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How and Why Seattle’s Do-Gooders are Working to Create a Collaborative Community

“I believe in synergy, the power of collaboration.” These are the words of Bill Clapp, active Seattle philanthropist fighting global poverty, who encourages collaboration between isolated social entrepreneurs so that they may improve the effectiveness and sustainability of their efforts.

On July 27, 2011, Tom Paulson published the first in a series of three articles addressing the opportunities and dangers in Seattle’s burgeoning humanitarian sector on Humanosphere, an online news source focused on the intertwining issues of global health and poverty.

In one article Tom Paulson looks at the influential role Bill Clapp has played in forming and supporting Seattle’s community of people focused on social change. Bill and Paula Clapp have launched or helped to launch several initiatives to promote and support this collaborative humanitarian community – the Seattle International Foundation, Global Washington, and the Initiative for Global Development. Tom Paulson points out that, while these organizations vary in their specific focuses, they all share the central goal of “bringing people together to figure out how to make the world a better place.”

Bill Clapp states that, while much of congress does not realize the practical importance of international development “to our country, to our business community and to improving all aspects of our society,” the Seattle community seems to have strongly grasped this. Over the past decade, this internationally orientated community has dramatically expanded, leading to the creation of hundreds of small organizations focused on global development. While this growing humanitarian sector means greater job opportunities and chances to “do well by doing good,” it also poses the issues of “a plethora of good (or maybe not-so-good) causes competing for funding,… redundancy, lack of clarity as to what really constitutes a “social enterprise,” lack of criteria for measuring success (or failure) and, overall,… not making the most of this opportunity due to lack of collaboration, of community.”

In another of Tom Paulson’s articles, he focuses on the recent collaborative efforts of the Seattle International Foundation, an organization that supports global poverty alleviation through grant-making, and Jolkona, a recent start-up that connects funders with small organizations engaging in meaningful causes. Using the online “deal of the day” website, Groupon, Jolkona fundraised $5,000, which the Seattle International Foundation matched, for iLEAP, an organization working on women’s empowerment. With this money, iLEAP was able to fund a fellowship for a woman working on social change. According to Maurico Vivero, executive director at Seattle International Foundation, “supporting women leaders working on issues of poverty and social empowerment is proven to be one of the most effective means for affecting change in power, or any, communities.” Through effective collaboration, the Seattle International Foundation, Jolkona, and iLEAP were able to quickly raise enough money to fund a fellowship for a woman leader creating positive social change.

The Seattle International Foundation awards grants to many other organizations like iLEAP, yet they are also forced to decline many other requests for support. While, in this region, there exist numerous good intentions to better the world, an effective, sustainable approach is not always taken. In keeping with Bill Clapp’s aim, Vivero says, “we want to bring all these people, and their causes, together and see what happens.”

In Tom Paulson’s last article, he looks at how a sense of community and collaboration between isolated individuals can be enhanced through the creation of a space where these individuals can convene. This is where The Hub comes in. The Hub says on its website:

“We believe that there is no absence of good ideas in the world.  The problem is a crisis of access, scale, resources and impact. So it felt vital to create places around the world for accessing space, resources, connections, knowledge, experience and investment.”

Beginning in British Columbia and Europe, there are now currently three branches of The Hub in the U.S., two in San Francisco and one in Atlanta, and large support for the launch of The Hub here in Seattle. In addition to the efforts of Global Washington, the Seattle International Foundation, and the Initiative for Global Development to bring people together, The Hub may be able to further the creation of a community and its ability to collaborate.

As Seattle continues to grow as a center for international development work, organizations such as Global Washington, the Seattle International Foundation, and the Initiative for Global Development are “increasing accountability and improving effectiveness by building community,” establishing Seattle as a center for sustainable and meaningful international development work.

House of Representatives appropriations activity — State/Foreign Operations

While much of the country and the world had been focused on whether or not the U.S. debt ceiling would be raised by August 2, the U.S. House of Representatives was continuing its work on discretionary funding for Fiscal Year 2012. The House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on State/ Foreign Operations approved its version of the legislation, which would make deep cuts in State Department operations and foreign aid. While it is not surprising that the Republican-crafted bill includes deep cuts, Democrats such as Nina Lowey (D-NY) noted the impact that the legislation would have on mitigating the current famine in Africa. “This legislation would be a step back from U.S. leadership and substantially weaken the United States’ efforts overseas by decreasing economic opportunity, stability and access to critical services for millions of the world’s poorest people,” Lowey said.

The House subcommittee bill includes a total of $39.6 billion in regular discretionary funding, $8.6 billion or 18 per cent below last year’s level. In addition, the bill includes $7.6 billion for “Global War on Terror” funding, for a total of $47.2 billion.

New Leadership in Global Health–BRICS Health Ministers pledge support

On July 11, 2011, Health Ministers from the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—came together in Beijing for the BRICS Health Ministers’ Meeting. The primary focus of the meeting was to discuss these countries’ role in providing wider access to quality and affordable health care around the world. The meeting concluded with the Health Ministers signing of the ‘Beijing Declaration,’ which called for collaboration with international health organizations, as well as with each other. These collaborations would hopefully yield the promotion of technology transfer and accessibility to “affordable, quality, efficacious, safe medical products and other health technologies” in developing countries. The Declaration also stressed the importance of reforming international organizations like WHO in order to improve transparency, efficiency, and accountability.

The Health Ministers collectively acknowledged the lack of access to health care and affordable medicine in their own countries, and recognized the benefit of this collaboration and technology transfer to significant portions of their populations. UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé, who also attended the Ministers’ Meeting, spoke to the unique position of BRICS nations of being “a voice with incredible economic, technological and innovative strength…[that is] intimately connected to the needs and interests of the developing world” (unaids.org).

The increasing economic power of the BRICS countries in the global economy does place them in an interesting, new arena of foreign aid. These five nations account for 40 percent of the world’s population, 18 percent of global trade, and 45 percent of current growth. However, in four out of five of the BRICS countries, two thirds of the people who need HIV treatment are not receiving it. Are these countries really in a position to bring about real, substantial change to the way health care is accessed in the world?

Sidibé says yes.  “It will help us to change the course of debate on public health by bringing to the center the voice of the poorest segment of society by making sure that social justice and the redistribution of opportunities will become a major aspect of the way we deliver public goods to the people,” he says. South African Health Minister Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi stated that the BRICS countries could form a strong partnership with international health organizations because they are the ones that have the “most of the affordable drugs… to supply the developing world.” An example of this is the new meningitis conjugate vaccine developed by the Serum Institute of India, with an estimated cost of only 50 cents a dose. Because these countries share similar health care challenges in their own countries, they have the unique understanding of the problem of accessibility. This could yield a more informed and effective approach to efforts of improving health care systems worldwide.

In light of the recently approved legislation from the U.S. House of Representatives that proposes deep cuts to the foreign aid budget, the entrance of the BRICS nations into the foreign assistance arena could not come at a better time. As these countries seek greater influence in the global development community, the world could see a significant shift in how international aid is administered, and ultimately, what this means for the overall global economy. It is up to us to decide what the role of the U.S. will be in that change.

For more information on the first BRICS Health Ministers Meeting, go to <http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/BRICS-countries-vow-to-help-poor-nations-in-health-1460626.php>.