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Past Event

A Foreign Policy Event

U.S. Policy Toward Africa on the Eve of the President's Trip

Africa, Trade, Global Economics


Event Summary

President Bush travels to Africa July 7-12 on his first presidential visit to the continent. Bush's trip, which will include stops in Botswana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda, follows an increase in terrorist threats and activity in Africa and congressional wrangling over America's foreign aid spending.

Event Information

When

Monday, June 30, 2003
2:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Where

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036
Map

Contact: Office of Communications

E-mail: communications@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

In advance of the president's trip, the Brookings Institution is convening a group of senior experts, including current and former assistant secretaries of state for African affairs, to preview the visit and discuss U.S. policy toward Africa. Walter Kansteiner will deliver a keynote address on the purpose and objectives of the president's trip, and James Harmon will present the new recommendations of his commission on spurring private capital flows to Africa.

Transcript

ASST. SECRETARY WALTER KANSTEINER: We do have a very exciting presidential trip or as we say in the lingo of Washington, POTUS, the POTUS trip. And we are excited about it, and we think it is going to be a good one, and it is going to hopefully highlight some of the things that we have been working on very hard in the last 2.5 years, and then also encourage us and encourage others to work on some issues that are still out there and need to be focused on.

So, if I could do kind of when, where and why, and then open for questions; is that the deal? Okay.

The when is the 7th to the 12th, as the President has announced, of July. I think we actually arrive in the first stop, which is Senegal, on the 8th. So the trip looks something like this. We go to Senegal, and from there to South Africa, from there to Botswana. After Botswana is Uganda, and the last stop on the trip is Nigeria, and then home.

That is the when and the where, and then of course the why is because we have got a lot to do on this continent, and these are some of the stops, and of course if we had more time in the President's calendar, we could do a lot more stops, but this is the reality of life in the 21st century in the White House, and so we have got our six or six and a half days, and we are going to make the very best of it.

A couple of the themes that we are going to be looking at and addressing and having some dialogue with Africans, and talking to our African partners, but also with some speeches that the President is going to give, are going to focus around the economy and the developing, emerging-market decisions that have to be made by these governments.

Complete event transcript (PDF—152KB)

Participants

Keynote Speaker

Walter Kansteiner

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs

Panelists

Ambassador Princeton Lyman

Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies, Council on Foreign Relations; Former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria and South Africa

Chester Crocker

Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (1981-1989)

Gayle E. Smith

Guest Scholar, Governance Studies, Brookings; Former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs

Jamie Drummond

Executive Director, Debt, Aid and Trade for Africa (DATA)

Jim Harmon

Chairman, Commission on Capital Flows to Africa


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