apologies for the voting that was completed hopefully members will be coming and although there are a number of complex because of the timing of the votes whenever the ranking member gets here we will interrupt and allow him to to give his remarks currently is on the senate side but he is on his way here  as a title suggests the purpose of this hearing is to discuss the administration's policy on the continent of africa and we're very pleased to be able to have this very important hearing we can certainly tell by the audience here that there is a tremendous amount of of interest in the continent and we're here to gain an understanding about the overall policy towards the region and the united states his position on key and pressing issues of the day to that and i we have two distinguished panels which i will introduce following the members opening statements let me thank the witnesses for coming particularly assistant secretary of state embassador johnny carson and us the senior deputy assistant administrator of gas as well as followed and worked in africa for over forty years there have been many sweeping changes especially in recent u s policy in africa continent has gone from a region with little strategic significance the view of policy makers to one that holds critical and strategic economic national security and humanitarian interests in just the last twenty years indeed the united states had moved away from a policy in africa that hinged on containing the soviet sphere of influence during the cold war a policy as many of us here know too often led the u s to support a dictatorial regimes on the continent with disastrous results which in some isness are still being felt during the ten years of president bill clinton and george w bush u s interest in the continent greatly increased and the focus began to shift away from seoul the humanitarian interests you have to growth and opportunity act to go up preferential program designed to spar increased african imports and us to the united states and to build africa trade capacity and the president's emergency plan for aids relief pepfar the landmark fifteen billion dollars now forty eight billion dollars treatment program were created by president clinton and bush respectively both very important programs which have a tremendous impact on the continent both dramatically reshaped the discourse and the depth of u s africa policy as a matter of fact the africa diplomatic corps did a great job in shaping the agoa khan legislation and  s to seven countries in africa by secretary of state hillary clinton i accompanied secretary clinton on part of her trip and must say that the response was overwhelmingly positive and helpful in terms of bilateral relations and partnership in each of the african countries that she visited many others were asking why not us because they were all anxious to see the new team you'll hear also from our assistant secretary who also was on that very important trip  thousand and nine and president unveiled two new programs that will change the landscape and deepen u s support for long term sustainable development on the continent the global health initiative is a six year sixty three billion dollar program which includes the forty eight billion authorized from pepfar initially plus an additional three billion for pepfar to make that fifty one billion and the remaining of the sixty three billion to help the partner countries improve health outcomes through strengthening health systems with particular focus on improving the health of women newborns and children the u s global food security initiative is a welcome paradigm shift back to strong investments in agriculture development as a means to increase food security and as a critical element of long term sustainable development in four regions of the world particularly in africa while programs have significant impact on the continent another program which has a major impact on africa as the millennium challenge corporation another program started during the bush administration the majority of the m c c contacts are with african nations eleven active compaq's out of twenty there were  twelve contacts in africa however madagascar was suspended following the recent cool wendy initiative while these initiatives are certainly very strong signs of u s focus africa many challenges remain politically in the area of democracy and governance and conflict which warrants an ongoing discussion of u s policy my concerns over somalia sudan nigeria and elsewhere  known so i will instead highlight troubling issues of three other countries more emerging with problems ethiopia somaliland engine booty i'm deeply concerned troubled about the deteriorating conditions in the a p r d f regime is becoming increasingly a few weeks ago the government began to jam to voice of america program and a prime minister compared the v a to the hate radio colleen the radio station which was used by the rwandan government who committed the genocide in rwanda this is just unbelievable my concern continues for the deteriorating condition of mrs the who testified right here before this committee and continues to languish in prison and ethiopia along with hundreds of others without access to medical care and her situation is deteriorating as we speak i hope to learn more today about what our policy is towards th government of somalia and in february handed over a woman named misess a registered refugee had somaliland to ethiopian security forces a few years ago she was arrested and tortured by eth security and her husband was executed and there is a delegation visiting from somalia currently and hope to learn what the united states position is on this case and somaliland more broadly i'm also peacekeeping missions in africa there are seven such missions spanning the same number of countries these peacekeeping operations have a critical role to play in some of the most volatile areas in the world among vulnerable populations that have extraordinary violence and human