For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 9, 2004
G8 Briefing on Africa
Background Briefing by a Senior Administration Official on Africa
International Media Center
Savannah, Georgia
1:04 P.M. EDT
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you, and good afternoon to
all of you. What I'd like to do today is to give you a pre-brief on
the Africa outreach lunch, which will be held tomorrow afternoon, from
noon to 2:00 p.m.
The lunch involves an invitation from President Bush, as chairman
of the G8, to six African nations -- as I said, a two-hour lunch. The
nations are Nigeria, President Obasanjo; South Africa, President Mbeki;
Senegal, President Wade; Ghana, President Kufuor; Uganda, President
Museveni; and Algeria, President Bouteflika.
These six leaders were invited as representatives of the New
Partnership for Africa's Development. Four of them were part of the
steering group that created the plan for continental transformation.
The other two, President Kufuor and President Museveni, have been
leaders in the Africa Union, and leaders on economic, trade and
development.
The issues that will be discussed during this session -- well,
before I get into the issues, let me just give you an outline of the
event, itself. First, they'll start with a group photograph, the G8
leaders with the African leaders. Then it will be a two-hour lunch,
leaders only. They will be the only ones in the room. And then it
will end with the African leaders holding a press conference, a
30-minute press conference. So I hope all of you will be there.
They'll be broadcasting from Sea Island, so the leaders, themselves,
will still be at Sea Island.
The issues that will be covered -- and this was at the suggestion
of the African heads of state -- is to focus on private sector-led
growth and development in Africa: Specifically, how can Africa attract
greater investment? How can we expand our trade relationship? How can
the countries in the G8 and Africa cooperate on building a health
infrastructure? And how can we coordinate better on peace and security
issues?
I would expect that during the lunch discussion they will also
discuss some of the G8 initiatives that are coming out of this summit,
specifically the G8 initiative on enterprise, tapping the power of
entrepreneurship; the global HIV/AIDS vaccine enterprise, again,
coordinating, trying to move from our approach that focuses on
treatment, care, but also to get an actual cure for HIV/AIDS. And then
the peacekeeping initiative that is coming out of the G8.
The theme, as you know, of this G8 is, advancing freedom by
strengthening international cooperation to make the world safer and
better. And this particular lunch will focus on that theme through the
vector of private sector-led growth to address poverty alleviation and
to increase health. I think it affirms and reflects President Bush's
priorities in terms of his U.S.-Africa policy on HIV/AIDS, which the
emergency plan for AIDS relief is a centerpiece of our approach to
addressing the pandemic on the continent. And this Global Vaccine
Initiative will be a continuation of that leadership.
His leadership on development and poverty alleviation, on which the
Millennium Challenge Account, the $5 billion new development assistance
over five years, and then doubling our ODA is a reflection, again, of
that commitment to poverty alleviation, with eight of the 16 first
selected countries being African. And I think this is important
because it also reflects the President's follow-up on the commitments
at Kananaskis in which we said that at least 50 percent of new
development assistance would go to African countries that -- justly
invest in health and education and promote economic entrepreneurship.
And then, finally, his commitment on basic -- I'm sorry, his
commitment on peace and security reflected, I think, in our programs on
East Africa counterterrorism initiative, which is $100 million. We try
to build on capacity building. And then the new G8 initiative on
global peacekeeping.
With that, I'll turn over to my colleague who can talk more about
the relationship between Africa and the G8.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you, very much. There has
been a longstanding relationship between the African nations and the
members of G8. However, beginning in Kananaskis, in 2002, there was a
much more formalized relationship, in that the African leaders who are
a part of the New Partnership for Africa's Development, NEPAD, met with
the G8 members, and flowing from that was the Africa Action Plan, that
covered NEPAD, it covered peace and security, it covered health, trade,
debt relief, water, institutional government, peace and security, as I
said earlier.
The plan outlined the steps that would be taken by the G8 members
in the bilateral or joined together, working under a partnership
arrangement, which is attempting to change the way I in which the donor
community works with the African leaders.
The next summit, Evian, there was the requirement coming out of
Kananaskis that there would be a report on the Africa Action Plan, the
status. So you can go into the Africa Action Plan on the site for the
G8 and see the way in which the G8 members had, up to that point,
followed through on their commitments. And I won't take the time now,
but I can answer questions on it.
Now, at each of these summits, the G8 members met with the steering
committee of NEPAD. Between the summits, there are ongoing meetings of
representatives of the G8 with representatives of the African leaders.
The effort there is to continue to work to change the relationship to
one of a partnership where the African leaders are responsible for,
accountable for definition of the problems and the solutions, and the
donors bring -- where they can add value, they bring that to the
table.
So this summit is the next follow-on, and the plan is for the
discussion as my colleague outlined it. The next summit in the U.K.
will then give another report on the status under the Africa Action
Plan.
