Today, it seems, we will talk about the things that President Bush is haphazardly jamming (or trying to avoid jamming) into his final year in office. I turn now to the follow-up from President Bush's late-to-the-party trip to Africa earlier this month.

First, I came across this Brookings analysis a few days back. In it, Homi Kharas offers a reality check, taking quite a few of our nation's proudest African achievements down a peg. Perhaps the most damning is the unfortunate reiteration of the old trope that Africa takes when we give, and we don't give what Africa wants. In this case, it's health-related assistance, rather than investment in infrastructure, jobs, business development, etc:

But surely one can at least be proud of the focus of the U.S. aid effort in combating priority health needs? Even here, the verdict is mixed. Health is a major concern of Americans, and hence it is easy to get domestic support for health-related aid. But it is much less of a priority for Africans themselves. Afrobarometer, the leading source of data on public attitudes in Africa, has conducted polls in 7 of the top 10 African countries which are major recipients of U.S. aid, asking thousands of Africans their views on the most important development issues. Respondents in these countries--Zambia, Mozambique, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda--systematically said that their priorities for development were for more jobs, better incomes, support for agriculture, and improvements in basic infrastructure like roads, power, water and other infrastructure. Improving health, and more specifically dealing with AIDS, came low on the list, with only 7% mentioning health, disease or AIDS as the top development priority and less than one-third putting it in the top three priorities. Health--broadly defined--only cracked the top three priority list in Uganda and Tanzania, and even there the main priority--either infrastructure or the economy--received more than twice the responses as health. Unfortunately, U.S. assistance in these other, priority categories has declined.

Then today, Center for Global Development's Sara Jane Hise writes eloquently of the ambivalence she felt after seeing President Bush deliver a speech -- which she says "felt like looking over vacation photos with the president" -- about his Africa trip. She notes that Bush painted a picture with "broad brushstrokes" but offered little new information and definitely left out what she was hoping for: "a coherent vision of the reasons for U.S.engagement with Africa and the development process more broadly, and a clear sense of what should be done next."

Well, maybe better luck next president, Sara Jane. At least that's what the One Campaign is hoping for. Today, One told its members about the culmination of its petition drive to ask all the presidential candidates to pledge to visit Africa during his or her first term. After just two weeks, 100,000 names were gathered, and Senators Clinton, McCain, and Obama, as well as Governor Huckabee have all agreed to the request. (No comment from Ron Paul, and no comment from me, despite how easy it is to make fun of Paul.) So at least I won't be writing in 8 years that we're watching President whomever jam all kinds of long-ignored Africa business into his or her packed schedule now that lame-duck-ness has really taken hold. Hopefully.