rights violations their personnel to this highly laudable undertaking are to be commended for doing so but they must also accept responsibility for ensuring that military when we did the authorization in zero five we addressed this issue one provision amended the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking to include an assessment of measures that respective countries are taking to ensure that their nationals who are deployed abroad as the statutory provision and in fulfilling the purpose for which it was implemented it is deeply disturbing that the problem of sexual exploitation and trafficking by peacekeeping personnel not only continues but it's however i must express grave reservations with respect to certain aspects of the president's global health initiative the reauthorization of being debated in two thousand references to integrating and providing funding for johnny carson passed a carson serves as assistant secretary of state for the bureau of african affairs at the department of state has an established career in the foreign service is previous he state department ambassador carson sir served as the staff director for the house africa subcommittee from nine hundred seventy nine to one thousand nine hundred two and he was a peace corps volunteer in tanzania from sixty five  sixty eight right at the inception a few years after the inception of the peace corps during his career and basket of course from a c several awards including the department of state sapir honors award and the center for disease control's champion of the prevention award ambassador carson i was a bad arts and history and political science from drake university and a master's of art and it's an ass relations from the school of oriental and african studies at the university of london second we have mr earle gas senior deputy assistant administrator for after at the united states agency for international development as a senior assistant representative to the united nations agencies in the room he also held posts in iraq and kosovo as a master's degree in political science and middle east studies from george embarked on an eleven day trip to africa including stops south africa angola the democratic republic of the congo nigeria liberia  positive looking africa policy build on five principles that reflect our find the work that we have been doing over the past year first we will work with witnessing the beginning of a democratic recession they point to flawed presidential elections over the last five years in places like kenya and zimbabwe the attempts by leaders  testify on you said work in africa today when i appeared before the subcommittee last april i discussed positive trends on the road ahead for africa unfortunately some troubling political trends continue to have a negative impact on the continent development the unsettled political landscape in zimbabwe increasing restrictions on political space in ethiopia evidence of democratic backsliding in senegal in each of the settings for governance and political instability directly undermine the prospects for a better future for africa's children by twenty twenty five africa's population will exceed one billion persons and the ability of each state to respond to its people's needs will be tested like never before you say it is undertaking major programs to address africa's critical interlace challenges of chronic health issues persistent food insecurity poverty climate change and weak governance each of these priorities is tightly linked to the others failure in one area will limit our progress in others but by addressing these issues in an integrated manner we hope to see an increasing number of democratic african countries with lower poverty rate i don't want to know that are on a sustainable path of growth and that are less dependent on foreign aid despite the extraordinary progress we've made in  dressing critical health threats in africa they persist and at an unacceptable alarming rate that is why president obama has reaffirmed our commitment to combat these threats with a sixty three billion dollar global health initiative as you and others have mentioned mr chairman over the next six years we aim to prevent twelve million new cases of hiv around the world cut the numbers of tuberculosis cases in half and prevent three million child deaths the feed the future initiative is another new groundbreaking effort aimed at significantly and sustainably improving lives every day sees new challenges to meeting the world's demand for food feed the future will help us achieve a permanent solution to food insecurity where every person in a society has access at all times to enough food for an active and healthy life but because of africa's heavy dependence on natural resources and agriculture food security is inextricably linked to climate change by two thousand and twenty fluctuations in weather may have the yield of rain fed agriculture in some of africa's countries you say its approach to climate change in africa includes integrating adaptation approaches into our bedrock development programs we also plan to expand investments in predictions and analysis that identify vulnerabilities early enough in order to mitigate threats we will then use this information to coordinate responses with other actors but in each of these areas good governance will be critical to making changes sustainable consistent with the president's vision usage efforts at promoting better governance are an integral part of our development agenda with seventeen elections scheduled in two thousand and ten we find ourselves with a uniquely far reaching opportunity to support democratic transformation and sustainable development in africa we know that africa's challenges extend beyond the given election and that elections are a mere snapshot of democrat democratic trends they're certainly not the whole story but that's why we work to strengthen the rule of law improve governance support a dynamic civil society and promote a free and independent