U.S. needs to keep pledges
Seattle Times
July 10, 2008
Monday's report "G-8 summit opens with spotlight on aid for Africa" [Times, News, July 7] highlights the need for the United States to live up to its commitments to the world's poor and hungry.
Both the U.N. secretary-general and the World Bank president insisted that rich nations strengthen their efforts to meet poverty-reduction and other development goals. President Bush emphasized the urgency of providing aid for Africa.
But so far the G-8 has delivered just $3 billion of the $25 billion in additional aid it pledged to Africa in 2005. While the United States is following through on its 2005 commitments, we are falling behind the pledges we made in 2000 to hungry and poor people throughout the world.
We need to do two things. First, the United States needs to increase funding that directly addresses the root causes of hunger and poverty to meet our commitments from 2000.
Second, we need to ensure that this money is spent effectively by rationalizing foreign assistance. Our global development policies are implemented in 12 departments, 25 agencies and almost 60 government offices — hardly a model of seamless efficiency!
Pierre de Vries
Kirkland, WA
