Word: aid
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...scheme, the idea of a small U.N. agency, is backed by the travel industry and heavyweights of international aid such as the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It will be formally announced in New York City on Sept. 23 on the fringes of the U.N. General Assembly, and accompanied by a marketing blitz. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, are expected to participate in the launch, as well as the chief executives of the three companies that have made it technically possible: Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport/Galileo...
...sounds like a small step, and many airline travelers, already irritated by compulsory surcharges for fuel, baggage and wider seats, may simply ignore it. But behind this call for a voluntary contribution is an unprecedented worldwide effort to make up a shortfall in official government aid to poor countries - a shortfall exacerbated by the world financial crisis. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
...world financial crisis has made such change a necessity, says Bjorn Skogno, a senior official in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, who is a board member of the Millennium Foundation, the entity set up by UNITAID to collect and distribute the private donations. Overseas development aid "is likely to go down because of the crisis, so there's a need to be innovative to find new sources of funds," Skogno says...
...Crucially, he has managed to win over key players in the travel industry. Airlines and others have long been skeptical about attempts by France and some others to levy compulsory taxes on airline tickets to pay for development aid. But the reception to this initiative has been friendly, because the donations are voluntary. "Travel is already taxed pretty highly," says Gordon Wilson, the CEO of Travelport GDS, which runs two big reservation systems, Galileo and Worldspan. But asking people if they are willing to donate is a different issue: "The overall response is that it makes people feel good about...
...online company, so we make sales nationwide,” she remarks on her year-old Arlington-based business venture’s range of customers. “Still, we could use a boost.”However, that boost has to sustain itself without the aid of gimmicks in order to have a lasting effect. “The whole thing [Fashion’s Night Out] is designed to create a stir, and to get that economic push that we need nowadays, but what I liked... that the Boston retail community embraced was to get creative about...