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• Finally, US AID has a focused strategy for addressing environmental problems in Africa. 

 We are working closely with Africans and our partners to implement that strategy and 

 we are achieving results. However, much remains to be done. 



THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE 



Madam Chair, I could begin my testimony this afternoon by reciting a long litany of 

 environmental challenges that Africa faces and by sharing some numbers with you that are 

 chilling. I hope you will forgive me if I avoid that and simply come to the bottom line. Africa 

 is a large continent with a population rapidly approaching 600 million people. Think of an 

 environmental challenge — any environmental challenge — and it is a challenge facing Africa 

 today. 



For example, we know that the population of Africa is likely to double by 2020. We 

 know that approximately 80 percent of Africa's people depend upon farming in one form or 

 another for their livelihood, and that because of growing population pressures they are being 

 pushed on to increasingly marginal lands. We know that soil erosion and soil degradation are 

 already serious problems in Africa, reducing its capacity to feed its people. And thus we know 

 that in one possible future Africa could be dealing with a rapidly expanding population that 

 desperately seeks to eke out existence on lands that are more and more marginal. 



For some countries, the future is now. Certainly, conflict contributed to the massive 

 famines that we witnessed in Ethiopia and Sudan in the mid-1980s, killing hundreds of 

 thousands of people. 



But today, at peace, Ethiopia continues to run annual food deficits of between 



