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The Millennium Campaign aims to build political will for the achievement of the MDGs primarily through raising public awareness and increasing pressure on governments. Through supporting national campaigns with advocacy, networking, mass mobilizations, training and capacity building, as well as media and communications development the Millennium Campaign works with citizens to monitor and hold their government's to account for their commitments made to achieving the MDGs.

What will be the next global pandemic? Avian influenza?  Smallpox? Well, in honor of March madness, I'm holding a tournament. We're going to find the next global pandemic, right here. We'll match up the scariest infectious diseases, and pick a winner - the next global pandemic.

The World Bank Launches Private-Public Initiative to Empower Adolescent Girls Author: World Bank Dated: 10 Oct 2008 The World Bank joined governments and the private sector today to launch the Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI) to promote the economic empowerment of adolescent girls in poor and post-conflict countries...The AGI is being piloted in Liberia through a partnership between the Bank, the Nike Foundation...It will be expanded in the coming year to include Afghanistan, Nepal, Rwanda, South Sudan...“...Every global company should invest in the girl effect. Economists have demonstrated that it is the best possible return on investment,” said Mark Parker, President and CEO of Nike...Public and private sector partners pledged today around $20 million to fund the Initiative, including: The Nike Foundation $3M. [also refers to Cisco, Standard Chartered, Goldman Sachs]

Some of Rigobon’s findings: In Chile, when the price of wheat goes up by 10%, the price of bread goes up by 5% 18 months later. In Colombia and Peru, it takes three years for this same percentage increase to occur, with these countries taking longer “to digest the international shock of commodity prices.” Not only do the prices of bread, cookies, meat, chicken, move in lockstep with wheat, but in some cases, so do housing, health and education. But Rigobon found that when the international price of oil increases, there is an immediate impact on all products related to oil. What’s worse, when the price of oil increases, the price of gas at the pump or for a rental car goes up disproportionately.

It’s been true for years, notes Rigobon, that “oil is unconditionally negatively correlated with cereals.” If oil is up, maize, sorghum and wheat prices are down. But this has recently changed, a sign “of the unique times we’re in, the policy challenges we’re facing.” We are simultaneously facing recession (due in large part to the sub-prime mortgage crisis), and inflation, in both food and oil prices. Central banks, he notes with scorn and wonderment, don’t include food and energy in their calculations of “core inflation.” If the job of these banks and government is to take care of their citizens, they must respond to this crisis along the lines of the response to 9/11 or Enron. Rigobon endorses well-communicated, transparent policies, and some tough measures like interest rate increases.