So I think with that, you probably have questions.
Q The NGOs and a lot of the groups that have been advocating
debt relief have been telling us that there's some sort of plan in the
works here on HIPC. Can you tell us anything about that, and more
generally address the question of whether the Iraqi debt relief is
going to have to be tied to debt relief of the developing world?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I can't speak to the question of
Iraqi debt relief being tied to the developing world. I can speak to
the issue, to some degree, on HIPC. There's been a continuing
commitment within the G8 to address HIPC and to, what we call, top up
where necessary the substantial debt relief that's provided under
HIPC. It's important to remember that HIPC has measures in it in which
countries have to commit to reform, commit to the debt relief going to
particular sectors -- health and education, et cetera. And so they
have to go through a process. In the time that they're going through
that, meeting the obligations of HIPC, sometimes they're exogenous
shocks that, then, lead to their debt sustainability level being higher
than is required under HIPC, which then leads to the topping up.
And so I think that you can expect out of this G8 a continuing
commitment to topping up HIPC. Any other discussions on debt relief,
you'll have to wait until, I think, the end of the summit when the
leaders themselves can report on what further they're doing.
Q Just a follow-up to that. We were also told that there would
be an extension of the number of countries eligible under HIPC and an
extension to the time frame, as well. Is that true?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: That I don't know. I can say that
the number of countries that are in HIPC now from sub-Saharan Africa
are about 38 countries. But I don't know about an extension of the
time frame. The sunset clause on HIPC, I believe, it ends in 2004. I
would expect that we would, since HIPC continues to be the framework
for debt relief, that that would be extended. But let's wait until the
leaders speak to this issue on debt relief.
Clearly, most of the debt that these countries hold are to
multilateral banks. And so it's going to be important over time to
address that. But we -- when a country reaches its completion point,
the United States provides 100 percent debt relief, bilateral debt
relief to them.
Q I was just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on
the private sector-led initiatives that might be discussed?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes, there's an initiative called
the Enterprise Initiative that will be part of the discussion. The
Enterprise Initiative focuses on remittances to the developing
countries; it focuses on micro-finance; it focuses on using bonds to
increase, for instance, the housing market, secondary housing market
bonds. And so it's looking at unleashing that.
And I would just give one example of why this initiative is
important. In Nigeria -- as I said, President Obasanjo will be here --
official remittances from Nigeria from abroad come to about $12 billion
per year, of which about half of those remittances for Nigerians come
from the United States. But that's $12 billion that will be infused
into that country. I think the totals are about $100 billion annually
comes from remittances into developing countries. And so I think it's
a critical initiative. And the leaders can speak to it more when they
-- in their negotiations today, they're finalizing the details on these
initiatives.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It was very interesting in the
discussions that my colleague and I had with the African ambassadors
planning for the meeting -- it's very interesting to note that although
they're most appreciative of aid, and know that it's been necessary,
their point is they're never going to become a part of the global
economy unless there's foreign direct investment, unless there are more
jobs created, unless there's more credit. And so they are welcoming
recognition on the part of the G8, that discussions about Africa and
Africa's future ought to be around economic growth such as this
particular initiative, in addition to continuing to talk about debt
relief and talk about ODA, development assistance.
Q I'm wondering if I could ask about a specific problem country
that you haven't mentioned, but that perhaps may come up at least from
President Bush's point of view, given the fact that President Obasanjo
and President Mbeki will be there, and that's Zimbabwe. While you guys
are here discussing private-sector led growth and development,
President Mugabe's government has announced plans to nationalize all
arable land in the country. And I'm wondering if you think the
President will see this as an opportunity to press President Mbeki and
President Obasanjo a little harder about Zimbabwe.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It very well may come up in their
discussions. Clearly, the situation in Zimbabwe continues to decline.
There needs to be a return to democracy there. The leadership of NEPAD
clearly has a responsibility to help push for and advocate for the
people of Zimbabwe. This announcement on continuing to seize land is
obviously going to further harm the economy, which will have an impact
on South Africa. And so it very well may come up in the conversation,
both on growth and development, but also in terms of the commitments of
the NEPAD leadership to peer review, and how they then would address
Zimbabwe.
Q It's your opinion right now that NEPAD and -- NEPAD has not
done enough, at all?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Zimbabwe is not one of the peer
review countries at this point. But I do think that the leadership in
Africa needs to do more to address the situation in Zimbabwe.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'll just make two points. The
first is that Zimbabwe has come up at the last two summits, it has been
referenced in the summit reports in the Africa Action Plan. And with
regard to the NEPAD, one of the problems that people had with NEPAD and
the peer review process was the fact that there was an expectation that
the Africans would be much stronger at the outset in speaking out
against Zimbabwe. I think that it's honest now to say that they have
their standards in place and a way in which, were to Zimbabwe to happen
today, at the outset, they would be much further along in knowing how
to handle it.
