coordination with other donor countries; and better tracking, monitoring and evaluating U.S. funds for development assistance.

I again encourage my colleagues to comment further on the specifics of Clinton’s proposals. I know they will applaud her support for advance market commitments for vaccines, and idea born out of CGD research, and will be interested in her consideration of a cabinet-level agency for development, and focus on girls’ secondary as well as primary education. CGD senior fellow Kim Elliott has also taken notice of Clinton’s trade policies that are not mentioned as part of her global development agenda, but will have a strong impact on poor countries (See: Senator Clinton’s Disappointing Stance on Trade).

Clinton’s global development agenda, released last Thursday, is a welcome addition to the proposals Obama announced two days earlier. I am reminded that John Edwards too put forward a global poverty proposal in March this year. So, we have three candidates talking about global development so far and three agendas we can now compare, discuss, and debate. I invite readers to send me any other statements they hear from the presidential candidates, and am hopeful that we will see similar announcements from the rest of the presidential hopefuls, on what we know is not a partisan issue.

The One Campaign just posted the results of their “On the Record” project that compares the presidential candidates’ plans on global poverty and disease.

One Campaign members sent a petition in November urging the candidates to respond to issues that One members cared about. Most of the candidates participated, mainly in the form of video responses. The website is a great resource—and an especially cool feature is that you can compare several candidates side by side and then send the results to your friends.

See how the candidates responded “On the Record.”

Yesterday’s NPR Democratic Debate covered only three topics: Iran, China, and Immigration.

As you know, immigration has a great affect on global development. Here are some boiled down points from the candidates:

Biden said that employers have an obligation during their hiring process to know whether or not the job is being given to an American versus an illegal immigrant.

Clinton said we need better enforcement against those who hire undocumented workers, but that we should have some sympathy for them—and that if the US produces enough jobs, immigration isn’t as much on an issue.

Dodd thought that immigration could be used as a wedge issue by Republicans.

Edwards defended a previous statement that immigration doesn’t drive down wages by turning the discussion towards the loss of good middle class jobs. He also called for comprehensive immigration reform.

Gravel said that the way we’ve been approaching the problem is not going to solve anything. He also said that we should open our doors and if we have jobs for immigrants, they’ll get them and if not, they’ll go home.

Kucinich said that we should cancel Nafta and provide a path to legalization for undocumented workers.

Obama thought that employers who hire illegal immigrants should be penalized, but immigrants should have also a chance to acquire legal status.

Read the full article or the transcript for more.

Popping up in the candidates’ discourse is the issue of trade, especially fair trade, U.S. policy concerning African and Latin American economies, and labor standards enforcement. Here are some things the candidates have said about trade:

Clinton, from AFL-CIO Debate Chicago: August 7, 2007
“I believe in smart trade. I’ve said that for years. Pro- American trade; trade that has labor and environmental standards; that’s not a race to the bottom, but tries to lift up not only American workers but also workers around the world.”
Read more.

Dodd, from AFL-CIO Debate Chicago: August 7, 2007
“I agree [NAFTA] requires modification, but we also need to do something else here. In addition to having trading agreements that include labor, environmental health provisions in them and insisting upon those provisions in any trading agreement here, we need to stop exporting the jobs in the country that already are here.”
Read more.

Edwards, from speech on Trade Policy in Iowa: August 6, 2007
“As president, I will seek to restore America’s moral leadership of the world, and our trade policies with these countries can help. But we are going to be tough in our negotiations because the overriding obligation of the president of the United States is to put America’s workers, economy and national interests first.”
Read more.

Gravel, from Democratic Debate at Howard University: June 28, 2007
“No, outsourcing is not the problem. What is the problem is our trade agreements that we have that benefit the management and, of course, the shareholders, and have neglected on either side of the issue, whether it’s in Mexico or in other countries or the United States. That’s the problem that must be addressed.”
Read more.

Guiliani, from his “12 Commitment’s Pledge”:
Aggressively Advance Free Trade: Rudy will tear down the walls to free trade and create new markets for American-made products. He will protect America’s innovations and intellectual property by enforcing our trade agreements aggressively.
* Reduce corporate tax rates and regulatory burden so that Americans can better compete in the global economy.
* Reform the excesses of Sarbanes-Oxley that are driving our corporations overseas to list on foreign exchanges.
* Reenact the Presidential Fast-Track Trade Promotion Authority and complete the Doha Development Round.
Read more.

