Committing to 4 Billion Liters of Clean Water with President Bill Clinton and Celebrating Success

We just participated in the 5th Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and made our biggest commitment ever.  P&G, through our Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program, is committed to providing 4 billion liters of safe drinking water in the developing world by 2012.  This will prevent an estimated 160 million days of diarrheal illness and save 20,000 lives.  As part of this commitment, we’ll also launched a number of initiatives to raise awareness of the global water crisis and these will reach at least 300 million households. 

President Clinton used his convening power at this non-partisan event to pull together more than a thousand world leaders.  In attendance were more than 60 heads of state including President Obama, senior business leaders from the top corporations including Walmart’s Mike Duke, P&G’s Dimitri Panayotopoulos and Marc Pritchard, and leaders of many of the top humanitarian groups including dozens of our safe drinking water partners.

President Clinton highlighted P&G’s work with the PUR packets many times throughout the week including on Larry King Live, David Letterman, and in front of the world leaders at CGI with Dimitri on stage.  P&G also made a new environmental commitment at CGI called Future Friendly.  This committed P&G to put environmentally improved products in 30 million households by the end of 2010.

President Clinton repeatedly used the PUR packets as an example of how small contributions can make a big difference.  Since we provide the PUR packets in the developing world for only $0.10 each, $30 is sufficient to provide safe drinking water to a family for a full year. 

Dimitri, Marc, and I each presented at separate events at CGI.  Dimitri presented P&G’s strategy and commitment to a group convened to discuss the role of innovation in reaching low-income consumers or people at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP).  Marc presented to CGI’s Health Track and was truly impressive to this group of key opinion leaders.  Kate Roberts of PSI gave an emotional testimony of her experience with Mandy Moore in Sudan with PUR.  Mandy recently wrote about her trip in the Huffington Post.  I was asked to present to a special group convened on water by John Oldfield of Water Advocates.  We were pleased that the Prime Minister of Ethiopia chose to attend this session because of the critical need for safe drinking water in Ethiopia  Gary White, who recently created Water.org with Matt Damon, pulled out some very dirty water from a well in Ethiopia and everyone agreed that PUR would have been a great option to purify the filthy water.

Not only did we make new CSDW and environmental commitments, but we celebrated completion of 3 of our original CGI commitments.  We did this by throwing a big party and inviting our partners.  We took over the lobby restaurant of the Sheraton New York Towers and weren’t surprised when nearly 200 people showed up to help us celebrate.  Bryan McCleary of P&G and Paine PR orchestrated an awards show to celebrate “Promises Made, Promises Kept”.  We presented Live, Learn, and Thrive Partnership Awards to some of our most critical partners who have achieved measurable results and helped us retire the 3 CGI commitments. 

Marc Pritchard started the evening by thanking everyone for attending.  Marc has a passion for P&G’s efforts to improve lives through our brands and this came to life in his introductory remarks.  Marc has represented our CSDW efforts many times in the past two years and his personal leadership is resulting in significant and tangible growth of the program.

Dimitri was a fantastic emcee.  I’ve known Dimitri since we met during the launch of the PUR packets in Pakistan in 2003.  He has a passion for the developing world, being born and raised in Tanzania and leading P&G businesses in many parts of the developing world from China to Africa.  He described P&G’s renewed focus to reach more people in the developing world; and, specifically to reach an additional 1 billion people by 2014.  Then it was time to celebrate.  Bryan and I invited some special guest to introduce each of our LLT Partnership Awards.

Paula Zahn, world famous journalist, presented the LLT award to UNICEF for partnering with Pampers to provide more than 200 million tetanus vaccines to combat maternal and neonatal tetanus in the developing world.  As a result of this work, Pampers was able to successfully complete the commitment it made at CGI in 2007.  Accepting the award for UNICEF was Anthony Panteleoni, Board Chair of the US Fund for UNICEF.

Bill Frist, former US Senate Majority Leader, presented the LLT award to World Vision for partnering with CSDW to respond to the cholera crisis in Zimbabwe by reaching more than 250,000 people.  World Vision collaborated with P&G, PSI, AmeriCares, and others to provide more than 25 million liters of safe drinking water using the PUR packets.  Accepting the award for World Vision was Rich Stearns, President.

Molly Sims, actor and PSI Ambassador, presented the LLT award to PSI for partnering with CSDW to provide more than 200 million liters of safe drinking water in Ethiopia.  In Ethiopia, PSI works with more than 20 organizations including UNICEF, USAID, Oxfam, CARE, Save the Children, World Food Program, and Action Against Hunger.  PSI Ethiopia has placed an emphasis on providing safe drinking water with the PUR packets to people living with HIV/AIDS and to malnourished children.  PSI’s work in twelve countries has prevented millions of cases of diarrhea, saved thousands of lives, and has been instrumental in enabling P&G to successfully complete our 2008 commitment to provide 1 billion liters of safe drinking water.  Accepting the LLT award for PSI was Karl Hoffman, President and CEO.

Kenna, Grammy-nominated artist and leader of Summit on the Summit: Kilimanjaro, teamed up with Dania Ramirez, actor and Cover Girl’s newest celebrity, to present the LLT award to CARE for partnering with CSDW to reduce diarrhea and absenteeism in school children in Kenya.  This effort along with partners PSI and World Vision – enabled us to complete our 2006 CGI commitment to reach 1 million children in school programs in Africa.  Accepting the LLT award for CARE was Helene Gayle, President and CEO, and Radha Muthiah, VP Strategic Partnership.