But it has served as, I think, the point at which some people have
been pessimistic about the peer review process. And the Africans are
going to have to prove that it's serious, since they did not act on
Zimbabwe.
Q What's your own assessment of NEPAD thus far? I sense from
what you were saying, that you share the view that it's slower than had
been hoped. And secondly, could you address why Ghana and Uganda were
chosen to be included in this year? Is it because they're doing well?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'll take the last, and then ask
my colleague to speak on NEPAD, since she's our Africa personal
representative who is responsible for implementing and helping the
African countries work to implement NEPAD.
On Ghana and Uganda, as I mentioned, they are representative of the
leadership of the Africa Union. In particular, Ghana is the Vice
President of the Africa Union. They've been a leader on peacekeeping
efforts. They are the chair of the Economic Community of West African
States. So we felt that they would have a tremendous amount to
contribute to any discussion, particularly on peace and security, but
more generally.
Similarly, Uganda has been a lead partner of ours on trade in the
context of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, in the context of the
World Trade Organization. And so we felt that President Museveni, as a
leader, on this issue, would be useful to have as part of the
discussion. But both Ghana and Uganda are both NEPAD countries,
they're simply not the original steering group of NEPAD.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think I speak for myself and for
the members of the G8 working on Africa when I say that we're
optimistic about the potential success of NEPAD, and that we have been
required to be much more realistic about what it can do in what period
of time in this regard. At the outset, the Africans asked for examples
of the developed nations evaluating one another's democracy, so that
they could use that model. Now, no one had a model for them. The OECD
does do some review, but there is no example of countries going in and
looking at their neighbors in terms of whether or not they are carrying
out the democratic process.
I'm saying that to say this: We are optimistic, and we are also
required to be realistic about what the African leaders have said they
were going to do, and whether or not it can be carried out in a short
period of time. They now have countries that have agreed to go through
the peer review process, and that is a good thing.
The only other point I would make is that the donor world has been
working in Africa for a long period of time. Billions have been
invested in various ways in Africa. And still, Africa is the one
continent that will not -- probably not meet the Millennium Development
goals in 2015. I say that to say this: It means that the developed
world has not had the answers to solving the problems on the
continent.
And we and the G8 believe that the answers will come from the
leaders on the continent and the people on the continent, and that
NEPAD is probably the first and the strongest indication of a
coordinated effort on the part of the Africans to be held accountable
for the problems and solutions. And therefore, we are optimistic, but
we all have an obligation to be realistic at the same time.
Q Just following up on Barry's question. Could you cite some
concrete examples of progress that has been made in NEPAD since the
Kananaskis Summit, just some concrete examples?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I can give an example on the peace
and security side of the importance of NEPAD as a plan for the
transformation of the continent. When we were working on Liberia, the
crisis in Liberia, the NEPAD leadership absolutely stepped up to the
challenge there, with President Obasanjo being the lead force, putting
troops on the ground in Liberia, under the mandate of the Economic
Community of West African States and the Africa Union, of which NEPAD
is their plan for action of the Africa Union.
As you recall, when Charles Taylor was escorted out of the country,
the leaders that were in Liberia were President Mbeki, President --
President Obasanjo wasn't there, it was his plane, but it was President
Mbeki, President Chisano, the head of the AU; President Kufuor was also
there.
And so I think that they've taken concrete action -- because
remember, NEPAD is not just an economic plan, but it's also a plan that
affects peace and security and social development. And so I think that
would be one example that I would cite.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think, also, that NEPAD has
forced the developed world, the donor world, to take seriously the
importance of agriculture on the continent. For years, the World Bank
and many of the donors funded agriculture and then pulled resources
back, a variety of reasons. But the NEPAD secretariat and the council
there have said, we all have to be honest about the percentage of the
population on the continent living in rural areas and dependent upon
agriculture for their livelihood. And so the pressure has come from
NEPAD to the World Bank and to the donors to reinvest in agriculture.
And I'll just say one other thing. The NEPAD secretariat and the
G8 are working very hard to keep NEPAD from becoming a project driven.
Their power and their success will be more in how they direct the
policy, how they evaluate the effectiveness of it, than becoming
another group of people organized to get grants. And so far, they have
resisted that. It is a great temptation. But they won't be successful
if they drive themselves to become just another grantee.
Q Can I just follow up on that? Do you expect there to be any
discussion on the issue of agricultural subsidies?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Oh, subsidies. If you had stopped
with agriculture. (Laughter.)
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I would expect that there will be
discussion on the question of agricultural subsidies. And I think that
President Bush has been very clear on this point, which is that we need
to address the subsidies within the context of the World Trade
Organization discussions, and that he had supported the elimination of
agriculture subsidies, but it needs to be done, Europe and the United
States together.
Thank you.
END 1:29 P.M. EDT
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