Washington, DC — President defends Africa record in interview and says Laura Bush to visit South Africa, Tanzania and Rwanda
Faced with growing pressure from his Iraq war ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for a significant boost in aid to Africa before a Group of 8 summit opens next week, President George W. Bush Thursday called on the world community "to get beyond empty symbolism and discredited policies, and match our good intentions with good results."
Setting out his agenda for next week's summit in a speech at the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery, the president said the United States seeks "progress in Africa and throughout the developing world because our interests are directly at stake" and "because conscience demands it."
In an interview following the speech, the president rejected the idea that the United States is lagging behind other wealthy nations. "I'm going to the G8 with an agenda where we've been the leader." Responding to a question about British Prime Minister Tony Blair's call for a commitment from industrial countries to contribute 0.07 percent of their GDP for foreign assistance, he said he believes "that a compassionate policy is one that focuses less on formulas and more on improving people's lives."
During his speech, Bush said he would seek Congressional approval to spend $1.2 billion through 2008 to help fight malaria in Africa, as well as $400 million for an Africa Education Initiative and $55 million "to promote women's justice and empowerment in four African nations."
Blair, who this year assumes the rotating presidency of the G8, has been pushing industrial nations to double official assistance to African nations over the next 10 years, something the Bush administration has resisted. Instead, the president placed the emphasis on the new initiatives he announced today.
"Next year we will take comprehensive action in three countries - Tanzania, Uganda and Angola - to provide indoor spraying, long lasting insecticide-treated nets, and effective new combination drugs to treat malaria," he said. "America will bring this anti-malaria effort to at least four more highly endemic countries in 2007 and to at least five more in 2008."
Malaria kills more than one million Africans a year, and Bush said he intends for the effort to reach over 175 million people in 15 or more nations. "We want to reduce malaria mortality in target countries by half." Bush said he planned to urge others in the G8 to join his campaign.
Combating malaria is one of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals designed to radically reduce poverty and underdevelopment by the year 2015. Because Africa is the continent most affected by malaria, meeting the goals there is essential to meeting them worldwide.
The increased U.S. funding for malaria will not be directed to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis, an international effort to eradicate the three diseases. Like the US$15 billion initiative to fight HIV/Aids, the malaria campaign will be a separate U.S. effort, because, the president said, "it is an effective way to achieve results."
He said the spotlight should be on results and not the "process" to get there. "What I want the world to do is focus on how best to get the job done, how best to achieve the objective," he said during the interview with AllAfrica and three other news organizations.
The president also announced that his wife Laura will visit South Africa, Tanzania and Rwanda next month. "Her presence shows commitment," he said in the interview. "She's a darn good diplomat," he said. "She speaks clearly and she is a compassionate soul."
Both in the speech and in the interview, Bush stressed that his commitment to Africa had been demonstrated by what he called a "dramatic" boost in assistance to the continent. "We've tripled our aid since I've been President, and I just announced today that I'll ask Congress to double it by 2010," he said in the interviewer. "You've got to look at Africa as more than just aid," he said. "Aid is just one aspect of participating on the continent in a compassionate way."
The president's reference to a "tripling" of U.S. assistance to Africa during his administration, which he made last month during Blair's visit to the White House, has been described as "not accurate" by a Brookings study written by Susan Rice, who was assistant secretary of State for Africa during the Clinton administration. Official Development Assistance has increased by 74 percent since the year 2000, the report said.
Trade is the key to African development, the president said during the interview. "Ultimately, it's commerce, trade, economic growth that will overwhelm the need for aid itself." Asked about subsidies and tariffs that block African exports, Bush responded: "The best approach to dealing with Europe - and our own subsidies for that matter - on agricultural matters, is to go to the Doha round of the WTO and jointly declare that we're going to get rid of all agricultural subsidies. That has been our proposal."
Bush also said it is "very important" that trade barriers within Africa be lifted. "The last time I looked, there were some impediments to trade amongst the African nations," he said, "We've all got responsibilities to make trade freer."
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On the situation in the Darfur region of Sudan, the president reacted sharply when asked about claims that his administration has eased pressure on the government in Khartoum to promote cooperation on counterterrorism efforts. "That's a preposterous claim. It's not even close to the truth." The U.S. government "helped solve the north-south civil war" and is now "working with parties to get that peace agreement implemented." The United States has helped with logistical support for getting 7,700 African Union troops into Darfur, he said, adding: "Today, I announced it will help build 16 additional base camps, it will provide maintenance services, as well as C-130 to help remove Rwandan troops. We spend a lot of time on this important issue. Ours is a nation that called this a genocide."
Asked if he was disappointed that Thabo Mbeki, the South African president who met with Bush last month, had not applied greater pressure on neighboring Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, the president said it was Mugabe who had disappointed him. "Zimbabwe was a bread basket," he said, "and it's a country being wrecked."
