Washington, DC — Calling his recent Africa trip with rock star Bono " the most intense twelve days I've ever experienced," U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill suggested Wednesday that he returned home with an altered outlook on the continent.
Speaking at a Georgetown University assembly arranged by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, he said he has been persuaded "that in the right environment focused on growth, enterprise and human development, aid works."
The Africa he saw "is already changing," O'Neill said. "We stand ready to help." He quoted words spoken by former Secretary of State George C. Marshall, following the end of World War II, outlining the "European Recovery Program" that became known as the Marshall Plan "fifty-five years ago on this very date."
"I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity," Marshall said of the post World War II devastation in Europe. "The people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples."
Marshall's words "are just as true of Africa today," O'Neill said, but he gave no indication of plans to advocate such a recovery program for Africa within the Bush administration or before Congress.
O'Neill has been described as the administration 'tough guy' on foreign assistance to Africa, disparaging such expenditures as 'good money following bad', with little to show for it. On this trip, however, "I saw signs of progress everywhere," O'Neill said. "Programs are working, aid is helping, and standards of living are improving."
But, he added, "it just isn't enough."
Three types of "investments in people are vital to realizing Africa's potential," O'Neill said: clean water, higher primary education enrollment and health care. O'Neill, who since the announcement of his plans for an Africa trip has called it a "learning" experience, said that in each of these areas of need, the clearest lesson to emerge was how essential both national and grassroots leadership is.
In one Ugandan village he visited, there had been resistance to installation of a concrete basin to facilitate water collection before it fell to the muddy ground. The project chair told O'Neill that villagers thought a snake was protecting the spring and would be angered by any tampering with the water source. "He had to spend considerable time persuading his fellow villagers to go ahead with the project. It took his leadership to get the project finished," O'Neill said.
In another village, women continued to wash at the river although a water tap had been installed because "they valued their social time," O'Neill said. "They were happy to be away from the men for a while." When the tap was relocated further from the village the women began using it.
"In these and other cases, only local leadership could tailor development projects to suit local cultures and customs," O'Neill said, sounding very much like the blunt, tough guy he is reputed to be in policy arguments. "It was sometimes shocking to see the disconnect between the aid bureaucracies with their 15-year plans and the availability of more immediate solutions in front of them," he said.
During his trip, O'Neill said he regularly encountered successful efforts to come up with local solutions to local needs and problems. He praised Ugandan President Museveni for his leadership in the fight against HIV/Aids. "Among the challenges of those who fight Aids in Africa is that in many countries there is a social stigma attached to even testing for the disease. They need more leaders to tackle this issue head on."
In what might have been oblique criticism of leadership failings at the top of South Africa's government, O'Neill called it "heartbreaking" to see "mothers with Aids caring for babies with Aids, even when proven, inexpensive drugs are available to stop transmission between mother and child."
He was glad to see "progress," O'Neill said. "But we should not confuse progress with success." In Ugandan schools the ratio of students to books has dropped from 16 students per book to six per book. "That's progress, but it isn't good enough. Surely we can get every student his or her own book."
Private enterprise is another key and Africa "is a continent of entrepreneurial enthusiasm," he said. "Unfortunately, in too many cases, potential entrepreneurs and investors in Africa are deterred by arbitrary laws, corrupt bureaucracies and government favoritism."
He called on African governments to remove barriers to trade but made no mention of agricultural subsidies and other barriers in industrialized nations that sabotage African efforts to develop export trade. African governments are calling this a "double standard."
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On Tuesday, World Bank President James Wolfensohn called for a public campaign "to make the case around the world on why these policies are wrong and must stop."
O'Neill was cool to debt forgiveness, another large concern of African governments, acknowledging that it "may help" but also saying that it "solves nothing if we allow new debt to create the next generation of heavily indebted poor countries a decade from now."
According to O'Neill, a future of "self-sustaining prosperity, not further dependency" begins with President Bush's Millennium Challenge Account, which calls for an additional US$5bn annually in official development aid. The "New Compact for Development" of which it is a part, defines "a new accountability for rich and poor nations alike," said O'Neill
Tuesday, the World Bank's Wolfensohn urged that 50 percent of the Millennium Account be earmarked for Africa. There was no opportunity to ask O'Neill if he would support such an allocation.
