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.
Bend
Over
Here
It
Comes
Again!
Congrats to all Bush-Bots. I have an idea...you LOVE what he's doing SOoooomuch...YOU VOLUNTEER more Tax $$$, and I'll opt out of sinking more of MY $$$ into that $hi*hole of a Continent!
That OK with all you GW-Uber-Alles folk?
Personally, I'd rather spend the money building a steel fence around our borders.
One two three four, lets send our money to their poor...
five six seven eight, we want more to immigrate...
If you Bush Bashers were honest, you would be complaining about $91 Billion
Just for the record, I'm P!$$ed that Bush has disppointed you all again.
Bush promises 100 million in Mid-Income Tax Break for Oklahoma for next 5 years
I have to start sending a daughter to a university or college next year. With the Fed hooked up to one arm, the state into the other and the local gov't searching for the vein in my leg I may not make it.
Save America FIRST, George!!!
Congrats due, however, you're the first one on this thread to proclaim "Bush bashers", Bet that makes your otherwise uninteresting day.
Doubtful.
Only Israel gets as much aid from us as Egypt does, and we saved the Saudis from Saddam in 1991.
Yet the 9/11 hijackers were all Saudis and Egyptians.
Follow the money - who profits. Charity is the best cover story.
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