Online Dialogue: Are We Making Poverty History?

Every year since world leaders signed the Millennium Declaration committing to meet eight world-changing goals by 2015, mass rallies have been held around the globe to remind governments of their commitments — on hunger, education, health care, gender equality, the environment, and more. Seven and a half years on, we stand midway from Declaration to deadline.

OneWorld's expert panel will respond to your questions and comments about efforts to end poverty within a generation.

Post your questions below to join the discussion today. Don't forget to include your name and hometown. Our panel will respond by the end of the month.
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PANELISTS
Shyama Venkateswar, Mercy Corps/Net Aid
Dr. Shyama Venkateswar is the executive director of Mercy Corps’ New York initiative, a new interactive learning and action center dedicated to global hunger and poverty. Designed by Edwin Schlossberg and ESI Design, the Center is slated to open in the spring of 2008 in downtown Manhattan. Her current responsibilities include conceptualizing the content for interactive displays, creating a strategy for public education, outreach and media engagement, helping to fundraise, and overseeing the launch of the Center.

Prior to this she was the Director of the Asian Social Issues Program at the Asia Society, and for seven years played an instrumental role in the growth of one of the most high-profile, multidisciplinary areas of programming at the Society. She has organized international conferences and led policy briefings on a human rights security regime in Northeast Asia, reconstruction in Afghanistan, decentralization in Indonesia, peace building in Sri Lanka, the Maoist insurgency in Nepal, the Muslim independence movement in southern Philippines, among others. She helped to establish signature events on microfinance, a new initiative on HIV/AIDS in Asia, an annual film series on Human Rights in South Asia, as well as a series on Transitional Justice.

Joel Lamstein, John Snow, Inc.
Joel Lamstein, BS, MBA, is co-founder and president of John Snow, Inc., an international public health consulting firm with more than 1,600 people stationed in the United States and throughout the world working to enhance the lives of underserved and vulnerable populations.

Mr. Lamstein attended the University of Michigan and the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a senior lecturer at both the Harvard School of Public Health and at the Sloan School. He is a frequent lecturer on organizational strategy and non-profit management at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, The Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and at the Sloan School, MIT. Mr. Lamstein serves as the vice-chair of the Global Health Council's board of directors, and is on the boards of advisors at Boston University Public Health School, the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. He is also on the board of Physicians for Human Rights.

Mr. Lamstein co-founded Management Sciences for Health (MSH). He has been advisor to numerous public health programs throughout the world in issues of public health management.

David W. Kahler, World Education, Inc.
David W. Kahler, Vice President, Special Projects Division at World Education, Inc., has worked in international development for the past four decades. Dr. Kahler has worked on education reform programs in India, Iran, Pakistan and Senegal, and the Philippines, and has provided technical assistance to several organizations, including UNESCO and UNICEF, on adult education and training.

Dr. Kahler has designed large-scale training programs for health workers in China and for ministry of education staff in Eritrea and the Philippines. Dr. Kahler has worked with health professionals to design integrated reproductive health and HIV and AIDS literacy curricula for women and adolescent girls, assisted with the adaptation of training curricula for front-line health workers with low levels of literacy, and worked with adult educators and agricultural specialists to redesign a farmer-to-farmer integrated pest management training initiative. He has been active in Education for All issues since International Literacy Year in 1989.

Dr. Kahler received his doctorate in international education from the Center for International Education, UMASS/Amherst in 1983, a masters in curriculum design from the same university in 1980, and a masters in international administration in 1976 from the School for International Training, Brattleboro, Vermont.