Botswana’s Future: Reflection on HIV/AIDS, Democratization, and U.S.-Botswana Relations

His Excellency Festus G. Mogae, President of the Republic of Botswana
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Washington, DC
September 21, 2007

PRESIDENT FESTUS MOGAE: Director of Ceremonies, President of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. John Hamre; Dr. Morrison, friends.

I am not half as clever as those who like me would like you to believe – (laughter) – but I’m clever enough to avoid controversial issues – (laughter) – so I’m going to talk to you regarding on the performance of your government in relation only to Sub-Saharan Africa. (Laughter.) I only pass through the Middle East and elsewhere, and therefore, I have no authority to talk about those things. And so, I will confine my remarks to Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, at that.

My delegation and I are very grateful to the Center for Strategic International Studies for this opportunity to interact with friends. In particular, I wish to recognize the tireless efforts of the CSIS Africa Program and its taskforce on HIV and AIDS in helping us to bring Botswana’s problems or challenges to the attention of the U.S. government, the U.S. Congress, and the American people.

I also wish to extend my gratitude to all of you at the center for your continued interest in Africa. Most of you in this room would be aware that I am leaving office in March next year. I would not press you on your sources about that. However, as I move on, as you Americans would say, I wish to take this opportunity to share my thoughts with you on a number of issues, as Botswana’s friends, as Africa’s friends.

Botswana is still one of the countries worst affected by HIV/AIDS. The impact of the scourge on the economy and the people is both evident and severe. The scale of the epidemic has forced us to divert resources away from regular development projects and programs to the HIV/AIDS national response programs, thus making it imperative for us that we look to friends, such as America and others, for support to combat this scourge and keep the country on a sustainable development course.

We are grateful to the U.S. government, believe it or not, because I’m talking about Africa and Botswana. I’m not talking about the Middle East or Asia or Latin America. We are grateful to the United States government, the private sector such as the Gates and the Merck Company Foundations, the Harvard Aids Institute, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and others, and to the advocacy groups, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the American people for their support in this regard.

The assistance we have received and continue to receive from the United States has helped enhance our capacity to effectively respond to the epidemic. In 202 – or 2002, my government launched and rolled out a universal program to provide anti-retroviral therapy freely to all our citizens who needed it.

A program for the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission, PMTCT, is also in place. Thirty-two voluntary counseling and testing centers have been built around the country for free and voluntary testing, which testing is a critical foundation and entry point for other HIV/AIDS response programs. All these initiatives and others form part of the overall strategy for prevention, treatment, care and support, the cornerstones of Botswana’s national response to HIV/AIDS.

These efforts have yielded good results, however modest. Today, over 90,000 patients are receiving treatment under the national ARV program, out of the national target of about 95,000 by the end of 2007. I am confident that we will have reached or even exceeded this target by far by the end of the year. The prevalence rate among pregnant women has declined from a horrendous 37.4 percent in 2003 to 32.4 percent in 2006, a modest decline, but a trend we expect will persist.

We also witness a significant progression of the probability of HIV transmission from mother to child, from 40 percent in 1999 to 6 percent in 2006. This means that at least 94 percent of newly born babies are likely to be born HIV-free, an opportunity to achieve an HIV-free Botswana by 2016. In the face of low mortality rates of about under10 percent among those on ARV treatment, these decreases are suggestive of declining incidence rates in the population.

The modest successes we have recorded in my country, to which I have just referred, and indeed in many African countries, could not have been achieved without United States support under the President Bush’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR. Launched by President George W. Bush in 2003, PEPFAR provided the much-needed budget support to 15 nations, 12 of them in Africa, in order to improve their public health services, especially to address HIV/AIDS.

The fund has, in addition, provided impetus to other donors and major contributors to contribute to international efforts to fight the scourge of HIV/AIDS around the world. The quantum of resources under PEPFAR, a significant amount from a single source by any standard, has helped translate international consensus into tangible opportunity and hope for millions around the world, and particularly in Africa and the Caribbean. In short, America led by good example this time and made a difference and continues to do so.

When we heard the news about President Bush’s proposal to double PEPFAR to U.S. dollars 30 billion in the year 2009, there was excitement around the globe and especially in the developing world, and especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, and especially in black Africa and black Caribbean. There was renewed hope for the many lives that have come to depend on the goodwill of the American people. We now know that there is still hope for our people. The commitment of the American people and their government to fight HIV/AIDS is beyond a doubt, in this instance.

These and other reasons make the reauthorization of PEPFAR imperative and urgent. PEPFAR is now a critical partner in the historic and heroic battle to save lives. PEPFAR has turned despair into hope. PEPFAR has galvanized donor countries and agencies alike to act in concert in the interest of humanity. If the fund is not renewed and replenished, the momentum generated by PEPFAR thus far will no doubt be lost, and the hope rekindled by the generosity of the American people extinguished. I say this to you; that’s what I said to the congressional committee yesterday.

The values that inspired and gave birth to humanitarian actions such as PEPFAR have been evident in other U.S. foreign policy initiatives in and around Africa. Remember, I’m an African. Pro-African initiatives, such as AGOA, the Millennium Challenge Account and PEPFAR, are both innovative in nature and unprecedented in scope.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the main beneficiary of this goodwill, U.S. administrations, especially the current one, have helped lift millions out of poverty, created employment, diversified economies, and built hope out of PEPFAR, the Millennium Challenge account, and AGOA. And I’ll contend that in economic terms, AGOA is the single most important Africa-focused initiative by your government in the last 50 years that has had the greatest impact, economic impact.

