President Clinton attended the groundbreaking for a new hospital in the Burera District, the only district in Rwanda still lacking a hospital. CHAI and Partners In Health are helping the government of Rwanda to develop sustainable comprehensive health care plans in each district starting here in Burera, efforts that will include strengthening a network of community health workers. Watch it all begin below …

Submitted by: Anil Soni, CEO, Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative

In front of a packed convention center hall, President Clinton addressed the 2008 International AIDS Conference yesterday with the theme that to effectively take on the scourge of HIV/AIDS we cannot just fight the disease, but we must strengthen national health systems in places where AIDS has hit the hardest. He encouraged the international and donor communities to work with countries to build up their health infrastructures. Drawing from examples of places visited this week and the people he met, the former president stressed the importance of community health workers in Rwanda which has even begun a nation-wide system of rural health care delivery, one of the reasons why Jean-Pierre—the 15-year-old HIV-positive patient we met on our trip—was still alive and doing well. In Ethiopia, the first priority the government set was to train hospital managers and build clinics.

The clamor of applause President Clinton received was the perfect ending to a trip that brought us through four countries, introduced us to amazing people, and reminded all of us of what challenges we’re up against in Africa and around the world. We all have a stake in this fight – not just the people in the rural health care centers or government officials or even the Foundation staff on the ground. As President Clinton says often, all of us can give something to improve the lives of others. And while we know that a six-day tour isn’t enough to make the changes we need to make, we have more resolve than ever to continue our work and build on this momentum.

Excerpts from President Clinton’s Speech:

Watch Full Speech the World AIDS conference in Mexico City.

President Clinton speaks at the World AIDS Conference, Meixco City (Photo by: Barbara Kinney, Clinton Foundation)

Submitted by: Alex Avant

Between July 28th and Aug. 4th, I had the honor to travel from Africa to Mexico with President Clinton and his Foundation, with the mission to better the future for those in need. During my trip to Ethiopia, we visited a village called Debre Zeit, a rural area outside of Addis Ababa where thousands of people gathered, waving their Ethiopian flags proudly. They listened to President Clinton lay out his plans on helping people with HIV/AIDS, particularly women, to stop the spread of these terrible diseases. You could tell by the applause that everyone was excited the Clinton Foundation was helping to resolve these issues and reducing the cost of medicine.

We traveled far to get to Rwinkwavu, Rwanda, to meet a special boy named Jean- Pierre, who at 15 years old has AIDS and has lost his parents to this disease. One of the many phenomenal things I noticed in certain parts of Rwanda was how clean the streets were, literally. I saw people sweeping the streets constantly. There was an aura of purity floating around. You must give credit to their leader, President Kagame, who continues to prevail in his country despite all the fighting that’s gone on in that country.  I was honored to visit his home and to meet him and his children. He has great vision for his country.

As we drove through Monrovia, Liberia, you could see the devastation of war by looking at the destruction of houses and huts along side the roads. Seeing the kids run up to the motorcade with those smiles on their faces reminded me of the first smile I ever had. The principle difference was that their circumstances are diametrically opposite of mine. Eighty percent of the country lives without electricity. I couldn’t survive a minute and a half without it, and I have the audacity to complain; boy was that a wake up call.

We went to the Jorkpentown Market where I walked alongside Chelsea and watched her interact with children. She was very caring towards them as they were to her, nothing but smiles lit up on their faces. Later on we listened to President Clinton and the honorable President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf discuss how to eradicate malaria.

While in Mexico City, Mexico, thousands of us watched Clinton give the keynote speech at the World AIDS Conference. As silence filled the room and President Clinton got up to speak, he wasted no time and cut to the chase, stating AIDS is big dragon that must be knocked out. He shared what was happening in the states, where there is a serious problem among African Americans with HIV. He discussed rising oil, food prices and the mortgage crisis which adds pressure on the people infected with HIV. People cheered from every corner of the venue on hearing how his foundation is going to help.

