The Power of Cooperation

• Author: Bill Clinton
• Position: President the founder of the William J. Clinton Foundation and 42nd President of the United States.

Point of View

Intelligence, hard work, and ability are evenly distributed around the globe, but investment and opportunities are not. If we’re to fulfill the promises of the 21st century, we need to find new ways to extend the circle of opportunity so that every person—in every country—has the chance to succeed, with systems, infrastructure, and networks that enable growth. When people are able to take control of their own destinies, it gives them something to look forward to every day and expands everyone’s understanding of what is possible. It enhances the stability of societies, and equally important, it shifts the work of the international aid community from philanthropy to partnerships.

Our world is more interdependent than ever, and our effectiveness as global citizens will be judged by what we do to create an environment that allows everybody to do better and lift themselves up.

The good news is we can all do something, big or small, to advance opportunity. Enlightened government policies, like Brazil’s Bolsa FamÃlia program, which pays families to send their children to school and to get annual checkups, have proved that countries can reduce income inequality while growing the national economy. Corporations are realizing that sales increase when societies and markets are strong and are increasingly integrating the public good into their business models. The number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in all parts of the world has exploded in recent years, and technology now allows millions of people to donate small sums via text message or the Internet, democratizing charitable giving like never before and transforming NGOs’ work in the field.

We’re making the most progress in places where people have formed networks of creative cooperation—where stakeholders from government, business, and civil society have come together to do things better, faster, and cheaper than any could alone. This is what drives the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), a meeting held in New York each September since 2005 around the opening of the UN General Assembly. We bring people together from all over the world: heads of state, business leaders, philanthropists, and nongovernmental pioneers, and we ask them to make a specific commitment to solve one of the world’s most pressing problems.

Through vigorous discussion, leaders from different sectors forge partnerships and develop innovative solutions to our modern challenges. For example, for the...