We can obviously provide money where it will help, esp. for roads, subsidies to develop indusry, developing health infrastructure, things we like that. We can provide technical advice in developing these plans. We can provide troops or military equiment to end violent conflict if need be.

People are too pessemistic and don't realize how much their fate is tied to Africa's. AIDS has killed 500,000 Americas, about 50x what 9/11 and Iraq have combined. Now that is nothing compared to lack of health insurance or car crashes or saturated fat or smoking, but its worth noting that if we fear terrorists we should fear disease and fear the root causes of terror even more.

Transcript: I mean I’m struck by the difference between the European Union and the U.S.’ efforts at economic development. So the European Union, by having a systematic process, was able to assimilate dozens of countries that were communist societies, and in the course of a relatively small number of years, really work with them to create a market system and a good society in Poland, in Latvia, in Lithuania, in you know, you name it. And yet the U.S., this wonderful economic power, was not . . . has not really been able to do anything remotely as effective with Latin America, or Africa, or some of the continents that we’ve had an interest in. And so I think we’ve brought some of this on ourselves; and I think . . . I can’t quite understand why the U.S. has had such a limited and narrow view of its role in assisting other nations and enhancing their societies, but I think we’re paying the price for that. The U.S. has actually been the extraordinary driver of many of these changes in the global economic system, certainly.

Recorded on: 6/11/07

the theft of africa's natural resources, diamonds and amethyst, has kept those regions in constant turmoil just to be able to totally control said resources. no one, to this point, has tried to take a genuine stand against the diamond industry directly. embargo on, not just in the u. s., but a world wide ban on trafficking in diamonds.

Transcript: I think it’s too late to do that, you know? It’s a similar kind of thing. I don’t think . . . I’m not sure what I think about pulling out of . . . troops out of Iraq now, you know? You can’t go in and stuff up a country. And then when the going gets tough and the pressure is on, leave and pretend it didn’t happen, and you know leave this country in a mess. I mean I don’t know if staying helps either. But I think it’s a similar sort of thing with the West’s relationship with Africa. They are too closely intertwined at this point, and the West is too closely implicated in where Africa is at now thanks to colonialism. You know the West got rich off of it and is still rich off of it. And so I don’t think it’s something the West can just walk away from and say, “Okay, well you guys figure it out,” because yeah, it’s just . . . it’s too late. How you go about structuring that relationship so it’s not paternalistic or it’s not opportunistic I don’t . . . I’m not quite sure. But I definitely think there should be still doing something. And this whole shift to focusing on the Middle East has meant that Africa has suffered in the sense of foreign aid and, you know, just general interest in, you know, funding projects in Africa. And again it’s sort of evident of the West kind of ___________ just drop something and move on to the next sort of disaster area. And I don’t think that’s ethical.

Recorded on: 12/6/07

Transcript: Botswana, I think, by many accounts has been very successful in terms of managing, for example, AIDS . . . HIV/AIDS. They sort of very early on __________ public acknowledgment of the disease and early public health measures ___________ and made it much more manageable. I mean the regions are just so different and so politically different that it’s . . . it’s almost impossible to say. But I’ll tell you ____________ West Africa certain countries there, you know, have . . . have, you know, a kind of richness of life that isn’t destroyed by a kind of political . . . absolute political corruption or ___________ leadership. I mean South Africa is complicated because on the one hand it’s like ___________ story of the continent. But on the other hand it has the highest rate of rape and murder in the world. It might be second after Iraq now in terms of the highest number of violent deaths, but it’s first or second. So I don’t know how you reconcile that picture of success story with the kind of realities that people live with day-to-day.

Recorded on: 12/6/07

Transcript: It’s so different in every country and in Africa, you know depending on who was the colonial power. There’s a lot sort of written about the Portuguese colonies, the British colonies, and the French colonies. So I can only really speak for South Africa, but I mean unfortunately it’s . . . the . . . even the phenomenon of Jacob Zuma, it’s a legacy of the kind of damage that was done under a colonial system and a system of apartheid which I wouldn’t call colonial because it was indigenous and then it was Afrikaaner-based. But the rise of nationalism in . . . African nationalism in the ‘40s in South Africa which then led to a system of apartheid came directly out of a colonial system where, you know, the British were just absolutely . . . actually treated the White Afrikaanas as second class citizens. And as a result I think of that humiliation, sort of similar to, you know, Hitler and Germany and the humiliation of the First World War; then leading to the rise of this kind of fascism I think was a very similar situation in South Africa. So colonialism actually led to this rise of African nationalism, which then created apartheid. And now, you know, for decades and decades and generations the kind of . . . the way that apartheid just pulled apart the fabric of South African society, that kind of damage I don’t know if you ever overcome that. And if we now after, you know, being so close to really trying to just make it as a country and keep it together, that’s why this phenomenon of Zuma sort of bothers me so much. Because I actually think it’s the beginning of the . . . of the end for South Africa as we know it as a democratic institution.

