Bush seeks to double aid to Africa

updated 8:26 p.m. ET June 30, 2005

WASHINGTON - President Bush, urging new help for Africa before an international meeting focused on its problems, said Thursday he wants to double aid to the troubled continent over five years.

The increase includes initiatives to battle malaria, provide legal protection for women and education to girls. The aid plans impressed some advocacy groups, even though they said most of the doubling would come from already-pledged money.

"Across Africa, people who were preparing to die are now preparing to live, and America is playing a role in so many of those miracles," Bush said in a wide-ranging speech.

Bush is preparing to attend a meeting next week in Scotland of major industrial democracies and Russia. The summit host, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has made Africa a top item for discussion.

‘The world must take action’
He said that in Scotland, he will urge other nations and private foundations to help fight malaria in Africa as well.

“The world must take action now,” he said.

Bush's initiatives go along with $674 million in emergency famine relief announced this month and an agreement on Africa debt relief. They help the president blunt criticism of his rejection of Blair's proposal for summit countries to increase aid to Africa to 0.7 percent of their gross national product.

Bush says agreeing to Blair's plan is not necessary because aid has tripled during his presidency, though the United States gives far less as a proportion of national income than most other industrialized nations.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley said Bush's new proposal would raise U.S. assistance to Africa to $8.6 billion in 2010, from $4.3 billion in 2004.

Those figures include aid that is channeled through organizations such as the World Bank.

Charities react
The Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, said Bush's promise would be achieved mainly by offering debt relief and fulfilling past commitments.

But Beckmann, whose Washington-based organization lobbies to end hunger, said that level of aid would make "the U.S. a serious partner in the global effort to reduce poverty in Africa."

That, he said, "should be a plus for how people around the world view the United States."

Chad Dobson, policy director for the charity Oxfam America, hoped the announcement would mark the beginning of a much larger U.S. commitment. He praised it as creating "the momentum that is needed" going into the Scotland meeting.

Critics also dispute Bush's claim that assistance has tripled on his watch. They say his administration undercounts what was spent in the Clinton years and overcounts that spent during his presidency.

A Brookings Institution study this week says that in 2000, the last year of the Clinton administration, total spending on Africa aid was $2.3 billion. The total for 2004, the last completed year of the Bush administration, was $3.4 billion, when aid channeled through multilateral groups is excluded, or just over a 50 percent increase. Much of the increase was in emergency food aid.

MORE FROM AFRICA

Africa Section Front

Ghana illegal mine collapse kills 15 Tanzanian landslide kills 11 children, 9 adults Make peace — mom's dying wish to rebel leader son Zimbabwe judge: Torture can be raised in case Kenyan girls given a chance to dream Africa Section Front   Add Africa headlines to your news reader: