They may not be in the headlines, but they should be in our hearts and our minds as we think of the future. No one here, no one in our government, is under any illusions. There is still a lot of work to be done. There are five steps in particular I believe we must take. First, we must build an open world trading system which will benefit Africa alongside every other region in the world.
Open markets are indispensable to raising living standards.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, developing countries that chose trade grew at least twice as fast as those that chose not to open to the world. Trade must not be a race to the bottom, whether we're talking about child labor, harsh working conditions or environmental degradation. But neither can we use fear to keep the poorest part of the global community stuck at the bottom forever. But we can do more. That is why our Overseas Private Investment Corporation in Africa is working to support three times as many business projects in 1999 than it did in 1998, to create jobs for Africans and, yes, for Americans as well.