[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 26 (Monday, July 4, 2005)]
[Pages 1103-1107]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Upcoming Group of Eight Summit

June 30, 2005

    Thank you all. Thanks a lot. Please be seated. Thanks for the warm 
welcome. It's a pleasure for Laura and me to join you here at the 
Smithsonian, where America's heritage is kept and where the achievements 
of all cultures are celebrated.
    I thank Wally Stern for your kind introduction and for his 
leadership of the Hudson Institute. I appreciate all the Hudson 
Institute members who are here. Thank you for your service to our 
country.
    I want to thank the members of the diplomatic corps who have joined 
us. I appreciate your coming. I particularly want to say thanks to the 
Ambassadors from the African nations who are here. I have visited your 
beautiful and hopeful continent, and next month, Laura will travel to 
South Africa, Tanzania, and Rwanda to highlight the partnership we're 
building on education, the empowerment of women, and the fight against 
HIV/AIDS. She's a really good ambassador for our country.
    I want to--I appreciate our Secretary of State who has joined us 
today. Condoleezza Rice, I'm proud you're here. Thanks for joining us. 
You're doing a fabulous job, by the way.
    Ambassador Rob Portman, the U.S. Trade Representative is with us. 
Ambassador, thanks for joining us. Andrew Natsios, Administrator of 
USAID, is with us. Good to see you, Andrew. Thanks for coming. Randy 
Tobias, who is the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator--Ambassador Randy 
Tobias--thank you for joining us, Mr. Ambassador. I appreciate your 
noble work.
    I want to thank Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Jim Kolbe and 
Congresswoman Nita Lowey for joining for us. We're honored you're here. 
Thanks for coming.
    Secretary Ann Veneman, the UNICEF executive director, is with us. 
It's great to see you, Ann. Thanks for being here. I want to thank Larry 
Small, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute.
    I want to thank Dr. Julian Raby, the director of the Freer and 
Sackler Galleries of Art. I appreciate Herb London, the president, Ken 
Weinstein, the executive officer of the Hudson Institute. And thank you 
all for being here.
    Next week, I'm going to head to the G-8 summit in Scotland. Out 
there, I'll meet with leaders of the industrialized nations. As in 
earlier meetings, we will discuss the great political and economic 
progress being made in Africa and the next steps we can take with 
African leaders to build on that progress. The whole world will benefit 
from prosperity and stability on the African continent. And the peoples 
of Africa deserve the peace and freedom and opportunity that are the 
natural rights of all mankind.
    We seek progress in Africa and throughout the developing world 
because our interests are directly at stake. September the 11th, 2001, 
Americans found that instability and lawlessness in a distant country 
can bring danger to our own. In this new century, we are less threatened 
by fleets and armies than by small cells of men who operate in the 
shadows and exploit weakness and despair. The ultimate answer to those 
threats is to encourage prosperous, democratic, and lawful societies 
that join us in overcoming the forces of terror, allies that we're 
finding across the continent of Africa. We fight the war on terror with 
our power. We will win the war on terror with freedom and justice and 
hope.
    We seek progress in Africa and throughout the developing world 
because conscience demands it. Americans believe that human rights and 
the worth of human lives are not determined by race or nationality or 
diminished by distance. We believe that every life matters and every 
person counts. And so we are moved when thousands of young lives are 
ended every day by the treatable disease of malaria. We're moved when 
children watch their parents slowly die of AIDS, leaving young boys and 
girls traumatized, frightened, and alone. Peoples of Africa are opposing 
these challenges with courage and determination, and we will stand 
beside them.
    Yet the continent of Africa is so much more than the sum of its 
problems. After years of colonization and Marxism and racism, Africa is 
on the threshold of great advances. Economic growth is at the highest 
level in 8 years. Leaders have emerged from

[[Page 1104]]

