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Prince Harry, Matt Damon to Address this Year's Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting

(FILES) Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, waves as he leaves the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in central London on June 7, 2023. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)
(FILES) Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, waves as he leaves the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in central London on June 7, 2023. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)
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Prince Harry, Matt Damon to Address this Year's Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting

(FILES) Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, waves as he leaves the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in central London on June 7, 2023. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)
(FILES) Britain's Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, waves as he leaves the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in central London on June 7, 2023. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)

Prince Harry, actor Matt Damon, and World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andrés are set to speak at the 2024 Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York on Sept. 23 and 24, the Clinton Foundation announced Thursday.

The theme of this year’s gathering of political, business and philanthropic leaders is “What’s Working” – an effort to shine a spotlight on potential solutions and effective aid in a tumultuous period marked by war, increased income inequality and food insecurity.

Former President Bill Clinton said this year’s Clinton Global Initiative would “double down” on the progress made on the climate crisis, global health, gun violence, and other important issues.

“We started CGI because we wanted to have a meeting where people didn’t just talk about big problems, but where we could roll up our sleeves and get something done,” he said in a statement to The Associated Press. “It’s more important than ever to be optimistic and realize we all have the ability to make a difference.”

Since returning in 2022 after a six-year hiatus, CGI has tried to maintain an optimistic tone, while also developing new ways to help, including the launch last year of The CGI Ukraine Action Network, a collaboration between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine.

“Bill, Chelsea, and I are so inspired by the undoubtable impact of the CGI community – 500 million people affected through programs, partnerships, and solutions that are addressing our climate crisis, economic disparities, equality for women and girls worldwide, and more,” Secretary Clinton said in a statement.

That impact helps CGI draw a wide range of leaders, including Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Guyana President Mohamed Irfaan Ali, and Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, The AP reported.

The Duke of Sussex plans to discuss the launch of The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Network, an initiative supporting parents whose children have suffered or died due to online harms. He also plans to address his nonprofit’s collaboration with the World Health Organization and others to end violence against children, an issue he and his wife Meghan outlined on a recent trip to Colombia.

Water.org co-founder and Oscar winner Damon is expected to discuss the status of the $1 billion plan he announced in 2022 to give 100 million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America lasting access to water and sanitation.

Business leaders scheduled for the conference, which runs at the same time as United Nations General Assembly week, include Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya, Gap CEO Richard Dickson, IKEA CEO Jesper Brodin, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach, Moderna Chairman Noubar Afeyan, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Andrés is expected to discuss how he turned World Central Kitchen into one of the fastest growing humanitarian nonprofits with a focus on feeding people quickly in the aftermath of disasters or the outbreak of war. After seven World Central Kitchen workers were killed earlier this year by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, Andrés said, "Their examples should inspire us to do better, to be better.”

Other philanthropic leaders set to speak include Emerson Collective Founder Laurene Powell Jobs, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, Hispanic Federation CEO Frankie Miranda, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson, International Rescue Committee CEO David Miliband, and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Sam Bencheghib, co-founder of the Indonesia-based Sungai Watch, plans to attend this year’s CGI seeking funding for his nonprofit which places barriers in rivers to prevent pollution from reaching the ocean and then removes the trash collected. At previous CGI meetings, he made contacts that resulted in Sungai Watch becoming one of The Elevate Prize Foundation’s 2024 winners.

Last year, Bencheghib attended CGI to make a commitment to expand Sungai Watch’s work to Jakarta and its rivers. His nonprofit will make good on that commitment later this year.

But Bencheghib said he is also proud to bring something tangible to this year’s CGI, especially considering the “What’s Working” theme. He will showcase furniture created out of the plastic bags pulled from the polluted rivers by his new social enterprise Sungai Design.

The company turns 500 plastic bags into a bench; 2,000 plastic bags become a lounge chair.

“Fighting plastic pollution definitely feels never-ending,” Bencheghib said. “Forty percent of the trash we collect are these plastic bags and they are not recyclable in this country ... We were looking for a way to turn plastic bags into something that is a little more aesthetically pleasing, something that is a great conversation starter, that raises awareness about what that plastic bag can become if you don’t throw it into the river and if the right setup is in place.”

