STRENGTHENING UNITED STATES FOREIGN ASSISTANCE -- (House of Representatives - June 27, 2001)
 

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   The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. MORAN) is recognized for 5 minutes.

   Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words about a national priority that too often gets overlooked: humanitarian and development assistance in our foreign operations appropriations bill. That bill will probably be coming to the floor within the next few legislative days.

   Foreign assistance is an important and effective policy device when words and diplomacy are not enough or when military action is not appropriate. Strengthening U.S. foreign assistance will improve the lives of millions of people around the world and is consistent with America's long history of extending a helping hand to those less fortunate.

   We, and in fact much of the rest of the world, too easily forget the fact that, over the last half century, U.S. humanitarian and development assistance has successfully elevated the standards of living for millions of people.

   More than 50 nations have graduated from U.S. assistance programs since World War II, including such nations as France, Spain, Portugal, South Korea, Taiwan, Italy, and Germany. More than 30 of these former aid recipients have gone on to become donor nations themselves.

   Over the years, foreign assistance programs have helped create some of our closest allies and best trading partners and greatest contributors to the world's economy. For example, the United States now exports to South Korea in just 1 year the total amount we gave that country in foreign assistance during all of the decades of the 1950s and 1960s.

   But despite substantial global accomplishments, as we enter the new millennium greater disparities exist between the wealthy and the poor than ever before. Of the world's 6 billion people, half live on less than $2 a day, and one-fifth live on only $1 a day. That is more than a billion people, four times the population of the United States living on less than a dollar a day. Two billion people are not connected to any energy system. One and a half billion lack clean water. More than a billion lack basic education, health care or modern birth control methods.

   Poverty, disease, malnutrition, rapid population growth, and lack of education paralyze billions of people and extinguish hope for a better future. The world's population grows by about 75 million people a year, and most of them will live in the world's poorest countries.

   If current trends continue, the result will be more abject poverty, environmental damage, epidemics, and political instability; and we are not such an isolated island of prosperity that we are not immune from the ramifications of this desperation.

   From our own shores to the far reaches of the world, there is ample evidence that we have not been able to use our trade policies as effectively as we would like to address the negative impact of globalization which contributes to these great disparities between the privileged and impoverished.

    

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   Our failure to respond adequately to these problems is a moral dilemma that should be a pivotal part of our overall foreign assistance and international trade framework. Consider, for example, the plight of the seriously ill in the developing world. It is a testament to the failure of industrialized nations that 80 times more pharmaceutical products are sold in the much less populace west than on the entire continent of Africa.

   Each year, 300,000 people in Africa develop sleeping sickness, and many of them die from this disease. It is a disease that we could conquer if we had the political will and the research wallet to do it, but we do not. We will apply more of our resources to cure bald American males than African children with sleeping sickness.

   The most shocking global misallocation of health resources, of 

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course, is the HIV/AIDS pandemic. AIDS is a global crisis which threatens the security of every government in every Nation including the United States. This is not merely a health issue, this is an economic, social, political, and moral issue. AIDS has destroyed societies, destabilized governments and has the potential to topple democracies. According to UNAIDS, nearly 22 million people have lost their lives, and over 36 million people today are living with HIV and AIDS. Fewer than 2 percent of them have access to life-prolonging therapies or basic treatment. The number of new infections of HIV is estimated at 15,000 every day, and it is growing. I am told that nearly a quarter of some of Africa's armies are HIV positive.

   In a year when President Bush has requested an $8 billion increase in spending over the current $320 billion defense budget, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for a global AIDS trust fund to raise $7 billion to $10 billion a year to combat the pandemic. That is almost the same figure as the defense spending increase that we would be adding to a $320 billion budget. This has to be a joint effort among governments, private corporations, foundations, and nongovernmental organizations.

   We are ranked last among the 22 OECD countries in terms of what we spend on foreign assistance, and we have got to spend more. It is in our interest as well as in the interest of the rest of the world. If we are going to maintain our position as the world's superpower, the most prosperous Nation in the history of western civilization, then we have got to share our resources. If we do not, we are going to pay a price in the long run.

   These are national priorities, and I hope that they get better addressed in our foreign assistance budget and in our national priorities generally.

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