South Africa to Nigeria to Kenya to broker an end to old conflicts. Last 
year alone five nations south of the Sahara held successful democratic 
elections. All who live in Africa can be certain, as you seize this 
moment of opportunity, America will be your partner and your friend.
    In a developing world, we have an unprecedented opportunity to help 
other nations achieve historic victories over extreme poverty, with 
policies and approaches that are tested and proven. These victories will 
require new resources. The United States has tripled overseas 
development aid to Africa during my Presidency, and we're making a 
strong commitment for the future. Between 2004 and 2010, I proposed to 
double aid to Africa once again, with a primary focus on helping 
reforming countries.
    Yet new resources are not enough. We need new thinking by all 
nations. Our greatest challenge is to get beyond empty symbolism and 
discredited policies and match our good intentions with good results.
    First, overcoming extreme poverty requires partnership, not 
paternalism. Economic development is not something we do for countries; 
it is something they achieve with us. Their leaders, by definition, must 
play the main role as agents of reform and progress, instead of passive 
recipients of money.
    Over the decades, we've learned that without economic and social 
freedom, without the rule of law and effective, honest government, 
international aid has little impact or value. But where there's freedom 
and the rule of law, every dollar of aid, trade, charitable giving, and 
foreign and local investment can rapidly improve people's lives.
    Economic aid that expects little will achieve little. Economic aid 
that expects much can help to change the world. Through the Millennium 
Challenge Corporation, established a year-and-a-half ago, America has 
begun awarding generous financial aid to countries that fight 
corruption, embrace democratic government, encourage free markets, and 
invest in the health and education of their people.
    Eight nations in Africa are now moving toward grants. In April, 
Madagascar became the first country to sign a Compact that begins aid to 
vital development projects. In the last 6 weeks, the MCC board has 
approved three Compacts, one with an African nation, and I expect the 
MCC to move quickly in the future. Governments making the hard choices 
deserve our strong support. I call upon the United States Congress to 
fully support this initiative for new hope and progress across the 
developing world.
    Second, overcoming extreme poverty goes hand in hand with improving 
the environment. Stagnant economies are one of the greatest 
environmental threats in our world. People who lack food and shelter and 
sanitation cannot be expected to preserve the environment at the expense 
of their own survival. Poor societies cannot afford to invest in 
cleaner, more efficient technologies. Indira Gandhi spoke of poverty and 
need as the greatest polluters. The long-term answer to environmental 
challenges is the rapid, sustained economic progress of poor nations.
    The best way to help nations develop while limiting pollution and 
improving public health is to promote technologies for generating energy 
that are clean, affordable, and secure. Some have suggested the best 
solution to environmental challenges and climate change is to oppose 
development and put the world on an energy diet. But at this moment, 
about two billion people have no access to any form of modern energy. 
Blocking that access would condemn them to permanent poverty, disease, 
high infant mortality, polluted water, and polluted air.
    We're taking a better approach. In the last 3 years, the United 
States has launched a series of initiatives to help developing countries 
adopt new energy sources, from cleaner use of coal to hydrogen vehicles 
to solar and wind power to the production of clean-burning methane to 
less-polluting powerplants. And we continue to look for more 
opportunities to deepen our partnerships with developing nations. The 
whole world benefits when developing nations have the best and latest 
energy technologies.
    Third, overcoming extreme poverty will require lifting a burden of 
debt that we know poor nations cannot repay. Unending debt payments have 
fewer resources for governments to spend on the needs of their people 
and make it impossible to join the global

[[Page 1105]]

