New York (26 September 2007): At the 3rd annual Clinton Global Initiative meetings, a $5 million (USD) commitment by the XL Results Foundation to The Hunger Project was announced today. This commitment will enable The Hunger Project to expand its strategy for ending hunger in rural India. The strategy empowers the rural women elected to serve on local village councils with a support structure that includes ongoing trainings (skill-building, leadership, legal rights, local government law), mobilizing the support of media and civil society, and building federations for policy reforms at the state and national level.

For the full commitment on the Clinton Global Initiative website, click here.

Sandy Berger (left of Joan), who served as National Security Advisor under President Clinton, announced the commitment at the close of the first working session “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs – From Poverty Alleviation to Wealth Creation.”

The $5 million contribution over five years from the XL Results Foundation will build the capacity and enhance the decision-making power of 50,000 elected women leaders whose actions in turn will affect the lives of 15 million villagers. It will help mobilize local action campaigns to improve health, education, nutrition and family income in partnership with elected village councils. This major financial contribution will also support alliance building to advocate for policy reform. It will track, document and widely publicize the progress being achieved in a large sample of these villages.
 
Development experts agree that when women have voice in their villages, they alter the development agenda to address the critical issues of meeting basic needs and to confront harmful cultural practices. Joan Holmes, President of The Hunger Project has said: “Women in local government shift the development agenda towards meeting basic human needs. They also take on harmful social practices like dowry, domestic violence, child marriage and child labor. They empower other women to know their rights. Empowered women begin to transform gender relations and call into question the deeply entrenched patriarchal system. I’ve seen it work. I’ve seen what these women can do.” (Joan with former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, 1990 Africa Prize Laureate)

Roger Hamilton, Chairman of the XL Group commented “The Clinton Global Initiative exists to tackle the toughest issues of our time and clearly hunger and poverty are top of that list. The Pioneer Club is about bringing practical results for real problems and we are proud to partner with The Hunger Project in working toward the sustainable end of world hunger.”

The Hunger Project is an international NGO that works in partnership with grassroots women and men in more than 22,000 villages across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America to sustainably end their own hunger. It is on the roster of the UN Economic and Social Council, and has received a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator.

The XL Results Foundation, led by Roger Hamilton, is Asia’s largest entrepreneur network, with 60,000 entrepreneurs across Asia, and operations in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Dubai and USA.

The Clinton Global Initiative is a non-partisan project which brings together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Media contact: Anastasia Andrzejewski – Telephone: +1 212-251-9129 – aha@thp.org