Africa Partnership Forum

Thank you, Assistant Secretary Newman. Secretary Powell sends his best regards to you all and his sincere regrets that he was unable to be here to welcome you himself. I am delighted to have this opportunity to stand in his stead, however, and I welcome you all to Washington.

You come to our capitol city at a busy time for us: the frenzy of the final weeks of a hotly contested political campaign. I wonder sometimes, when I speak with visitors from other countries, what it must look like to you. The charge and counter charge of television messages. The dizzy flood of opinions and daily polls. Maybe it looks chaotic, and even faintly disreputable. But I have to tell you that I find it remarkable. This is the sweet noise of a fully functioning democracy, the energy of a country where people have the opportunity to decide how they will live.

So while it isn’t perfect and it isn’t always pretty, this is the world’s oldest continuous democracy and largest economy. Along the way, the United States has learned key lessons about how to bring stability and prosperity to our people. Chief among those lessons is the knowledge that there is nothing exclusively or uniquely American about the core values and institutions that make this country great. Constitutional, representative, democratic government can adapt and flourish anywhere. Certainly, in Africa, we can point to a growing number of nations where stability and prosperity are on the rise for that reason.

That is what brings us all together today, to this third Africa Partnership Forum. We share a conviction that the rule of law, transparency, sound economic policy and trade and investment offer the path to a better future for Africa. We also share a commitment to helping the nations of Africa walk down that path.

The United States considers this Forum to be very important. We believe that acting in partnership under the leadership and initiative of African countries and through the principles spelled out by the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) is the best way to succeed in building a better life for millions of people across Africa. But we also consider this Forum to be important because we recognize that success is in our own national interests. As President Obasanjo said at the Sea Island Summit, this is not about a handout. There is no condescension involved. This is about “mutual interests, mutual security, and common prosperity.”

Of course, we are also joined by humanitarian concerns, and I’m sure we will all continue to work together to redress problems and react to crises. But I believe NEPAD’s growth-centered, African-led approach to reducing poverty and hunger is the right approach. It offers a systemic way to capture the hopes of a continent by promoting economic growth and the sustainable use of natural resources, by fighting corruption and disease, by resolving conflicts and countering terrorism, and before the failure to do so can leave us with the kind of tragedy we see today in Darfur. The United States is committed to supporting NEPAD’s strategic vision, both through multilateral meetings such as this one but also in our bilateral programs, such as the Millennium Challenge Account and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. Indeed, half of the nations we count as eligible for funding under the Millennium Challenge Account are in Africa, which I think is very encouraging, considering the tough criteria we used and the number of countries we considered.

Nonetheless, we all know there is much work to be done in order for every country on the continent to reach toward its full potential, and it is work we will have to do together. So with that, I think it is time for me to let you get down to business. Of course, your deliberations will go beyond the confines of an ordinary discussion. In continuing the work of the past two Partnership meetings, you will be helping to define how to actually meet some of the most difficult challenges facing Africa today – from promoting peace and security, to preventing famine and sickness, to harnessing the power of education and entrepreneurship for short- and long-term economic growth. For that matter, these challenges are not unique to Africa. Indeed, if you do catch some of the campaign commercials on American TV right now, you may notice that our election season revolves around many of these very same concerns.

So I thank you all for coming here today to share in this great endeavor and I look forward to hearing about the results of your hard work from Assistant Secretary Newman.
[End]