economy as a full participant. Zambia, for example, is spending more on 
debt service than the Government's entire budget for health and 
education. Last year, poor nations owed $7 billion in debt payments to 
creditors. This burden is hurting people in desperate need, and this 
burden must be lifted.
    In 2001, I challenged the World Bank to give 50 percent of its aid 
to poor countries in grants instead of loans. And the bank has moved 
steadily closer to that goal. With the leadership of Great Britain and 
the United States, the G-8 countries are urging cancellation of $40 
billion in debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest nations, including 14 
nations in Africa. Twenty more countries can qualify for this debt 
forgiveness in the future, with good government and sound economic 
policies. We're determined not only to relieve debt but to erase it, so 
nations in need can face the future with a clean slate.
    Fourth, overcoming extreme poverty will require greater trade. While 
aid and debt relief can create better conditions for development, it is 
trade that provides the engine for development. Only 30 years ago, South 
Korea's per capita GDP was equal to that of many African countries. 
Thanks to export-led growth, South Korea is as rich as many European 
countries. This example can be multiplied throughout the world and lift 
great numbers of people out of poverty.
    The developing world stands to gain the most from an open trading 
system. Historically, developing nations that open themselves to trade 
grow at a rate several times higher than countries that practice 
protectionism. The poor of the world do not experience trade as 
globalization. They experience trade as running water and electric power 
and decent housing, broader education, and better health care for their 
families.
    Too many nations have been cut off from the economic progress of our 
time, and we must expand the circle of trade to include them. Under the 
African Growth and Opportunity Act, which has reduced barriers to trade, 
U.S. exports to sub-Sahara Africa increased 25 percent last year. And 
America's imports from AGOA countries rose 88 percent. Now we must take 
the next large step, expanding the entire global trading system through 
the Doha negotiations. The World Bank estimates that completing these 
negotiations could add $350 billion annually to developing countries' 
incomes and lift 140 million people out of poverty. The Doha 
negotiations are the most practical and important antipoverty initiative 
in the world, and we must bring them to a prompt and successful 
conclusion.
    Fifth, overcoming extreme poverty will require an atmosphere of 
peace, achieved in some cases by effective African military forces that 
can end terrible conflicts. Recent wars--recent history shows how wars 
and internal conflicts can stop the development of whole nations. But 
we're seeing progress. Tens of thousands of refugees who fled war are 
returning home in places such as Liberia and Sierra Leone and Burundi. 
We can add to this progress. Over the next 5 years, America will provide 
training for more than 40,000 African peacekeepers as part of a broader 
initiative by the G-8 countries. We will help African forces to preserve 
justice and order on the African continent.
    We're strongly committed to peace for all the peoples of Sudan. 
American mediation was critical to ending a 20-year civil war between 
north and south, and we're working to fully implement the comprehensive 
peace agreement signed last January. Yet the violence in Darfur region 
is clearly genocide. The human cost is beyond calculation. In the short 
term, more troops are needed to protect the innocent, and nations of the 
African Union are stepping forward to provide them.
    By September, the African Union mission in Sudan will grow from 
2,700 to 7,700 personnel. In a NATO operation next month, the United 
States military will airlift more than 1,000 Rwandan troops. We will 
support the construction of additional 16 base camps over the next 2 
months, and we will provide communications and vehicle maintenance for 
the entire force.
    In the long run, the tragedy in western Sudan requires a settlement 
between the Government and the rebels. And our message is clear: All 
sides must control their forces, end the killing, and negotiate the 
peace of a suffering land.
    Finally, overcoming extreme poverty will require humanitarian aid 
that focuses on results, not merely on inputs and other flawed

[[Page 1106]]

measures of compassion. True compassion is measured by real improvements 
in the lives of men, women, and children. And that is the goal and that 
is the focus of American policy.
    Aid from America will help avert a famine this year in the Horn of 
Africa. All told, nearly 60 percent of global food aid to the continent 
of Africa comes from the United States, and Americans are proud to give 
that aid.
    And since 2003, our country has undertaken a major effort against 
HIV/AIDS, the largest health initiative in history to combat a specific 
disease. Across Africa, we're working with local health officials to 
expand AIDS testing facilities, to train and support doctors and nurses 
and counselors, to upgrade clinics and hospitals, to care for children 
orphaned by AIDS, and to support pastors and priests and others who are 
teaching young people the values of respect and responsibility and 
prevention. We're making life-giving treatment possible for more than 
230,000 adults and children in Africa. We're determined to reach our 5-
year goal of treating 2 million.
    This effort is succeeding because America is providing resources and 
Africans are providing leadership. Local health officials set the 
strategy, and we're supporting them. We're also respecting the values 
and traditions of Africa. Uganda and other nations are applying a 
prevention strategy called ABC, Abstinence, Be faithful in marriage, and 
Condoms. ABC is balanced, effective, and reflects the moral teachings of 
African cultures. And no one is helped when outsiders try to impose a 
lower standard of responsibility.
    Today, in Africa, the United States is engaged as never before. 
We're seeing great progress, and great needs remain. So this morning, I 
announced three additional initiatives to help Africans address urgent 
challenges. Across the continent, there is a deep need for the 
empowerment of women, and that begins with education. Educated young 
women have lower rates of HIV/AIDS, healthier families, and higher rates 
of education for their own children. Yet only half of the children 
complete primary education in Africa.
    Together with African leaders, we must work for the education of 
every African child. And to move closer to that goal, today, I proposed 
a double funding for America's African Education Initiative. In the next 
4 years, we should provide $400 million to train half-a-million teachers 
and provided scholarships for 300,000 young people, mostly girls. We 
hope other nations will join us. We must give more girls in Africa a 
real chance to avoid exploitation and to chart their own future.
    Another important aspect of empowerment and the fight against AIDS 
is the legal protection of women and girls against sexual violence and 
abuse. Many African nations have already taken steps to improve legal 
rights for women. South Africa, for example, has an innovative model to 
fight rape and domestic violence, special units in hospitals where 
victims can report crime and receive counseling and care, and special 
judges and prosecutors and police units to ensure that criminals are 
punished.
    Today I announce a new effort to spread this approach more broadly 
on the continent. I ask Congress to provide $55 million over 3 years to 
promote women's justice and empowerment in four African nations, nations 
that can stand as examples of reform for others. I'll urge other G-8 
nations to join us in protecting the lives and the rights of women in 
Africa.
    African health officials have also told us of their continuing 
battle with malaria, which in some countries can cause more death than 
AIDS. Approximately 1 million last year alone died on the African 
continent because of malaria. And in the overwhelming majority of cases, 
the victims are less than 5 years old, their lives suddenly ended by 
nothing more than a mosquito bite. The toll of malaria is even more 
tragic because the disease, itself, is highly treatable and preventable. 
Yet this is also our opportunity, because we know that large-scale 
action can defeat this disease in whole regions. And the world must take 
action.
    Next week at the G-8, I will urge developed countries and private 
foundations to join in a broad, aggressive campaign to cut the mortality 
rate for malaria across Africa in half. And our Nation is prepared to 
lead. Next year, we will take comprehensive action in three countries, 
Tanzania, Uganda, and

