Time for a new Marshall Plan

'Justice promised will forever be justice denied unless we remove from this generation the burden of debt incurred by past generations."

No, this is not a quotation from President George W. Bush's inaugural speech. But maybe it should have been. Instead, it was uttered by Gordon Brown, the chief of Great Britain's treasury and a possible future prime minister.

What was Brown talking about? Africa. Last Monday at a meeting in South Africa, Brown explained a proposed plan for debt relief and an increase in international aid from the current $50 billion to $100 billion per year.

The proposal was offered with an eye toward fulfilling the promises made by the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals, drafted in 2000. The MDG is a list of eight goals that address poverty, education, healthcare and women's rights, among other issues. The idea is to significantly improve the third world's dire situation by 2015.

Progress in Africa since 2000, however, has been dubious, mostly because rich nations haven't kept their promises.

Also on Monday, Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and an adviser to Kofi Annan, proposed a "practical plan" to achieve the MDG on schedule. The plan primarily calls for the richest nations to double aid to 0.5 percent of their combined GDP -- which is still less than the 0.7 percent previously promised. The plan could potentially save hundreds of millions of lives worldwide and millions in Africa alone.

Helping Africa might be one the best ways to achieve the visionary foreign policy President Bush laid out last Thursday. Why haven't we heard much about the MDG here on the other side of the pond? Cynics might simply offer that our government doesn't care about Africa because the United States has no vested interest in the continent. America's frenetic history of aid seems to suggest this. But the truth is, the U.S. has more reasons to invest in Africa than in any rich nation.

Brown likened the U.K.'s aid package to the Marshall Plan. That's right, the same Marshall Plan that the U.S. offered to Europe in 1947. Brown's comparison suggests that we recognized the reasons to help Africa about 60 years ago.

The Marshall Plan essentially pumped about $100 billion in today's dollars into Western Europe to help rebuild infrastructure following World War II. The reasons for the plan were threefold. If Europeans became desperate, they'd likely fall to communism. If European economies suffered, the American economy would also. And sometimes we Americans can just be nice guys.

Africa may not be under the threat of communism but the threat of the next worst thing: terrorism. Al Qaeda has long had bases throughout north and east Africa. Our embassies and ships have been attacked in the region, and civil desperation provides the perfect breeding ground for new terrorists, especially in countries where Islamic fundamentalism already has a frightening grasp.

As for the economy, Africa is a huge potential market with valuable natural resources -- including oil, which we'd be wise to look for in places other than the Middle East.

Besides all of this, helping Africa is just a good humanitarian thing to do, and it would go a long way toward rebuilding America's reputation.

It's clear from Bush's inaugural speech that he intends to increase his focus on the international scene. What better place to start than Africa? We have had one African-American Secretary of State who was committed to the continent, and we are welcoming another.

Bush should recognize the importance of Africa to his constituency. Evangelical missio-naries, who are some of Bush's staunchest supporters, have long been pouring into Africa. And with "moral values" cited as the decisive issue in the last election, it's likely voters will become even more concerned with humanitarian crises in Africa. The administration may realize the significance of this opportunity, but they need to kick it up a notch and put Africa front and center.

The world stage is set much the same. The U.K., America's staunchest ally, is leading the pack with a G-8 summit this summer. Germany and Japan, two of the world's richest nations, are looking for ways to prove themselves worthy of joining the U.N. Security Council. And certainly the cause for Africa is far freer of political clutter than Iraq, Iran or any other place we have in our sights.

Some skeptics claim that sending money or even medicine and technology will not solve the problem. They say corrupt and inefficient governments put much international aid to waste. But debt relief cannot be tampered with the same way that aid can. And while some corruption does exist, there are also many African nations -- like Senegal, Ghana and Uganda -- that are admirably stable and have worked wonders with the little they have. But more needs to be done. Should these nations become prosperous, they could help the rest of Africa by forming a backbone of success.

In his inaugural address, Bush proclaimed, "We have lit a fire." Let's shine it on Africa, forgive debts, give money and make the darkness of the "dark continent" a thing of the past.

Justin Tackett is a sophomore in the College from Pittsburgh. Word! appears on Tuesdays.

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