It doesn’t seem like it gets at the truth of the matter.
Sounds more like a propaganda piece.
The title for the story is “On Africa, Bush Is Very Much the Activist”
link
The administration said two weeks ago that aid to Africa has tripled since 2001; it plans to double the 2004 level to $8.6 billion by 2010.
[…]
Among them was Sudan, where tens of thousands have died and more than 2 million displaced since 2003 mostly as a result of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign waged by government-backed Arab militias against black African rebels. Bush has made peace in Sudan a high administration priority.
[…]
Bush has sought $15 billion over five years to combat AIDS, mostly in Africa. On Thursday, Bush called for spending $1.2 billion to cut malaria deaths in half by 2010 in Africa.
Africa also is prospectively the largest beneficiary of a Bush foreign assistance initiative that rewards countries that are led by effective governments.
Of 17 countries deemed eligible for money from the program, nine are in Africa. But the program could suffer sharp congressional cuts from the administration’s $3 billion request for 2006 because of the slow pace of the program’s disbursements.
Is that what is pledged? Or is that what has actually gone to African countries?
Because we know that this administration doesn’t always follow through on those pledges and the percentage of GDP is a better measure of generosity. Since there’s no direct link to the entire 6/8/05 editorial from the NYT, I’ve copied & pasted from Lexis Nexis:
Crumbs for Africa
President Bush kept a remarkably straight face yesterday when he strode to the microphones with Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, and told the world that the United States would now get around to spending $674 million in emergency aid that Congress had already approved for needy countries. That’s it. Not a penny more to buy treated mosquito nets to help save the thousands of children in Sierra Leone who die every year of preventable malaria. Nothing more to train and pay teachers so 11-year-old girls in Kenya may go to school. And not a cent more to help Ghana develop the programs it needs to get legions of young boys off the streets.
Mr. Blair, who will be the host when the G-8, the club of eight leading economic powers, holds its annual meeting next month, is trying to line up pledges to double overall aid for Africa over the next 10 years. That extra $25 billion a year would do all those things, and much more, to raise the continent from dire poverty. Before getting to Washington, Mr. Blair had done very well, securing pledges of large increases from European Union members.
According to a poll, most Americans believe that the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent. As Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist in charge of the United Nations’ Millennium Project, put it so well, the notion that there is a flood of American aid going to Africa ”is one of our great national myths.”
The United States currently gives just 0.16 percent of its national income to help poor countries, despite signing a United Nations declaration three years ago in which rich countries agreed to increase their aid to 0.7 percent by 2015. Since then, Britain, France and Germany have all announced plans for how to get to 0.7 percent; America has not. The piddling amount Mr. Bush announced yesterday is not even 0.007 percent.
What is 0.7 percent of the American economy? About $80 billion. That is about the amount the Senate just approved for additional military spending, mostly in Iraq. It’s not remotely close to the $140 billion corporate tax cut last year.
This should not be the image Mr. Bush wants to project around a world that is intently watching American actions on this issue. At a time when rich countries are mounting a noble and worthy effort to make poverty history, the Bush administration is showing itself to be completely out of touch by offering such a miserly drop in the bucket. It’s no surprise that Mr. Bush’s offer was greeted with scorn in television broadcasts and newspaper headlines around the world. ”Bush Opposes U.K. Africa Debt Plan,” blared the headline on the AllAfrica news service, based in Johannesburg. ”Blair’s Gambit: Shame Bush Into Paying,” chimed in The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia.
The American people have a great heart. President Bush needs to stop concealing it.
And email the idiots at the AP: info@ap.org
