Ed Scott, Founder, Center for Global Development

Initiative Session Date: June 4, 2003

Summary:
Ed Scott encouraged the Initiative to lobby key legislators, to replicate its efforts and important messages in other cities, to begin to make a difference on selected issues where the group can make an impact such as AIDS and trade barriers, and to encourage the US government to support the Global Fund. He also urged the group to figure out what specific action items citizens can actually do to offer assistance.

“Talk is cheap, analysis is cheap. It’s actually results that are hard. The only thing that matters really is what happens in the world’s poorest countries. …It is the case that if we improve our policies, ultimately we believe in our heart of hearts that those countries will be better off. But I will really be happy when we can point to things that are happening in these countries, fewer people are dying of AIDS, there’s more extended trade to these countries, more kids are going to primary school, life expectancy is going up, there’s stability in these countries because they now have economic opportunity. When those things really begin to start happening, and we can say with honesty that the policies we’ve espoused had something to do about that, then I will start to feel that we’ve really done what we’ve set out to do.”

     -Ed Scott, Speaking with the Initiative