How much is a speech by Barack Obama worth? Five billion, apparently.
The final meeting of Group of 8 leaders [in July] in L’Aquila, Italy, started with $15 billion already on the table. Then President Obama gave a speech evoking the Kenyan village where his father herded goats as a child. In countless villages like it, millions of people face hunger daily, Mr. Obama said, and after he finished speaking, the pledges jumped by $5 billion, according to several officials present.
In Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow in this morning's New York Times.
The meeting in question concerned hunger, which is now part of the daily existence of 1.02 billion people worldwide.
Neil MacFarquhar goes on to write that "those pledges remain murky" and quotes a "financial official involved in the talks who was not authorized to speak publicly" who expresses the realities behind those good intentions:
The good news is that the political class considers this important and wants to do something about it. But nobody has 20 billion and spare change in their sock drawer.
Related (and a little more upbeat): California’s Food Banks Go Locavore »
oh! and if you want to feed someone without leaving your laptop, try Free Rice is Nice »
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