Kenya: U.S. Election Outcome Will Not Change Relations With Africa
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The Nation (Nairobi)
5 September 2008
Posted to the web 5 September 2008
Kevin J Kelley
New York
Tanzania's foreign minister said recently that the result of the US presidential election would have no impact on the two countries' good relations.
Could that also be the case for Kenya?
The US Democratic Party is generally viewed as more committed than the Republicans to facilitating Africa's development.
That apparent predisposition reflects, in part, the Democrats' heavy reliance on the votes of African-Americans. Another key factor in this year's election is Democratic candidate Barack Obama's family ties to Kenya.
But Republican nominee John McCain would likely continue the Africa policies adopted by George W Bush.
And in the view of many analysts, the approach taken by Mr Bush, a Republican, has been more beneficial to Africa than the course followed by his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton.
The Bush administration initiated a $15 billion Aids relief programme that has extended the lives of some 1.7 million Africans. In Kenya, the programme provided $368 million worth of assistance in 2007, enabling 166,000 Kenyans to receive anti-Aids drugs.
With nearly $700 million to be provided over the next five years, Tanzania has become the single-largest recipient of aid through the Millennium Challenge Account, another innovation of the Bush administration.
Kenya has not yet qualified for this performance-based form of development assistance, mainly because the country has failed to meet anti-corruption conditions for inclusion in the programme.
But the US has given Kenya $12.7 million for governance reforms that could enable it to gain full Millennium Challenge aid within the next year or two.
President Bush also supported an extension of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act intended to enable Kenya and a few other African countries to continue building their apparel-export sector.
Kenya's clothing sales to the United States now total about $260 million a year, with Agoa estimated to have generated some 20,000 jobs in Kenya.
It is also unlikely that a Democratic-controlled State Department would have played a more active role in resolving Kenya's post-election crisis than did the Republican-appointed diplomats who helped engineer the power-sharing agreement.
Senator Obama pledges to sustain the Aids relief, Millennium Account, and preferential trade programmes established or expanded by the Bush administration.
Senator Obama has said he supports a set of global health and antipoverty initiatives advocated by a non-partisan and influential coalition called One Vote '08.
This campaign, headed by the former Democratic and Republican leaders of the US Senate, seeks to inject Africa-related issues into the presidential campaign.
"Instead of having Africa be an afterthought, we thought, let's make sure every candidate is educated" on the continent's problems and their potential solutions, said Bill Frist, formerly the top Senate Republican.
One Vote '08 calls for a one per cent increase in the US federal budget, with the added funds to be used to achieve five goals vital to Africa: prevent 16,000 people a day from dying due to Aids, malaria or tuberculosis; provide free primary education to 77 million children not currently attending school; halve the number of hungry people in the world; save the lives of 5.5 million children who die annually from poverty-related diseases; and provide clean water to 450 million citizens of developing countries.
Senator McCain has also taken strong positions on the One Vote '08 proposals, Mr Frist said.
In addition, the Republican candidate's wife, Cindy McCain, travelled to Rwanda in July as part of a delegation sponsored by One Vote '08. It was Mrs McCain's second trip to Rwanda, the first having taken place in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide when she contributed to relief efforts.
Senator McCain has further promised to work toward eradicating malaria in Africa if he is elected to the White House.
But the Republican candidate does not appear as well versed on Africa or as personally committed to development schemes as does Senator Obama.
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Earlier this year, for example, Senator McCain responded uncertainly when asked by a reporter if he favoured spending US tax dollars on condoms in Africa as an anti-Aids measure. "I haven't thought about it before," Senator McCain said. "I don't know if I would use taxpayer money for it."
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The converstion of education in kenya into a mainly commercial venture for short term monetary gain will exclude most kenayns from a decent education, universities should not be converted into commercial colleges, their purpose of seeking, developing and transmiting knowledge is being subordinated to the love for raw cash, soon the universities may turn into brothels as they may find them more lucrative if they continue along these lines.
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This is the reason why we caanot rely on ourselves. We are so used to hand outs. it is time for africans to start having sustainable solutions and stop depending on hand outs from the west. obama '08