U.S.-POPULATION: Clinton Aides Gift-Wrap Appeals for Relief

• by IPS Correspondents (washington)
• Monday, December 19, 1994
• Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dic 19 (IPS) - As the Bill Clinton administration pitched its international plans for population and development Monday, the message was clearly crafted for the new boys in town.

But far from flexing their muscles for the benefit of new and empowered Republican lawmakers, administration officials coaxed and cajoled as they appealed for bipartisan backing for global problems.

"Some of our best friends in family planning and women's empowerment are Republican," Sally Shelton, Assistant Administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), told a State Department conference.

And Secretary of State Warren Christopher used the same tack: It was a Republican president -- Richard Nixon -- who launched one of this country's "most ambitious programmes in population control".

Both officials spoke at the conference, 'Bringing Cairo Home: Peace, Prosperity, and Democracy', three months after 180 nations adopted a plan in the Egyptian capital to improve, among other things, reproductive health services, education for adolescents, and the environment.

Shelton insisted that USAID had glad tidings: the agency plans to spend over one billion dollars a year on environmental protection, population stabilisation, promotion of women, and women's and children's health.

But some coaxing may be in order since some leading Republicans who take control of both houses of the U.S. Congress in January have already declared war against foreign aid.

Mitch McConnell, the incoming chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Operations subcommittee, proposed last week to do away entirely with Shelton's USAID -- the country's main foreign aid agency -- and to have the State Department administer such assistance.

McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, also wants money for population programmes and Africa slashed. He said African countries should not expect the 800 million dollars earmarked for the continent, but would have to compete with others for less.

Christopher, however, appealed to Monday's conference of non- governmental organisations and other development experts for ways to build bipartisan support for what he called "a comprehensive strategy of preventive diplomacy -- one that tries to deal not only with today's problems but to ward off tomorrow's crises".

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