Crumbs for Africa
Editorial New York Times, June 8, 2005
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.