Impact 08
Impact ’08: Building a Better, Safer World was the Center’s national, non-partisan initiative, chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, calling on all of the Presidential candidates during the 2008 election to elevate and strengthen America’s investments in global development and diplomacy.
Through outreach and events in seven of the early primary and battleground general election states, Impact ’08 brought together Republicans, Democrats and Business, Civic, Military and Faith based leaders together to call on the candidates to take a “smart power” approach to global engagement. Both Barack Obama and John McCain made strong commitments to answer this call. In the end, President Obama’s election was historic in many ways, including his significant commitment to the most in-depth and far reaching platform embracing “smart power” of any candidate in our history. Obama pledged to “make the case to the American people that [development assistance] can be our best investment in increasing the common security of the entire world.” Specifically, Obama pledged to:
- Double annual U.S. foreign assistance to $50 billion
- Embrace Millennium Development Goal of halving global poverty by 2015
- Increase the size of the Foreign Service, USAID and the Peace Corps
- Modernize our foreign assistance policies, tools and operations
Take a look at the work of our influential state networks as part of Impact ’08 by clicking below
Iowa
New Hampshire
Nevada
South Carolina
Ohio
Florida
Pennsylvania
