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  Obama, Bush Offer a U.S. Kiss of Death to Africa

  Author:	Amity Shlaes, Senior Fellow for Economic History

  February 27, 2008
  Bloomberg

  Africa is easier than the Middle East. It’s not all about the oil. You don’t have to send the 1st Cavalry Division there. All Africa needs is money to become healthier, more democratic, friendlier—you name it.

  That seems to be the conclusion of Barack Obama. In the Senate, the Democratic presidential candidate is pushing for passage of legislation that requires the U.S. government to cut global poverty in half by 2015. The bill’s mandate seems likely to force presidents to back expanded aid. Meanwhile, when he can at least, Obama avoids those dangerous Middle East topics.

  Nor is Obama alone in his Africa interest. This month, President George W. Bush traveled to Tanzania, Benin, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia to celebrate past U.S. assistance and reinforce his administration’s promise that America will double aid to Africa. The President Bush handing out mosquito netting in the photos looked more relaxed than the President Bush who takes questions on Iranian uranium at press conferences back home.

  You get the sense that politicians these days are racing to match Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett and the rest of the private sector in charity spending. Historians talk about the old scramble for Africa. That was a scramble to get—European monarchs took land for colonies. Now we are witnessing a scramble to give.

  The new scramble is as much a shame as the old one. Foreign aid can be the kiss of death for poor regions, as a former World Bank official, William Easterly, demonstrated in his recent book, “The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good.”

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  New CFR Books

  

  In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.

  

  America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.

  

  In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world.

  Complete list of CFR Books.

  

  

  New Independent Task Force Reports

  Confronting Climate Change

  This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.

  U.S.-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality

  This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.

  About Independent Task Forces at the Council.

  

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