Many of us Clintonites are fully aware of the remarkable good Bill Clinton has done since leaving the White House. But in the current media climate, it seems that he has been denigrated nearly as much as Hillary was during the Presidential Primary. It began to sound as if we should consider him an embarrassment. Wrong!

In a moving article on the Huffington Post, none other than South Africa's wiseman Desmond Tuto explains and praises the critically-needed efforts of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) -- particularly and especially those of Bill's Clinton Foundation:

"We live in a time when no single government or alliance of nations can alone solve the scandal of poverty, the warming of our planet or the scourge of disease ... we've seen non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, proliferate ... Thank heavens. Populated by passionate experts and funded by philanthropic grants and widows' mites alike, these organizations are civil society's collective conscience ... One of the best NGOs of the 21st century deserves more attention for its efforts to combat today's most pressing global issues from HIV/AIDS to climate change. It's the Clinton Foundation ...

"I know how strongly he (Bill) believes, as he has said many times, that 'in our interdependent world, we are all responsible for our neighbors, even if they live half a world away.' It's generally well known how he has brought governments, businesses, charitable organizations and individual volunteers together in common purpose. What's much less known are the foundation's early accomplishments. It has given small businesses from Harlem to Ghana the opportunity to survive and prosper ...

"... consider the Foundation's HIV/AIDS initiative. In the past six years alone, it has helped save the lives of nearly a million and a half children and adults in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. How? First, it recognized the yawning chasm between the number of people needing medicine to survive the ravages of AIDS and those with access to that medicine. Second, it knew the price of that medicine proved a huge barrier to bridging that chasm. And third, it realized that delivering medicine to the people who needed it required construction of a strong infrastructure that would last years.

"President Clinton and his foundation team set about meeting those challenges head on. They negotiated with the drug companies to lower the price of HIV tests and treatment dramatically; completed memorandums of understanding with governments and organizations to deliver medicine and aid and to provide expertise and equipment to make those deliveries work; and inspired thousands of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of contributors to bring both financial and people power to bear on this great cause ..What's happened? The price of pediatric HIV/AIDS drugs has dropped by nearly 90 percent ...

"At a time when the global economic landscape looks so bleak, it is especially fortunate that these non-governmental organizations are going where governments can't go to bring hope and combat hopelessness to so many people in need. We must celebrate their progress and communicate their advances, no matter how small they may seem to some. Believe me, they aren't small to those in the forgotten places or those neglected people of our time."

Read all: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/desmond-tutu/the-changing-face-of-serv_b_156759.html

Positively,
Carolan