How do you measure a year?

In historical terms, a year may seem like just a small blip, but in individual terms, 365 days can really mean something. Think about where you were and what you were doing one year ago...now think about how much has happened and changed in your life in since then...kinda crazy, huh?

One year ago, I was at the United Nations attending daily briefings about various international issues and loving every single minute of it. This experience was one of the turning points for me in terms of discovering where my interests lie and what my life goals are, and I think I have made quite a bit of progress as far as paving the way to begin to fulfill these life goals. The time spent and effort put forth in this little 365-day historical blip can go a long way for one person.

One year ago marks not only a significant point in my life, but an important date for Africa as well. Last year on July 7, 2005, the G8 met in Gleneagles to discuss some of the issues facing global leaders. The most significant talking point that arose from these discussions was foreign aid. Each of the leaders agreed that poverty was a huge problem that must be stopped, and each leader seemed to attempt to one-up everyone else in their promises to eradicate it. All eight countries pledged to increase aid to the tune of some $50 billion to Africa and to cancel debt to the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs).

The international community became caught up in the hype of these promises with the "Make Poverty History" campaign and the Live 8 concerts. Even ordinary citizens were aware of the negotiations taking place in Gleneagles, and with Bono and Madonna telling them that they need to be concerned about Africa, people responded. Everyone seemed to be on board and everyone seemed to believe that the G8 negotiations could be the catalyst for changing the fate of citizens of developing countries, particularly those of Africa. This would be, as Tony Blair declared, the "Year of Africa".

One whole year, dedicated to eradicating poverty in one continent, with the world's greatest powers calling the shots, and tons of money pouring into the countries. With all of this momentum behind them, the promises made at the G8 seemed to have the potential to make a difference.

Now, a year later, I am left wondering what on earth happened. What happened to increases of aid? What happened to debt cancellation? What happened to the overwhelming public support for Africa? What has happened in these 365 days to help African countries?

While the promises of the G8 have mostly slid under the radar, some might argue that there has been progress made. Raw data indicates that the G8 has increased official development aid by $21 billion, and on July 1, the World Bank will grant some $37 billion dollars in debt relief to 19 countries, 15 of which are in Africa. Increased aid and debt cancellation gives a country a great deal of resources that can now be used to build infrastructure and help improve the conditions of their citizens.

An old platitude comes to mind: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is..."

What typically is left out of these reports of the good news of increased aid and debt cancellation is that in order for countries to recieve it they have to jump over a series of economic hurdles called structural adjustment programs. These hurdles are typically designed by foreign economists who may have never even visited the country they are designing the policy for. I don't pretend to really understand economics, but from what I have learned about these SAPs, they are grandiose, idealistic plans that force countries to follow similar guidelines regardless of the countries' specific needs. They typically involve currency devaluation, a massive decrease in government spending (including spending for social welfare programs), and liberalizing the economy. A woman from Cameroon spoke to one of my classes about some of the negative effects that SAPs had on her country; currency devaluation pushed already poor citizens even farther into poverty, and lowering what little government subsidies existed had a detrimental effect on important industries. Her evaluation was that SAPs did more to hurt the citizens than to help the economy.

Further problems exist within these progress reports from the G8. The report of an increase in aid of $21 billion is what organizations like Oxfam call "double counting." This statistic is deceiving because it includes $14 billion and $5 billion in debt relief to Iraq and Nigeria, so actual amounts of aid did not increase by that much. Oxfam has also criticized the failure by the G8 to stay on target to increase aid as a percentage of GDP. The goals are to reach 0.56% of GDP by 2010 and 0.7% by 2015. Jo Leadbeater from the organization says "The G8's aid increase could save the lives of five million children by 2010, but 50 million children's lives will still be lost because the G8 didn't go as far as they should have done." What makes this comment even more depressing is that these five million children referred to will only be saved if the countries are on track with increasing aid, which unfortunately, is not happening.

The broken promises and political hype of the 2005 Summit have not even begun to scratch the surface of the problems. As much as I have played up what has failed to happen in just the past year, the root of the problem lies much deeper. The G8 is just one example of a global promise that has failed to make any significant difference. We are only one year out from the 2005 G8 Summit, but we are rapidly approaching the six year anniversary of the UN Millennium Summit and its Millennium Development Goals that hope to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015 - just 9 short years from now. I spent my summer at the UN researching these goals and was extremely disappointed by what little progress has been made six years out. If most African countries are not on target to reach the MDGs six full years after their inception, then how can they expect to implement programs to achieve the goals in nine years?

