What We’re Reading 8/5/09

Aug 5th, 2009 12:09 PM UTC
By Grace Lamb-Atkinson

Secretary Clinton in Africa:

New York Times: Clinton Calls for Accountability in Kenya
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened her African tour in Kenya with an address to a major United States-African trade conference and other public events. At the AGOA trade forum she laid out plans to channel development dollars to agriculture and infrastructure, to increase support for African entrepreneurs and to cut back on the overhead that often goes to American contractors. But she also stressed that development depends on good governance, a message that she returned to later when remarking upon Kenya’s failure to set up a tribunal for the perpetrators of election-driven bloodshed last year. Following a meeting with Kenyan leaders she told a news conference: “We are waiting, we are disappointed.”

AFP: US Wants to be “Partner, not Patron” of Africa
AFP also reports on Secretary Clinton’s stop in Kenya, and quotes ONE’s David Lane.

Washington Post (A1): Leadership Vacancy Raises Fears About USAID’s Future
The Washington Post reports that USAID is in limbo, entering its seventh month without a permanent director despite pledges by the Obama administration to expand and improve development assistance. While Hillary Clinton has championed additional personnel for USAID, aid groups worry that the agency could be swallowed up in the State Department. In the next few weeks the White House plans to bring together roughly two dozen government agencies in an effort to shape development policy, a senior administration official said.

Other news:

Reuters: US Says African Farming has Role in Green Push
The US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, said in Kenya yesterday that Africa can boost global efforts to curb emissions through the absorption of greenhouse gases by developing its farming sector. He said environmental improvement from Africa is possible thanks to plants and trees that have the capacity to absorb emissions, and an increase in the amount of fuel produced from crops. Vilsack advocated that U.S. firms unable to stay within greenhouse-gas thresholds at home invest in African farming projects to offset their emissions.

Foreign Policy: Paul Farmer out for USAID?
Foreign Policy says that new reports from within the Hill and the White House may indicate that Paul Farmer is out as a candidate to lead USAID, a decision that is said to have been made at the White House. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had sought White House permission to announce Farmer as the candidate to lead USAID when she appeared at the development agency last month, but said she wasn’t given the nod to do so.

Reuters: AfDB Sees Commitments Almost Doubling to $11 billion
The African Development Bank has seen its commitments almost double since last year due to the global financial crisis, Donald Kaberuka, the head of the bank, said today. The bank expects to loan some $11 billion this year, from $5.8 billion previously. Kaberuka said that there are a number of key projects whose original promoters pulled out because of the crisis. The impact of the crisis on Africa has been bigger than earlier feared, he added, and the AfDB has set up a $1 billion trade finance facility to help businesses cope.

-Grace Lamb-Atkinson

TAGS: What We're Reading