SEATTLE — Alarmed by America's sagging image and the growing disparity in global wealth, a group of prominent Seattle business leaders is trying to educate, cajole and, if necessary, shame America into helping the poorest of the world's poor.
Although initially fearful of being dismissed as a group of West Coast idealists, the founders of the Initiative for Global Development have traversed the country for three years trying to convince skeptical company executives that they could ensure future prosperity and security by helping to provide clean water, schooling and adequate healthcare for the 1.2 billion people who exist on less than $1 a day. The group includes Bill Gates Sr., father of the Microsoft Corp. founder, and William Clapp, whose family helped found the Weyerhaeuser timber company.
"Poverty is the swamp," said Clapp, who funds micro-credit programs in Latin America. "It doesn't create all the problems, but it's the sticky goo you've got to wade through to solve anything, whether it's environmental problems or political instability."
In a world preoccupied by terrorism threats and rising gasoline prices, getting U.S. business leaders to focus on the plight of impoverished farmers and slum dwellers hasn't been easy. But the persistence of the Seattle-based organization has earned the support of anti-poverty experts such as economist Jeffrey D. Sachs and the attention of President Bush, who agreed to appear today at its national summit on global poverty in Washington, D.C.
The chief executives of many of the Northwest's leading companies, including Microsoft, Starbucks Corp. and Recreational Equipment Inc., have joined the cause.
The group's top priority is getting the U.S. to boost its annual spending on anti-poverty programs to $36 billion, an increase of $20 billion. Those funds, which would include government and private sector money, could go toward bed nets to prevent malaria or the elimination of school fees to boost education.
The World Bank and the United Nations have estimated that it would take an additional $40 billion to $60 billion a year to make "substantial progress" in eliminating extreme global poverty. The initiative has proposed that the U.S. contribute about one-third of that amount, which would equal its share of global gross domestic product.