People tend to blame foreign aid for these failures. Over $500 billion has been poured into Africa in the past 40 years, and while the countries have struggled to pay back most of it, they are still deeply in debt. Aid that comes in is often used not to build up the economy, but to pay back existing debts. It seems counter-intuitive to me that the G8 and the UN continue to debate over how much more money to dump into African countries, and how much debt to cancel, with little attention given to how to keep countries out of debt. You can continue to pour water into a bucket, but if the bucket is full of holes (in the form of corruption, lack of infrastructure, stagnant economies, etc) the water will just go to waste.

Why don't we begin to use foreign aid to patch these holes?

The first hole that needs to be patched, I think, is debt. While it's true that developed countries have given huge amounts of money to Africa, this money has definitely not been used to promote African development. It is estimated that 40% of Africa's wealth lies overseas, much of it being used to line the Swiss bank accounts of former, and sometimes current, leaders. We cannot continue to punish African citizens by forcing countries to pay back debt that was incurred and squandered by corrupt leaders - this will only create a vicious cycle of more borrowing and repaying.

Once that hole is closed, foreign aid must be implemented systematically and differently in each country to patch the remaining holes. We can't just continue to throw money at the continent of Africa and then complain about how poor it still is. Rather than increasing foreign aid, why not focus on making foreign aid more effective? Jeffrey Sachs describes current foreign aid programs as "one-size-fits-all" and this is part of the reason why they are so ineffective. It does not seem to make sense to implement the same development programs in a country with severe drought problems as a country plagued by civil war. Foreign aid must be tailored to each country - the problems of Africa are multi-faceted and the solution must also be.

While it is true that real changes take time, I think that one full year out from a Summit as large as the G8, we should be able to see something concrete happening. If one little person like me can change so much in a year, what's to say that people in developing countries, if given the right resources, can also begin to see sustainable changes. The fact that there has been so little progress by now indicates that perhaps it's time to change our approach.

A year may not seem like a long time in history, but to the hundreds of thousands of people who have died in Africa in just one year, and the hundreds of thousands who will die in 2006, it is all the time in the world.

Don't say we need more time - a year of broken promises is a year too long.

I love John Edwards, Rhetoric and all.

It's a lazy Saturday afternoon and I, like many Americans, am lounging on my couch, sipping a cup of coffee and watching TV. Unlike most Americans, however, I am tuned in to C-SPAN. This is partially because I don't have cable, but also mostly because it really isn't bad to watch if you give it a chance. So anyway, they were broadcasting a speech made last Thursday about poverty by John Edwards to the National Press Club. While the speech focused mainly on poverty in America, he made reference to extreme poverty worldwide and America's leadership role, which is how I got hooked into watching it.

Typically when I watch American politicians, I am frustrated by the information that they choose not to mention and the empty rhetoric that is rarely, if ever, made into policy, but something was different about Edwards' speech. True, there was a lot missing from his speech by my standards, because if someone is talking about poverty and they only briefly mention Africa, then they have most definitely left something out, but in a speech that was meant to focus on American poverty, I was (sadly) impressed that he mentioned Africa at all.
Perhaps my veneration for this speech comes from the fact that I watch Edwards with a much less critical eye than other politicians because, really, I just love him. Maybe the whole "son of a mill worker" schtick actually worked on me...whatever the reason, I'd vote for him again in a heartbeat.

I don't want to dwell on this for too long because, obviously, the couple of minutes dedicated to international poverty did not contain too much actual substance in terms of how to fight against it, but I thought it deserved a nod in my blog because I got chills at one point. Honestly, real live goosebumps. And my apartment is like a sauna.

