This morning, President Obama commemorated World AIDS Day with an AIDS panel discussion at George Washington University, which was streamed live at 9:00 EST by the ONE Campaign on YouTube. The panel featured President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, U2′s Bono and more.

World AIDS Day 2011 Poster (www.worldaidscampaign.org)

Over the last month, other world leaders have been speaking out in honor of World AIDS Day. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement: “Heading into the fourth decade of AIDS, we are finally in a position to end the epidemic. […] Synergies between prevention and treatment are speeding up progress. But to end AIDS, we need to deliver even greater results. This year in June, the United Nations General Assembly’s High-Level Meeting on AIDS adopted bold targets for 2015: reduce the sexual transmission of HIV by half, eliminate new infections in children, provide treatment for 15 million people living with HIV, end stigma and discrimination, and close the AIDS funding gap. With strong political will, reasonable financial resources and a firm human rights-based approach, we can achieve all of these targets.”

Secretary Clinton spoke to the National Institute of Health in November about the U.S.’s work to bring about creating an AIDS-free generation, eliminating mother-to-child transmission, preventing infection among adults, and treatment for those already afflicted. “Although the past 30 years have been a remarkable journey, we still have a long, hard road ahead of us. But today, thanks both to new knowledge and to new ways of applying it, we have the chance to give countless lives and futures to millions of people who are alive today, but equally, if not profoundly more importantly, to an entire generation yet to be born.”

At Opportunity International, education through financial, health and life-skills training is an integral part of our services to our clients. In Sub-Saharan Africa, as part of health training modules offered in our banks in Malawi, Mozambique and Rwanda, clients have access to education that promotes better understanding and prevention of HIV/AIDS. We’re committed to life-skills training and education like this in order to improve all aspects of our clients’ lives.

After more than three decades, the global fight against AIDS has come so far, and yet there is still much to do. As Secretary Clinton said, “Our efforts have helped set the stage for an historic opportunity, one that the world has today: to change the course of this pandemic and usher in an AIDS-free generation.”

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg interviews Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum on Jan. 28, 2011. Gates answers viewer questions and addresses the global need for expansive immunization, advanced agricultural techniques and the importance of traveling to see firsthand the needs of the developing world. For this and more, click the screenshot above to watch the video.

For more video interviews from WEF 2011, visit livestream.com/worldeconomicforum02.

Model, mom and activist Christy Turlington Burns is visiting Guatemala to check in on maternal health progress after shooting a piece of her documentary, “No Woman No Cry,” there a few years ago. This is her third blog post in the series…

If anyone ever asks the question, “How much can one fit into three days in Guatemala?” I can tell you that the answer is bastante — a lot!

Christy talks to the media at an event. (Courtesy of ONE.org)

Today we shifted gears to focus on the original purpose of our trip — premiering my documentary film, “No Woman, No Cry” at the Icaro Film Festival in Guatemala. This has been a step in the direction of a dream I’ve always had since finishing the film — and that is to bring the finished product back to each of the countries profiled in the movie. And there was an added bonus to doing so — spending the day with the resilient maternal and child health community here in Guatemala.

We spent the morning with the dedicated members of the AGMM and OSAR — the Guatemalan women physicians association and the NGO umbrella organization for groups working on maternal and child health in Guatemala. We talked to members of the media about the state of health policy in Guatemala and what needs to happen to advance the issue further here. In fact, two laws have recently been passed in Guatemala — the Healthy Maternity Act and the Universal Access to Family Planning Law.

It was great to get the sense that there has been real progress in this country since I was here last year. Policymakers are starting to take steps forward to providing more comprehensive coverage for maternal and reproductive health. But, as in most every country, they can include the most fantastic policy you can imagine, but until they are funded and implemented, they help no one. So, while the work is by no means over, it’s moving in the right direction.

We did two showings of the film today. The first was in a small theater, where we invited policymakers and key members of civil society who are working on these issues. What a treat it was to walk into the theater and see some of the stars of my film, especially Dr. Linda Valencia from PPFA and her entire family. Linda is truly a champion for the women of this country — driving through the countryside providing services to women in need. I got a new view of her today — she was an activist speaking eloquently to her peers and community about what it would take to save lives. This is something she would know, as she does it every day.

Following the screening was a panel discussion. I had the honor of sitting with my friend Linda as well as Marta Julia Ruiz from the Population Council (who I met when we were both honored at UNFPA), Mirna Montenegro who runs the maternal health observatory in Guatemala OSAR, and Zury Rios, the dynamic congresswoman who has championed this issue.

The second screening was the official premiere at Icaro this evening. Both audiences were great and engaged — they were interested in the making of the film. They were shocked by the statistics and they were eager to know what THEY could do here in their own country. It’s exciting — it’s the start of something. Because cada madre cuenta — every mother counts!

Opportunity Malawi clients line up to deposit money or get loans at a mobile bank that makes weekly stops in their rural village.

In an interview with Melinda French Gates in the July/August issue of Smithsonian, the co-chair of the world’s largest philanthropic organization discusses what can be done and what is being done about global poverty and health.

