DATE=03/21/02

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

TITLE=MONTERREY CONFERENCE

NUMBER=6-125613

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=YES

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: Overcoming the economic chasm between wealthy industrialized countries and poor nations, where many people live on less than two U-S dollars a day, is the focus of a development conference and summit in Monterrey, Mexico this week.

President Bush and other leaders will be discussing ways to improve and increase aid to the world's poorest nations. The American press has it own ideas, and we get an editorial sampling of them from V-O-A's ________________ in today's Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: After World War Two left most of Europe in ruins, then U-S Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed what came to be known as The Marshall Plan to help rebuild. Now, wealthy nations are gathering to reassess their current approach to foreign aid. The Chicago Tribune says, if it were an easy problem, it would have already been solved.

VOICE: If spending money were the only answer to alleviating poverty, then rich industrial nations would have long ago used their wallets to lead the poor nations out of destitution, disease, despair and illiteracy. The U-S has spent about one-trillion dollars since World War Two building agriculture programs, schools and infrastructure in impoverished nations. But the results have been disappointing. The level of poverty … is still incredibly high. Nearly three-billion people - - half the world's population - - still live on less than two dollars a day.

Why has foreign aid … failed so miserably? Many of the nations that received it still haven't repaired the self-inflicted wounds that led to their poverty in the first place - - such as price controls, command economies, collective ideologies, official corruption and state-owned enterprises or banks. Until and unless they make essential reforms for self-sustaining economic growth, it will be hard to dispute critics who argue that much of America's foreign aid is wasted.

TEXT: Some editorial analysis from the Chicago Tribune. Still in the Mid West, The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch looks back to the Marshall Plan and its success, as it surveys today's picture.

VOICE: Some 50 years ago, President Harry Truman decried a world in which half the population lived "in conditions approaching misery." … Yet, half the world remains impoverished, with people subsisting on two dollars-a-day-or less. President George W. Bush has moved U-S foreign policy in a promising new direction with the first commitment to boost U-S development aid in more than a decade … [promising] ten-billion dollars by 2006 ...

… The amount the United States spends on foreign aid - - about one-tenth-of-one percent of gross domestic product - - is small in relation to most other industrialized nations. But Mr. Bush's proposals marks an important shift in a foreign policy built almost exclusively on military strength. An expanded and well-targeted foreign aid program can be a mighty weapon against hunger, disease, illiteracy and misery - - conditions that can turn economic backwaters around the globe into breeding grounds for tomorrow's terrorists.

TEXT: Today's Pittsburgh [Pennsylvania] Post-Gazette says, in part, that aiding the poorest nations is both a security and a humanitarian issue.

VOICE: Perhaps even more relevant in post-September 11th terms, the hopelessness defined by these [poverty] indicators fosters the sort of hatred that fuels ethnic, cultural and religious violence around the world. … for all …the complications, foreign aid remains a good investment as well as a humanitarian imperative.

TEXT: In Utah, The Mormon Church's Deseret News in Salt Lake City talks about the "immense" size of the problem:

VOICE: About one-sixth of the world's population - - one billion people - - live on less than one dollar a day. To change that …will require cooperation from the world's more developed nations. The United Nations believes that the current level of development aid - - 50-billion dollars - - needs to double for significant progress to occur. Two of the major contributors, the United States and European Union, promised last week to expend billions more in developmental aid.

The Bush administration conditioned its aid based on efforts to eliminate corruption in developing nations, which certainly addresses one of the main stumbling blocks to progress. Ultimately, developing nations will never overcome poverty until they grant their citizens basic human rights and economic freedom, including the ability to own land. But the prosperous nations of the world certainly can help by providing money and the advice necessary to help poor nations understand what must be done.

TEXT: In Texas, The Dallas Morning News comments:

VOICE: While the world's rich countries need to provide more assistance, and the United Nations' goals are easily achievable, the false notion that money alone cures the world's most persistent poverty is an invitation to trod a dead-end development path. Although much of the world lives on less than two dollars-a-day, it is not solely because the developed nations haven't given enough. Poverty is endemic in some regions because existing political, social or economic systems stifle wealth creation.

…The development debate must complement its focus on increasing international aid with an equally aggressive focus on producing sustainable improvements in health, education and economic growth in poor countries. Mr. Bush is right to propose that the increased U-S aid be linked to countries that establish good governance policies and institutions.

TEXT: The El Paso Times has security and drug trafficking concerns on its mind, as much as third-world poverty.

VOICE: Mr. Bush's visit to Mexico, and then later to Peru … and El Salvador … is crucial for both security and economic reasons. Mexico is the United States' third-largest trading partner. It's Texas' largest trading partner. And yes, Texas border cities, such as El Paso, are now major conduits for Latin American drug-smuggling cartels. …It's clear that the United States must not ignore political and economic problems … percolating in Latin American countries because they do have trickle-down (or in this case an upward flow) effect on the nation, on Texas and certainly on El Paso.

TEXT: With that local perspective on the president's trip to the economic development conference in Mexico, we conclude this U-S Opinion Roundup.

NEB/ANG/TW