Check out the speech if you get a chance (for text go here: https://oneamericacommittee.com/news/speeches/20060622/). It reminded me a little of a domestic version of Jeffrey Sachs' last book (The End of Poverty), and that could be another reason why I really liked it. I must say, the book is a million times better than the speech and much more relevant to what I usually rant about, but if I were to blog about the book, I would be writing for the next several days straight. Rest assured it will be mentioned in future blogs...it's awesome...idealistic, but awesome.
I will end this random rave review of, let's face it, a speech full of rhetoric by a cute politician, with my favorite quote from the man himself:

"Poverty is the great moral issue of our time, and we all have an obligation to do something about it. Not just alleviate some of the symptoms…Not just find ways to help some of the people…But end it."

Preach on, Edwards, Preach on.

The "Cut and Run"

It seems that I can't turn on the news or pick up a newspaper lately without learning that, yet again, Joe Republican has accused Joe Democrat of attempting to "cut and run" in Iraq. From what I understand, the argument typically goes something like this -

Dem: we want troops home!
Rep: we can't just leave Iraq the way it is! mission not yet accomplished! you cutter and runner!

The recently reported 2500th death of an American soldier in Iraq no doubt fuels this debate and its incessant media coverage. It is indeed tragic that we have lost so many young people to a war that many of them didn't even want in the first place, and it breaks my heart to think of how many more lives will be lost before we will be able to leave Iraq.
While it is depressing to see new deaths reported every day, of both American citizens and Iraqis, I can't help but protest at the sheer amount of media coverage dedicated to this one specific issue and the political frenzy it has generated. As daunting of a figure as 40,000 deaths in Iraq so far is, (believe me, I am not trying to marginalize these sacrifices), it is even more daunting to me that newspapers could potentially be reporting more than 20,000 deaths in the developing world every single day.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone, it is estimated that 1,000 people die every day from the effects of a war that was officially declared "over" in 2003. In less than one decade, 3.9 million people have died in the DRC according to the International Rescue Committee. Nearly 4 million people - half the population of New York City - gone. Imagine the effects losing that many people would have on the US, not to mention how much media coverage and international attention it would get.
Although a cease-fire has remained in place in the Congo for almost four years, the region is far from stable. Armed militias still wreak havoc on villages, and civilians are often forced to flee their homes, where their fate is sealed by the unforgiving terrain and the impossible climate of the Congolese jungles. If they manage to survive their trek through the jungle, they often die later on of malnutrition or malaria, and other diseases they encounter along the way.
The government troops sent to protect them are difficult to distinguish from the rebels, and are often accused of robbing the villages and raping its citizens. My professor last semester, Michael Schatzberg (who also happens to be one of my personal heroes) described this relationship in a simple question: "if there are two people who are starving, and one of them happens to have some food, and the other one happens to have a gun, who do you think will get to eat?" The UN, in an attempt to curb these effects, has stationed more peacekeepers in the DRC than in any other country, some 17,000 troops, but try to imagine just 17,000 troops patrolling an area the size of almost half of the United States. It's chaos. NGOs and humanitarian organizations do what they can, but in areas without an effective government or any type of infrastructure, it is difficult to implement humanitarian aid.

It's ironic to me that US policymakers are embroiled in debates over "cutting and running" while all of this is going on in the Congo. Many of Africa's poverty problems can be traced back to the cutting and running that occurred by most colonial powers immediately following independence...then cutting and running by the US and Soviets again just 15 years ago at the end of the Cold War. The Congo is a perfect example.
There is plenty of blame to go around for the current abysmal state of Congolese citizens, not the least of which goes to King Leopold II, and Belgium, and of course, the trusty US government. After the first leader of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, was democratically elected by its citizens, the CIA assisted in his assassination in one of its many irrational strategies arising as an outgrowth of containment. In a blatantly political move to thwart the Soviets' simultaneous struggle for African support in the Cold War, the US helped to appoint President Joseph Mobutu, (aka: Mobutu Sese Seko) who agreed to align himself with the West. Surprise, surprise, Mobutu did not turn out to be the fearless democratic leader the US had portrayed him as. He plundered every bit of wealth he could from the country for his own personal gain until the first Congo Civil War began in 1996 - more than 30 years later. This led right into the Second Congo Civil War in 1998 that the country is still trying, unsuccessfully, to recover from.

