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More on Obama and Africa: the Global Poverty Act

In a web piece that published yesterday, I note many of the enlightening conversations about Barack Obama that I had on my recent trip to Africa.

I should add one thing: Kenyans and Tanzanians I spoke with rejected the idea that they support Obama (and they almost universally do) because he will usher in a more favorable foreign policy toward Africa. "All Americans presidents have the same policy on Africa," one man told me. "We do not know if Obama will be different."

In actual fact, however, Africans have reason to be optimistic. Obama is the primary sponsor of the Global Poverty Act (S. 2433), a bill that would commit the United States to "the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day." (Full text of the bill here.)

Critics of the bill allege that binding ourselves to the UN's goals would also bind us to its aid targets. The United Nations asks every nation to contribute 0.7 percent of its GDP to foreign aid. Currently, the United States is missing the mark by a substantial amount:

The 27 EU nations spent 0.38 percent of their gross national income on development aid in 2007, compared with 0.41 percent in 2006. Statistics showed that only the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden and Norway were able to meet the 0.7 percent U.N. aid target. The United States spends 0.16 percent on development aid.

Those critics argue that boosting American aid to UN-approved levels would cost $845 billion over 13 years, meaning the apparently horrifying prospect of waging a global war on poverty that costs along the lines of the war in Iraq, which the Congressional Research Service estimates [pdf] has cost $653 billion in the six years since its initiation. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Iraq War will cost an additional $440 billion over the next ten years, assuming troop levels fall to 30,000 by 2010.

Defenders of the bill assert that it establishes no specific funding source and does not commit the United States to anyone else's standards. They note that the bill calls on the president and the secretary of state, not the United Nations, to develop an action plan.

The bill does appear to be more a statement of priorities than a detailed set of policy solutions. In President Clinton's last year in office, the US joined more than 180 countries at the United Nations Millennium Summit and agreed to reduce global poverty by 2015. This bill, however, actually makes achieving the the UN goal of cutting extreme global poverty in half in the next seven years official US policy. It requires the president to develop a comprehensive strategy to carry out that policy using aid, debt relief, trade policy, and cooperation with international organizations. Furthermore, it requires the president to outline specific benchmarks and timetables that will allow the public to track progress.

The bill, which has a bi-partisan list of co-sponsors, is a recipe for reintegration into the world community, which suggests Obama sees aid not just as charity but as part of his foreign policy vision. Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, suggested in the press that the bill is about more than the 2.7 billion people who live on less than $2 a day. "For every dollar the U.S. spends on poverty-focused aid, it spends almost US$33 on defense," he said. "When aid is effective, it builds a safer world for everyone."

Comments

As far back as I can remember there has been people living in shocking poverty.

If we are truly civilized, we have to do something to help the unfortunate souls born in circumstances we can hardly imagine.

In America we throw out food.

Maybe that is as uncivilized as it can get when thousands of children die everyday for lack of it?

Posted by: capt on 08/13/08 at 10:14 AM Respond

This is a wonder article! I've been following The Borgen Project's work on the Global Poverty Act and it's neat to see Mother Jones covering the Global Poverty Act.

Posted by: lani on 08/13/08 at 10:29 AM Respond

You lefties and your blind faith in "aid" and such to reduce poverty.

Trillions (with a capital "T") have flooded Africa in a white-guilt attempt to make liberals feel better.

It did jack and/or sh$t good, and significantly made things worse.

Did South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan get wealthy via "aid"? No. Ditto for China. Global welfare has the same perverse incentives as domestic welfare.

Africa is more poor, has a more unsutainable demographic boom (look at birth rates in Africa vs. China and see who to long/short) and the government totally secure in their future.

Read William Easterly and his work on how aid holds Africa back.

For example, Jim Rogers wrote of one situation.

Americans give clothing to Africa via church and other groups. This clothing arrives in Africa and wipes out the domestic clothing industry. Who can compete with free?

Same for food aid. Merely a slam to the knee caps of African farmers.

The West is doing more damage in the post-colonial, guilt ridden and aid obsessed age than it did during colonialism. That's a fact, Jack.

Posted by: Svend on 08/13/08 at 11:35 AM Respond

"Same for food aid. Merely a slam to the knee caps of African farmers."

If the African farmers were capable of feeding the people, food aid would be unnecessary.

How would you suggest we show that we are a "compassionate, Christian nation", as I hear over and over ad nauseum? Bomb them until the poor have been eradicated?

Providing aid needn't mean sending food. It can also include helping them to develop and/or learn better farming practices.

Posted by: DaveD on 08/14/08 at 5:01 AM Respond

"meaning the apparently horrifying prospect of waging a global war on poverty that costs along the lines of the war in Iraq,"

Actually, by your figures, the cost would be considerably less than the cost of the war in Iraq. And that is only considering the monetary cost to the American taxpayers. The people of Iraq have been paying a much greater cost. And a 'war on poverty' would likely do much more for the security of America, do much more to 'make us safer', than the war in Iraq has accomplished. (Despite the 'fact' that George Bush has 'prevented' another 9/11 from taking place thanks to his wars of aggression.)

Posted by: DaveD on 08/14/08 at 5:05 AM Respond

Can anyone who supports this bill tell me when, at any time in history, poverty has been reduced by a government giveaway program?

I have been to several African nations and spoken with many people. The one thing thay want most is the opportunity to work and make a better life for themselves and their children.

Most of the money that the world pours into various African nations ends up in the Swiss bank account of their leaders. The average citizens continue to live in squalor and poverty.

If you truly want to reduce poverty, take a look at the microloan programs that are succeeding in India and Africa. The microloans allow the people to work their way out of poverty and do not enrich the corrupt leaders.

Posted by: Marqman on 08/18/08 at 10:41 AM Respond

Because they do not know the Lord! This is why they are like they are!! You cannot help someone that doesn't want to be helped ! Give a man a fish to feed him for one day . But teach him how to fish and he can eat every day! i think this has been done! again and gain!! Countrys have falled because they have turned away from the The Real GOD! He doesnot putt up with this for to long! He will pull all of the life away from them The same way He will do the U.S.!!

Posted by: No mane on 10/27/08 at 6:56 PM Respond