Bush hosts international aid summit

WASHINGTON (AP) _ At a time when the global economic crisis is affecting the most vulnerable across the globe, the Bush administration says the United States and other developed countries must honor their commitments to foreign assistance.

President Bush was to make a pitch for continued support to poor nations on Tuesday when he hosts a daylong summit on international development aid. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and musician and activist Bob Geldof are among the attendees.

"Don't let this financial crisis become a human crisis," Geldof said Monday in a statement previewing the event.

The event brings together about 500 representatives of nations — from Africa to Romania — that receive U.S. aid; faith-based organizations; and non-governmental, private and public leaders from the United States and the developing world.

"Given the recent economic downturn, where there is concern that developing countries and their citizens will be more vulnerable, it's more important than ever that we and other developed countries keep our commitments and continue to fund development assistance programs, as well as work to increase trade," White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Henrietta Fore said Monday that in all regions of the world, the Bush administration has doubled, tripled or quadrupled development assistance. She said the administration also has worked to reform U.S. foreign assistance through projects like the president's initiative on HIV/AIDS and the Millennium Challenge Corp., which provides aid to nations that embrace democracy and free markets, fight corruption and invest in education and health.

J. Brian Atwood, dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and administrator of USAID during the Clinton administration, praised the Bush administration's work to link aid with measurable results, although he said the idea actually took root in the 1990s.

But Atwood criticized the current administration, as well as previous administrations, for not coordinating U.S. international aid work.

"They haven't done anything about the basic structural problem, which is that our foreign aid programs are scattered all over the map," he said. "They are chaotic and incoherent and you're not getting the bang for the buck that you would get if you would have, for example, a single Cabinet department running the whole show like they do in the United Kingdom."

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