Last, we had the distinct privilege of being invited to listen to President Clinton speak at a very intimate setting. He joined philanthropist Frank Giustra, Carlos Slim and President Of The Inter -American Development Bank Luis Moreno announce new projects in Columbia., Peru and Mexico, including one to strengthen small and medium sized businesses in undeserved areas.

Submitted by: Tascha Alvarez von Gustedt, Foreign Policy Advisor

Yesterday was a crazy day of travel, and I’m just able to get online now to update. We rose early in the morning in Rwanda and traveled across the continent to Liberia, on the west coast of Africa. Liberia is a small country of only 3.5 million people and was ravaged by civil war in the 1990s and early this century.

Although it’s been ravaged by poverty, the country’s future is bright – as President Clinton pointed out today, Liberia enjoys strong political leadership from President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa’s only female head of state and arguably one of the most popular leaders throughout the continent.

After leaving the plane we traveled to the Golden Key Hotel, a CGI member commitment site currently under construction. There is a great need for hotels here — following the civil war, there were only 45 hotel beds in the whole country. President Clinton said he envisions Golden Key, ideally located at the halfway point between the capital city of Monrovia and the airport, to be a meeting spot for potential investors. He joked that he’d like to take a swim in the pool next time he visits.

After we left the construction site we made a quick stop for a tour of the Jorkpan Town Market, where cheering children greeted President Clinton. In front of a delegation of Liberian political leaders, he announced details of new negotiations that have lowered a popular malaria drug by 30% and secured a commitment that would keep malaria medicine prices stable.

Visiting Liberia – and all of the countries we’ve been to – has been a great experience for me as foreign policy advisor. Preparing for the trip was a lot of work, but it’s all worth it in the end to see the smiles President Clinton brings to the faces of the people here, and to see our work really helping people on the ground. When I get back to the office, we’ll start preparing for next year’s trip…

President Bill Clinton greets a crowd while touring an outdoor market August 3, 2008 in Monrovia, Liberia. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images For The Clinton Foundation)

Submitted by: Bill Clinton

I’m in Mexico City today for the International AIDS Conference. As I prepare my remarks, I can’t help but reflect on the people I’ve met and the places I’ve seen during my six-day trip through Africa.

I have been blessed over the years to travel extensively around our world, both as President and now as a private citizen. I’ve always found that intelligence, hard work, and determination are equally distributed across the planet, but access to health care, education, and economic opportunity is not. This is especially clear in many rural areas of Africa, where villagers face challenges surpassed only by their indefatigable spirit.

This trip was a terrific opportunity to meet and learn about some extraordinary people. I spent a day with coffee and cassava farmers in rural Rwanda who are increasing their productivity and incomes with the help of the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative. We also broke ground on a new hospital in the Burera District - the last district in Rwanda to open a hospital.

One story I heard really encapsulates the importance of our work, and I want to share it with you. Along with Beatrice, a community health care worker, I was invited to visit the home of Jean-Pierre, a 15-year-old boy, and his sister Eugenie.

Eugenie, who is now 19, has taken care of Jean-Pierre since she was 13, after they lost their parents to a disease that was likely AIDS. In 2005, Jean-Pierre was diagnosed with advanced AIDS symptoms severe enough to keep him out of school. But thanks to the treatment and kindness Beatrice delivers to their home, Jean-Pierre’s health has dramatically improved, and he can now live an active life like any other teenager. Although he does have some catching up to do, he’s doing well in his third-grade class. One day, he hopes to become a doctor, and when Jean-Pierre is old enough to care for himself, Eugenie would like to open her own shop.

It was a moving visit. These two young people spoke so bravely, even though they’ve been faced with profound adversity in their short lives. Beatrice’s compassion and devotion to her job are unwavering, and I’m so proud that the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative had a hand in providing her with the training and resources to do what she does best - help bring health care and hope to families in need.

This has been a particularly meaningful trip, reaffirming to me the importance of our work and strengthening my resolve to do even more. I hope you’ll join me as we continue our efforts to ensure that more people with AIDS - especially children, like Jean-Pierre - can live healthy, full lives.