media these elements of democracy are just as important as the ballot box voices need to be heard systems need to function impartial justice needs to be dispensed and human rights need to be protected every day and not just on election day and this is the foundation for long term democratic change in less than a month the first multi party elections since one thousand nine hundred six will be held in sudan the process has been halting and concerns are multiplying but the elections are requirement of the two thousand and five comprehensive peace agreement which ended long and bloody civil war if we dismiss the importance of these elections out of a fear of an uncomfortable outcome and we are letting down the people of sudan and risking an ominous downward spiral if elections are not held crucial two thousand and eleven referenda on the future status of southern sudan and would almost certainly be derailed as well and should the referenda be significantly delayed or cancelled there is a very real possibility that would once again launch into a devastating war our commitment to helping the sudanese secure a peaceful and stable future for their country has never been more critical amidst all of these events it's easy to overlook the quiet incremental successes also taking place considered of the democratic transformation underway across southern africa during the past eighteen months angola botswana malawi mozambique namibia south africa and zambia all experienced elections although these elections still face challenges there steady democratic progress stands in sharp contrast to the chaos and discord of neighboring zimbabwe united states support for the process of democracy will be critical to creating and sustaining environments like this where it can grow and thrive in concert with  simultaneous commitments in health food security and climate change we are confident that we will soon see africa begin to realise its full development potential before i conclude i would like to note that today is world  administrator shaw introduced our global tuberculosis strategy which aims to expand treatment and control over the next five years tb is curable and our strategy pledges  continued commitment to ensure that people around the world have access to the care and treatment they need thank you mr chairman ranking member smith and other members of the committee for your time thank you very much  encouraging the government of as well as the opposition parties to act responsibly during the election campaign  during the election itself we do not want to see a repetition of the violence that followed the flawed elections of two thousand and five in which the opposition felt that it had not been treated fairly protested after the elections and a number of opposition leaders were killed in the stop of we think that it is incumbent upon the government to do everything that it possibly to ensure that the playing field is level in the run up to the elections be an opportunity for the opposition parties to participate prior to the elections in their campaigns and that they be allowed  everyone be allowed to vote freely and fairly on election day we certainly don't want to see the violence that we saw five years ago we have  was approximately three weeks ago i met with prime minister mellish for over an hour and a half approximately one hour much thank you for your testimony and for statements which were very very good i mean i have half a dozen questions i guess for coming back after the vote but let me just start off with what i left off with in my opening organizations that will be funded see it as their mission to bring abortion on demand to those countries while you may not want to answer respond but you know i authored the child survival revolution and then back in the early one nine hundred eighty s i mean you're thirty years which provided oral rehydration therapy which provided fifty million dollars into that fund because it was all about the child survival revolution in franchising protecting event that happens every one of us and i do believe there are people in the room disagree people on the panel who disagree but i do believe that abortion is a violence against children and this statistics clearly show imposes serious harm upon women disability in many parts of africa as we all know as a death i work with a number of groups right now in both kenya as well as nigeria that are working on autism because so many of those children once  they manifest autism are hurt severely with disability like i said it is often a death sentence for some of these children in the developing world we are going to see more disability and it's absolutely is interested in in trying to have some dialogue and that last last year i know you or your proposal may be an effort to try to resolve some of the issues there and there are some issues that we've raised with the president in prison persons cetera however we've always been able to have a dialogue and a discussion and i know that the government of your tree has has offered to send a delegation to washington a number of occasions including a letter that was sent to the president last year and i thank you madam got a copy of it and i understand it the tree and government issued a visa for your deputy last week so i just wonder what kind of prospects do you feel there may be for the attempt to get some constructive dialogue with the government of the tree and prospects some dialogue government in order to find a way to encourage it to play a much more productive role in the horn of africa one of the most volatile regions on the continent  and was also like myself rebuffed we have three sets of issues of concern with our relationship with the retreat one is a prevented him from making speeches and participating in embassy related activities and they have done the same thing to our personnel the government of your tree has also interfered lawyers or with anyone else and we do not know even today what their status is we have insisted