![2004 G8 Summit](/peth04/20041104092417im_/http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/images/g8banner.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 8, 2004
Tuesday's G8 Summit Briefing
Press Briefing by Jim Wilkinson, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications, and Barry Bennett, Deputy of Communications, G8 Summit Planning Organization
International Media Center
Savannah, Georgia
G8 Summit page
8:05 A.M. EDT
MR. BENNETT: I'd like to go over the schedule logistically real
quick for you, please. Here's what we have on tap for today, and of
course, all this is as of now.
At 10:00 a.m., Prime Minister Martin and Mrs. Martin arrive at
Hunter Army Airfield Base. They will be greeted by the following
greeting party -- this will be the official greeting party that will
greet all the leaders. They will be greeted by Governor Perdue and
Mrs. Perdue, Senator and Mrs. Chambliss, Senator Zell Miller,
Congressman Jack Kingston, Congressman and Mrs. Max Burns, Mayor Otis
Johnson, and Ft. Stewart Base Commander General William Webster, Jr.
Each G8 leader will also be greeted, be welcomed by a group of
school children. Prime Minister Martin will be greeted by the third
grade class of Satilla Marsh Elementary School.
At 10:30 a.m. this morning, in Briefing Room B, the Chairman of the
Chatham County Commission Billy Hair will brief, be available. At
11:00 a.m., the Japan delegation arrives. Same greeting party. They
will be greeted by the third grade class of C.B. Greer Elementary
School in Brunswick, Georgia. At 11:00 a.m., the Georgia Department of
Industry Trade and Tourism will sponsor a briefing on International
Georgia, A Global Economy, in Briefing Room B. At 11:00 a.m, in
Briefing Room C, an NSC background brief on eradicating poverty through
the global economy.
At 1:00 p.m., the German delegation arrives. He will -- Chancellor
Schroeder will be greeted by the official greeting party and the third
grade class of Glyndale Elementary School, in Brunswick, Georgia. At
1:00 p.m. a briefing in the same place in Briefing Room C, on peace
operations, background briefing in Briefing Room C at 1:00 p.m.
At 2:00 p.m., Prime Minister Blair and Mrs. Blair arrive. They
will be greeted by the greeting party, as well as the third grade class
of Georgetown Elementary School from Savannah, Georgia. At 2:00 p.m.
there is the readout of the U.S.-Japan bilat in Briefing Room C. Also
at 2:00 p.m., the state of Georgia's Department of Industry, Trade and
Tourism will conduct a briefing on Georgia's public health assets; open
press in Briefing Room B. Also at 2:00 p.m., the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Association will hold a press conference in Briefing Room
A. The number of topics there basically commemorating World Oceans
Day.
At 3:00 p.m., President Putin and Mrs. Putin arrive. It's the
normal greeting party, plus the third grade class of White Bluff
Elementary School in Savannah, Georgia. Also at 3:00 p.m., a video
conference from Sea Island into Briefing Room C on the Securing
International Travel Initiative.
At 4:00 p.m., President Chirac and Mrs. Chirac arrive. They will
be greeted by the greeting party, as well as the third grade class from
Windsor Forest Elementary School in Savannah, Georgia.
At 4:00 p.m. in Ballroom C, a nonproliferation background briefing
by John Bolton. Also at 4:00 p.m., Canadian Prime Minister Martin will
have a briefing in Sea Island. This will be video-conferenced into
Briefing Room A. At 4:40 p.m., Prime Minister Blair will have a
briefing in the Media Subcenter. That will also come into Briefing
Room A. That's British press only.
At 4:00 p.m. there will be a readout of the U.S.-Canadian bilat in
Briefing Room C. At 4:30 p.m. the Japanese Assistant Press Secretary
bill brief in Briefing Room A.
At 5:00 p.m. the Italian delegation arrives. Besides the normal
greeting party, they will be greeted by the third grade class of St.
Simon's Elementary School in St. Simon's, Georgia. At 4:45 p.m., a
readout from the U.S.-German bilat in Briefing Room C. At 5:45 p.m.,
Prime Minister Ahern arrives from Ireland and he will be greeted by
just the normal greeting party. At 6:00 p.m., a readout from the
U.S.-Russian bilat in Briefing Room C.
Starting at 6:05 p.m., the GME leaders arrive. We expect
Afghanistan to arrive at 6:05 p.m., Iraq at 6:15 p.m., Turkey at 6:15
p.m., Algeria at 6:30 p.m., Jordan at 6:45 p.m., Yemen at 7:00 p.m. We
also expect Bahrain to arrive at 7:15 p.m., but that will be closed
press.
At 6:45 p.m. we expect a Canadian senior official to brief in the
Media Subcenter. Video conference to Briefing Room A.