Meeting Jean Pierre for the first time. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images For The Clinton Foundation)

Submitted by: Oliver Sabot, Director of Malaria Control Team

As you drive through the streets of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, the hope is palpable. Every other house is still ruined and covered in bullet holes, but there are construction projects everywhere and the streets are filled with energetic people. Liberians are enthusiastically embracing the opportunity to build a better future for their country.

Liberia bears a heavy burden of malaria as it strives to overcome decades of war. Hundreds of thousands of people across the country (and hundreds of millions across the continent) every year come down with chills and fever and visit their local shop or clinic for treatment. But rather than a cold or the flu, they have potentially deadly malaria. And, for most of them, the drugs that they will receive are no longer effective, failing to cure the malaria infection more than half the time in some areas. It is like flipping a coin to decide your fate or that of your child – unthinkable odds for those of us living in the US and Europe.

But there is a simple solution: ACTs are new drugs which will fully cure a child of malaria with just six pill and three days. But since they are more difficult to produce, these drugs have cost 10-20 times more than the older, ineffective varieties. As a result, many governments have been unable to afford enough ACTs to supply their hospitals and clinics while patients visiting private shops have found that they have to pay five times more than they earn in a day for the new drug.

Today President Clinton will announce CHAI’s effort that will help provide effective treatment to tens of thousands more people in Liberia. CHAI has signed agreements with key manufacturers that will reduce the price of the ACT used by Liberia and other West African countries by 30%. That will mean that the limited funding available – and in a post-conflict country like Liberia there is never enough resources – can provide drugs to roughly one-third more patients. As a result, more mothers will know the relief and joy when their children are fully cured of their deadly infection.

Last year, President Clinton announced a new, comprehensive model CHAI had developed to tackle one aspect of this challenge to a crowd of more than 8,000 people in rural Tanzania. That approach has already begun to show remarkable results: the price of ACTs in rural shops has fallen from $10 to an affordable $0.50 and two-thirds of young children are now accessing the drugs compared to none previously. It is now being scaled up across the country and will reach roughly 6 million additional people with effective treatment every year.

This year, President Clinton has given the people of Liberia more reason to be hopeful by giving them more access to tools to save their children and at last drive back a disease that has hindered potential for centuries.

President Clinton met with Rwandan coffee farmers yesterday at the Kigali Serena Hotel in Kigali, Rwanda. For more than a year, CHDI has worked with 6,500 coffee farmers to expand their access to financing, improve their production and processing capacity, facilitate international sales, and develop a new “Rwandan Farmers” coffee brand that is structured to return profits directly to the farmers and their communities. Rwandan Farmers coffee was launched in June 2008 and now is sold in more than 800 retail outlets in Europe. CHDI is working in both Rwanda and Malawi to improve farmers’ incomes, develop sustainable agri-businesses, and strengthen essential infrastructure that can improve productivity.  

President Bill Clinton with coffee growers at event at the Kigali Serena Hotel in Kigali, Rwanda on August 1, 2008.

Submitted by: Matt McKenna, Communications Director

Our internet connection is a bit hit or miss here – but I wanted to give an update from the road in Ethiopia where I am traveling with President Clinton. Earlier today we drove south out of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, down the bustling highway that connects Addis to the port of Djibouti. About two hours out of the capital, we turned onto a dirt road that took us to the village of Debre Zeit, site of the Godino Health Center. Godino is one of 50 rural health clinics in Ethiopia that the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) is supporting through a partnership with the government we launched today called the Ethiopian Millennial Rural Initiative (EMRI). In the future, the Ethiopian government hopes to expand that number into the thousands.

Children carry Ethiopian flags as they walk down a road before President Bill Clinton tours the Godino Health Center August 1, 2008 in Debre Zeit, Ethiopia. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images For The Clinton Foundation)

After a tour of Godino, we walked a few hundred yards up the road to the town center. We were greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of thousands of townspeople, some frenetically waving Ethiopian flags, some tending their cattle.

