John Bagwell's blog

With a newly confirmed U.S. secretary of state in place, the anticipation that the Obama administration will name a new Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan in the coming weeks, and an international campaign underway to highlight the 10th anniversary of the start of the Darfur conflict, activist voices will play an increasingly important role in the coming months to set the priorities of the U.S. government and international actors related to Sudan.  Read More »

Despite the news this week that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers have filed a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission over the conflict minerals regulation, both companies and activists continue to fight for progress.  Read More »

In a post last week, we covered a recent Congressional hearing on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act’s section 1502. Tom Murphy, a blogger on international development issues respected by many of us here at the Enough Project for his thoughtful and balanced criticism of some human rights advocacy initiatives, featured a response on his blog. In the post, Murphy criticizes the narrative of “Profits vs. People” (the title of Enough’s post) as dismissive of the legitimate debate about the positive and negative impacts that the conflict minerals provision is having on the mining sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Read More »

The stories we heard at Synergie, a hospital and counseling center for victims of sexual violence, ran over and over again in my mind throughout the night, keeping me awake. Nevertheless, I woke up with an energy I hadn’t yet felt on our jetlagged journey thus far.  Read More »

Here at Enough, we’ve been partnering with our friends over at Resolve over the past few weeks in a campaign called “Start Something to Finish It” – or S2F – which calls on members of Congress to ensure that President Obama’s strategy to stop the Lord’s Resistance Army is funded in next year’s budget and can be fully implemented in the coming months. Considering that the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act was passed with an historic level of bi-partisan support, we wish that we could just assume that the strategy that resulted from the bill would be funded. But such is not the case in Washington these days.   Read More »

Tune in today at noon EST for a Sudan policy call aimed at advocates, featuring updates from Enough, SDC/GI-Net, and Human Rights Watch.  Read More »

This weekend and throughout the next couple of weeks, activists will be taking actions aimed at encouraging the U.S. to implement a strong policy and be a proactive force for peace during a fragile moment in Sudan. Here's the line-up.  Read More »

You might not think that anti-genocide activists and avid Harry Potter fans would naturally have a lot in common at first glance, but the Harry Potter Alliance is working to change this. Vote for them now in the Chase Community Giving Challenge on Facebook.  Read More »

This week, we're asking you to participate in our Change the Equation for Congo campaign which aims to build pressure on the electronics industry to support conflict minerals legislation and sign on to a letter clearly stating their position. BlackBerry maker RIM used the classic PR tactic of only answering the question you wish you'd been asked instead of the one you were given.  Read More »

With conflict minerals legislation moving quickly through Congress, we're revamping our Change the Equation for Congo campaign so that activists can target leading electronics companies all week on Facebook.  Read More »