Monterrey, Mexico | Friday
US PRESIDENT George Bush on Friday will lay out his vision for a ”new compact” with poor nations that requires them to embrace political and economic reforms to qualify for enhanced US aid.
”We must tie greater aid to political, legal and economic reforms, and by insisting on reform we do the work of compassion,” he said in remarks prepared for delivery to 50 other world leaders at a UN anti-poverty summit here.
Bush recently proposed boosting annual US aid by 50% to roughly $16-billion by 2006, but made clear would-be recipients must foster free markets, root out corruption, and invest in education and health care.
In his Friday address, the US leader was also to emphasise the power of free trade as an engine of prosperity and reject criticisms that Washington is stingy with assistance compared to rest of the world’s wealthiest nations.
”I am here today to reaffirm the commitment of the United States to bring hope and opportunity to the world’s poorest people and to call for a new compact for development, defined by greater accountability for rich and poor nations alike,” he said in the prepared remarks.
”When nations close their markets and opportunity is hoarded by a privileged few, no amount of development aid is ever enough,” the US president planned to say.
”When nations respect their people and invest in better education and health, every dollar of aid, every dollar of trade revenue and domestic capital is used more effectively,” he said in the remarks.
Bush’s speech came as he began a three-nation Latin American tour in earnest here at a UN summit meant to launch a global drive to reduce by half the number of people subsisting on less than a dollar a day by 2015.
While opening the two-day summit on Thursday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that the Monterrey initiative could collapse unless rich countries came up with an additional $50-billion a year in development assistance.
But Washington has declined to back Annan’s appeal, insisting that while foreign aid is needed, private investment and trade hold the real keys to raising living standards.
Bush plans to emphasise free trade at the two other stops on his four-day trip, in meetings with Andean leaders in Lima on Saturday and a gathering with Central American leaders in San Salvador on Sunday.
He aims to discuss the US-led ”war on terrorism,” global development and other matters in a bilateral meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, his first order of business on Friday.
The United States has long been pilloried for its meagre foreign aid record, allocating just 0,10% of its gross national income to development assistance — the lowest percentage in the industrialised world.
US officials counter that figure omits monies spent to battle terrorism as well as the impact of trade with the United States, which imports $450-billion of goods a year from the developing world, roughly eight times more than all the aid those nations receive.
While Bush’s announcement last week went some way toward softening such criticism, it did not fully get the United States off the hook, and the conditions attached have likewise sparked opposition. – Sapa