Donor Trips Aren’t Easy, Clinton Voyage to Africa Shows: a Reporter’s Notebook

Nonprofit executives take note: Even when you’re the former leader of the most powerful nation in the world, donor trips are not easy.

This month the former president Bill Clinton invited friends, contributors to his foundation, and members of the news media to remote regions of Africa to get a firsthand look at his charitable work.

But the trip hit a snag Monday when a 727 plane carrying roughly half of the guests, mostly reporters, had an electrical fire, a problematic oxygen valve, and other mechanical malfunctions, grounding the flight from Newark, N.J., to Ethiopia.

Mr. Clinton, who traveled separately, arrived on time Tuesday night. But with the rest of the party expected to be two days late, the William J. Clinton Foundation had to reschedule a trek to the Debre Zeyit area of Ethiopia to look at efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS.

And some occupants of the ill-fated 727, such as Rodney Slater, who was head of the Department of Transportation during the Clinton administration, have quit the trip, according to The Washington Post.

While here in Ethiopia’s rainy capital, members of the news media who arrived early, like this reporter, waited for the official events to begin.

Of course, there were distractions, such as the occasional glimpses of the former president — ordering Italian food at a hotel restaurant — and the well-known public figures accompanying him.

The actor Ted Danson and his wife, the actress Mary Steenburgen, strolled the halls of the Sheraton Addis; and Bruce Lindsey, chief executive of the Clinton foundation, enjoyed a drink in the lobby coffee lounge.

Mr. Clinton did do foundation work today, a spokeswoman said, but the events were closed to the public.

The trip, which is widely seen as a way to refocus attention on Mr. Clinton’s philanthropy after his wife’s failed bid for the White House, will also include visits to Rwanda, Liberia, and Senegal.

While Mr. Clinton’s foundation works worldwide, this impoverished continent, where 325 million people live on less than $1 a day, has been the primary beneficiary of his efforts.

Aside from his work on HIV/AIDS, he has reduced the costs for medications that treat malaria, a disease that kills one million Africans a year. And with a $100-million gift from the Scottish philanthropist Tom Hunter, the Clinton foundation has built schools and health clinics, helped coffee growers in Rwanda increase their production by 20 percent, and assisted the country’s government in purchasing and distributing 34,000 tons of fertilizer. (See “Europe’s Andrew Carnegie,” a profile of Mr. Hunter from The Chronicle.)

Altogether, in Africa and elsewhere, the foundation says, the former president’s charitable work has saved the lives of 1.3 million people.

Tomorrow morning, foundation staff members promised that the trip would get back on track. The former president and guests will visit a remote rural town where solar panels are helping 5,500 villagers gain access to electricity.

No doubt, the foundation is hoping its spate of gremlinlike aeronautical malfunctions has ended. Tomorrow’s trek is by helicopter.