---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 20:34:44 -0800
From: Charlotte Utting <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [wa-afr] FW: ADNA draft policy priorities document for Hill visits
I think the following shows the kind of useful work that ADNA does on behalf
of all of us in Washington DC--
----------
From: [log in to unmask]
Organization: Africa Policy Information Center
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 17:34:27 -0500
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: ADNA draft policy priorities document for Hill visits
Dear ADNA members,
Following find the draft of the policy priorities document
incorporating all of the revisions that have been submitted and the
discussion of the last ADNA DC area groups meeting last week.
We hope that we are near final on this so that we can begin
planning the visits to Members of Congress and the Administration
shortly. Many thanks to all those who contributed to this process.
We urge you to review this and clear it with your organizational
leadership quickly so that it may be used as a document reflecting
the Advocacy Network for Africa as a whole, rather than with
individual organizations signing on. Unless we receive a large
number of messages from you all saying otherwise, we will be
distributing this as a document which represents common concerns
of the majority of the network rather than exact mandates of specific
signatories.
Deadline for your replies to be received is Wed March 21, close of
business.
Thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this.
Regards,
Vicki Ferguson, policy doc editing cmte
ADNA Communications Facilitator
ADVOCACY NETWORK FOR AFRICA
US/Africa Policy Priorities for 2001-2002
The Advocacy Network for Africa calls upon the 107th Congress
and the Administration of President George W. Bush to...
1. Advance Africa's Right to Health:
by increasing US support for rebuilding the basic health
infrastructure and African governmental responsibility and capacity
to deliver adequate nationwide health care and services;
by authorizing and appropriating new funding levels at a minimum of
$1 billion total for HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, and $725 million
to $1 billion for other global health crises;*
by working with the G-7 and other wealthy nations to meet 100% of
the external need in new grants, not loans, without reducing general
development funding levels;
by following the lead of Great Britain in untying aid, as
recommended by the OECD, thereby saving an estimated minimum
of 25% on programming costs, which can be reinvested in the
expansion of AIDS response programs;
by eradicating bilateral and multilateral policy and regulatory
obstacles to the rapid and successful implementation of
comprehensive, multisectoral, scale-up of prevention, care and
treatment, and impact mitigation programs necessary to address the
AIDS pandemic and the wider health crisis it represents; and,
by ensuring that the US Government not retalliate against African
nations seeking to acquire or produce HIV/AIDS medications at the
lowest possible cost.
2. Prioritize Economic Justice:
by canceling the US Government-held debt for sub-Saharan
countries and taking leadership among the G-8 in pressing for
cancellation of the multilateral debt held by the World Bank and IMF;
by limiting the debt service of all African countries to no more than
5% of government revenue, to ensure that more money is available
and spent on health care and education than is spent in making debt
payments.
by ending structural adjustment style programs as policy conditions
for assistance and loans and supporting African initiated models for
economic development;
by making measurable poverty eradication the guiding principle for
US bilateral and multilateral economic policies related to Africa;
by increasing US development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa $1
billion for general development without reducing commitments to
other poor countries and regions, with an emphasis in the areas of
poverty alleviation, agriculture, education, and human capacity-
building, with the objective of ending human suffering and
increasing Africa's ability to compete in the global market;
by promoting fair trade relationships that are respectful of African
and American labor, human rights and environmental concerns and
that help to decrease the economic disparities that exist between the
developed and developing countries;
by respecting and supporting the fundamental principles of the
"African Model Legislation for the Protection of the Rights of Local
Communities, Farmers and Breeders, and for the Regulation of
Access to Biological Resources" developed by the Organization of
African Unity (OAU);
by assisting in the implementation of African economic and
development policies that are informed and shaped by domestic
constituencies, increase transparency, and prioritize poverty
eradication; and,
by supporting the African position at the World Trade Organization
in termsof a broad reaching review of TRIPS, with no new round of
TRIPS negotiation.
3. Promote Peace and Security throughout Africa:
by increasing US financial, material, and diplomatic support for
African and United Nations initiatives to prevent and resolve
conflicts;
by acceeding to and implementing the Landmine Ban Treaty,
ratifying and implementing the Child Soldiers Protocol, and adopting
controls on the illicit trade in conflict diamonds in the formof the
Clean Diamonds Act;
and keep a high priority on the needs of the most vulnerable of
populations - refugees and internally displaced persons of conflict
situations:
by increasing funding for Migration and Refugee Assistance within
the foreign assistance budget by $100 million, from $700million to
$800 million, returning it to the inflation-adjusted level of 1995;
by reducing the unethical disparity in aid that goes to African
refugees compared to refugees in other regions of the world;
by bolstering the number and training of protection officers within
the UNHCR in Africa; and,
by strengthening the UN's mandate and ability to assist and protect
internally displaced populations, who often face even greater
dangers than refugees; and by engaging in serious international
negotiations in building treaties aimed at curbing the illicit and
monitoring and regulating the licit trade of small arms and light
weapons.
4. Respect and Support African Democratic and Human Rights
Initiatives:
by supporting African governmental institutions and civil society
efforts that are accountable to the citizenry, and that promote and
protect the full spectrum of human rights;
by providing financial support for United Nations Human Rights
monitors and special rapporteurs in areas of conflict and concern;
by increasing funding for democratically conducted elections,
including especially the involvement of civil society groups in the
training and participation domestic election observers;
by supporting newly elected democraticgovernments through
strengthening mechanisms of government conduct and
transparency, and through development of assistance for projects
that support the immediate stabilization of newly elected
governments;
by publicly and diplomatically affirming the right of human rights
workers to work freely and without fear of harassment in
accordance with the international human rights standards;
by supporting and facilitating the training of Africans, in particular
human rights defenders, to makebest use of national, international
and regional mechanisms established for the protection of human
rights;
by calling upon all States to respect and ensure the respect of the
full spectrum of human rights;
by acting to encourage all States to bring national legislation into
accordance with international human rights standards and to ensure
the independence of the judiciary and other mechanisms for the
defence of human rights;
by urging all States to adopt special measures to ensure the
protection of women's rights;
by working to ensure that the intergovernmental, international and
regional organisations forcefully and publicly intervene to promote
and protect human rights;
by demanding that all bilateral and multilateral organs and authorities
of economic cooperation, ensure in their programs respect for and
promotion of the full spectrum of human rights; and,
by demanding and enforcing all multinational companies ensure that
their strategies and projects do not violate or undermine human
rights, particularly environmental rights, in their areas or operation.
*HIV/AIDS: Given the alternative calculation methods for needed
funds to combat HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa (UNAIDS - $3
billion/year for 'basic' prevention and care only, the Economic
Commission on Africa - $10 billion/per year, and Jeffrey Sachs,
Harvard Economist - $10-15 billion/year the latter numbers
including costs of Antiretroviral medicines and necessary
infrastructure rebuilding for service delivery the projected US share
calculated at the 1/6 burden-sharing level for funding HIV/AIDS
response is between $2.5 and $3 billion/year for Africa alone.
***
This message from the editing committee of the ADNA policy priority
is distributed through the Advocacy Network for Africa (ADNA).
Vicki Lynn Ferguson
Advocacy Network for Africa
Communications Facilitator
c/o Africa Action
(a merger of the Africa Fund, the
Africa Policy Information Center, &
the American Committee on Africa)
110 Maryland Ave, NE #508
Washington, DC 20002
Ph: 202-546-7961
Fax: 202-546-1545
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.africapolicy.org/adna
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