Lance Armstrong told participants at the Clinton Global Initiative that he is returning to professional cycling to promote global efforts to prevent and treat cancer.

“By racing the bicycle all over the world is the best way to promote this initiative; it’s the best way to get the word out,” he said, noting that more people every year are killed worldwide by cancer than by AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.

Mr. Armstrong, who is a cancer survivor himself, has raised millions of dollars in donations for cancer research and other efforts by selling yellow Livestrong bracelets, though his charitable work has focused on the United States.

The athlete said that he could not sit by while, for example, the leading cause of death among young girls in Africa is cervical cancer, for which a vaccine exists.

“If we are not applying the medicine that we have to the people who need...

The U2 frontman and antipoverty advocate Bono chastised rich nations for not doing more to alleviate world poverty, fight diseases, and promote education.

During a panel at the Clinton Global Initiative, the rock star complained about what he described as global stinginess.

He said if America can find $700-billion to bailout the financial system, it and other countries can find the money to support development work. If they don’t, he said, “this is moral bankruptcy.”

For example, Bono said the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, a set of economic-development, health, and education objectives, need to be “resuscitated.”

This week members of the United Nations are meeting to debate the goals, which include halving the number of the world’s poor and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015. Several philanthropic projects are being announced related to the gathering, such ...

At the start of the Clinton Global Initiative, Bill Clinton called on philanthropists, corporate chief executives, and others to continue to give despite the financial crisis that looms over the event.

“My belief is the purpose for which we have gathered — to enable more citizens through philanthropy, through nongovernmental work, to work in partnerships with governments to do public good — this purpose is going to be more important than ever in the next few years if there are economic conditions which prevent governments from giving as much as they otherwise would have,” he told the participants.

“I’m betting on you and people like you throughout the world to say this crisis is not an excuse to walk away from the world’s challenges, but a compelling reason to intensify our efforts to meet them around the corner and around the world,” he said.

Neville Isdell, chairman of the...

Former presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush announced today the creation of a new fund to help victims of the hurricanes that recently ravaged Texas and other parts of the Gulf Coast.

“Here we are again,” Mr. Bush quipped, “the political odd couple.”

Mr. Bush, the father of the current president, solicited donations for the fund, the Bush Clinton Coastal Recovery Fund, and plugged its Web site.

He said families in Galveston, Tex., and elsewhere continue to suffer from the storms, with many homes still lacking electricity and many schools closed. “Life is anything but normal down there,” he said.

(Charities tell The Chronicle that the needs are far greater than the money raised so far.)

He said that former secretary of state James Baker will lead the program. Perhaps in a nod towards problems faced by a similar fund the former presidents created to benefit victims of ...

The Clinton Global Initiative costs upwards of $12-million, but the former president relies on an army of volunteers as well to organize the event.

The volunteers — usually twentysomething college students — help attendees through the process of making charitable pledges, usher news media through press accreditation, hand out materials, and guide people through the hotel halls to sessions on poverty and climate change. In their white-collared shirts and blue ties or scarves, the volunteers are as ubiquitous as philanthropists at the event.

But while the William J. Clinton Foundation, which oversees the event, considers their contributions invaluable, it does place restrictions on them.

According to the event’s volunteer manual, volunteers will be sent home for asking the former president for an autograph, handing out business cards, or talking to a reporter as if they were...

Every year, Bill Clinton plays philanthropy matchmaker during the Clinton Global Initiative, connecting would-be donors with charities. For the 2008 event, he got started a day early.

One day before the official start of the event, nonprofit groups, corporate foundations, and others filled the ballroom of the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers to pitch their charitable projects, looking for money and partners.

Initiative members, usually wealthy businesspeople, strolled past tables filled with promotional material — brochures, buttons, plastic water bottles, T-shirts, etc. — from more than 100 groups. Among the crowd, the former Army general and Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clarke browsed the charity bazaar.

The American Red Cross promoted its antimeasles effort; the Seva Foundation told attendees about how it fights diseases that cause blindness in Asia and elsewhere...

This week, former president Bill Clinton gathers world leaders, philanthropists, and celebrities for a meeting in Manhattan to discuss ways to solve global problems.

From the Clinton Global Initiative, The Chronicle will update readers on philanthropic pledges made at the event, discussions about how to fixing social inequities, and, of course, the occasional Angelina Jolie sighting.

During the meeting, which will focus on poverty alleviation, climate change and clean energy, education, and global health, the former president will ask each participant to make a charitable commitment. People who don’t, won’t be invited back next year.

Since it started in 2005, the event has produced almost 1,000 commitments that Mr. Clinton says are worth about $38-billion.

But this year Mr. Clinton told The Chronicle he wants to focus on the effectiveness of the proposed humanitarian...