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Africa: Opening Remarks at Wagagai Flower Farm

January 27, 2012 /EINPresswire.com/ --

Remarks
William J. Burns
Deputy Secretary
Entebbe, Uganda
January 27, 2012


Thank you very much and good afternoon. It's a pleasure to see all of you and I'm certainly very pleased to be here in Uganda. This, as you may know, is part of a week-long trip across Africa that my colleagues and I are taking, and during which I'll also lead the U.S. delegation to the African Union summit in Addis Ababa this weekend.

As Secretary Clinton did in her visit to Africa earlier this month, my trip reaffirms the high priority that the Obama Administration attaches to Africa, and our continuing strong commitment to doing everything that we can to help Africans realize the enormous promise that lies ahead in economics and democratic development, as well as doing everything that we can to help Africans deal with the very real challenges that remain.

We seek relationships built on mutual respect and mutual interest. We approach the partnerships that we want to build and to strengthen with a view toward genuine partnerships; not partnerships of senior partners and junior partners, but of equal partners.

I'm especially pleased to have a chance to visit Uganda. I look forward to meeting President Museveni, as well as civil society and human rights leaders. I look forward to the opportunity to highlight the strength of our bilateral relations on a range of issues, including our strong common interest in promoting regional security. I also look forward to highlighting the American commitment to help Ugandans in their efforts to strengthen respect for human rights, the rule of law, and good governance, which are so deeply in the interests of this country and of this country's future. We have a long history of cooperation and we look forward very much to building on it.

I'm very grateful for the chance this afternoon to visit this health clinic here at Wagagai. Health, as you know, is one of our most important priorities across Africa and especially here in Uganda. Our support for this clinic is part of $400 million in assistance to the health sector in Uganda this past year alone. Our program of health assistance in Uganda is one of the biggest such programs we have anywhere in the world today.

We seek to deepen cooperation with Ugandans in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, and in improving maternal and child health care. This clinic demonstrates the potential of public-private partnerships. It is one of the more than 100 clinics, as the Ambassador was telling me earlier, around the country that we're proud to support, and it helps Ugandans to deal with some very real problems. Right now, for example, 16 Ugandan women die in childbirth across this country each day. That's a devastating statistic. We share the determination of Ugandans to reduce that statistic dramatically. Clinics like this one are an essential part of the solution, and an essential part of a more hopeful future for Uganda.

With that, I'd be glad to take your questions.



Source: Department of State