Recorded on: 12/6/07

Transcript: I mean South Africa is a really interesting case right now, because I think politically what’s happening is that in the next couple . . . In the next __________ a new African National Congress president will be elected. And whoever becomes president of the ANC effectively becomes president of the country, because they get sort of 65 percent of the vote in any national election. And the front runner at the runner at the moment is this guy Jacob Zuma, who was Deputy President and then got fired because he . . . he was charged with both rape and corruption. He got acquitted on the rape charge, but said the more horrific, misogynistic things during the trial. And (45:44) the corruption charge has been sort of put off, and put off, and put off, and there’s some funny business going on there. But the reason he is interesting is he has massive popular support among low, low, low class South Africans who I think feel that, you know, it’s been too long now since ’94, and they’re not seeing the kind of practical, material change in their lives – houses, running water, electricity. And so there’s a kind of radicalism that’s sort of being fostered at that level. And for some reason Zuma has captured the imagination of these people, and he is now being seen as the antidote to the kind of politicians like Mbeki who is the current president; or a lot of the extreme Iraqi Black businessmen like __________ who is basically a mining magnate. So I think what’s coming to a head now in South Africa is this thing of, you know . . . What’s happened is a lot of the wealth was just sort of transferred from this __________ of elite Whites to elite Blacks, and the people on the ground saw nothing change in their lives. And so there’s a . . . there’s a kind of backlash against that, and so it’s playing out more along class lines now than it is along race lines. Race is still used as a galvanizing factor politically. So you know Zuma will often, I think, use Whites as scapegoats to sort of get people, you know, riled up. But really it’s an issue of feeling like not enough has happened to kind of change the economics of the country in a way that benefits ordinary South Africans. That makes him sound like a much better person than he is. I mean I think this is one of the things that worries me a lot at the moment. It’s like watching a train smash about to happen. And the global community doesn’t really seem to see how terrible it would be if he were to become president. I mean there’s nothing you can do, but I think if he became president South Africa would go the way of Zimbabwe within five to 10 years. I think he would do a land grab. I think he would nationalize all sorts of things. But I think he’s a leader who has absolutely no . . . no qualms about, you know, doing what is best for him. And it scares me actually a lot.

Recorded on: 12/6/07

Transcript: No. Well the thing is first of all, the moral argument to me is strong enough. You’re a human being, and you see a bunch of people suffering, and you have the resources to help – that’s a simple enough answer to me, is help. And if you can think of a reason why not to, then you tell me. But I think that moral reason is plenty. And then once you have that, you’ve established that, then you think of the selfish reasons why you’d wanna help. Think of, you know, how terrorism knocked on our door in New York at 9/11, and you realized that what happens on the other side of the world actually has an impact on what happens here. And all the unrest that happens around the world, a lot of it, a major cause is a battle for scarce resources. Poverty, despair, hunger, unemployment – it feeds a lot of the rage, and the strife, and a lot of the political unrest that happens in these other places around the world. And we know now that that political unrest has its way of finding . . . of finding us where we live in the western world. And so if you don’t believe in the moral logic behind philanthropy, and behind trying to do something about poverty, then at least believe in the security argument and the selfish motives we might have to care about the rest of the world.

Recorded on: 1/29/08

Transcript: Well you don’t regulate it. If it’s going into a state, the states have to make their own regulations, and many of them do . . . some of them more than others. South Africa is a pretty good regulatory . . . Ghana is pretty good. Mozambique is working on it. So you have to depend on them to regulate it, and their own regulations concerning telecom, concerning mineral development . . . development of mineral rights, gas and oil rights, these are not insignificant or . . . peoples, nor are they unsophisticated peoples. So they’ll regulate it.

The instability in Nigeria is very much a North-South instability and a tribal instability. And I must say that looking at the city of Lagos, it’s a huge, sprawling city. I’m frightened almost every morning that I’m gonna wake up and see it just exploding. In terms of U.S. money going in, it’s primarily been ___________ money. There are regulations concerning it. There are always funds that when we send funds overseas through our banks, etc., there is a look by our government of who the end user is. So I’m not as worried about U.S. money going to bad people as I am the governments of those various states not making the right use or making the right choices with the monies they have.