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Varieties

Coke and Pepsi Boycott over Gaza Lifts Muslim Countries' Local Sodas

An employee of Kinza soft drinks company scans the fresh delivery of drinks at the Kinza warehouse in Doha, Qatar, September 2, 2024. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
An employee of Kinza soft drinks company scans the fresh delivery of drinks at the Kinza warehouse in Doha, Qatar, September 2, 2024. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
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Coke and Pepsi Boycott over Gaza Lifts Muslim Countries' Local Sodas

An employee of Kinza soft drinks company scans the fresh delivery of drinks at the Kinza warehouse in Doha, Qatar, September 2, 2024. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
An employee of Kinza soft drinks company scans the fresh delivery of drinks at the Kinza warehouse in Doha, Qatar, September 2, 2024. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Coca-Cola and rival PepsiCo spent hundreds of millions of dollars over decades building demand for their soft drinks in Muslim-majority countries including Egypt to Pakistan. Now, both face a challenge from local sodas in those countries due to consumer boycotts that target the globe-straddling brands as symbols of America, and by extension Israel, at a time of war in Gaza, Reuters reported.
In Egypt, sales of Coke have cratered this year, while local brand V7 exported three times as many bottles of its own cola in the Middle East and the wider region than last year. In Bangladesh, an outcry forced Coca-Cola to cancel an ad campaign against the boycott. And across the Middle East, Pepsi's rapid growth evaporated after the Gaza war started in October.
Pakistani corporate executive Sunbal Hassan kept Coke and Pepsi off her wedding menu in Karachi in April. She said she didn't want to feel her money had reached the tax coffers of the United States, Israel's staunchest ally.
"With the boycott, one can play a part by not contributing to those funds," Hassan said. Instead, she served her wedding guests Pakistani brand Cola Next.
She is not alone. While market analysts say it is hard to put a dollar figure on lost sales and PepsiCo and Coca-Cola still have growing businesses in several countries in the Middle East, Western beverage brands suffered a 7% sales decline in the first half of the year across the region, market researcher NielsenIQ says.
In Pakistan, Krave Mart, a leading delivery app, has seen local cola rivals like Cola Next and Pakola soar in popularity to become about 12% of the soft drinks category, founder Kassim Shroff told Reuters this month. Before the boycott, the figure was closer to 2.5%.
Shroff said Pakola, which is ice-cream soda flavored, made up most of the purchases before the boycott. He declined to provide figures for Coca-Cola and PepsiCo sales.
Consumer boycotts date back at least as far as an 18th century anti-slavery sugar protest in Britain. The strategy was used in the 20th century to fight apartheid in South Africa and has been widely wielded against Israel through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Many consumers shunning Coca-Cola and PepsiCo cite US support of Israel over decades, including in the current, ongoing war with Hamas. "Some consumers are deciding to make different options in their purchases because of the political perception," PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta told Reuters in a July 11 interview, adding that boycotts are "impacting those particular geographies" such as Lebanon, Pakistan and Egypt.
"We will manage through it over time," he said. "It's not meaningful to our top line and bottom line at this point."
PepsiCo's total revenue from its Africa, Middle East and South Asia division was $6 billion in 2023, earnings releases show. The same year, Coca-Cola's revenue from its Europe, Middle East and Africa region was $8 billion, company filings show.
In the six months following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that triggered the invasion of Gaza, PepsiCo beverage volumes in the Africa, Middle East and South Asia division barely grew, after notching up 8% and 15% growth in the same quarters of 2022/23, the company said. Volumes of Coke sold in Egypt declined by double-digit percentage points in the six months ended June 28, according to data from Coca-Cola HBC, which bottles there. In the same period last year, volumes rose in high single digits.
Coca-Cola has said it does not fund military operations in Israel or any country. In response to a Reuters request, PepsiCo said neither the company "nor any of our brands are affiliated with any government or military in the conflict."
