Foreign aid sows hope for democracy

ACCRA, Ghana

AT THE start of a seven-country visit to Africa that will take me to Ghana, Benin, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania, I find there are two things that people at every level want to talk about. The first is the Barack Obama phenomenon, and the second is the Millennium Challenge Initiative. In his recent State of the Union address President Bush called on Congress to fully fund this program. And he was right to do so.

While the Millennium Challenge might not be familiar to the average American, in Africa this program is recognized as one of this country's most important initiatives to encourage democracy through development in parts of the world that could use a healthy dose of both. In a nutshell, the program is meant to provide countries that are serious about democracy some of the resources they need to improve the quality of life and expand opportunity. To date, the proposals presented for support have included plans to build bridges, roads, ports, hospitals, and schools. The projects are more than bricks and mortar. They are monuments to hope and symbols that America cares.

There is a major budget battle brewing in Washington that could exact a heavy toll on developing countries and America's global standing. The bone of contention is the level at which to fund the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Bush wants to fund it at $3 billion. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Representative Nita Lowey of New York, who control the congressional purse strings for foreign aid programs, want to fund it at $1.2 billion or $1.8 billion, respectively.

An initiative this valuable should not become partisan foil or political fodder. Nor can cuts be justified for budgetary reasons. Funding this program for one year at the level requested by the administration is a little more than the United States spends in one day in Iraq and Afghanistan. In terms of protecting America's long-term security interests, the Millennium Challenge Initiative inarguably gives the United States a "bigger bang for the buck."

There is an old African proverb that is applicable to this partisan tussle on Capitol Hill - "when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers." The grants that have been given to governments through the Millennium program have had a real grass-roots impact. When the president and Congress fight over programs like this, it is the grass roots that suffer. It is the countries with too many desperate people, desperately trying to make it, that ultimately are bludgeoned in a battle like this.

The excitement and energy that the initiative's support has aroused in places like Ghana and Tanzania is real. The governments in those countries are gearing up to build badly needed infrastructure. What a program like this has meant for the Cape Verde economy is tangible. This program is one of America's most effective ways of expanding opportunity and promoting stability, both of which are the best antidotes to the radicalism preached by groups such as Al Qaeda.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation has done more to enhance American prestige and inspire a greater sense of hope than anything this country has done in a long time. It stands in stark contrast to the angst and anger caused by the incursion into Iraq. Has the implementation of the program been hampered with fits and starts? To be sure, it has. But, having said that, the countries that benefit from the program as well as the corporation itself are better prepared than ever to ensure that this initiative reaches its full potential.

In a world beleaguered by war and rumors of war, this program is an effective, peaceful alternative to the United States trying beat its opponents into submission. Programs like this put the United States in play in the battle for the hearts and minds of people looking for hope. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is about building a better future for the world's dispossessed. Not fully funding the program is courting disaster in more ways than one.

Charles R. Stith is a former US ambassador to Tanzania and director of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center at Boston University.