Michael Gerson on the MCA
Share
As President Bush visits Africa this week, much attention will focus on the fight against HIV/AIDS, and rightly so. More than 1.4 million men, women and children now receive anti-retroviral drugs because of the generosity of the American people. The President’s AIDS initiative has been a soaring success – a case study in the power of American compassion to save lives.
But while the fight against HIV/AIDS deserves this attention, there is other good news on the African continent that goes beyond the progress made against this terrible epidemic.
On his visit to Tanzania, President Bush signed the largest agreement ever – $700 million – as part of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). Like the President’s AIDS initiative, the MCA is a bold, innovative venture of American leadership.
The MCA has fundamentally changed the way the United States delivers financial support. The account gives African leaders and governments incentives and practical help to fight corruption, free their economies from repressive and unfair policies and increase investment in education and health. Countries that take these courageous steps are awarded a MCA compact. To date, more than two-thirds of the MCA’s $5.5 billion is being invested in African countries that are enacting broad-based, fundamental reforms. Other African nations, which naturally want their own financial support, are getting the message and starting down the difficult but crucial road toward government transparency and accountability.
More than simply sending dollars, the MCA lays the groundwork for sustainable growth in Africa – the type of growth that can raise millions above extreme poverty. Economic development, in the long run, results from trade and foreign investment. The most effective kind of aid helps build the infrastructure, human capital and legal structures that encourage trade and invite investment – roads, health care, education and strengthening the rule of law.
Today, the MCA has been such a success in Africa that there are many more countries competing for its funds than there are funds available. Congress should fully fund this vital program. And I hope ONE Members, and all voters who care about seeing the African people succeed, will push their leaders to invest in the promise of the African people by investing in the MCA.
-Michael Gerson
.
2/19/08 UPDATE: This was cross posted onto Townhall today.
- Previous Post Senator Durbin on Bush’s Africa Trip
- Next Post Bush Africa Trip – Monday News Round-Up
 |
 |
 |
Featured Series
About the Blog
The ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with frequent contributions from volunteers, members and partner organizations.
The ONE Blog updates readers daily with the latest in global development news and analysis and what ONE members and our partners are doing around the world to influence world leaders in the fight against global poverty.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE or ONE Action. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
February 18, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Thanks so much for posting this piece by Michael Gerson. It is a welcomed, well-reasoned post in support of a greatly underfinded and underappreciated part of the broader strategy to end extreme poverty in the world.
I remember when the MCA was first discussed by DATA and then passed into U.S. law in 2003. Many of us had great hopes and dreams for the MCA and of what it could do in encouraging developing countries to increase democracy and transparency in their governments in exchange for money for projects that would improve aspects of those nations’ development and infrastructure.
We have watched as the heart of the MCA has been threatened to be cut out of federal budgets ever since while we lobby every year for it to retain its full funding.
Mr. Gerson is correct – the MCA is a success and I can only hope that with such impassioned support of this program as he writes about here, the future of the MCA is glowing ever more brightly – for Africa’s Future and Ours. (smile)
Take very good care of each other. Blessings always.
ALWAYS FOREVER, ONE – debbie
February 19, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Mr. Gerson,
February 19, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Mr. Gerson,
Please no more claptrap about the “generosity of the American people.” There was no generosity. Instead money that was taken from the American taxpayer by the implicit threat of force was then spent by do-gooders such as yourself in Africa, rather than in the U.S. The simple fact is that do-gooders such as you are unable to convince the American people to finance your schemes, so you use the government for force people to finance your schemes. I’m sure that the money that is sent to these benighted countries will end up in the same Swiss banks that always receive the loot. Shame on you, and shame on Mr. Bush for this fiasco.