September 1, 2005 | Read Time: 2 minutes
On September 15, the William J. Clinton Foundation will bring heads of state, business leaders, and activists to New York to debate global issues and — it hopes — to sign pledges marking a commitment to bettering the world. The effort, dubbed the Clinton Global Initiative, is the latest by the former president to make good on some of the unfulfilled goals of his presidency, reports New York magazine (August 22). But how much success it will have is up in the air.
“They’re still trying to figure out how not to make this another yak-yak,” says Mike McCurry, Mr. Clinton’s former press secretary.
Like the Clinton Foundation, which puts the majority of its resources into fighting AIDS but lists many other program areas, the conference has a diverse agenda. Participants will attend workshops on a host of topics: reducing poverty, promoting religious reconciliation, fighting global warming, and improving government performance.
The multiplicity of causes explains in part why Mr. Clinton’s post-presidency has “yet to become synonymous with anything,” New York magazine says, a charge the former president is sensitive to.
“I don’t think something’s not worth doing just because I can’t spend a lot of time on it, particularly if I can leave something good behind,” Mr. Clinton tells the magazine, citing the American India foundation he started after the Gujarat earthquake four years ago and his work to encourage tsunami relief, a job he is doing along with former President George H.W. Bush. “I cannot honestly say that we’d be further along than we are with AIDS, because there’s only so much of the technical stuff I do.”
Mr. Clinton’s foundation has indeed recorded significant victories in the battle against HIV/AIDS. Unlike other organizations that emphasize prevention and education, the Clinton Foundation focuses on treating people with the disease, and today works with 14 governments on their AIDS-treatment programs. Perhaps its biggest success, though, has been negotiating cuts in the cost of AIDS drugs to just $160 per person a year from about $1,600, mostly through pharmaceutical companies in China, India, and South Africa.
This article is available online at http://www.newyorkmagazine.com.
