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News :: Miscellaneous |
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FRITTERING AWAY FOREIGN AID |
Current rating: 0 |
by Robert Naiman
(No verified email address) |
12 Jun 2001
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Massive U.S. Aid Goes for Corporate Insurance and Military Assistance, with Peanuts Promised for AIDS |
In late May, Secretary of State Colin Powell embarked on a four-country tour of Africa, visiting Mali, South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda. Mindful of criticism that the Bush administration was indifferent to the suffering of Africans, and aware of the administration\'s low standing among African-Americans, Powell intended to use his trip to show that this government does \"feel Africa\'s pain.\" He highlighted concern about the toll of AIDS in Africa as a central theme of his trip.
Rhetoric and symbolism are one thing, and deeds quite another. There are many simple steps Powell and the Bush administration could take to demonstrate that their words of concern are backed by concrete action.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for the creation of a $7- to $10-billion global \"war chest\" to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in poor countries. The U.S. share would be about $2 billion a year. This is easily affordable to the U.S. -- it represents two-hundredths of one percent of U.S. economic output, and about one percent of the administration\'s tax cut. But Bush has committed only $200 million, a drop in the bucket.
The belief that contributing more is not feasible because Americans do not support foreign aid is false. There are numerous items in the foreign aid budget of dubious merit whose funding could be easily re-assigned to AIDS and tuberculosis. For example, the administration has requested $60 million for the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), an arm of the World Bank that provides subsidized \"political risk insurance\" to multinational corporations. The insurance protects against losses due to strikes and civil disturbances. The environmental organization Friends of the Earth has recommended that MIGA be shut down or privatized, calling it \"corporate welfare.\"
Similarly, Bush has requested $160 million for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This agency is so indifferent to the environmental impacts of its lending that European environmentalists call it a \"bottom-feeder\" for picking up projects that even the World Bank has rejected on environmental grounds.
Many \"foreign aid\" programs are actually military subsidies, such as the Foreign Military Financing program ($3.674 billion) or the International Military Education and Training program ($65 million). These could be cut to free money for AIDS funding.
Moreover, without touching the U.S. budget, Powell could free more resources for poor countries to spend on AIDS treatment and prevention. He could put the Bush administration on record as supporting 100 percent cancellation of poor country debt by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, using these institutions\' own resources. Currently, even poor countries, which have received \"debt relief\" under IMF and World Bank programs, are spending more on debt service than on health care. Full IMF and World Bank debt cancellation would bring this injustice to an end.
Powell could also commit himself to opposing IMF and World Bank policy mandates that undermine health care in poor countries. He could declare that the World Bank and IMF stop imposing \"user fees\" on access to primary health care, and that the Bank stop dismantling subsidies for access to clean drinking water -- a centerpiece of the World Bank\'s water privatization schemes. (Ironically, the United States, the largest shareholder and dominant government in the IMF and the World Bank, has 80 percent of its water publicly provided.) The degradation of public health care infrastructure in Africa during the last 20 years of IMF- and World Bank-mandated government cutbacks and privatization has been a central stumbling block to efforts by these countries to overcome the AIDS crisis.
Finally, Powell could clarify once and for all that the U.S. will not interfere with efforts to make essential medicines, including generic drugs, available and affordable in poor countries. He could declare a moratorium on all U.S. actions against poor countries to enforce intellectual property rules in the area of essential medicines. Finally, he could support poor countries\' efforts to reform World Trade Organization rules on intellectual property so that they can never again be used to block access to life-saving medications.
Robert Naiman is a senior policy analyst with the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Reprinted with permission.
Originally published at: http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/05/31/2.html
© 1999-2001 The Florence Fund
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See also:
http://www.cepr.net/
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Why Do Capitalists Crave Africa? |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
13 Jun 2001
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See the lead story on the connection between cellphones, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the scarce element, tantulum, for further insight about what Washington really wants in Africa. |
See also:
http://www.guerrillanews.com/newswire/36.html
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