I wish to take this opportunity, therefore, to express my government’s gratitude to the Bush administration for including Botswana in AGOA, and for its leadership and courage in regard to PEPFAR and the Millennium Challenge Account. I mention this because although when AGOA was being discussed, we as Botswana were among the African countries summoned to come and give evidence. When it was finally approved, we were excluded from on per-capital income grounds. It was said that our per-capita income is higher than what was the – the target countries that were intended. We were disappointed and angry with my friend Bill and some of the other congressmen at the time, such as Charles Rangel. I felt betrayed, quite frankly.

But anyway, we continued to lobby not only the congresspeople, but we lobbied in the new administration. And some of the few remaining junior Clinton administration officials had agreed with us in our sense of grievance, and so they helped us lobby the new administration, and the new administration considered, and ran to Congress, and asked them to overlook this little per-capita thing. (Laughter.) So they did, and that is why I say I am grateful to your administrations, both the Clinton administration which – and the Congress for initiating AGOA, which has been one of our greatest benefits to Sub-Saharan Africa.

But as Botswana, and as the leader of Botswana at the time, I am particularly grateful to the Bush administration in particular for including us in AGOA. As for PEPFAR, we are perhaps the greatest beneficiary, not only as Sub-Saharan Africa, but as Botswana because we were ahead of the others. We appealed before everybody else, and we have drawn very substantial amounts and benefited from PEPFAR more than our sister republics who were initially hesitant. It’s only that now they are beginning to say, ah, Botswana, you are cheating; you have drawn so much. I said, well, we’re used to being denied. (Laughter.)

Now, of course, there is another one out of which we were excluded, again on per-capita grounds. That’s the Millennium Challenge Account. So I was lobbying on the Hill yesterday and lobby administration officials wherever I meet them, and I lobby friends of Botswana wherever I have a chance to do so as I am doing this morning – (laughter) – because then again we meet all the criteria, every one of the criteria except this per-capita income one. So I told the congressional committee yesterday that they should again overlook this because we are friends of the United States, we in Botswana, we in Sub-Saharan Africa.

For instance, we in Botswana are the only country in Southern Africa that did sign the undertaking not to take Americans to the International Criminal Court. I don’t think any African, black African government us trying to do that, but they did not sign, but we have signed and therefore we were blasted by the opposition in our country and the newspapers. They say well, we are lackeys of the United States. Anyway, I do not know whether we are or not – (laughter) – but only lackeys when it comes to development, development assistance. Well, we know which side of our bread is butter, and if you do wrong things we don’t support you.

And so here, as I say, that I was expressing my government’s gratitude to the U.S. government and the U.S. people for PEPFAR, for the Millennium Development Account, and for AGOA. Of course, these three are very important to Sub-Saharan Africa; they are having a real impact on the ground.

My government is working tirelessly to ensure that America’s positive disposition towards Africa and the excellent relations that exist between the United States and Botswana serve as an anchor for enhanced commercial and investment links. Our shared vision of economic freedom and the free market should also help in forging closer economic ties.

Since political independence in 1966, Botswana has embarked on efforts to create an enabling environment to attract foreign investment, including foreign direct investment, to promote economic growth and diversify the economy. Deliberate government policies were put in place to create a stable political and macroeconomic environment based on predictable policies, to protect property and non-expropriation of investors’ assets, to respect the rule of law, to guarantee the sanctity of contracts, to ensure free repatriation of profits, to promote open dialogue with the private sector.

Why does these things stick together and break the flow of my speech. (Laughter.)

Anyway, I wish to use this opportunity, therefore, to call on corporate America to continue to explore investment opportunities in Botswana, invest in the stability that the country offers, and share in the prosperity and promise of Botswana. The Australians and the Canadians have come in. One has opened a gold mine, the other has expanded and opened a couple of different mines, and they are also building a new patent and method of refining called Antivox (ph). Now of course it’s in testing.

The company, LionOre, which is mainly Canadian and Australian, has now been bought by the Russians. So the other day before left I met the executive committee. We said, oh, the Russians are coming. So they said, we are Russians; we have come to pay Kalizuco (ph). But all these Russians were Americans Canadians and South Africans. (Laughter.) But anyway, they are Russian now. (Laughter.)

Well, as my tenure of office draws to an end, I look back with great satisfaction at my people’s success in building and entrenching democratic governance. Over the last 41 years the people of Botswana, under the leadership of the Botswana Democratic Party, which is my party, and with the cooperation and contribution of the opposition parties, of which there are many, have built a society committed to democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights, including women’s rights, transparency and good governance. I leave behind, to quote a great American statesman, “a country of laws, not of men.” And I feel honored to have been part of this tradition and political architecture.

I leave a party, a country in which institutions and issues are more important than individuals. I am also confident that these democratic traditions, institutions and laws and not men will not only transcend and survive any pitfalls of political evolution, but will thrive and deepen. The people of Botswana, the architects and visionaries of our political experiment have preserved – persevered, rather, and succeeded where many have faltered. They can only move forward. They own our democratic culture and deserve the credit. I was privileged to have been a small part of it.

I will now take questions from the floor.

(Applause.)