Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 15 February 2008 — Page 8

Page 8 • The Muncie Times • February 15, 2008

continued from page 5 Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Mozambique, Zambia, and Mali. On all three trips, Mrs. Bush highlighted the partnership between the U.S. and Africa to expand education, empower women, and fight against diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria. * In the president's first term, the United States more than doubled development assistance to Africa, part of the largest expansion of American development assistance since the Marshall Plan. * Bush has pledged to increase total assistance (both bilateral and multilateral) to $8.7 billion by 2010, double the size of 2004 levels. The President's FY 2009 budget request, combined with previous budgets and program implementation, will ensure that the United States meets this important commitment. * Bush secured international agreement on the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. This Initiative provides 100 percent debt relief from the major International Financial Institutions to the world's poorest, most heavily indebted countries. It has reduced a total of $42 billion in debt to date - $34 billion of which was for 19 African countries. Over time, 33 African countries could receive full debt relief. The U.S. also secured reforms with international financial institutions aimed at preventing the re-accumula-tion of unsustainable

debt. * Bush launched the Millennium Challenge Account as a new model to support governments that commit to rule justly, invest in people, and encourage economic freedom. To date, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has signed seven compacts with African countries, totaling $2.4 billion, to fight poverty through economic growth. * The president worked with Congress to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Thanks in part to AGOA, over 98 percent of African exports to the United States entered the country duty free last year. In 2007, AGOA exports to the U.S. totaled over $50 billion, more than six times the level in 2001, the first full year of AGOA. During the same period, U.S. exports to subSaharan Africa have doubled, totaling over $14 billion. * In May 2007, Bush announced the Africa Financial Sector Initiative. Along with today's announcement, the initiative will create seven new investment funds that will mobilize more than $1.6 billion through support of OPIC. This will strengthen financial markets, mobilize domestic and foreign investment, and help spur job creation and economic growth. To date, OPIC had supported several investment funds that are mobilizing roughly $1.3 billion in private investment for the continent.

* In 2006, Bush launched the African Global Competitiveness Initiative (AGCI), which will provide $200 million over 5 years to support increased trade and investment in Africa. Four regional Global Competitiveness Hubs are the primary implementers of AGCI and are in Ghana and Senegal for West Africa, Botswana for Southern Africa and Kenya for East and Central Africa. * Over the last 7 years, the United States has committed $1.6 billion to trade capacity building assistance to sub-Saharan Africa, including $505 million in FY 2007 alone. This assistance is helping African governments to reduce barriers to trade and African businesses, workers and farmers to benefit more fully from global trade. * To help African countries feed their own people, the president calls on Congress to support his proposal to use a portion of U.S. food aid funding to begin purchasing crops directly from farmers in Africa, instead of shipping in food assistance from the developed world. This initiative would build up local agriculture markets and help break the cycle of famine. * In 2002, President Bush launched the Africa Education Initiative (AEI) and committed to provide $600 million over eight years to increase access to quality basic education. By 2010, AEI will have distributed over 15 million

textbooks, trained nearly one million teachers, and provided 550,000 scholarships for girls. * In May 2007, the Bush also announced the President's Expanded Education for the World's Poorest Children and committed an additional $525 million over five years for education improvement. This initiative aims to provide over four million children with access to quality basic education in six target countries, four of which are African: Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, and Mali, and will support after-school skills development programs. Bush launched the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), committing $15 billion over 5 years to combat global HIV/AIDS. PEFPAR is the largest international health initiative in history to fight a single disease. Through this program, the U.S. is partnering with local African communities and organizations, including faithand community-based organizations, to support HIV/AIDS treatment, care, and prevention activities. * Today, PEPFAR is supporting life-saving antiretroviral treatment for over 1.3 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, up from 50,000 when the President last visited Africa in 2003. * On May 30, 2007, Bush announced his proposal to double America's initial commitment and provide an additional $30 billion over the next 5

years. The president has called on Congress to pass reauthorizing legislation that maintains PEPFAR's successful founding principles. * Bush's partnership with allies, regional leaders, and sub-regional organizations has led to the ending of wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan (north-south), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Angola, and Burundi. America continues to work closely with local partners to address remaining security challenges in Africa. *America will also stand with all in Africa who live under tyranny. The president urges neighbors in the region, including South Africa, to work for an end to the suffering in Zimbabwe, where a discredited dictator presides over food shortages, staggering inflation, and harsh repression. Since 2005, the United States has trained over 39,000 African peacekeepers in 20 countries. The U.S. has trained over 80 percent of African peacekeepers who are currently deployed in African Union and United Nations missions both inside and outside of Africa. The U.S. is partnering with the AU and member states to support the establishment of an African Standby Force. The U.S. is the largest donor to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), with more than 40 percent of that funding going to Africa in 2007.