Subject: News & Guidance: Africa Update
From: Clinton Foundation Press Office <[email-masked]>
To: Clinton Foundation Press Office <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 23:08:30 +0000

Several articles that posted this past weekend looked at the Clinton Foundation's work in Rwanda, including an up close, on-the-ground examination of our efforts through the Clinton Development Initiative, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (a separate, affiliated entity of the Clinton Foundation). The articles also looked at a specific program called Human Resources for Health, funded by the State Department. Below please find links and highlights from these articles; a blog from Walker Morris, CEO of the Clinton Development Initiative; a TED Talk from President Clinton's about Rwanda and suggestions to share on social media.

We invite you to visit www.clintonfoundation.org<https://www.clintonfoundation.org> to learn more about our work in East Africa and we encourage to you read the pieces while keeping these points in mind:

********* The Clinton Foundation works on the ground in Rwanda, helping more than 24,000 farmers lift themselves out of poverty, having reduced prices of HIV/AIDS drugs, and bringing partners together through the Clinton Global Initiatives who have launched over 150 commitments that will deliver $972 million in programs to help Rwandans. The Clinton Foundation, through the Clinton Development Initiative, works with farmers in Malawi and Tanzania as well. The Clinton Foundation is just one of many international organizations that work with and in Rwanda, including the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Bank, the Global Fund, Partners in Health and African Development Bank.

********* The stories this weekend highlighted a program called Human Resources for Health that is training Rwandan health care providers. This program isn't run by the Clinton Foundation, and we do not receive any funding for it. In fact, as Nick Merrill points out in the NYT story, "Elevating the role of global aid and development was at the core of Secretary Clinton's 'smart power' approach to foreign policy." In Rwanda, he said, "the U.S. government invested in on-the-ground training and programs with partners who could make lasting impact. That was the bottom line."

The New York Times took a thorough look at our work and concluded:

********* "In Rwanda, a review of the foundation's history shows that it has done vital, often pathbreaking work, particularly in health and rural development."

********* "The Clinton Foundation gets good marks from the group Charity Watch for keeping its overhead and fund-raising costs low."

********* "In Rwanda, as in many poor countries, the health initiative is credited with negotiating down the price of AIDS treatment and testing. By pooling guaranteed orders from low-income countries, thus ensuring large markets for manufacturers, it helped lower the annual cost of H.I.V. drug treatment in Rwanda to $139 from more than $500."

Read this article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/us/politics/rwanda-bill-hillary-clinton-foundation.html?_r=0

One section of The New York Times story summarizes the good that's being done on the ground by workers from the Clinton Foundation:

********* "Down a rutted road in Kayonza District, past mud houses and stands of cassava, Eugenie Mujawamariya has gathered her neighbors on a hillside around a fallow field. The soil is the color of milk chocolate and crumbles nicely in the hand. Ms. Mujawamariya explains that she is waiting for prices to rise before sowing her latest bounty of soybeans. Most of her 20 listeners are women wrapped in brightly patterned skirts. They have come to meet the fieldworkers from the Clinton Development Initiative who have been tutoring Ms. Mujawamariya on how to increase yields while also nourishing the land.

"Not unlike agricultural extension agents, the Clinton workers have helped Ms. Mujawamariya grow demonstration plots of soybeans and bananas, varying the spacing, seed varieties, mulching and fertilizer. In one plot, bananas hang from trees in clumps the size of grown men... Ms. Mujawamariya said that her fields now yielded far more than her family could eat, and that her income from sales had doubled. 'I built a house in the town,' she said."

Newsmax summarized the important work in Rwanda in the context of recent scrutiny:

********* As media focus on the Clinton Foundation has been on the ethics and donors, it has been doing "pathbreaking" work in Rwanda, especially in health and rural development, The New York Times reports.

