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EA states risk losing US aid over UN voting
Infrastructure development and maintenance are among projects that benefit from foreign aid in East Africa. Photo/FILE
Posted Monday, February 28 2011 at 00:00
Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda will lose US aid under a proposal to punish countries that often take stands contrary to those of the US, in the United Nations General Assembly.
The Bill sponsored by Congressman Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, states that a country will be deemed ineligible for development assistance if it opposed the US position on more than half the votes during a General Assembly session.
Mr Gohmert has presented this proposal unsuccessfully in each of the past few years.
It has almost no chance of winning approval this year either, but it does call negative attention to US foreign aid at a time when such assistance is under threat from budget-cutters in Congress.
“This sends a strong message to aid recipients that their support for US priorities will affect future decisions in allocating foreign assistance,” declares Congressman Jim Jordan, a Republican leader in Congress. “It is important to show foreign countries that the US will stand up and defend our principles.”
An annual report compiled by the State Department indicates that Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda each voted contrary to the US position more than two-thirds of the time in 2009, the latest year for which such comparisons are available.
Kenya sided with the US on 28.1 per cent of General Assembly votes; Tanzania on 32.3 per cent; and Uganda on 22.4 per cent.
The average for all 53 African countries was 27.4 per cent. Seychelles (57.1 per cent) was the only African nation that voted with the US more often than not.
Ethiopia, at 8.6 per cent, had the lowest degree of coincidence with US votes among the 15 countries in the world that received more than $300 million in American aid in 2009.
Israel, which agreed with the US position on 97 per cent of General Assembly votes, ranked highest among the 15 countries.
The average incidence of support for US positions among all 192 UN member states was listed at 39 per cent in the State Department report.
That study also examines UN member-states’ positions on 12 issues said to be important to US interests.
The three East African countries took the US side more frequently on those dozen votes.
Kenya and Uganda both agreed with the US on 37.5 per cent of the key issues, while Tanzania supported the US position on half of them.
Kenya and the US differed on a condemnation of the American embargo against Cuba, on a proposal concerning a UN committee on the rights of Palestinians and on global efforts for the elimination of racism.
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