As part of the $22.7 billion the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given to development, education and health programs, Melinda Gates identifies certain strategies that have immense impact on poverty, including investment in agriculture and access to financial services, especially savings accounts.

She highlights Opportunity International‘s work in these areas:

…[A]ccess to financial services can empower people, especially women, and build up families and entire communities. At the Gates Foundation, we are particularly interested in the potential of small-scale savings accounts to improve poor people’s lives. When people have reliable access to savings, they don’t risk total destitution if there’s a death in the family or a bad crop.

In January, I visited some villages being served by Opportunity International Bank of Malawi to see how savings impact people on the ground. It’s building inexpensive bank branches—one was made out of three shipping containers—and setting up kiosks in shopping centers and post offices. It also operates seven trucks that bring banks to remote places, which is important since 85 percent of Malawians live in rural areas. I saw people waiting in an hour-long line to make an average deposit of about 200 Kwacha, or $1.40. That’s how much demand there is for savings in poor communities!

Expanding financial access to the most economically marginalized people, the Gates Foundation and the MasterCard Foundation partnered with Opportunity earlier this year for a $16 million program to expand financial access to 1.4 million people in sub-Saharan Africa and develop a strategic model to help 90,000 smallholder farmers increase their chances of success. To reach clients in rural areas, Opportunity deploys a range of cost-effective delivery channels, including satellite branches, kiosks, mobile vans, ATMs and point-of-sale devices to expand the number of banking outlets.

In the interview, Gates also highlights the impact of technology. In Kenya, for instance, nearly nine million people are using mobile phones to transfer money. As innovative and safe financial services like these become more available, she says, “financial security will be within reach for millions of families in the developing world. They will have the ability to save for emergencies, pay for health care for their families, start a business or send their children to school.”

To read the full interview with Melinda French Gates in Smithsonian, click here.

Client Esther Nylendi says her new pit latrine has made such a difference to her family. “Things are cleaner and there is no odor--it is so much better now.” She and her husband have two children and she says this will have a lasting impact on them. Esther is a member of Opportunity Malawi’s Dalandira hygiene group.

If Opportunity International‘s mission is to empower people to improve their quality of life and their futures, then good hygiene is critical. Not only does this lead to less illness and improved overall health, but it also helps people live with greater dignity.

With that in mind, Opportunity Malawi has entered into a partnership with the Hygiene Village Project (HVP), a local water and sanitation NGO based in the Blantyre District of southern Malawi. The partnership, already up and running at Opportunity Malawi’s Ndirande branch, helps provide families with environmentally-sound latrines.

At least seven hygiene Trust Groups, each comprised of about 60 families, have now taken out a loan from Opportunity for a latrine. Forty-six latrines have already been constructed. An installed latrine costs about $175 and the loan is repaid monthly over the course of a year.

Hygiene Village is an NGO that raises awareness in communities about the need for clean water and sanitation. The group, which encourages and trains families to utilize pit latrines, is conducting meetings. Participating clients are offered training that encourages them to start small businesses to construct and install the Hygiene Village latrines.

A Hygiene Village latrine.

The latrines are a significant improvement over the makeshift sanitation found throughout Blantyre. They include ventilation and a mechanism that allows them to be emptied easily. They are designed to treat the waste with ash every time they’re used. After about a year of following this method, the waste is transformed into a safe and organic fertilizer for fields. While the latrine has obvious advantages, Opportunity Malawi is working closely with partnering organizations to ensure that the waste collection does not become a burden over time to the families and to confirm that the installation method is secure from the risk of theft.

Want more news from Opportunity Malawi? U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon paid a visit to a mobile banking unit there, the Nkhata Bay bank kiosk opened, cell phone banking was introduced, and the opening of the satellite bank branch in Ndirande Township. Check back in to the blog periodically for more updates from Malawi and everywhere that Opportunity serves.

“I strongly believe that, through CGIU, we can harness the energy and power of today’s young leaders to improve the lives of people around the world and build a stronger future for us all.” – President Bill Clinton

Reflections from Clinton Global Initiative University (CGIU)… At this conference we spent 36 hours rubbing shoulders with the next generation of young leaders from college campuses all around the world. Participants are students, universities, and youth organizations chosen by CGIU, invited to spend the weekend at the University of Miami collaborating and sharing their ideas for global change. CGIU was founded by President Clinton, who aims to build upon the success of the Clinton Global Initiative to generate collaboration among world leaders and to harness the power of young, innovative thinking.  In his characteristic public style, President Clinton mixes candor, humor, and draws upon his personal experience to inspire action and deliver results through consistent commitment, development support, and the annual CGIU Conference. To date, CGIU has delivered 2,000 individual commitments into action in the areas of clean energy, climate change, poverty, global health, and the promotion of human rights and peace.