At 7:30 p.m., the leaders will begin arriving in the Mcguirk House
for the social dinner tonight hosted by President and Mrs. Bush. At
9:00 p.m., the Japanese Assistant Press Secretary will brief in the IMC
in Briefing Room B, open press.
Those are the ones we have on tap for today.
I'd like Jim to talk about the policy for today.
MR. WILKINSON: Good morning. As I said yesterday, the G8 leaders
meet this week to take on many key policy issues to promote freedom,
democratic reform and prosperity in the broader Middle East,
counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, strengthen
international cooperation in the war on terror, expand global
peacekeeping efforts, promote global economic growth and expand trade,
harness private sector efforts to help alleviate poverty, dramatically
increase our efforts to combat HIV-AIDS, polio and famine, and finally,
to protect our environment.
I want to give an update on a couple of these policy initiatives
this morning. As the summit begins today, agreement has been reached
on several key initiatives. I'll walk through those now, so you have
them on the policy side.
On the issue of famine, a special initiative to help end famine in
the north -- excuse me, in the Horn of Africa, agreement has been
reached. The President and the other G8 leaders are expected to
announce soon a new initiative to help prevent famine by improving
worldwide emergency assessment and response systems, with the goal of
raising agricultural productivity, and helping 5 million chronically
food-insecure people in Ethiopia attain food security by the year
2009.
I'll talk a little bit about the problem of famine. As you know,
millions of people face hunger or food insecurity in places like
Eritrea, Somalia, the Sudan, Kenya and Uganda. At least 5 million, as
I said, 5 million Ethiopians are unable at some time in any year to
secure an adequate supply of food for their survival. The President
believes that famine is a preventable tragedy, and he is determined to
commit the international community and the United States to do more to
help alleviate it.
We are, the United States is, as a point of reference, the world's
leader in food aid. We provide more than -- we have provided more than
$1.4 billion in emergency aid, and some 56 percent of all contributions
to the U.N.'s World Food Program in FY2003.
In terms of what the G8 will do this week on this particular issue,
the President and the G8 will endorse an initiative known as Ending the
Cycle of Famine in the Horn of Africa -- that's the title. It will, as
I said, improve worldwide emergency assessment and response systems to
help combat famine. It will support programs to raise agricultural
productivity, by promoting rural development in some of these areas
where they have food insecurity. And it would help Ethiopia achieve
food security for some 5 million people by the year 2009.
It does this in Ethiopia by supporting land reform, rural
infrastructure development, regional economic integration and
integrating and making more efficient some comprehensive famine
prevention programs.
So that's the first initiative that's reached agreement. Second is
an issue I spoke a little bit about yesterday, and that's this
commitment to eradicate polio. You can expect the G8 this week to
announce that they will take all necessary steps to help eradicate
polio by the end of 2005. The G8 will work to close the 2004 funding
gap for the Polio Eradication Initiative, and commit to resolve the
2005 gap by the 2005 G8 summit.
A little bit of context. To date, polio remains endemic to six
countries and has actually re-emerged in nine additional nations. The
Polio Eradication Initiative is a global coalition that works to help
eliminate this disease. This PEI, as it's known, has been spirited by
the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, UNICEF and Rotary International.
The G8, on the issue of polio, will reiterate their commitment to
the elimination of this disease. They will urge polio-endemic
countries to take stronger steps to eradicate the virus. The will
welcome the resolution on polio eradication passed by the Organization
of Islamic Conference Summit in Malaysia of October of 2003, and they
will recognize the special contribution made by Rotary International to
the elimination of polio.
A couple of context statistics. Since 1988, the U.S. has worked
hand in hand with the WHO. We've worked to pledge -- we have pledged
or contributed some $981.3 million for the Polio Eradication
Initiative, including $180 million for the years 2004, 2005. Of the
$3.48 billion total pledge worldwide since 1988, the U.S. has pledged
or contributed 28.2 percent. And the U.S. has also provided
approximately $38 million in additional bilateral assistance since
1988. That's the second issue.
The third issue of agreement, which will be announced later this
week is on the issue of applying the power of entrepreneurship to the
eradication of poverty. The G8 leaders will announce agreement on an
innovative action plan to apply the best of the private sector
entrepreneurship to help alleviate poverty.
You will remember President Bush's development policies, such as
the Millennium Challenge Account Initiative, which provides foreign aid
to those who choose to reform and try to create jobs and reduce
poverty.
The G8 this week, on this particular issue will -- there is a long
list of these; I'll just go through the steps they will commit to.
First is they'll commit to facilitate and lower the cost of
remittances. And as you know, remittances is the money that immigrants
send back home to their friends and families back home.
As a point of reference, global remittance flows total nearly $100
billion annually, which is, as you know, about twice as large as
official development assistance that goes to people in these countries,
so you see the significance of remittances.
