Washington, DC — Former U.S. president William J. Clinton on Wednesday night joined Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Colin L. Powell, and Graca Machel as recent recipients of the 2006 Africare Bishop John T. Walker Humanitarian Service Award.
The dinner – which is the largest annual benefit for Africa in the United States – honored Clinton for his humanitarian service to Africa, spotlighted African and American relations, addressed the challenges facing youth and claimed the 21st century as a new era of African prosperity.
While addressing sobering statistics on children's HIV infection rates, Aids orphans, and poverty, speakers focused on Africa's possibility for a brighter future and how to achieve it. W. Frank Fountain, president of the DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund and chair of the Africare board of directors, implored the audience to " … know that people in Africa are truly committed to creating a thriving African economy."
African economic growth has been the focus of many international aid programs since their inception, but addressing systemic poverty is an issue attracting increased attention. According to the chairman of the 2006 Dinner, United Parcel Service CEO Michael Eskew, it is necessary as corporations and aid providers to "recognize the link between stable communities and stable economies." Further, new approaches to aid, he argued, should prioritize quality of life over raw GDP.
Clinton's initiatives, including reducing poverty and Aids, developing sustainable energy sources, and improving access to health care throughout Africa and the world, exemplify the people-focused aid that Africare seeks to promote, according to Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund. Clinton promised when he left the presidency that "he wouldn't spend a day hoping and wishing he was still president," Edelman said. "We are grateful that he hasn't."
Through broad-based initiatives in his terms of office and as a private citizen, Clinton has worked to improve the lives of millions of children worldwide and especially in Africa.
Julius E. Coles, president of Africare, reminded the audience that "in the attacks on the World Trade Center, we lose 3,000 people. In Africa, 7,000 people die every day from Aids-related illnesses –most are children." It is because of the impact of these preventable deaths on children, "the future of Africa," that work by organizations like Africare and the Clinton Global Initiative is so important.
Accepting his award, Clinton stressed that "you don't have to patronize poor people; you just have to empower them." Addressing the need for new attitudes towards African aid and development, he called for the United States to ask what we can do "with Africa, not for Africa."
Jeannine B. Scott, senior vice president of Africare, discussed what Africare had accomplished with Africa: "Kids in Africa face far, far too many challenges and are negatively impacted by HIV/Aids. 66 percent of people living with Aids are in Africa, and 91 percent of people who die of Aids are in Africa."
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So many deaths leave children marooned and stigmatized.
In the past year, she explained, Africare's programs providing for the basic needs of orphans and at-risk children reached over 120,000 children through community and extended family foster care, health care, psycho-social care, inheritance advice, and education.
The Africare annual dinner is named for Bishop John T. Walker, the first African American Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., and chairman of the board of Africare from 1975 until his death in 1989. This year's dinner was Africare's most successful to date, raising 1.1 million dollars for Africare's self-development assistance programs.
See also Speech of William Jefferson Clinton Accepting the 2006 Africare Humanitarian Award
