Bush in Africa: the lip service must end
One can only hope that Mr Bush's new-found interest in Africa and the large sums of money $15 billion for the fight against HIV/AIDS and $10 billion for poverty eradication that he has made available will be the catalyst for a change in attitudes.
For it is only with a change in attitudes by all the parties that Africa will ever be in a situation to reverse the decline which has been gathering pace for years.
Rather than continuing to pay lip service to Africa's problems, Western leaders must develop and implement a well thought out and coherent response.
Mr Bush has often spoken about the "moral imperative" to combat HIV/AIDS and the "hopeless poverty" being experienced by millions of people in Africa. But the US is still only giving 0.1% of GDP in overseas development aid one of the worst figures of all donor countries and far short of the agreed UN target of 0.7%.
African leaders must also have a radical rethink of their attitudes. If they continue to indulge in the wholesale corruption and abuses of human rights that have blighted the lives of many millions of people and held back the development of a whole continent they cannot expect to be trusted by Western countries with aid money to spend.
They must also be more genuine in their search for an end to the hostilities that have brought so much misery and suffering. If Mr Bush can rekindle interest in Africa with his recent visit, then it will have been a good week's work.
John O'Shea,
GOAL,
PO Box 19,
Dun Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