The G8 countries will agree to launch pilot projects with the view
of cutting transaction costs on remittances by half. These costs can
sometimes be as high, as you know, as 10 percent to 15 percent, taking
money away from these families and people who need these funds for
transactions costs, so they will work to cut those by half.
Under the U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Prosperity, the U.S. will
reduce remittance costs by 56 percent, putting more money in the hands
of recipient families. Another step on this issue will be to expand
access to micro-finance funding to help new entrepreneurs establish or
grow their businesses and pull themselves out of poverty. The G8 will
pilot this initiative in the broader Middle East region, where the G8
has pledged to help over 2 million entrepreneurs help themselves out of
poverty through micro-finance loans over five years and establish a
micro-finance best practices training center in Jordan. And they will
launch the first micro-finance pilot project in Yemen.
The U.S. will expand its already robust micro-finance program which
is currently active in 58 countries worldwide, reaching over 5 million
clients with total combined loans of more than $2.5 billion. We are
working, for example, in Egypt with nine partner institutions to
develop lending programs that have already extended more than 1.3
million loans from 1990 to 2003, creating more than 300,000 jobs. As a
point of reference, some 40 percent of these borrowers have been
women.
Next on this issue will be a G8 commitment to help finance housing
and clean water access by developing local mortgage and municipal bond
markets. You will see a U.S.-African Mortgage Markets Initiative,
which, as you know, was launched in 2003 and is already assisting
Botswana, Nigeria, Zambia, South Africa and others in designing and
implementing mortgage finance programs. The U.S. $1 billion Water for
the Poor Initiative is working to bring clean water to some 50 million
people globally.
Finally, on this issue, the G8 leaders will commit to improve the
business climate for entrepreneurs and investors by doing the
following: One is launching pilot projects to help committed countries
reform this financing. Second is encouraging multilateral development
banks to increase lending and technical assistance to small businesses
to help create jobs. Third is to encourage developing countries to
step up efforts to combat piracy and counterfeit intellectual
property.
Next issue of agreement that's significant is the Global HIV
Vaccine Enterprise, which I mentioned yesterday. The G8 and President
Bush will endorse the establishment of a global HIV vaccine enterprise,
which is a global consortium to accelerate the development of this HIV
vaccine. With over 40 million people suffering from HIV/AIDS
worldwide, President Bush is leading global efforts to combat this
HIV/AIDS pandemic, as you know, through his $15 billion emergency plan
for AIDS relief and his commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria, to which the U.S. has pledged more than $1.96
billion, or 36 percent of all pledges through 2008.
The President and the G8 will establish this Global HIV vaccine
enterprise, that will help enhance coordination, information sharing
and collaboration globally, as we seek to find this vaccine. This
concept was proposed recently by an international group of scientists
and is analogous to the successful alliance and strategic plan that
characterized the approach to the Human Genome Project.
The G8 also, on this issue, will call upon the HIV vaccine
enterprise to develop a strategic plan to do the following: The first
is prioritize the scientific challenges to be addressed and fill the
identified gaps in knowledge, as we seek this vaccine. The second will
be to coordinate product development efforts, to make them more
efficient. And third will be to help aline and channel existing and
new resources to the needs at hand.
Finally, on the issue of nonproliferation, you'll hear -- as a
matter of fact, let me point out, you'll hear on all these issues today
extensive briefings from our policy experts, for those of you who
choose to attend.
On the issue of nonproliferation, I think you'll see we're very
close to agreement on new initiatives to dramatically expand the
international community's efforts to go after WMD. You will see an
expansion of the PSI Initiative. You will see G8 leaders working to
strengthen the IAEA with some reforms there. A lot of the things the
President talked about in his February 11th speech on reforming our
antiquated nonproliferation laws and statutes and organizations to
address the global threats of the A.Q. Khan network and other global
black market networks and regimes who choose to development these
weapons in secret. You'll see a lot of these steps agreed to on that
issue. I'll let Mr. Bolton make the news on that today.
So obviously -- sorry for all the substance, but lots of policy
agreement this week. This is just a few. We'll come back tomorrow
with more and later today, if we have them. But these are some
agreements that have already been reached.
Q Could I get hard copies of your comments just now? And the
name and title of the gentleman in the jacket.
MR. WILKINSON: There will be a transcript released, right? This
lady right here with the microphone will go back and type very
quickly. She will come and find you at the Krispy Kreme truck and
bring you the transcript there. (Laughter.)
And, Jim Wilkinson, Deputy National Security Advisor for
Communications.
Q When you say agreement has been reached -- are you releasing
the documents now?
MR. WILKINSON: I think you'll see formal fact sheets released as
you would see through the normal process. As you know, the summit --
negotiations have been going on for some time. The summit begins
today. These are agreements that have been reached. As I said
yesterday, I went through the long list of policy accomplishments we
accept.