********* That scrutiny overlooks much of the good done by the foundation, the Times reports, including in Rwanda.

********* The Clinton Foundation focuses on "alliances" and "partnerships," the Times notes, including "climate change, cooperative farming in Africa, economic growth in Haiti, obesity in the United States, access to lifesaving drugs, youth unemployment, early literacy, women's advocacy, the reduction of preventable disease, the streamlining of developing markets, sustainable health systems and volunteerism."

Read this article here: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/clinton-foundation-pathbreaking-rwanda-africa/2015/10/18/id/696806/

And a few top comments on The New York Times piece recognize the importance of this work:

********* "Helping a poor, traumatized nation build its economy, governance and education infrastructure is only a ploy to win an election? Re-directing outsize speakers fees for the benefit of the third world? I wish there were more "self-serving" ploys among the candidates."

********* "The Clintons are using their money, celebrity and influence mainly to try to make the world a better place. Though the Foundation is not perfect, it does much good. And this is a bad thing?"

For years, President Clinton has discussed his vision for philanthropic efforts in Rwanda at length. President Clinton spoke about the need to build a public health infrastructure in Rwanda when accepting the TED Prize<https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_clinton_on_rebuilding_rwanda> in 2007:

"So when we decided to work in Rwanda on trying to dramatically increase the income of the country and fight the AIDS problem, we wanted to build a healthcare network, because it had been totally destroyed during the genocide in 1994, and the per capita income was still under a dollar a day. So I rang up, asked Paul Farmer if he would help. Because it seemed to me if we could prove there was a model in Haiti and a model in Rwanda that we could then take all over the country, number one, it would be a wonderful thing for a country that has suffered as much as any on Earth in the last 15 years, and number two, we would have something that could then be adapted to any other poor country anywhere in the world. And so we have set about doing that."

Share this speech on TWITTER here: https://twitter.com/ClintonFdn/status/655752717403561989

Last week, President Clinton discussed the Foundation's work in Rwanda with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show:

"Let's take Rwanda. I want to do in these Ebola countries, what we're trying to do in Rwanda, is build out their health care systems so they don't need anybody else anymore. You train people and they can run their own system. And we don't take any money from the American government but the American government started funding this when Hillary was still in office, and they're training people with 23 American partners, including 10 medical schools, six nursing schools, and all these other people and a bunch of hospitals. They're doing it all for 7 percent overhead. It's the least-expensive development project we've ever undertaken, which mean people in the audience, their tax dollars go further."

President Clinton also detailed his work in Rwanda in his 2007 book, Giving:

"A couple of years later, Ira Magaziner persuaded Paul [Farmer] to try to implement the Partners In Health model in Rwanda. The health-care system there had been decimated by the 1994 genocide, in which about 800,000 people-10 percent of the population-had been slaughtered in just ninety days and where the per capita income is less than $1 a day.

"Partners  In  Health  committed  to  scale  up  care  in  two  rural provinces. Never one to do something halfway, and confident that his clinic in Haiti could now operate without him, Paul, his Haitian wife, Didi, and their young daughter, Catherine, moved to Rwanda. In 2006, I went to Rwanda to see how things were going. Partners In Health had already completed the restoration of Rwinkwavu Hospital. Closed since the genocide, it now has an infectious disease unit, an operating room, an X-ray facility, a center for malnourished children, electronic medical records, and Internet access.

"Partners also had begun treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV and worked with the Rwandan government to ensure widespread distribution of medicine to people with AIDS. It has enrolled more than 1,700 patients in its rural care model; trained over eight hundred health-care workers to treat people who can't come to the hospital or don't need to do so now; and opened five clinics in rural villages with electricity from photovoltaic cells provided by another wonderful NGO, the Solar Electric Light Fund.

"Together with the government of Rwanda's ministry of health, Partners In Health is renovating another hospital to serve 300,000 people and opening a center to train Rwandan health workers to provide high-quality primary care and treatment for HIV, TB, and malaria in rural areas. Partners In Health will also provide pediatric medicine to children with AIDS, and launch clean water and sustainable development projects essential to public health.

