African countries need peace and security to prosper, Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's National Security Advisor said speaking to the Leon H. Sullivan Summit Awards Dinner on Thursday, where she and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton were the honorees.
According to Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations who chairs the Sullivan Foundation, the two women were selected for "defying the odds" to make significant contributions in society, not only in America but also worldwide. In their remarks, Rice and Clinton both stressed Africa's importance to the United States, as well as the U.S. obligation to assist Africa in the fight against HIV/Aids and other problems.
Peace and security must come to the continent of Africa, Rice told the audience, which included the presidents of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema and Girma Giorgis of Ethiopia, members of Congress and the diplomatic corps and several hundred other local and foreign guests.
The Bush administration has made achieving peace on the continent of Africa a priority, Rice said, and several African countries ravaged by war for many years, including Angola, have now stabilized. "In Sudan, with the help of Kenyan diplomacy, Africa's longest-running civil war is now closer than ever to a peaceful end," she said. "But we must continue to lead the effort to demand that the government of Sudan deal with an end in Darfur," referring to the large-scale killing now taking place in western Sudan.
Rice noted that Bush announced at the G8 Summit earlier this month a new, global effort to train and equip 75,000 peacekeepers over the next five years to help bring stability and security to troubled regions, with an initial focus on Africa. "The United States will commit $660 million over the next five years to the effort," she added.
As important as it is to end conflict, Rice said, it is also essential to realize that the advance of human dignity depended on the advance of justice, of health and well being. Speaking of the fight against HIV/Aids, Rice said: "History will treat us unkindly if those of us who had the means and those of us who had the way were unresponsive to this great crisis."
The five-year $15 billion effort launched by President Bush aims to prevent seven million new infections, treat at least two million people with life-extending drugs, and provide care for 10 million people with the disease, Rice said. This year's U.S. budget includes $2.8 billion to fight Aids globally.
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In her address, Senator Clinton, who has been actively involved in the fight against HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said what happens in Africa matters in America. "And that is a message we must continue to underscore" because of the historic and economic relationship Africa and the United States have, she said. The global community must recognize that it is essential to come together to combat the HIV/Aids epidemic that is affecting Africa so severely.
"We know that this is a disease that is not only killing and debilitating people but leaving millions of orphans, decimating the workforce, undermining the productivity and creating a great vacuum in so many communities throughout Africa that is being filled not just by despair and hopelessness but by violence and degradation" Clinton said.
She mentioned the work that the foundation established by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, is doing to help lower the cost of medicines and to get them to people in Africa who are hardest hit by the disease but cannot afford them.
Clinton said that focusing only on HIV/Aids in Africa is a mistake. "Let us talk about health care for other diseases," she said. "Let's talk about global education." Education, which is often referred to as the window of hope, is not only something that can help to equip young people to understand better the risks they face with respect to HIV/Aids, but also is essential for creating a climate of opportunity for all people throughout Africa, Clinton said.
"The lack of equal opportunities in education of boys and girls is holding back much of the development which Africa could enjoy," Clinton said. A commitment at a recent summit in Dakar, Senegal to put all boys and girls in Africa in school by 2015 is the kind of effort that the global community must support if that goal is to be met, Clinton said.
