Mr. Bush and Africa:
...THREE YEARS AGO, the pressure of a looming international aid summit induced President Bush to launch the Millennium Challenge Account, an instrument for plowing generous aid into poor countries with uncorrupt institutions and good policies. Yesterday Mr. Bush responded to similar pressure ahead of next week's Group of Eight summit, which will have Africa high on the agenda. But whereas the Millennium Challenge initiative involved a promise of $5 billion extra for development per year, Mr. Bush's initiatives this time around are modest.
While the sticker price for this initiative
is small, the commitment implied from Mr. Bush is even smaller. The president's budget request for 2006 actually cut malaria funding; he will be able to afford the first year of his new program only because Congress insisted on boosting the number...
In his speech yesterday, Mr. Bush rightly said that aid alone is not the key to Africa's progress: trade liberalization, military support for peacekeeping and the quality of African leadership are at least as important. But aid remains a useful tool, and the United States ought to do more for the world's poorest continent.
Posts
1 comment:
"But Congress's appropriations for the Millennium Challenge Account, which was supposed to be $5 billion per year, were only $1.5 billion in the current fiscal year."
Congress, not President Bush or any other US President, holds our nations purse-strings.
I hope the world media educates its citizens on this often overlooked fact.
Post a Comment