Huckabee, from speech in Iowa, April 28th, 2007
“If somebody in the presidency doesn’t begin to understand that we can’t have free trade if it’s not fair trade, we’re going to continually see people who have worked for 20 and 30 years for companies one day walk in and get the pink slip and told ‘I’m sorry but everything you spent your life working for is no longer here.”
Read more.

Kucinich, from AFL-CIO Debate Chicago: August 7, 2007
“In my first week in office, I will notify Mexico and Canada that the United States is withdrawing from NAFTA. I will notify the WTO we’re withdrawing from the WTO.”
Read more.

McCain, from Conference on Bio Economy in Ames, IA November 5, 2007
“Our future prosperity depends on our competitiveness. Globalization is here and globalization is an opportunity not a threat. The American farmer is the most productive and innovative farmer on the planet and can compete with anyone. Period. But farmers can’t compete if they can’t get into the game. My friends, 95 percent of the world’s customers live outside the borders of the United States. While my Democratic opponents play politics with trade — using words like a trade “time out” to disguise their protectionism — I don’t intend to sit out opportunities and challenges of the world’s economy. I intend to seize those opportunities to ensure, as every American generation has done, that our children’s lives will be even more prosperous than were ours.”
Read more.

Obama, from his paper, “Connecting and Empowering all Americans through Technology and Innovation”:

Promote American Businesses Abroad: Trade can create wealth and drive innovation through competition. Barack Obama supports a trade policy that ensures our goods and services are treated fairly in foreign markets. At the same time, trade policy must stay consistent with our commitment to demand improved labor and environmental practices worldwide. In its first six years, the Bush Administration has filed only 16 cases to enforce its rights under WTO agreements. This compares to 68 cases filed during the first six years of the Clinton Administration. President Bush has failed to address the fact that China has engaged in ongoing currency manipulation that undercuts US exports; that China fails to enforce U.S. copyrights and trademarks and that some of our competitors create regulatory and tax barriers to the delivery and sale of technology goods and services abroad. Barack Obama will fight for fair treatment of our companies abroad.
Read more.

Richardson, from speech at UCLA: October 24, 2007
”We must promote trade agreements that include strong and enforceable labor, environmental, and human rights standards. Free and fair trade can benefit both Latin American and US workers. It will benefit consumers throughout the region. And it will bind closer the nations of the entire hemisphere.”
Read more.

Romney, from Trade Advisory Group Press Release: October 31, 2007
”Opening markets to our goods and services is key to expanding opportunity here at home. Expanding trade is pro-growth, pro-industry, pro-agriculture, and pro-American leadership in the world,” said Governor Romney. “With years of public and private sector experience working on trade related issues, this group will provide valuable insight into what we can do as a nation to expand trade opportunities around the world.”
Read more.

Many of the above quotations are from the Center for Global Engagment’s Candidate Position Tracker.

You can also learn more about the candidates’ stances on trade at the Council on Foreign Relations website.

Immigration has been a hot topic during this election season—and immigration impacts global development quite a bit. Increasing labor mobility can improve the economic conditions of both rich and developing countries.

As you may know, yesterday the Republican presidential candidates gathered for the CNN YouTube Republican Debates. Here are some highlights dealing with immigration:

Check out this playlist to see all the candidates talk about this contentious issue:

Missed the Democrats on YouTube? Here’s the recap of the CNN YouTube Democrat Debates.

ABC news and the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, hosted a panel of political analysts and foreign policy experts at UNLV on November 16th. They explored the tough issues the next candidate will have to face, especially concerning national security and foreign policy. Here’s an excerpt from Carlos Pascual, a vice president and director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, speaking about the importance of fostering partnerships with other countries:

“I think for the next U.S. president the biggest central challenge is going to be to restore American credibility and leadership in order to establish effective global and international partners. And that is going to be fundamental to securing American national security interests overseas….

Whoever the next president is is going to face a series of crises….They’re going to face a whole series of geopolitical challenges….Then there is a series of wider, almost existential structural systemic questions that we face in the world that we live in today, issues of energy security and climate change, non-proliferation, proliferation of nuclear weapons in particular, transnational terrorism, global poverty. And there is no way the United States alone can deal with these issues.