Q For me to do a story, I need to be able to say what's happened
with the initiative, what's happened with the document. So right now
I'm saying a senior White House official has said that agreement has
been reached on these subjects. But I also want to know whether I will
actually see the document.
MR. WILKINSON: There will be documents coming out, fact sheets and
then, again, the normal --
Q Today?
MR. WILKINSON: Hopefully today, but maybe as late as tomorrow on
these initiatives, because there will be formal policy briefings later
today, and we want to let you talk to the experts on these issues.
A good reminder. Again, in Room 103, you know to come by. We have
all of these experts who are available. Most of them arrive today who
can do one-on-one interviews with you, television interviews,
television interviews, anything you want, to a degree, even for someone
like you, Andrei, who is a warm and fuzzy friend of ours. But they're
available, so you can to --
Q Do you expect agreement on nonproliferation before Thursday?
MR. WILKINSON: Yes, it could have even happened overnight.
Q -- the status of the Iraq resolution at the U.N.?
MR. WILKINSON: I will refer you to Scott on that. I think two
comments by Negroponte yesterday show that it's moving forward.
Q Is there any sort of overarching theme in the President's
meeting with his -- influential members of the G8 today? What does he
hope to get out of the meeting?
MR. WILKINSON: Obviously, I've gone through the long list of
policy initiatives. Clearly, promoting freedom, democratic reform and
prosperity in the broader Middle East is a key issue. There will be
bilateral issues for all the different nations that will certainly come
up. But the key issues identified are for peacekeeping, the war on
terror, countering WMD and the broader Middle East initiative.
Q -- will dominate his conversations today, is that what you're
saying?
MR. WILKINSON: I think these topics will certainly be on the
agenda all week. I think each of them will certainly be discussed.
But you will also see specific issues between nations discussed and
between the different leaders.
Q Can I ask you one other question, too? As a chief
communicator for the White House, many of us who cover the White House
have never seen the kind of outreach that we're seeing at this summit.
Is it safe to infer that you see this as a positive moment for the
United States in terms of Iraq?
MR. WILKINSON: I think -- we're a host of the summit, and we have
thousands of reporters here, many from the international community and
we feel a special responsibility to try to ensure as much access as
possible to as many reporters as possible, with subject matter
experts. These are important issues. The President -- for a moment on
the President -- with his compassion agenda on issues like eradicating
polio and poverty and HIV-AIDS. These are important issues to him, and
we just think it's important to get those subject matter experts with
as many members of the media as possible.
A lot of these officials never -- you sometimes -- they're not
around or traveling and these sorts of things, so we decided to get
them down here and meet with as many of you as possible, just trying to
be a facilitator of information.
Q In that regard, thank you for making those subject matter
experts available. At previous summits, on these issues, like famine,
like HIV-AIDS, we would be able to bring context to them and not rely
solely on the statements of governments and official statements of the
summit by having direct access to the NGOs who would have been working
on these issues for many years. They would be right with us in the
press center, and I'm just wondering, they aren't here this time
around, they've been replaced by Verizon and Cingular, companies like
that, but I wonder, why was that decision made?
And then, secondly, also on the logistics of it, why is the arrival
of the King of Bahrain to this international summit closed to press?
MR. WILKINSON: I don't know the answer to both of those questions,
but I'll find out the answers to both of those. Don't know the first
thing --
Q Have the NGOs been banished --
MR. WILKINSON: I just don't know. I'll find out, though. It's
not something I've been involved in here. So we will -- I will get you
an answer, though, to both those questions.
Q When you say you got agreements on these different issues, I
assume that doesn't mean, between yesterday's briefing and today is the
time frame, roughly, of when these fell into place or --
MR. WILKINSON: As you know, the sherpas have been working
diligently for some period of time. Again, yesterday, I went through
the long list of all the issues that are on the table, and even for
these particular issues I've outlined today, there are so many more
sub-issues that have been discussed and agreed. I think your subject
matter experts will certainly brief you on those to a great extent.
I've only hit the highlights. These have been falling into place for
some time now.
Q To put it differently, did anything break between yesterday
and today's briefing --
MR. WILKINSON: A lot of things were finalized and --
Q And on the remittances, do you have a sense of how the G8
remittances are going to affect U.S. policy toward Cuba?
MR. WILKINSON: Don't know, but again, that's a good question for
your remittance expert that will be in Room 103 and available for you
later.
Q Anything that your boss is doing beside the obvious today? I
assume she's sitting at the side of the President in bilats. --
talking to reporters or anything else on her schedule we should know
about?
MR. WILKINSON: Nothing of special interest. She'll certainly be
with the President for those meetings.
Thank you all. We'll see you tomorrow morning very early again.
END 8:34 A.M. EDT
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