"If the Partners in Health's efforts are as successful in Rwanda as they have been in Haiti, there will be a model that can be implemented in every developing nation in Africa and across the world to narrow the unconscionable health divide between the world's poor and the rest of us."

Recent pieces on how the Clinton Foundation is helping empower farmers in Rwanda and around the world:

********* Read a blog post<https://www.clintonfoundation.org/blog/2015/10/16/notes-field-rwanda-malawi-tanzania?utm_source=sf-fb&utm_medium=social#sthash.NDw4ZxsY.dpuf> from Clinton Development Initiative CEO Walker Morris on his recent visit to Rwanda, Malawi, and Tanzania.

"For the tens of thousands of smallholder farmers we work with, and the millions more that we hope to reach one day, farming is not just a source of food and income, it's a way of life."

Share the post on FACEBOOK here<https://www.facebook.com/ClintonFoundation/posts/864388407015935> and on TWITTER here<https://twitter.com/ClintonFdn/status/655405180779896832>

********* Last month, we featured a blog post on how we're using data to empower smallholder farmers<https://www.clintonfoundation.org/blog/2015/09/23/how-were-using-data-empower-smallholder-farmers?utm_source=sf-fb&utm_medium=social>.

"For the Clinton Development Initiative (CDI), being faster, leaner, and better means monitoring and evaluating our work with smallholder farmers to assess what works, what doesn't, and how we can improve results."

Share the post on FACEBOOK here<https://www.facebook.com/ClintonFoundation/posts/864090373712405> and on TWITTER here<https://twitter.com/ClintonFdn/status/655133634098298880>

********* In honor of the International Day of Rural Women<https://medium.com/@ClintonFdn/clinton-foundation-experts-discuss-four-ways-to-empower-rural-women-3fc902829433>, Clinton Foundation staff discuss on Medium how our initiatives are helping to empower rural women around the world.

"Overcoming major obstacles such as poverty and hunger requires addressing the issues that affect rural women, from the smallholder farmers in Malawi to the clean energy entrepreneurs in Peru. Observed every year on October 15, the International Day of Rural Women is an important reminder that girls and women in even the most remote parts of the world play a critical role in improving the health, stability, and security of our planet. The Clinton Foundation has witnessed firsthand the power of rural women through our various initiatives to unlock human potential."

Share the piece on FACEBOOK here<https://twitter.com/ClintonFdn/status/654833676031819777> and on TWITTER here<https://twitter.com/ClintonFdn/status/654833676031819777>

********* The International Policy Digest<http://www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2015/10/11/delivering-sustainable-development-goals-in-africa/> wrote about how the Clinton Development Initiative builds strategic partnerships in Malawi, Rwanda, and Tanzania to address food insecurity and agricultural sustainability. These are key components of the UN's new Sustainable Development Goals.

"In Malawi, Rwanda and Tanzania, the Clinton Development Initiative (CDI) is implementing a similarly themed model that builds mutual partnerships and blends strengths of the nonprofit, government, research and private sectors toward realization of SDG 2. Within the CDI, strategic partnerships between governments and private sector actors along the value chain are bridging the infrastructure gap."

Share the piece on FACEBOOK here<https://www.facebook.com/ClintonFoundation/posts/862742330513876> and on TWITTER here<https://twitter.com/ClintonFdn/status/654047476421402624>

********* Media Matters points out how the New York Times changed the article's headline<http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/10/19/nyt-rewrites-headline-on-clinton-foundation-art/206263> between the online version, which posted first, and the print version. The first headline praised the Foundation's work in Rwanda, while the second falsely alleges conflicts of interest.

"The New York Times repeatedly changed its headline on an article about the Clinton Foundation's efforts in Rwanda between its original publication online and its appearance in the newspaper's print edition to downplay the original headline's praise of the foundation's efforts and emphasize supposed conflicts of interest for Hillary Clinton."