Subject: For WJC: food crisis in west Africa
From: Amitabh Desai <[email-masked]>
To: Bruce Lindsey <[email-masked]>, Laura Graham <[email-masked]>, Doug Band - PC <[email-masked]>, Justin Cooper - PC <[email-masked]>, Bari Lurie contact <[email-masked]>, Hannah Richert - PC <[email-masked]>, Valerie Alexander <[email-masked]>, Angel Urena <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Cc: Steven Rinehart <[email-masked]>, Gregory Milne <[email-masked]>, Logan Koffler <[email-masked]>, Julius Tintelnot <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 13:34:39 -0400

Dear Hannah, attached for the President is a letter and briefing about the growing food crisis in west Africa, from the leaders of several US/international NGOs. They are asking him to try to raise awareness of this crisis by mentioning it publicly whenever he has an opportunity. I would recommend doing so - there is upside to being helpful, or at a minimum being perceived to be helpful, and not much downside (this would incur no financial costs for WJC and we can make clear to these NGOs that WJC cannot "do" more on this issue beyond mentioning it in the coming days/weeks, unless he chooses to do something via CGI in September). HOWEVER, I don't think he should be fundraising for Oxfam or the UN for this crisis. Just mentioning this crisis and the need for us all to invest more in local agriculture and systems to mitigate these kinds of crises in the future; and the importance of us all responding to these kinds of crises even in the context of the financial downturn, should be enough. Hope this helps, and I'd be happy to provide more information and discuss it further, as needed. Seems a similar letter is being sent to President Bush. Sincerely, Ami

PS. He may recall that Oxfam screwed us publicly in Haiti around the earthquake anniversary. Nevertheless he can talk about this food crisis and the 18 million people in need and the importance of investing in agriculture (could even be an opportunity to mention CF agriculture work in Africa), without saying the word "Oxfam" or fundraising for them. I don't feel strongly either way about this, but seems odd to turn a cold shoulder to this kind of issue when the "ask" is relatively light.

________________________________
From: Ray Offenheiser <[email-masked]>
To: Amitabh Desai
Cc: Christina Stahlkopf <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tue May 15 12:37:23 2012
Subject: Letter and Briefing note on the Sahel

Dear Ami

Per our conversation, I am attaching a letter to the President from the major US humanitarian response NGOs requesting his help in raising a clarion call about the serious crisis in the Sahel.  Also included are a set of briefing notes that we assembled for him this morning and a fact sheet from OCHA that provides a lot of salient facts.   I hope that you will be able to share with the President before his departure.

Many thanks for your assistance in this critical matter.

Warm regards

Ray