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Africa Policy E-Journal
USA/Africa: Sign-On Letter to Treasury Secretary Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for Africa at http://www.africaaction.org +++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide SUMMARY CONTENTS: This posting contains a letter initiated by Africa Action and TransAfrica Forum to U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, in advance of his trip to Africa later this month. As the cover note below explains, we are inviting additional signatures from organizations in the U.S. and Africa, to be included when the letter is sent to Secretary O'Neill. See the note below for the deadline and e-mail address to use to sign on. Signatories already include ActionAid USA and Fifty Years is Enough. After the letter is sent, the full list of signatories will be made available on the Africa Action and TransAfrica Forum web sites. TransAfrica Forum's web site is http://www.transafricaforum.org [May 20: The names of 110 groups signing before delivery of the letter on May 17 are listed below at the end of the letter.] +++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dear Colleagues, Please consider signing on to the following letter to Paul O'Neill, Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, in advance of his upcoming trip to Africa. He leaves next Monday, May 20, for an 11-day trip that includes stops in Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Ethiopia. This letter, initiated by Africa Action and TransAfrica Forum, urges a new U.S. policy approach to Africa's development challenges, based on the cancellation of Africa's illegitimate external debt and increased U.S. public investment in social development, particularly in responding to Africa's health crisis. It is very important that these critical issues be raised by as many groups as possible as the Secretary travels to Africa for the first time. The letter will be sent to the U.S. Treasury on Friday, May 17, and will be released to the press on Monday, May 20, as the Secretary leaves for Ghana on the first leg of his trip. To sign on, please send your name, title and organization to alcolgan@africaaction.org by 5pm on Thursday, May 16. Please send organizational signatures only. Signatories already include ActionAid USA and Fifty Years is Enough. Please circulate this letter widely for maximum sign-ons. Many thanks. Ann-Louise Colgan, Africa Action
Mr. Paul O'Neill Dear Secretary O'Neill, As you prepare to travel to Africa for the first time at the end of this month, we write to urge a new U.S. policy approach to Africa's development challenges. We believe that U.S. efforts to support Africa's development should focus on the priority concerns of African countries. The Bush Administration should begin by removing the most obvious impediment to reducing poverty in Africa: the burden of illegitimate foreign debt. The U.S. should also support African initiatives with increased public investment in social development. The Millennium Challenge Account, proposed by President Bush as a new vehicle for delivering U.S. bilateral aid to poor countries, is inappropriately designed for promoting development in Africa. An over-emphasis on the exaggerated benefits of free trade and the private sector as the engine of economic growth is flawed. A successful development agenda should be based on human development. Greater investment in people through health and education is proven to reduce poverty and promote economic growth. What is required is a significant commitment of resources from donors and creditors alike, and a new approach to partnership between rich and poor countries. A true partnership would not attempt to place the burden for sustaining health and education services on the shoulders of the poor through cost recovery measures such as user fees and the privatization of public utilities. While we agree that both rich and poor countries should be held accountable, we strongly oppose the principle of tying aid to specific criteria, including economic policies and governance conditions, defined by Washington. It is correct to demand that resources be used effectively to achieve their intended purposes, but the monitoring mechanisms should be independent rather than unilaterally imposed by donors. The performance of both recipient countries and donor agencies should be evaluated in open and transparent processes, including participation by independent experts and representatives of civil society. For development to be successful, it will require a paradigm shift away from dictating policy to poor countries, toward supporting the poverty reduction initiatives defined by these countries. We certainly welcome moves towards more realistic levels of development assistance, but the increase proposed by President Bush is still too little, too late. These sums are considerably less than what the U.S. -- in terms of its wealth and its share of the world economy -- should provide. Unless the world's single richest country increases its investment in poverty reduction, meeting the Millennium Development Goals will be impossible. Moreover, the two year delay in instituting the proposed increase in aid is unacceptable when the need for greater resources is immediate. Most crucially of all, the Millennium Challenge Initiative fails to address Africa's debt crisis. Unconditional debt cancellation must be central to any effort to promote Africa's development. So long as African countries are forced to spend almost $15 billion per year repaying debts to rich foreign creditors, their efforts to address urgent domestic needs will be undermined. Increased development assistance from foreign donors will achieve little when this trickle of additional resources is more than offset by the unconscionable outward flow of debt repayments. Africa's debt is not only unsustainable, it is fundamentally illegitimate. As you well know, most loans were given for strategic purposes, to prop up repressive and corrupt regimes in the context of the Cold War. Now, Africa's people are repaying huge debts which were mainly incurred before their time and which did not benefit them. The current international debt relief framework, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, has failed to provide a solution to Africa's debt crisis. Even by the World Bank's own criteria, this initiative is not even reducing debt to "sustainable levels." Most African countries still spend many times more on debt repayments than on health care for their own people. The hemorrhaging of resources from African countries to repay foreign debts is the single largest impediment to the continent's development and economic independence. Debt cancellation should be the very first priority of any U.S. initiative that seeks to promote Africa's growth. The U.S. should use its powerful position at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to move these institutions in this direction. African efforts to respond to the continent's devastating health crisis and related economic and social challenges are crucial to the continent's future. U.S. assistance in support of these efforts is an appropriate form of public investment. This is not charity, but rather an obligation and a responsibility of all rich countries. Moreover, increased investment in addressing the spread and impact of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa will prove highly effective in promoting sustainable growth. The pandemic has already cost millions of African lives, and the social and economic effects of the health crisis are undermining development across the continent. African governments do not command sufficient resources to tackle this global challenge alone. The U.S., as the richest country in human history, must provide far greater leadership and resources in combating the worst plague ever faced by humankind. Mr. Secretary, your trip to Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Ethiopia will afford you the opportunity to experience conditions in these countries first-hand. You must meet with African civil society groups in these countries, as well as with government agencies, to truly gain an understanding of the concerns they share and the challenges they face. You will, no doubt, learn about the official African initiative called the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). It is the most ambitious self-driven African development plan for a generation. But it is still an emerging initiative that is not yet fully informed by the participation of African civil society. It cannot become the basis for a partnership between African governments and rich country governments until it has first become a partnership between African governments and their own people, in which there is shared ownership reflected through the active engagement of African trade unions and civil society organizations. NEPAD will be at the top of the agenda of the G8 Summit in Canada next month. We will share our concerns with all of the Finance Ministers of the G8 countries in advance of that meeting. In the meantime, we urge you to use your influence within the U.S. government and the World Bank and IMF to call for a new approach to the development challenges of Africa, based on the priorities outlined in this letter. Sincerely,
Salih Booker, Executive Director, Africa Action U.S. Groups:
Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, President, Religious Action Network (RAN)
Africa Groups:
Zackie Achmat, Chairperson, Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa)
Other Groups:
Jeff Powell, Communications and Research Officer, Bretton Woods Project, UK
Additional Signatures received after May 20
Elder Ron Gross, Chairman, Passaic County (NJ) Reparations
Coalition
Documents previously distributed in the e-journal are
available on the Africa Action website: To be added to or dropped from the e-journal subscription list, write to e-journal@africaaction.org. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the source mentioned in the posting.
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Africa Policy E-Journal