We presented the LLT Partnership Awards prior to the arrival of President Clinton.  I was asked to be part of the picture with President Clinton, Marc Pritchard, and Kenna because of my upcoming participation in hiking Kilimanjaro.  I stood backstage and thanked each of the presenters and award winners.  We’ve made a significant impact together and it was fun to celebrate and acknowledge them. 

I was a bit star struck meeting the beautiful and talented Paula Zahn, Molly Sims, and Dania Ramirez.  Thank goodness they asked questions about the PUR packets so I didn’t appear a complete idiot.  These stars have the power to draw people’s attention to these global health issues.  They can help us break through so people begin to understand and take action so unsafe drinking water no longer kills more children than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.  And, clearly they can do it in a way much different than what I can do as a scientist.  Duh!

We knew President Clinton was about to show up when the security detail reappeared.  These guys are serious business.  President Clinton is so gracious and sincere about his encouragement of our efforts to address key global issues.  I felt privileged to once again have a chance to speak to him about our program.  After a few official photos, it was time for Dimitri to introduce President Clinton.

I left the back-stage area so I could wiggle my way into the front row to watch President Clinton.  He thanked P&G for completing our commitments and said he admired the way we made and delivered on specific and measurable impact.  But what really touched me was his emphasis of the scale of our impact both in the breadth and depth of our partnerships and the health impact of meeting our commitments.  President Clinton is in a unique position of reviewing the progress of thousands of commitments and his singling out our CSDW program as one of the most significant for health impact was a bit mind-blowing for me.  And, it’s certainly good fuel for us to do even more, because even though we’ve had an impact – there’s much, much more to be done. 

Bryan had arranged for a couple of moms to bring their babies and we invited them on stage for a photo with President Clinton and Dimitri.  It was a cute way to end the evening and President Clinton said good-bye while we played the tune “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow”. 

Our new CSDW commitment includes a large number of external partners to meet the new goals.  It was so much fun to meet many of them at this event.  I just wish I had more time to spend with each of them.  And, I was excited that we had a number of potential future partners in attendance as well. 

Here are the partners that are part of our new commitment listed in alphabetical order: Abt Associates,  Academy for Educational Development (AED), AmeriCares, Africare, Aga Khan Foundation, AMPATH, Aquaya Institute, Arch Chemicals, CARE, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), CDC, CFW Shops, Child Fund International (CFI), Chlorine Chemistry Council, Family Health International (FHI), Feed the Children, Food for the Hungry, Francois Xavier Bagnoud (FXB),Global Medic, Jane Goodall Institute, Johns Hopkins University CCP, International Council of Nurses, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, International Medical Corps, Millennium Village Project, Oxfam, Partners in Health, Peace Corps, Plan International, Population Services International, Project Hope in Pakistan, Safe Water and AIDS Program in Kenya, Samaritan's Purse, Save the Children, UNC-Chapel Hill Medical School and Kenan Flagler Business School, USAID, Village AIDS Clinics, and World Vision.  What an impressive list!

Our partners in the awareness raising portion of the new commitment include the PUR Water Filtration, P&G BrandSaver, P&G Beauty & Grooming, the P&G Retired Officers, and Summit on the Summit: Kilimanjaro. For each PUR System purchased, PUR will donate a weeks worth of clean drinking water in the developing world.  Thanks to Leigh Radford and Dave Tomasi of the PUR brand for their efforts at CGI.  There are also a couple of additional P&G brands that will be announcing programs in the coming months.

Here are some of the specifics our on-the-ground work to meet the commitment.  With World Vision, we’ll launch programs in 4 or more countries including Zimbabwe.  With PSI, we’ll launch new programs in 2 or more new countries including Rwanda.  With Abt Associates, CRS, and USAID, we’ll position PUR in Guatemala and Nicaragua to respond to disasters via USAID's 4th Sector Health grant. Importantly, we will significantly expand our efforts to provide safe drinking water to people living with AIDS by providing at least 250 million liters of safe drinking water to this particularly vulnerable population.

The Clinton Global Initiative was inspiring.  I’m honored to have taken part and I know that our CSDW program is stronger because of our participation.  I hope we’re able to attend next year, but for now, it’s time to get to work on delivering on these big new goals.

If you want to follow my trips real time, you can follow me on twitter at @DrGregAllgood.  CGI was my introductory tweeting and I was a bit competitive by out-tweeting Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore at one-point.

Comments

[Chris Kelling]

Hello Greg:

I have a curiosity question. In your blog, you state that: "We provide the PUR packets in the developing world for only $0.10 each. $30 is sufficient to provide safe drinking water to a family for a full year." I remember those figures from previous postings.

When President Clinton talked about PUR with both Larry King and Dave Letterman, he quoted a $0.50 price point/packet. Specifically, he talked about the "little guy donor" who could buy 20 packets for $10.00.

Wouldn't it be an even more impressive statement if that $10.00 could buy 100 packets (since they are not being purchased for personal use, but rather for use in the developing world)?

Why is Clinton citing a $0.50/packet price? Just wondering....

Chris Kelling

[Greg Allgood]

Hi Chris,

President Clinton remembered the price incorrectly on Larry King and David Letterman's shows. I reminded him of the actual cost of $0.10 per PUR packet that treats 10 liters at CGI and he remembered correctly in two subsequent occasions. I'm thrilled he mentioned us so many times and, as you point out, PUR is even more cost-effective than he initially remembered. I had the chance to thank him for remembering correctly and he joked with me that he's "trainable" How great is it that President Clinton is spending the time to think about our efforts and mention them so often! Thanks, Greg