Africa Matters

Mar 27th, 2009 11:46 AM UTC
By Representative Payne

Nowhere are the needs in education, health care and quality of life more glaringly apparent than on the continent of Africa. As Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, it is my belief that these needs can and must be our focus in the 111th Congress and in the Obama administration.

We now inhabit a global village. Modern technology provides movement of people and ideas at rapid speed. The effects of poverty, disease, under-development and under-education also know no borders. For example, if unaddressed, drug-resistant tuberculosis, in a small mining town in South Africa will inevitably become a threat to us here in the U.S. Those with anti-American ideologies will often look for recruits among those they view as living vulnerable existences. In fact, there is increasing acknowledgement among policymakers that our national security and global security cannot be secured without investing in people through education, health care and poverty reduction. Though the average American may view Africa as holding little strategic importance, the continent holds a wealth of resources that the U.S., the European Union and China, in particular, deem critical. Of course, the most critical resource Africa has its people, and poverty and disease threaten them on a daily basis.

The good news is that during the last decade, U.S. attention has rapidly shifted towards African nations. Through cooperation between Congress and the administration, with support from Americans such as ONE members, we have made tremendous investments in healing the sick, alleviating poverty and promoting economic growth in the world’s poorest countries. The dividends in lives saved and improved are something of which all Americans can be proud, and we becoming increasingly recognized and appreciated for our efforts to help families, communities and nations lift themselves out of poverty.

Thus, increasing our investments in global education, in fighting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; investing in child survival and maternal health; fighting infectious diseases; helping African nations mitigate the effects of climate change and to reducing our carbon footprint – is not only the right thing to do, it is in our own self-interest. There is still much to do and I look forward to working with my colleagues, constituents, ONE members and other governments to fund and leverage development assistance to reduce poverty and promote development on the African Continent.

-Representative Donald Payne (NJ-12th), Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health

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