Washington has publicly welcomed the British Africa initiative, and the Bush administration says it has already started working towards the same goals. But on the road to African development, the United States is clearly going its own way.
United States President George Bush, persuaded in part by his Christian supporters, launched two ambitious initiatives in his first term, the Millennium Challenge Account and the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief.
The MCA will begin disbursing aid to 16 countries this year, but while Tony Blair’s Africa commission will focus on rescuing some of the poorest countries, the US scheme will channel its money — eventually $5-billion a year — to countries which pass benchmarks in establishing democracy, good governance and market economies.
”When we receive the full amounts of targeted funding, it will be the biggest increase in international funding since the Marshall plan,” Paul Applegarth, who heads the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which administers the MCA, told the Guardian.
”But we believe that countries have to take responsibility for their own development,” he added.
He argued that the US approach dovetails with the British initiative, but it is built on a markedly different philosophy. The US approach seeks to provide incentives for ”good behaviour” and spend money where it is least likely to go astray. Its critics say it abandons countries stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty and corruption.
The MCC has also admitted that on present pledges it will be left $4,5-billion short of the previously promised total by the administration over its first three years.
The Aids programme spent $2,4-billion in 2004, mostly in Africa, and will spend another $2,9-billion this year. The plan involves reversing prior objections to allowing the distribution of generic anti-Aids drugs.
Meanwhile, there is little enthusiasm for the international financing facility.
”The idea has got fairly little traction in the US,” said David Roodman, of the Centre for Global Development thinktank.
US official development assistance is huge, accounting for a quarter of the world’s foreign aid, but it actually gives only 0,15% of its national income, putting it bottom of the league of industrialised countries and well short of the 0,7% goal.
The administration’s response to accusations of stinginess has been to reject the measuring stick.
Private donations and military contributions to aid efforts and peacekeeping should be taken into account, US officials argue. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the chancellor, plan, meanwhile, to target the Christian right and key Republican senators to win still missing American political support for a big increase in aid for Africa. – Guardian Unlimited Â