The only way we can do this is to effectively establish the kinds of partnerships with an international community that trusts one another and works by a rule-based system….
I think that whoever that president is, they’re going to have an aggressive agenda that demonstrates a change in American behavior…Because it is by acting in a way that starts to demonstrate that the United States, one, has values, and two, is committed to a rule-based international system that we’ll start to convince the international community that we are not unilateralists.”

Read the article for more transcripts from the panel.

Here’s what John Edwards had to say when a One Campaign member asked about his plans to combat global and domestic poverty:

Senator Barack Obama spoke at a community event in Las Vegas last month. This video highlights what he had to say about issues pertaining to global poverty.

According to an article in today’s Washington Post, the Democratic Candidates all support a plan that would bring greenhouse gas emissions down 80% from 1990s levels by 2050—and they all take a big risk. Some concerns are higher energy costs in the short term and the fact that Americans would face significant lifestyle changes, which could be unpopular with voters.

Here are some of the things the article quoted the candidates as saying:

Edwards explained to democratic primary voters, “It won’t be easy, but it is time for a president who asks Americans to be patriotic about something other than war.”

In an interview, Edwards also recognized the challenges of supporting potentially unpopular climate plans. He said, “I’d be the first to tell you: This is not necessarily the greatest political calculation….” Edwards added, “No matter what the politics are, there’s such a moral responsibility to address this issue. We’ve got to do it.”

In a speech yesterday in Iowa, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) spoke of her plans that would reduce foreign oil imports by two-thirds in comparison to current projections.

She said, “This is the biggest challenge we’ve faced in a generation — a challenge to our economy, our security, our health and our planet. It’s time for America to meet it. . . I believe America is ready to take action, ready to break the bonds of the old energy economy and ready to prove that the climate crisis is also one of the greatest economic opportunities in the history of our country. . . . It will be a new beginning for the 21st century.”

Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) said in a Des Moines speech last month that rising energy costs will be mediated by new technology. He also admitted, “But at least on the front end, there’s going to be some costs, and we can’t pretend like there’s a free lunch.”

The Republican candidates are more dubious on the topic of climate change.

Former Mayer Giuliani warned, “if we try to deal with it at too hysterical a pace, we could create problems.”

So far, the only Republican candidate to be seriously addressing global warming concerns is Senator John McCain (Ariz.), who supports a 60 percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2050.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) holds that carefully handling the climate change issue is important for either party. He said in an interview that the Democrats could turn off voters with a “litigation and regulation” stance. He continued, “Then, Republican candidates are on the opposite extreme,” he added. “A candidate who’s anti-environment and denies global warming gets killed in the suburbs.”

All policy-makers need to do what’s best for global development, including supporting critical environmental issues.

Read the full article for more information on this topic.

As you may know, HIV/AIDS is one of the largest challenges we face as a global community. It reduces life expectancy and decreases economic productivity—burdens that have an enormous impact on countries already struggling with poverty.

Today, Senator Clinton signed the “Presidential Pledge for Leadership on Global AIDS and Poverty.” She joined Bill Richardson as the only other presidential candidate to have signed the pledge.

Here are two main points to which Hillary commits if elected:

Give more money
She commits to set aside “at least $50 billion to the fight against AIDS by 2013,” and to “make significant progress toward providing an additional one percent of the U.S. budget to fighting poverty in impoverished countries.” In 2003, President Bush committed to provide $15 billion to AIDS relief over a five-year period through PEPFAR (The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). Currently, we rank 14^th in the Center for Global Development’s “Commitment to Development Index” (CDI). America is a rich and generous country—but we give a low portion of our economy to help developing countries. Let’s help close the gap between what we have given and what is needed to fight this epidemic—and an extra one percent would be a big improvement.

Streamline the system
By adding her name to the pledge, Hillary also promises to look into the “creation of a cabinet-level poverty-focused development agency.” This would help us focus our global development efforts. Currently, more than 20 different U.S. government agencies are involved in global development. This means that our foreign assistance programs are frequently fragmented and uncoordinated. U.S. assistance programs could be far less expensive and more effective if we put someone in charge with direct access to the President.

We here at Global Development Matters hope all of the candidates put their names on the pledge. Let’s take more of a leadership role in the fight against HIV/AIDS and global poverty!

Read the full article to find out more about this Presidential Pledge.