An Open Letter to World Leaders: HOPE Report from the 2012 from the HOPE Global Summit 2012

Dear Leaders of the G8, G20 and the G77,

Last November in Atlanta, Georgia, Operation HOPE hosted its annual Global Financial Dignity Summit focused on economic empowerment for the poor and underserved. The Summit was a congregation of the world’s leading financial experts, policymakers, elected officials, and corporate leaders joining together in alignment to solve the world’s most pressing economic problems.

We would like to share the HOPE Global Financial Dignity Summit Report with you so that it can aid your work to economically empower the underserved. By clicking the link below you will be brought to a 36 page executive overview of the 2012 Summit including the key policy recommendations and best practices discussed and discovered at the event.

For a high-resolution pdf copy of the HOPE Global Financial Dignity Summit Report, visit, http://summit.operationhope.org/gallery/2012-report/

Last year’s summit featured keynote presentation from Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke, and inspiring presentations from Dr. Berniece King from the MLK Jr. Foundation, and a discussion with our CEO John Hope Bryant, and Russell Summons. The Summit also garnered a series of endorsements from the public sector. At the start of the report you will see a letter of support from U.S. President Barack Obama and Congressman Hank Johnson of the Congressional Black Caucus, several U.S. Mayors also attended the event. The Summit was a momentous event that resulted in actionable strategies designed to solve the world's largest financial problems. Some of the chief recommendations inside of the report that came from the Summit's working groups were:

Require banks to advertise and offer product options tailored to low wealth individuals that will be smartphone accessible, contain financial education, include no minimum deposit requirements and no overdraft fees;
Develop economic incentives at local, state and federal levels promoting entrepreneurship as a viable pathway to prosperity for young people;
Establish a US Department of Education and State sanctioned financial literacy curriculum for integration into the K-12 common core curriculum;
Fully fund and implement Dodd-Frank Wall street reform measures and tie-in Consumer Financial Protection;
Encourage full transparency, trust and communication from the Federal Government.

The 2013 Global Summit (GS), co-hosted by Operation HOPE and Mayor Kasim Reed, will feature CNN's Soledad O'Brien as Summit Master of Ceremonies. Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup, will be the opening keynote speaker, where he will talk on his change-agent book “The Coming Jobs War”. Following Jim in the afternoon, our friend Bill Rogers, chairman and CEO of Sun Trust Banks, the 8th largest bank in America, will speak on “lighting the way to financial wellbeing for communities.”

More than 100 C-Suite speakers from government, community and the private sector are already confirmed, including H.R.H. Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, fthe uture King of Norway, the deputy central bankers for Brazil and Nigeria, two US Federal Reserve Bank presidents from across the United States, the vice chairman of the FDIC, Governor Pawlenty, now the CEO of the FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE, strong mayors from Atlanta, Birmingham, Jacksonville and elsewhere, as well as leaders from the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.