Naturally, Opportunity International participates annually in CGI conferences because they are the largest gatherings of domestic and global leaders in the country. But there is one big difference at this conference–these are young leaders, eager to use exciting, new ideas to make improvements on a global scale.  We made a commitment to create a volunteer-led regionally based chapter network of passionate, globally-minded young professionals, Young Ambassadors for Opportunity (YAO), who actively INSPIRE, EDUCATE, and INVOLVE others in microfinance and raise $2.7 million to support Opportunity International’s initiative to start a regulated microfinance bank in Tanzania.

President Clinton said it best in his opening address: “The most important thing that we learned from Haiti is that if there are enough people behind a cause, you can change the world.”

In her blog post yesterday from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Melinda discusses the “important link between improving health and increasing access to savings accounts.” She points out that access to savings accounts allows impoverished people to save for medical emergencies, thereby contributing to their improved health. She also highlights the variety of ways Opportunity is providing access to banking services in even the most remote areas through the use of low cost kiosks, ATMs and mobile banks.

You can read her post here:

http://blogs.ft.com/gapperblog/2010/01/melinda-gates-in-davos-lessons-from-africa/

And visit www.opportunity.org to get involved with the fight to end global poverty.

The following is a guest post by Jessica Elisberg from Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX).

Interested in learning about microfinance? Follow our biweekly Twitter discussion group #mifimon (because Microfinance Mondays was too long for Twitter’s 140-character limit!) The aim is to host an exchange of ideas about issues relevant to the microfinance industry. You’re welcome to lend your voice, whether you’re a practitioner in the field or a newbie just learning the basics. Just end your messages with the hashtag #mifimon!

We had a great turn-out for this week’s discussion: @BRAC_USA, @mix_market, @sonjkelly, @SeaMoMicro, @sprungpr, @ibl, @davidcabanban, @zyozyfounder, @smrtblondg, @scotteverett, @Unitus_Steve, @ACCION_USA, @AJRenold, @amycarolwolff, @CFI_ACCION, @CIPEglobal, @OptINnow, @laurakummer.

This week’s #Mifimon featured guest panelist @BRAC_USA and a discussion about “Microfinance Plus” approaches.

BRAC, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, began as a relief agency in 1972. Since then it has expanded its approaches to community development, and is frequently touted as a prime example of integrating financial and non-financial services – “Microfinance Plus.” BRAC is now comprised of a bank, a technological institute, and a university in Bangladesh, and has spread its operations to six countries outside of Bangladesh: Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uganda, Tanzania, and Southern Sudan. BRAC also has branches in the US and the UK, which work together to support the organization’s regional programs.
For more information about BRAC’s “Microfinance Plus” approaches, visit BRAC USA’s homepage. You can also learn more about BRAC’s microfinance operations by visiting their profile on MIX Market.

Microfinance + Health

In BRAC’s integrated model of microfinance and health services, members of microfinance groups are trained to be health promoters. Each woman receives two weeks of health training and then visits 150-200 families per month to provide health information and basic health services. These services include health products (basic medicines, soap, etc.) which the health promoters can sell to supplement their income. The topics for health promoter training are determined by surveys that identify regional health risks; common topics include tuberculosis, malaria, maternal health, and child health. BRAC also partners with third party providers to increase their clients’ access to health services. For example, they are currently working with Visionspring in Bangladesh to distribute reading glasses. Through this model, BRAC has 80,000 health promoters reaching nearly 100 million people. The organization has an active research and evaluation division which works to evaluate its programs beyond traditional monitoring and evaluation. Since beginning this health promotion program, BRAC has seen notable declines in maternal and child mortality, as well as lower fertility rates, in Bangladesh.

A number of organizations have been working on integrated microfinance and health service provision, including ProMujer, Opportunity International (MicroEnsure program), Freedom From Hunger (Microfinance and Health Protection Initiative), and Leapfrog Investments’ Microinsurance Fund.

Microfinance + Agriculture

In addition to integrating health and financial services, BRAC also integrates agricultural and financial services. The organization trains model farmers from its microfinance groups, who are then responsible for teaching best farming practices to 20+ farmers in their community. They also conduct research to develop higher quality seeds, and in Bangladesh currently operate a seed distribution social enterprise. The best practices that are promoted through BRAC’s agricultural service provision focus on sustainability as well as making use of organic techniques. They also focus on local agriculture markets because these service programs operate in areas that are not food self-sufficient. Overall, increased use of information and communications technology is having a major impact for rural areas and can continue to aid the integration of microfinance and agriculture.

Microfinance + Human Rights

Though data are lacking for showing a causal relationship, the general belief is that access to microfinance can help promote human rights – particularly when organizations focus on outreach to women (as BRAC does). The availability of financial services can reduce the potential for poor women to turn to human trafficking as a means of obtaining money. BRAC also provides legal education to its microfinance clients, teaching them about their rights and offering arbitration and legal aid services.

Conclusion

Integration of microfinance with other services is critical for addressing the many facets of development. As the guest panelist from BRAC USA stated, microfinance won’t end poverty alone, but it does provide a platform to deliver services that give poor people the tools to climb out of poverty. In order to provide these tools effectively, it is necessary to build strong partnerships with service provision organizations.