on more than one occasion that these individuals are in the local employees  the government can do a number of very very concrete things in one of the three years that i've mentioned that would indicate that they are serious about addressing some of the major any of its citizens the way they treat employees who have been in jail for more than a half a decade without access to lawyers visitation privileges from their families thank you very much i couldn't agree with you more that there are certainly a number of grievances and we've visited there too and tried to get some breakthroughs however one of the problems that i do confront is that we do have it seems like different policy this is of course proceeding you're just been there for six or eight months but the same things will happen in ethiopia and we've had the closest relationship during the past six to seven years with a government that puts people in prison lots of women  people has actually murdered a person in front of their spouse violated the border agreement between ethiopia tria but you know we've just continued to have a a relay there's been no no resolution it to general assembly to sanction the opiah and so we we have this balancing act bad it makes it difficult in some instances you know wrong is wrong and all wrong should be right and we should have a policy against countries and people that do the wrong things but it can't be selective and i think it's just got to be unilateral and let me just because i'm going to take ten minutes because i want to get my colleague ten minutes and won't get into that that in regard to djibouti are our friends and there seems to been a reduction as i mentioned mopar marks from the development o really have been some of our greatest supporters and i just wonder if you could bring me up to date on that and secondly with the want to be assistance to the might want to handle that but mr gast i'll ask you about djibouti and its assistance development assistance and even there's a question in my eyes or thought and that south sudan was also cut in development assistance for south sudan as they try to put a pair for the possibility of becoming a nation took twelve minutes so we'll have the responses and then i'll yield to my coll support and in the last six months we have initiated two new instruments supporting the in carrying out services to people in mogadishu building capacity at the same time that people get services  fourteen days over the period of six months and one of the things in looking at these countries and others that i would like to focus on and look at is the development of africa and  vours countries seems as though as i spoke to a number of heads of state they are concerned about their development capacity building so that people can have jobs and creating a economy  you know enough participating in that along with some of the other things that i think that have been talked about but they often has said that when we look at what the united states does and that very thankful especially in aid that we give with reference to other areas but they don't see as much participation as a additional participation in regards to the overall economic development the growth of businesses the growth example you know we're a nation of just of a couple of ten fifteen twenty twenty five years old and ask where was the united states when it was ten twenty five years ago and you know they need some room to grow not talking about countries on the continent of africa to rank as an upper middle income country and to me that's a remarkable status given the fact that it was just over fifteen years ago that the south african majority gained its independence which is what i'm talking about relatively new democracy from white minority rule under apartheid and i believe that we should support the republic of south africa's efforts to grow and in so doing continue its role as a regional power and actively promote regional peace and stability but there's been much discussion lately about a potential three point five billion dollar world bank loan to ask for the so called supercritical coal fired power plant in south africa including also some seven hundred fifty million dollars for wind and solar power with investments i'm concerned that in the discussion the significant development impacts the impeding energy crisis in south africa's role as an economic engine of the entire region has been and or can be lost it is also worth noting that this would be the first supercritical coal plant on the continent using falk tina technology than many plants in operation the united states and even cleaner than some plants currently that under development in the united states so i was wondering could you speak to this and whether the united states who will support this project in south africa that which is critically needed for them you know i thought energy is concerned e  move backwards given that there's a transitional seems to be a transition in the government right now could you tell me your feelings what's taking place in nigeria you know does it look like it will be a smooth is putting as its top priority one of the top priorities of the integrated development and integrated development approach to africa to reduce imbalances and funding and also on balance is an approach as ambassador carson mentioned in his opening statement approximately seventy cent of families in africa are dependent on agriculture in one way or another with the food security initiative and also with our general increase in economic development resources we're doubling the amount of resources from two thousand and nine to two thousand and ten in economic development and that will allow us to do some of the things that we had done in the past that  were proved to be successful and that includes working with governments to to create a pro business environment the regulatory environment the policies and laws it's to create demand for reforms  among civil society as well as private sector organizations