Palestinian-American businessman Zahi Khouri founded Ramallah-based Coca-Cola bottler National Beverage Company, which sells Coke in the West Bank. The company's $25 million plant in Gaza, opened in 2016, has been destroyed in the war, he said. Employees were unharmed, he said.
Khouri said boycotts were a matter of personal choice but didn't really help Palestinians. In the West Bank itself, he said, they had limited sales impact.
"Only ending the occupation would help the situation," said Khouri, who supports the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Israel's government did not respond to a request for comment.
HISTORICAL TARGETS
The big soda companies are no stranger to pressure among the Muslim world's hundreds of millions of consumers. After Coke opened a factory in Israel in the 1960s, it was hit by an Arab League boycott that lasted until the early 1990s and benefited Pepsi for years in the Middle East.
Coke still lags Pepsi's market share in Egypt and Pakistan, according to market research firm GlobalData.
PepsiCo, which entered Israel in the early 1990s, itself faced boycotts when it purchased Israel's SodaStream for $3.2 billion in 2018.
In recent years though, Muslim-majority countries with young, rising populations have provided some of the soda giants' fastest growth. In Pakistan alone, Coca-Cola says it has invested $1 billion since 2008, yielding years of double-digit sales growth. PepsiCo had similar gains, according to securities filings.
Now, both are losing ground to local brands.
Cola Next, which is cheaper than Coke and Pepsi, changed its ad slogan in March to "Because Cola Next is Pakistani," emphasizing its local roots.
Cola Next's factories cannot meet the surge in demand, Mian Zulfiqar Ahmed, the CEO of the brand's parent company, Mezan Beverages, said in an interview. He declined to share volume figures.
Restaurants, Karachi's private schools association and university students have all taken part in anti-Coca-Cola actions, eroding goodwill built through sponsorship of Coke Studio, a popular music show in Pakistan.
Exports of Egyptian cola V7 have tripled this year compared to 2023, founder Mohamed Nour said in an interview. Nour, a former Coca-Cola executive who left the company after 28 years in 2020, said V7 was now sold in 21 countries.
Sales in Egypt, where the product has only been available since July 2023, were up 40%, Nour said.
Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, warned of long-term damage to consumer loyalty due to boycotts. "If you break habits, it’s going to be harder to win you back in the long run," he said, without giving an estimate of the financial cost to the companies.
BANGLADESH BACKFIRE
In Bangladesh, Coke launched an advertisement showing a shopkeeper talking about the company's operations in Palestine.
After a public outcry over perceived insensitivity, Coke pulled the ad in June and apologized. In response to a question from Reuters, the company said the campaign "missed the mark."
The ad made the boycott worse, said one Bangladeshi advertising executive, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Other American brands seen as symbols of Western culture, such as McDonalds and Starbucks, also face anti-Israel boycotts.
Market share for global brands fell 4% in the first half of 2024 in the Middle East, according to NielsenIQ. But the protests have been more visible against the widely-available sodas.
As well as boycotts, inflation and economic turmoil in Pakistan, Egypt and Bangladesh eroded consumers' buying power even before the war, making cheaper local brands more appealing.
Last year, Coke's market share in the consumer sector in Pakistan fell to 5.7% from 6.3% in 2022, according to GlobalData, while Pepsi's fell to 10.4% from 10.8%.
FUTURE PLANS
Coca-Cola and its bottlers, and PepsiCo, still see the countries as important areas for growth, particularly as Western markets slow down.
Despite the boycotts, Coke invested another $22 million upgrading technology in Pakistan in April, it said in a press release at the time.
Coca-Cola's bottler in Pakistan said to investors in May that it remained "positive about the opportunity" the world's fifth most-populous country offers, and that it invested in the market with a long-term commitment.
In recent weeks, PepsiCo reintroduced a brand called Teem soda, traditionally lemon-lime flavored, in Pakistani market, a spokesperson confirmed. The product is now available in a cola flavor with "Made in Pakistan" printed prominently on the label.
The companies are also still injecting the Coke and Pepsi brands into the fabric of local communities by sponsoring charities, musicians and cricket teams.
Those moves are key to Coke and Pepsi keeping a toehold in the countries long-term even as they face setbacks now, Georgetown's Musgrave said.
"Anything you can do to make yourself an ally or presence, a part of a community," helps, he said.