Rhetoric vs. Reality: Administration’s Inaction Speaks Louder Than Words

Washington DC - July 6, 2005

The United States joins other world leaders this week at the 31st Group of Eight (G8) summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, where as host, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is turning the spotlight on economic development. While the conversation will focus primarily on development efforts in Africa, it speaks to the role and future of the broader Millennium Declaration agenda, which includes the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), to which 191 countries, including the United States, agreed in 2000.

The MDGs are in danger of being overshadowed by debates over U.N. reform and global security concerns. But as research shows, investments in development – and in turn in education, nutrition, poverty reduction, and expanded access to reproductive health programs – play a critical role in promoting peace and security and improve the quality of life for all. To achieve the MDGs, to promote global security and to ensure human rights requires a sustained commitment to development and the support for universal access to reproductive health care.

While many European and Japanese leaders have pledged to increase official development assistance for poor countries to 0.7 percent of their gross domestic products by 2015, the Bush Administration refuses such an increase and instead claims to already have tripled U.S. assistance to Africa – a dubious assertion that has been disputed by a number of experts. Furthermore, the U.S. State Department recently issued a priorities document (download .pdf) listing economic development dead last. This only underscores in writing what we have witnessed in the Administration’s inaction, including the foundering of its Millennium Challenge Account program: investments in global development assistance, which raise the standard of living in the developing word and in turn help promote peace and security, are taking a backseat in the U.S. foreign policy agenda.

Population Action International (PAI) works to improve individual well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning and reproductive health policies and programs.