that will go hand in hand with the support that we're providing we're going to be providing on increasing ag markets both in country as well as in the regional basis as well as the support that we will be providing in agriculture on increasing production so i think i think that's something that this administration should be very proud of and i think we will be seeing some very positive results and i would say that with the exception of last year there has been sustained economic growth of about five and a half to six percent on the continent and this is something that we can build on  moving on to south africa you mentioned the three point five billion dollars coal fired plant that the government is proposing i think it would add some three thousand four hundred megawatts to the grid there environment and they're really hit the hardest not that we want to see any increase however i think that's just certainly kept in mind and i also mentioned it to some of our leadership that i think we should l r a and the sudanese regime and at that time there were reports of an l r a commander who had surrendered and he told of the efforts to link  which is john prendergast enough project is a pretty reliable organization and they reported that a contingent of the lord's resistance army had taken refuge in areas of south your assessment there organization the enough project really seems to have a handle on a lot of information i met with him this morning on some other issues regarding tony and some of these challenges for but i think if they file a report that there's a contingent of the l r a that taken refuge there in an area controlled by the regime let's make sure that sudan doesn't give this organization room to breathe because in the past it has and so this is one thing i really think that sometimes the guy on the ground that lives and breathes you know has access to information that we may not have and i'd also like to discuss the millennium challenge corporation that you mentioned senegal and half a billion that it received it was a lot of money and there are problems as you pointed out people don't talk about it the way they once did used to be we look at this impressive african model and i think now we've seen a presidential payment to an i m f official we've seen north korean built statue of the president has a personal financial interest and of course concerns about corruption throughout the government   as far as i can tell the m c c hasn't come to you and asked that you weigh in on its concerns about drift away from transparency or issues thank you ambassador carson and let me just finish my last question if i could and that's on commercial diplomacy and we have had several conversations about this in the past simply must get complicated problem but we want to make sure that our our state department officials on the ground have the resources they need and again a besar carson thank you for your great work for this country  to allow the first panel believe but you can see the tremendous amount of interest that we have there dozens of more questions i certainly would have liked the vast as well as the rest of the team but let me thank you for  for your patience and for the wealth of information that you've given us we look forward to working closely with you see there's a tremendous amount of interest from the turnout that we had here and people still being here and so we will stay in communication and if we have some additional questions we will have five days to get them to you thank you all very much for sharing well now i have our we now have our second panel our second panel will consist of four persons and our first palace alread their background information many of you are no strangers to us actually none of you are strangers to us but we'll spar with them bassett our lineman who is and senior fellow at the council on foreign relations and currently adjunct professor at georgetown university during his time at the council on foreign relations he served as the ralph bunche senior fellow and director of africa policy studies embassador lyman has an extensive career and diplomacy which includes to ambassador ships in nigeria and south africa and served as deputy assistant secretary of state and the director of the department of transition to democracy he holds a doctorate philosophy and political science from harvard university second and has been the ambassador to nigeria and south africa's already mentioned missed to see les has worked with i fest for the past nine years serving as country director for both haiti from two thousand and one to two thousand and five and liberia from two thousand and six to two thousand and nine before joining this to see late served as a country director for haiti and kenya at the national democratic institute where he directs the usa id funded programs with civil and governmental entities served as african les received his bachelor of arts in international affairs politics from catholic university of america he has also published several articles in the africa report washington post and christian he served this co chair of the africa expert group on foreign policy advisor on the foreign policy advisory team and a member of the presidential transitional team for president obama's two  thousand and eight campaign during the clinton administration dr shneidman served as deputy assistant secretary of state for african affairs where he managed economic and commercial issues in sub saharan africa snyman is the author of engaging africa washington and the fall of portugal's colonial empire and a ten year strategy for increasing capital flows to africa a joint effort by the corporate africa and issued to the commission on capital flow to africa dr snyman holds a doctorate of philosophy and international relations from the university of southern california and has commented projects and nine hundred eighty seven he has extensive experience in elections monitoring and training in sub saharan africa including the