Because they had such an important hand in securing Mobutu's rule, the US government was extremely concerned about his corrupt mishandling of the Congo, right? The US would never have appointed such a horrible autocrat and just continued to feed him money to keep him in power...right? Wrong on both counts. Not only did the US help to keep Mobutu in power throughout this 30 year period, completely disregarding the condition of Congolese citizens, but as soon as the end of the Cold War rolled around, the US seemed to forget that Mobutu and the DRC existed. Spreading Western democracy, or more accurately, aborting efforts to spread communism, was no longer the policy du jour, and the Congo no longer held any strategic significance. The US was just not interested anymore. Game over.

Sound like cutting and running to you, too?

So if we are even partially responsible, then where are the debates? Where is Joe Republican, or Joe Democrat for that matter, when it comes to the current state of the Congo?

I will be interested to see whether or not the international community will lend a hand on July 30th when the Congo is scheduled to hold presidential elections. According to a Congolese survey by the UN Regional Integration Network, Joseph Kabila, the current president, is favored to win because "Kabila has the money, so he will win."
There's democracy at work for you.
So far, there are scheduled to be 250 EU troops to monitor the elections. Compare that with the 23,000 monitors sent by various NGOs for the Iraqi elections. Many are skeptical that the elections will even take place. I am inclined to agree with them.
However, if the international community can take one eye off of Iraq for just a moment and perhaps turn it towards the DRC, and maybe (gasp), even attempt to do something to help, prospects could be better...I think it's worth a try.

Why I blog.

For those of you who don't know me, perhaps you are wondering what you are getting yourself into by reading my blog, so in this, my very first post on my very first blog, allow me to lay it out for you. I am 21 years old, I just graduated from college, and I am still in this wonderfully idealistic phase where I believe that one person, if they really try, can change the world. I am hoping to start with Africa. I am either extremely optimistic, or extremely dumb.

Four years ago, I lived in a state of blissful ignorance regarding global affairs: didn't know, didn't care. I am a little embarassed to admit that I stumbled into my first international relations class almost solely because it fit nicely into my schedule. Call it divine intervention, alignment of the planets, cosmic forces, whatever...I found my niche. I had finally discovered that there was a world beyond my front door, a world full of amazing sights that I had not yet seen, a world of emerging markets and technologies, a world with more than six and a half billion people, and a world full of opportunities.

This wonderful new world that I discovered also had a dark side. This was a world, sadly, in which almost half of its six billion people live on less than two dollars a day, a world with more than one billion people who don't have access to clean water, a world that loses 16,000 children per day due to hunger, and a world that, even more sadly, contains precious few people willing to do anything about it.

With each depressing new fact I learned, I became more indignant. Why are people living in such abject conditions? Why haven't I seen or heard about this suffering before? More importantly, why aren't people helping them? As I struggled with these questions, my search for answers repeatedly led me to Africa. While I realize that extreme poverty exists worldwide, it was striking to me just how many of the countries whose citizens are in the throes of poverty reside in this one continent.

My newfound awareness of the plight of Africa has been both a blessing and a burden. I have never before felt such passion for something, but I have also never felt this overwhelming sense of helplessness. It would be impossible for me to just sit back and do nothing - with my awareness comes an obligation to act.

How, you ask?

Well, step one has been to apply to join the Peace Corps. So excited. More about this later.
Step two is what you are reading right now. Okay, okay, so blogging does not exactly put me in the ranks of Mother Theresa as far as helping the world's downtrodden, but it is a step, however small it may be. I need a place to be able to share my thoughts on Africa, a place where I can talk about the things I read or hear or see about Africa that weigh on my heart and mind. Unfortunately, my friends and family are sick of my diatribe, so this blog is also a way for me to vent and rant and rave about injustice, without alienating the people who I am close to.
So there you have it. Happy Reading.


Because of the significant effort that was put into creating my "Citizen of the Planet" sobriquet (many thanks to my sister, especially), I think it deserves a mention. All of you Simon and Garfunkel fans will hopefully know what I am talking about. When I ask why people don't seem to care about Africa, a common excuse is "because I live in [insert your country here] and it doesn't directly affect me." In a world where we are becoming increasingly interconnected, my hope is that people can begin to ignore cultural boundaries and identify with the shared human experience. If we recognize our role as citizens of the planet, we can no longer use nationality as an excuse to not help people.
I also bring up my blog name because I am unsure of copyright laws in blogging and I must give credit where credit is due. Here's hoping I don't get sued.