WASHINGTON -- With Congress set to increase foreign development aid to the world's poorest nations by nearly $2 billion, President Bush is overseeing the biggest increase in development assistance since 1962 -- the year after President John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress in South America.
With most of that money aimed at combating HIV/AIDS and creating a new development program, Africa would be the main beneficiary of this latest expansion in foreign aid.
In a turnaround that caught even Democrats by surprise, Republican lawmakers agreed to nearly double the amount of aid money going to Africa. The expansion appeals to such domestic constituents as the Christian right and to foreign allies who have complained for years that the United States has been far too stingy with its foreign aid budget.
"This is a very big moment for HIV/AIDS and foreign aid," said Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a State Department official under President Bill Clinton.
"No one would have predicted that the United States would be putting out this money for AIDS and foreign development," he said.
Under Kennedy, foreign aid for the poorest countries jumped by $4 billion, to $12.5 billion in 1962. This year Congress will add $2 billion, bringing the budget to $8.6 billion, according to figures from the Congressional Research Service, making it the largest increase in developmental and civilian foreign aid programs in four decades.
The impetus behind Bush's new foreign aid programs has been the fear of global terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks and the looming shadow of the AIDS pandemic.
In his 2002 National Security Strategy, Bush warned against allowing Africa to become impoverished and a home to terrorists.
With strong urgings from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Irish rock star Bono, Bush used his State of the Union address this year to announce an increase in financing for fighting HIV/AIDS by $15 billion over the next five years.
At a conference last year in Monterrey, Mexico, he promised to increase America's foreign aid budget by 15 percent a year -- or $5 billion over three years, the first real expansion in more than a decade.
But Republican lawmakers had to be convinced that new aid money would not be misspent by corrupt foreign governments.