elections process in kenya south africa and guinea mr simkins has worked with the s house of representatives serving as a professional staff member for the subcommittee on africa global human rights and international operations under then chairman smith from two thousand and five to two thousand and six and in one nine hundred ninety seven networks including the africa democracy network and the us civil civil society coalition for african trade and investment mr simkin maintains africa rising two thousand and ten a blog exploring current african issues thank you very much gentlemen and we will start with  in the africa bureau which of course it is trying to redress is going to make it difficult to those three new bi national commissions because they take a lot of work and a lot of time and they are very important and vital i would mention the increased threat of drug trafficking through africa and alarming linkage of drug trafficking terrorist groups smugglers and the corruption that goes with that which is a very dangerous  our leverage from that assistance has diminished and by that i mean that the largest share of our assistance to africa now seventy five percent of it is in life saving programs child survival emergency food these are very commendable programs and we can be proud of them but these are not the kind of aid that you can turn off or cut back on even one recipient countries principles of democracy or human rights and i think we're meanwhile the european union undermines a promising development of africa's regional economic commission and hurts us trading opportunities with its proposed economic partnership agreement and there's been no effective response from the u s we could discuss that more let me comment very briefly on the country situations that you asked me to comment on south africa ministrations making very good progress on improving what has been a strange relation with south africa under former president topple mbeki and president zuma has reversed the positions that he took that mbeki took on aids which is a a big step forward however there's concern in south africa over drift in economic policy over the president's refusal there to abide by requirements for reporting its financial holdings and requiring other officials to similar account and worries over the independence  which have resolved some of the issues in that interview on nigeria very quickly you know with the crisis and we talked about it but let me just say that beyond the crisis there are underlying problems in nigeria and perhaps the biggest danger in nigeria is the danger of becoming irrelevant in all the areas that we think nigeria is important other countries  more serious failure to develop its own infrastructure power supplies etc means that factories are closing people are becoming unemployed there's a serious problem in the commitment to commission with some positive proposals some public private partnership to help develop the infrastructure and mobilize the capital using the food security initiative to revive nigerian agriculture and that we go on to public diplomacy engaged in the business community and civil society in supporting these efforts ethiopia you've talked about that it's a conundrum ethiopia isn't valuable in our counterterrorism program it's becoming one of africa's most populous and influential countries china india saudi arabia and other countries are investing their companies all over the world for oil and mineral crawling all over the country but for all the leverage ethiopia is one of the major recipients of u s aid to africa but eighty four percent of that is in a child survival and emergency there is no room for playing with these chairman payne and ranking member smith thank you for inviting me to testify at this important hearing timely hearing on u s policy toward africa one of the most important issues on the african continent is the relative poverty of the nearly one billion people who live there it is critical to realize that while conditions in many of the fifty three nations are simply unacceptable vital progress is being made one of the most important two thousand and the onset of the global economic recession in two thousand and eight there was a virtual plateau in the number of people entering poverty in africa in fact there were one point to me and fewer people living in poverty in two thousand and five than there were in two thousand and two which suggests that africa is poised to enter a new era of growth productivity and opportunity mr chairman it is against this background that i would like to respond to the issues that you asked me to address and to make several suggestions on how the administration congress u s companies and civil society might build on these important trends the african growth and opportunity act continues to be the  essential framework for u s african economic and commercial relations nevertheless in the ten years since it was passed into law its promise as a stimulus to the creation of light industrial manufacturing and job creation remains to be fulfilled my recommendation therefore is to have congress provide an exemption from u s taxation for bonafide foreign direct investment income earned by u s companies outside of the extract of sectors doing manufacturing or service business in any ago eligible country this would be a great stimulus for american investment in africa and would contribute to growth domestically by encouraging companies to repatriate capital to the u s it is also estimated that for every dollar deferred under this arrangement there would be an additional five dollars of african income producing the administration is to be congratulated for its effort to create bi national commission with nigeria south africa and angola and structured correctly these commissions can make a genuine contribution to the deepening of relations and then hansing specific objectives in each commission however i would urge that there be a finance working group to consist of record representatives