Former President Bill Clinton secured nearly $2.1bn in commitments to tackle a variety of global problems. The pledges were made during the opening session of his second annual Global Initiative in New York.

Mr Clinton opened the Initiative with a call to the 1,000 participants to make pledges of “money, time and talent.” Last year’s summit received 300 $2.5bn in commitments. However, some of last year’s pledges appeared to be a formalisation or extension of programmes already underway by organisations and companies.