Recorded on: 9/14/07

Transcript: It’s a mixed bag. As I read it now, some of the African states are a little leery of sort of the ___________ of the Chinese. I think they’d be somewhat more conscious and comfortable with us. And I know a lot of our investment capital and our venture capital from the United States is going into Africa now – telecom and things of that nature – because the markets are growing rapidly.

Recorded on: 9/14/07

Transcript:  Absolutely not.  There are humanitarian reasons why we shouldn’t.  There are also, as I say, cold calculations of national security.  The humanitarian reasons have to do with the infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS, which has been a terrible scourge for that continent primarily.  And it could be a great scourge for all the rest of us if we don’t try to contain it.

On the cold calculation aspect and on the security side, there are tribal and ethnic disputes.  There are religious disputes.  There is extremism.  Tanzania and Kenya come to mind in those . . . the embassy bombings.  So there are . . .  Somalia right now.  There are good foreign policy reasons why we ought to engage in Africa.  And here’s one that perhaps you don’t know.  The African continent as a whole grew at over 5% in economic rate last year and the year before.  So there are economic reasons to get involved, and there are energy reasons – all of which are understood by the Chinese who are trying desperately to get involved.

Recorded on: 9/14/07

Transcript: Yeah. I’m afraid nothing very meaningful will happen in Darfur unless the United States has a small presence. And I’m not talking about necessarily carrying rifles and separating the combatants; but sort of a headquarters outfit. The United States has a way of coalescing efforts, and people take it seriously when the United States gets involved. And I’m one of those who thinks we should be involved. But there are plenty of others with rifles who could separate the combatants; but I think without our sort of action forcing an event, nothing meaningful will happen.

Recorded on: 9/14/07

Transcript: I think there are probably two. Darfur is the one that’s gotten me very unhappy because it has . . . It’s got everything. It’s got energy avarice. It’s got inhumanity. It’s got tribal and racial aspects. It’s just got inhumanity on a grand scale. And so I think we ought to step up and take a look at that. To some extent all of us are our brothers’ keeper. And the other is the question . . . the whole question of infectious diseases. In some ways in Africa, we . . . George Bush doesn’t get any credit. He’s put four times as much money into this as any other president, and he’s had some . . . some success in some of the infectious diseases. HIV/AIDS is still a real problem. And it . . . He doesn’t get enough credit for it, and therefore he doesn’t get enough . . . with the next administration, he doesn’t get enough sort of psychological award to really continue this great effort and this great struggle.

Recorded on: 9/14/07

Transcript: First of all we aren’t just throwing money at the . . . at the problem. We’re throwing resources at the problem. It costs money, but we don’t just hand out cash to people. We’re going in there doing specific interventions. One of them is to improve the farming methods and the agricultural techniques to increase the yield of the farmers. Another is to prevent malaria by using bed nets, and to fight malaria with an $.80 cure that anybody in the western world could afford, but it doesn’t get to a lot of these folks in the developed . . . the developing world. So we see that millions of people are dying every year due to malaria, and we know that cripples those communities. And we know that if you do a lot of other interventions, it’s not gonna work if everyone is still dying and people aren’t healthy enough to work. And so we figured that providing malaria prevention and cures for malaria was important. Also providing ARVs for AIDS sufferers to allow them to live a meaningful life and live a longer life that many people in the western world with HIV and AIDS are able to live. We figured that was important. We also believe that getting them access to clean drinking water is important. And getting young people into schools and getting them a meal during school is important. So we’re not throwing money at the problem. We’re throwing . . . We’re spending money to bring solutions to the problems. We’re not just throwing cash at it. And I think that’s important. But I also believe that what Mr. Yunus is doing is really important too, and I think it’s working as well. But I don’t think there’s any one cure all solution to poverty. But I think what there needs to be is a commitment, which I don’t think, for instance, our U.S. government has shown a commitment to it. And then once you have the commitment and you really believe it’s an important defining . . . defining problem, and a problem that is one of the more critical issues of our time; once you believe that, then reasonable minds can try different techniques to solve the problem. But at least you have to admit that it’s a major problem and decide that you have to throw a lot of resources at it. It’s not gonna just go away. And I believe that, Jeffrey Sachs believes that, and that’s why we’re working together.

Recorded on: 1/29/08