from from exham opec t v and the us private sector and appropriate individuals from the partner nations not only would this increase the impact of the commissions but it would provide invaluable support to american companies seeking to enter or expand in africa's most significant market regional economic integration is at the forefront of africa's development agenda and it should have more prior on our own agenda for the region to help achieve this i would recommend that this is the secretary of state for africa and business and economics to them in a straight or for africa usa and the assistant trade representative for africa as a group on a regular basis with the heads of the regional economic commissions in africa along with the economic commission for africa at the african union right to say that his administration would make the millennium development goals americas development goals the reality for sub saharan africa however is that a number of countries will fall short in a number of areas and meeting and fifteen deadline set by the international community for one there is a financing gap of an estimated twenty billion dollars a year on aid to africa the immediate question for the  is how will it respond to those countries who do not meet the m d g's of course we cannot wait until two thousand and fifteen for the answer we need to begin planning for the never the bull now it is vital that the state quadrennial diplomacy and development review and the strategic development review being drafted in the white house provide clear direction to this most important question on the issue of education school enrollment in africa is among the lowest in the world african governments and africa's partners need to invest more resources in education at all levels on the president's african education initiative which allocate six hundred million dollars to benefit eighty million children through scholarships textbooks and teacher training programs is an important beginning but we have to do more and do it with urgency this is why i support the african higher education expansion and promote and improvement act of two thousand and nine that will provide africa with long term assistance to improve the capacity of its institutions of higher education to partnerships with institutions of higher in education in the united states hopefully this bill will pass in this session of congress let me close by underscoring the need for a concerted effort by the public and private sectors to work together to enhance mutual interest over the last several years i've been involved with the africa china u s trilateral dialogue established to explore ways in which the united states and china can work in common effort in support of africa's development objectives this unique initiative is a collaboration of the solomon foundation the council on foreign relations the brand her foundation in south africa and the chinese academy of social sciences in beijing last month in liberia we had the fourth meeting of the trilateral dialogue and this focused on corporate social responsibility and economic development participants included president import bank and the china head on international cooperation group which has infrastructure projects in need african countries all participants agreed that corporate social responsibility targets must be a clearly stated part of all contracts that governments moreover it was apparent that companies contributing to health education and job creation need to be part of the national dialogue on development goals and that it is up to government to monitor compliance we feel that the trilateral dialogue has a great deal of potential to enhance us chinese cooperation in africa and would encourage the obama administration and the chinese government in conjunction with the in your opinion how do you rate the democracy democracy and civic involvement those countries now the words have you do you feel that there's been progress overall when you look back or would you say there's been a decline in those two very important most important countries on  problem i think that the remedy is very clear they've had studies on what to do about electoral reform they've had studies on how to develop the delta i think everybody in nigeria knows that the much more foresight and a long term commitment to nigeria and i think that's going to be a difficult thing to do i think we can encourage it i think civil society ironically very active more active than i was there for sure and you have a lot of institutions operating but they haven't really had an impact and the business community ironically doesn't press better economic policy stays out of politics it doesn't press for greater  could slip downward if they don't grasp the fundamental problem they're going to have to start with electoral reform and they don't have much time before the next election and then they've got to move from there in many way in south africa i think a lot of progress in the sense that the markets in the constitution have held up fairly well the courts have been strong particularly the constitutional court elections have been carried have to be some revitalization of commitment and perhaps some serious thinking with an outside of it as to how they get back to some of those exciting principles that we all also having to be in the military one party dictatorial government is moving toward democratic difficulties yes but do we stop support i would say no because i think togo cobol and the democratic republic of congo are three countries that the children of the previous of the previous ruler have come in and have you  us phenomena where families tend to get into politics and the middle east also i guess morocco and some other egypt it seems like is in waiting  syria has to replacing there there parents have you seen any kind of improvement or do you have  over and sharp as anybody you've ever met asking tough questions of business leaders that said it was very inspiring and moving and the question