McCain: Countries Should be Accountable For HIV Spending
November 28th, 2007 at 10:39 am | posted by Virginia SimmonsLast week, Adam C from the blog RedState posted this video of Senator John McCain talking global AIDS funding and foreign aid spend accountability at a townhall in Haverhill, NH.
While corruption is harmful to all governments, losing resources to corrupt leaders is particularly devastating in poor countries where every dollar lost results in one less child in school or one less well dug to provide clean water. Approaches like America’s Millennium Challenge which direct assistance to honest governments are the most effective, as is channeling assistance through private (and faith-based) relief and development agencies.
More information about fighting corruption in the poorest countries here.
-Virginia Simmons>
November 28th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
I think it’s good that McCain addressed the question with some “straight talk” and it is crucial that we try to gain Republican support for development. But the problem is that ONE is exactly, in some sense singularly, focused on ENDING talking about corruption and blaming Africa. The bottom line is that as long as people talk about corruption we will never be talking about the real issues–corrupt WTO trade deals that hinder trade, development aid for infrastructure, public health issues more generally than just AIDS, etc.
It’s a BAD thing that McCain is talking about corruption to try to appeal to the conventional wisdom in the Republican (and to a certain extent Democratic) party for votes. The truth is that corruption in Africa is not the big problem–it effects only a tiny portion of aid, less than 10% for certain which is far less than U.S. corruption siphons off to U.S. agri-business I’d imagine, the issue we are addressing with the farm bill.
By the way, transparency International has a poor track record as far as I know with keeping the interests of the poor in mind.