Across much of Africa, human conditions are deteriorating, driven by the health crisis and by persistent poverty. More than 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa survive on under $1 per day. Almost half of the continent does not have access to safe water sources. Life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest of any region in the world, and is falling dramatically as a result of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Infant and child mortality rates remain high, and access to health care and education is shrinking in many countries. Food insecurity is growing, most seriously in southern Africa and in the Horn of Africa.
Addressing these human development challenges must be a priority of U.S. and international cooperation with Africa, as these are Africa's priorities. The success of development efforts should be measured not by impersonal economic growth indicators but by poverty reduction and social progress. The achievement of sustainable development depends, above all, on Africa's greatest resource her people. Yet it is precisely this resource that is currently being devastated.
The achievement of good health and education, and the attainment of a decent standard of living and well-being for Africa's people, are essential for the continent's future. Greater investment in people is proven to reduce poverty and promote economic growth. This is also in the U.S.' own self-interest, for it promotes international stability and enhances Africa's economic potential. The efforts of African governments to meet the basic needs of their people and to ensure access to essential services are hindered by a lack of adequate resources. The heavy indebtedness of African governments to rich country creditors drains money away from basic social services, such as health care and education. Economic policies imposed on African countries by these creditors, and by the World Bank and IMF in particular, have not only undermined African sovereignty, but have worsened poverty and decreased access to basic services for Africa's people. The result has been a decline in human development indicators over the past two decades.
The Millennium Development Goals adopted in September 2000 by most governments, including the U.S., provide the framework for mutually reinforcing steps to achieve global human development. These goals have been established as the benchmarks for monitoring and measuring development progress. They seek to improve health, education and the environment across the world, with the overarching aim of reducing by half the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. Achieving this ambitious target will require a new global partnership committed to human development. It will also require a massive increase in resources. The UN estimates that meeting the Millennium Development Goals will require a doubling of official development assistance worldwide, to at least $100 billion annually. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has repeatedly emphasized that African countries will be unable meet the Millennium Development Goals without such additional support from rich countries.
However, levels of development assistance have fallen in a consistent downward trend in the past decade. U.S. spending on foreign aid has declined, relative both to the size of the U.S. economy and to the federal budget. Despite repeated promises from rich countries to provide 0.7 % of their Gross National Product (GNP) for official development assistance for poorer countries, not one of the G-7 richest countries reaches even half that figure. The U.S. ranks at the bottom of all donor countries, with only 0.1% of GNP, or just over $10 billion, going to foreign aid worldwide. Only 1/100th of 1% of the U.S. budget around $1 billion is currently spent on aid to sub-Saharan Africa, although Africa's need for such support is currently greater than ever. There has been a nearly 50% drop in official development assistance to Africa during the past decade from all donors combined. Aid to sub-Saharan Africa over the past four years has been lower than any year since 1984.
The U.S. has consistently failed to devote bilateral aid that is commensurate either with its interests and obligations or with poor countries' needs. For the U.S. to reach the target of 0.7% of GNP, it must increase its development assistance to $70 billion per year. At least half of this, or $35 billion per year, should be committed to African countries. At present, however, the lion's share $5 billion of the foreign aid provided by the U.S. goes to two strategic allies in the Middle East (Egypt and Israel), not to fight poverty or to promote development.
Increasing U.S. development assistance to Africa to $35 billion annually may sound like a lot of money. But this is less than 10% of the $355 billion budget for the Pentagon this year. It is also less than the increase in the Defense Department's budget over last year ($37 billion). The $35 billion that should go to Africa is also less than the annual budget for New York City. This is a tiny fraction of the U.S. economy, and it can be afforded. However, the Bush Administration's proposed increases in foreign aid still fall far short of what the U.S. can, and should, provide.
The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), announced by President Bush in 2002, promises to reverse the decline in total aid figures from Washington to a shortlist of developing countries, starting in 2004. Pending Congressional approval, an additional $10 billion in aid over three years will be disbursed through a new corporation and directed to a handful of countries that meet certain economic and political criteria, defined by Washington. The Millennium Challenge Account proposes a far smaller increase in foreign aid than what the U.S. should give to the world's poorest countries. Moreover, economic policy prescriptions and governance conditions dictated by the U.S. in the MCA only reinforce an imperialist relationship between the U.S. and poor countries.
A well thought-out U.S. response to Africa's human development challenge must include not only much more aid, but also better aid. Money required to support African efforts to reach agreed development goals, like health and education, should be conceived of as "international public investment" rather than "aid". The idea of "aid" should be replaced by a sense of common obligation to finance public investments for common needs. Funding from international or national agencies responsible for managing "international public investments" should not be dependent as is now the case upon "voluntary" donor contributions. Transfers from rich to poor should be institutionalized within a redistributive tax system that functions across national boundaries, not unlike payments within the European Union. The U.S.' contribution would be relative to its privileged place in the global economy.
New programs for delivering such investments are also needed. These would pool contributions from wealthy countries and end the overlapping, and often competing, practices of highly politicized bilateral aid. The Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS is one such model that promotes cooperation and transparency. In order for such international public investments to be most effective, recipient countries should also be required to channel their resources to the most urgent priorities. However, the criteria and the monitoring mechanisms should be independent, and not unilaterally imposed by donors.
In addition to increased U.S. support for African efforts to address the continent's massive human development challenges, the U.S. should oppose economic policies that aggravate poverty in Africa. As noted earlier, such policies include the privatization of water, health care, and other essential services, which reduce access to basic social services intended to meet human needs in African countries. The U.S. should similarly oppose the introduction of "user fees" for such services by the World Bank and IMF. These policies have been found to reduce access to basic services, and they are therefore antithetical to the goal of human development.
If the U.S. and other wealthy countries are serious about promoting sustainable social and economic development in Africa, they must dramatically increase the levels of development assistance they provide in order to ensure the Millennium Development Goals are attained. They must also provide new assistance in the form of grants rather than loans that can only exacerbate Africa's debt crisis.
The widening gap between rich and poor is a globally destabilizing phenomenon that U.S. policies should seek to address. As the richest country in human history, the U.S. has the obligation, and the means, to help improve the lives of the poor and to provide decisive support to African efforts toward sustainable development.
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