Posted on 06/20/2002 5:29:42 PM PDT by niki
Bush to Propose Another $100 Million Over Five Years for Education in Africa
By Jennifer Loven Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Ahead of a summit of industrialized nations intended to focus on the plight of sub-Saharan Africa, President Bush says America should spend $20 million more a year on education there and will visit the continent next year.
Though the proposed spending boost would double the government's investment on an education initiative in Africa, the $200 million total was deemed modest by critics.
The World Bank has estimated that wealthy donor countries will need to commit between $3 billion and $4 billion annually in additional foreign aid over the next 10 years to achieve the goal of universal primary education in the developing world by the year 2015. Estimates of the number of children in poor nations who have never attended school range as high as 125 million, about two-thirds of them girls.
Gene Sperling, former President Clinton's chief White House economic adviser and now head of the Center for Universal Education at the Council on Foreign Relations, said 75 million of the children out of school worldwide are in Africa.
"The Bush announcement proposes spending $20 million more each year for education in all of Africa, which is the cost of building just one large high school in the United States," Sperling said. "This proposal is very disappointing."
A bipartisan group of congressmen urged Bush, in a letter sent Thursday, to raise U.S. spending on basic education around the world to $1 billion by 2006.
The president planned to announce his travel plans and the new spending initiative Thursday night at a dinner in memory of the Rev. Leon Sullivan, a Philadelphia minister credited with helping end apartheid in South Africa, White House officials said.
On Wednesday, the president promised an extra $500 million over three years to help prevent mothers in parts of African and the Caribbean from transmitting the AIDS virus to their children.
Africa will be a major focus of the Group of Eight meeting that Bush attends next week in Canada.
The White House hopes the new African initiative will ease criticism about U.S. spending on developing nations and projecting a compassionate image of Bush to both foreign leaders and American voters. The $10 billion U.S. foreign aid budget is the lowest among rich nations as a percentage of economic output.
Rock star Bono and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill toured Africa last month after the singer persuaded the U.S. official to see for himself the importance of debt relief, fair trade and effective aid. O'Neill says the United States is committed to helping Africa, but that aid money should produce measurable results.
The proposed new spending will train more than 420,000 new teachers in Africa, provide more than 250,000 scholarships for girls, and, with help from historically black colleges in America, provide 4 1/2 million more textbooks for children in Africa, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.
The president's trip to Africa next year will focus on the benefits of a law that reduces trade barriers to African nations that have market-based economies and policies on reducing poverty, fighting corruption, protecting workers' rights and fostering human rights, Fleischer said.
They will be rewarded for their move to the left by re-election. Many here have ridiculed those of us who would turn our backs on the GOP for deserting us and who would vote third party.
What is it going to take for Conservatives to get tired of these stupid liberal games that Bush and Co. are playing and hold them accountable?
My view, so what if we vote third party Conserative and put a liberal in the WH for four years. It'll give the GOP four years to think about what they did wrong. Hell, it feels like we have Gore in the WH right now as it is.
Something has to be done to wake up the GOP. Re-electing them is not going to do the trick. They'll feel that we support them and they can go even further left.
That your opinion is humble is not an excuse.
When flaws in your opinions are pointed out, backhanded compliments are not an escape.
Earlier on this thread, you accused others of dishonesty. Yet if this is the type of defense you have to offer for your opinion, then reasonable minds may honestly conclude that yours is humble with cause.
You gotta be kiddin'! There's no "Foreign Naturist Clause" in there somewhere?
Foreign naturists are why I subscribe to National Geographic.
Which is it?
Some foreign aid is ok and some is not. What criteria do we use to determine that?
Using phrases like "pound sand" weakens your position.
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