is are they going to have an opportunity to do the things they were talking about at this administration is looking at the food security initiative much like bush administration looked at that far much like the clinton administration ago or we haven't seen it i haven't seen it happen yet  and i'm concerned about this i'm concerned number one that the leadership is in the department of agriculture against the department of agriculture whatsoever but i think one knows the way you drive policy is really from the white house the state department and i haven't seen that interagency team emerge yet to give this initiative the definition that it requires secondly addressing the issue of food security is a multifaceted proposition not only are we talking about irrigation but we're talking about trade we're talking about farm to market we're talking about road infrastructure so i am concerned here in the early days that the initiative has not been defined well enough and the leadership is not yet policy that he was following and you also spoke of your testimony in terms of action stronger endorsement for effective corporate social responsibility practices as embodied in the global principles  s government recognizes that in the coming year the number of patients in need of antiretroviral treatment will increase dramatically but the u s government is committed to continuing treatment for those already enroll programs is not expected to increase in the regional groups because these are cross border problems and you need to develop cooperation across borders among these groups and i think that we need a lot more attention to get at this problem and strengthen the  me respond quickly to three of the issues that you raise the first is the notion of a democratic recession in africa my first reaction is hearing my colleague talk about twenty countries are going to have elections this year in africa doesn't strike me as as much of a recession but i think more fundamentally i think we have to be very carefully about talking about africa broad brushstrokes with as many nations as are on the continent fifty three some countries are doing better than others some countries do better at this selection than they did the last one to do better in the future and i think the challenge to those of us who are partners with the continent  civil society or government is how to maximize the better outcomes i think a basket alignment has described quite graphically and accurately the decline in the quality of elections in nigeria having said that maybe in zimbabwe you know elections there have not been strong elections at all actually could play a role in alleviating this crisis in the in the coming months and years if we can get those elections so i think we have to guard against broad brush generalizations and really talk about specific countries and what are the natures of the democratic challenges let me talk about trafficking in persons i've had some experience first to applaud your initiative and your energy in bringing this to the forefront in my work i deal with american companies give them strategic advice in that in their investments in africa and i've dealt with some oil companies in the jury angolan equitorial guinea and in each one this is been a very important issue and the companies take this very seriously and the dynamic that happens is when the report comes or is about to come the dialogue with the state department increases quite dramatically and with the embassy and with the host governments it really helps to elevate the whole dialogue as it concerns the creation of shelters as it concerns radio advertising as it concerns posters and it's not perfect by any stretch but it certainly has the attention i think of critical stakeholders and i can only encourage you to sort of continue your efforts because it is taken seriously by some of the companies that i work with and i think it does have an impact on the ground certainly in the dialogue between our embassies and the government as for microcredit i think a lot is going on there and i think we've learned a lot starting with the grameen experience in bangladesh and organizations well my concern where there's a lag is is in the small and medium enterprise i developed a liberia enterprise development fund with mr bob johnson who put up three million dollars we're able to leverage twenty three million dollars from opec and that fund is now giving out loans in the area of thirty and forty and fifty and a hundred thousand dollars and this helps to create companies that can employ can and fifteen twenty fifty people in that have real growth potential my concern with the micro credit as important as it is it's really sustaining you for today it's not really building for tomorrow and i think we have to give better thought how the micro credit can we roll into the s m a level and how we address that as semi level in a more systematic way across the continent because the appetite is so strong and the environment is increasingly there for what i look at as enterprise lead development where people want to start companies they want to join companies and they understand that the government is not an answer to their job search be rude were not accepting of those results they went to the streets and as i said earlier if we had given support to zimbabwe from the onset we probably would not have seen this that brings me to the stay but this is a very important hearing we've been attempting to get the assistant secretary here for some time and so you made history because you're here with him at the hearing before  as you know we've been pushing education for the girl child elementary secondary and i would certainly like to once again request my great friend the ranking member to take a look at the bill and we're trying to get a great co move forward in our policies here in the united states congress at this time i consent for members to have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and therefore at this time the meeting