AFRICA NOW

This week on Africa Now we examine President George W. Bush’s second trip to the Africa African Contintent. President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush are on a six-day visit to Ghana, Benin, Rwanada, Liberia, Tanzania to highlight the Administration’s legacy on health, education, and economic development. In a speech before he left President Bush stated that his Administration has “revolutionized the way we approach development” by ending what he called “paternalism.”

But many activists in the US and on the continent are challenging this contention—suggesting that perhaps Mr. Bush’s legacy is not one of ending “paternalism” but of expanding unilateralism and militarism in US-Africa relations.

What is the reality of Bush’s legacy? We will examine the good sides and the bad sides beyond the mainstream headlines on a wide range of initiatives including the AFRICOM (the planned US military Command on the continent), Debt Cancellation, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), The Millienium Challenge Account, The Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the administration response to crises in Kenya, Darfur and Chad and of course the U.S. growing interest in African Oil. We’ll also talk about the next administration and what we might see out of a Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama, or John McCain presidency.

GUESTS:

• Emira Woods is the Co-Director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies.
• Roxanne Lawson is the Director of Africa Policy for TransAfrica Forum.

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