When the president addressed the crowd, he stressed the importance of not just treating specific diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria, but strengthening the health systems that prevent these diseases from taking hold. This is what EMRI is all about: improving access to health care in rural communities remains one of the key challenges facing the developing world.

President Bill Clinton waves to a crowd after he visited the Godino Health Center. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images For The Clinton Foundation)

A big part of this will be expanding care for pregnant mothers and their infants. For example, in Ethiopia today, 30 percent of mothers transmit HIV to their children through labor or breastfeeding. Most of these transmissions occur because the mother does not know her HIV status. Even if she does know it is simply too difficult to make it to a clinic where she may be able to receive proper care. So CHAI is launching efforts to strengthen these services with the goal of dramatically reducing transmission rates in at least six countries, including Ethiopia.

So far spirits are high, thanks to the warm welcome we received in Debre Ziet. Next stop: Rwanda, where our journey continues…

Submitted by: Peter Huffman, Deputy Country Director, Ethiopia

The rain continues, but the excitement carries on. I just came back from Rema, which is a small village 200 kilometers northeast of Addis Ababa. A Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) member commitment has fully electrified this mountainous community with solar panels for each tukul (aka hut), including the local primary school and health center.

President Clinton, some of his delegation, and 7 of our staff were visiting the famous rock hewn churches of Lalibela while we were preparing in Rema for tomorrow’s visit. We travelled via helicopter, and before the skids touched the local soccer field, the entire community of 5,000 had rushed to greet us. They were absolutely bewildered and excited – less of the foreigners, but more of the unfamiliar “cars that fly”

While the President is visiting Rema tomorrow, we will be escorting most of the delegation to ALERT Hospital, where the Clinton Foundation has built the largest pediatric HIV/AIDS clinic in the country – which has quickly become a Center of Excellence for treating children. It’s a marvelous site to see healthy and happy children that only 6 months ago were on the brink of death. So I’m ecstatic that so many of our guests will be able to see firsthand one of the fruits of our intense labor over the past year. Stay tuned, even if it’s just for a predictable weather report of Ethiopia!

The preparation wasn’t all work, as you can see we found time to interact and play with the community. It’s still unclear if the baby I am holding is giddy with excitement or crying from fear…

Submitted by: Peter Huffman, Deputy Country Director, Ethiopia

President Clinton’s plane is about to take off from the US as I write this, and he will be arriving in Ethiopia - the country of “13 months of sunshine” (albeit it has been raining nonstop the last week!) – in less than a day. 

This morning, more than 1,000 volunteers from the community came together with our staff and government counterparts, to prepare for his arrival. It’s amazing how camaraderie and excitement resulted in them constructing a road, building a massive fence, planting flowers, erecting a stage – and all while doing it with the perennial smile and warmth that embodies the Ethiopian spirit.

On Friday, his first event will be at Godino Health Center, which is approximately 100 kilometers from the capital city, Addis Ababa.  Godino is one of 50 similar rural communities throughout the country, where we will be establishing family-focused, comprehensive rural community models of healthcare, with the goal of improving the lives of the 85% of Ethiopians living in rural areas. The entire community is eagerly planning for the large event –more than 10,000 people will attend the massive kickoff of this new program. 

I have had the great opportunity to work with the Clinton Foundation for nearly four years now, and of the three Presidential visits to Africa I have helped facilitate, this trip is especially exciting given the multitude of events President Clinton will be visiting in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Liberia, and Senegal. 

His first stop is here in Ethiopia, home to the Foundation’s largest country office in the world outside of the US – with a staff size approaching 100.  We have a gamut of projects here, which concentrate on HIV/AIDS, health systems, drug and medical equipment procurement, and the more recently established Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI).

We look forward to his arrival, and I’ll be sure to blog when I can from Ethiopia, and later in the week, from Senegal. It should be an amazing trip – so check back daily for updates.