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Angola, to provide indoor spraying, long-lasting insecticide-treated 
nets, and effective new combination drugs to treat malaria. In addition, 
the Gates Foundation of Seattle is supporting a major effort to control 
malaria in Zambia. We've had a long tradition of public-private action. 
I'm grateful to have this strong partner in a good cause.
    America will bring this antimalaria effort to at least four more 
highly endemic African countries in 2007 and at least five more in 2008. 
In the next 5 years, with the approval of Congress, we'll spend more 
than $1.2 billion on this campaign.
    An effort on this scale must be phased in to avoid shortages of 
supplies. Yet we intend this effort to eventually cover more than 175 
million people in 15 or more nations. We want to reduce malaria 
mortality in target countries by half and save hundreds of thousands of 
lives.
    I urge other wealthy nations and foundations to participate and 
expand this initiative to additional countries where the need is 
pressing. Together, we can lift this threat and defeat this fear across 
the African continent.
    Over the last 4 years, the United States has stood squarely with 
reformers in Africa on the side of prosperity and progress. We've 
tripled our aid to Africa; we plan to double it once again. But more 
than this, we're standing for good government and energy development and 
debt relief and expanded trade, all of which will help African peoples 
live better lives and eventually overcome the need for aid.
    America is acting in these areas because we share with Africans, 
themselves, a vision of what the continent can become, a model of 
reform, a home to prosperous democracies, and a tribute to the strong 
spirit of the African peoples. This vision is necessary, realistic, and 
already on its way to achievement.
    By standing with the hopes of Africa, America is also showing the 
kind of country we want to be. This weekend, we mark the anniversary of 
our founding. We celebrate our Declaration of Independence and the 
universal appeal of liberty it proclaims. We celebrate our men and women 
in uniform who protect and defend our freedom on missions far from home. 
And Americans on this Fourth of July can also celebrate a great 
tradition of generosity, a tradition of relief after World War I, the 
Marshall plan and the Peace Corps, a tradition that is strong in our own 
time.
    Two years ago, a little girl in Namibia was born to a mother and 
father who both had HIV. She had the disease as well. The name her 
parents gave her translates as the phrase, ``There is no good in the 
world.'' Months ago, the girl was very sick and losing weight and close 
to death. But today, she and her entire family are receiving lifesaving 
medicine. Now she's a beautiful, shy, thriving 6-year-old, with a new 
life ahead of her, and there's a little more good in the world.
    Across Africa, people who were preparing to die are now preparing to 
live. And America is playing a role in so many of those miracles. We're 
a nation that repays our blessings with generosity to others. When we 
work with Africans to bring food to starving regions and malaria 
treatments to remote villages and miracle drugs that restore the dying 
to strength, this is part of our calling in the world. And as we answer 
that call, it makes us proud to be Americans.
    Thanks for coming. May God bless you. Thank you all.

Note: The President spoke at 9:40 a.m. in the Meyer Auditorium at the 
Freer Gallery. In his remarks, he referred to Walter P. Stern, chairman 
of the board of trustees, Hudson Institute. The Office of the Press 
Secretary also released a Spanish language transcript of these remarks.