Millennium conference in NY

Who has the Financial Times got blogging on this week’s Millennium Development Goals conference at the United Nations in New York? None other than Bono and his sidekick, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

Bono describes his week ahead as follows: “A sleepless cocktail of rabble-rousing, meetings with politicians, chief executives, faith leaders and NGOs. People such as Nicolas Sarkozy, President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania and Gordon Brown.” It seems that not only does he regard himself as extremely important but senior politicians, businesspeople and religious leaders do too.

A few things to note about this week in relation to the conference:

* The Clinton Global Initiative looks like it will play a prominent role. Clinton – Bill rather than Hillary – will be appearing on the Daily Show on Tuesday to promote the campaign. It is billed as: “the almost first husband talks about the Clinton Global Initiative”.

* According to Bono there will be a “historic and innovative announcement on malaria on Thursday”. I would guess it probably has something to do with anti-malarial bednets.