Press: AIDS Marshall Plan For Africa Proposed at African Summit

Proclaiming that "the day of nickel and diming Africa must be ended," former Congressman Ron Dellums announced a plan for a multi-billion dollar assistance package to Africa.

Dellums was speaking before the Pacific West Coast Regional Summit on Africa, on June 4, the third of five meetings to be held in various sections of the nation, that will be capped off in February 2000, with a National meeting in Washington D.C. The Summit is an attempt to organize a nationwide consensus around programs that would improve the quality of African life. An important focus of the two day meeting, was a series of six workshops, or deliberative groups, each of which produced a position paper on a concern, such as human rights, education and culture, economic development, the environment, peace and security and education and culture.

"We cannot allow Africa to just drop off the face of the map - that is bizarre, extreme, absurd, ludicrous and ridiculous.," said Dellums, who noted that Africa has over 800 million people, and controls seven percent of the world's raw material. Africa also has the world's largest number of AIDS cases.

According to Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who now holds the seat that Dellums occupied for twenty-seven years, about 26 million of the 30 million people in the world affected by HIV, live in Sub-Saharan Africa, where over 90% of AIDS deaths occur.

"Nine million people have already died, with 20 million people dying over the next ten years." Dellums reported, "So I came up with the idea of an AIDS Marshall plan...develop an independent, international entity, that the world community will contribute to, since it is a global problem." Dellums' idea, simply put, is to organize the development of sub-Saharan Africa around a program of eliminating AIDS.

He said that Barbara Lee, his successor, "has introduced this idea in a piece of legislation calling for the beginning fund of $400 million, . $200 million from the private sector in the United States, $200 million from the Federal Government, to begin an international fund of $400 million, that will begin to grow, and ultimately, in my opinion, minimally is going to require two to three billion dollars."

"The reason why I don't talk about putting money in existing agencies, and I'll be very honest about that, I think all other agencies have failed and failed miserably in this fight against AIDS and what we know about institutions, is that institutions who have failed, don't tend to reorganize themselves to succeed, they tend to reorganize themselves to fail in a different way".

"You can't treat AIDS in a vacuum. How do you treat village A or village B, if there are no good roads, that's development. How can you treat people with AIDS if you have no infrastructure--developmental issues. How can you treat people if you have no primary health care delivery system. How do you educate people about AIDS who cannot read--educational system. We must now, take this issue of AIDS, as devastating as it is, and turn it into the Trojan Horse that changes the face of Africa.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who spoke to the Summit the day after Dellums, rounded out his proposal by also describing the bill she will be introducing to Congress that would create the AIDS Marshall Plan of which Dellums spoke.

"This fund would be seeded with corporate and private moneys, calling upon private industry to contribute to the fund and asking our government, the government we pay taxes to, to match these contributions. The fund would also be developed in such a way, as to promote contributions from the G-7 countries, as well as African countries, based on their economic ability."

Both the ex Congressman and the Congresswoman know that it would take a lot of work to get this idea over in Congress. "If you remember," recalled Barbara Lee, "Ron introduced sanction legislation against apartheid in South Africa in many, many, many sessions of Congress, and the legislation passed after many years of hard labor."

Dellums and Barbara Lee were only two of a number of prominent speakers, including Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who introduced Dellums, Alassane Ouattara, Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, and of course the Summit's President, Leonard H. Robinson, Jr., who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, before his six year reign as President of the African Development Foundation. The Summit's Vice Chair, Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, Executive Director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization, also spoke. Also in attendance was Nandi Mayathula-Khoza, the mayor of Soweto.

Aileen Hernandez, Chair of the California Woman's Agenda and past President of NOW, and Dr. Raye Richardson, once Chair of San Francisco State's Black Study Department, and always one of the owners and founders of the Marcus Bookstore, were essential to the organizing of the Summit.

Reginald W. Major
June 22, 1999