The Borgen Project is working to make poverty at home and abroad the number one priority of U.S. political leaders.
Forget every notion you may have of a poverty reduction organization. The Borgen Project is different. Founded by Clint Borgen, this new organization believes in poverty reduction through political accountability. They seek to use the same calculated and relentless tenacity required to succeed in the corporate world to improve the plight of the world’s poor. Poverty reduction requires a new paradigm and the Borgen Project is designed to fulfill that need.
In September 2000, The UN adopted the Millennium Development Goals and made a formal declaration to: spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected.
There are eight Millennium Development Goals, including:
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
As the world’s economic power and agenda-setter, the United States could push global poverty reduction through with very little effort. Unfortunately, the lack of public knowledge of the goals has allowed the White House and congress to escape pressure from the public.
“There is a solution to the problem; Congress and the White House have no pressure to address the plan that will end severe poverty because very few people in this country know the plan exists. The Borgen Project seeks to be the informant. We’re merchants of the Millennium Goals, promoters of possibility and lobbyists for the world’s poor. You’ve got to have the world’s agenda-setter make the plan a priority,” stated Borgen.
The Borgen Project firmly believes a government capable of leading the world in eliminating poverty; famine and deaths by preventable diseases should do just that. They also believe political decision making should put the livelihoods of the vast 99 percent of the population before the financial aspirations of the most influential 1 percent. They believe in military contracts reflective of the needs of the people and military operations reflective of the sacrifice of those willing to die for a cause. They believe in a foreign policy that asks not what the world can do for the United States, but asks what the most powerful nation can do to improve the world.
Many influential leaders of industry have joined in this international effort to put poverty on the agenda of the world’s agenda-setter. Karen Ammond, President of KBC Media Relations is one such leader who has offered to donate her time and international PR expertise. “I am honored to have been asked to assist in this very worthy cause,” stated Ammond.
Clint Borgen is the founder of the Borgen Project, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization whose mission is building public awareness and generating political pressure to eliminate poverty around the world. A former firefighter, Borgen worked with the United Nations in Europe and traveled extensively to various impoverished nations, including the Kosovo refugee camps during the war and “ethnic cleansing.” He is the author of “Geneva Nights.”
