*EPF516 07/13/01
Poverty Alleviation Central Theme of G8 Summit in Genoa, Rice Says
(Also announces Bush schedule in Europe before and after summit) (800)
By Wendy S. Ross
Washington File White House Correspondent

Washington -- President Bush departs the White House July 18 for a six-day trip to Europe highlighted by his participation in the July 20-22 G7-G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, Bush's National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice announced at a July 13 White House briefing.

"The central theme of the summit is poverty alleviation," she said. The President's overall objective for the summit, she said, "is to advance a vision of partnership between the G-8 and developing countries, based on mutual responsibility that will help build a world that is more free, secure, and prosperous."

"The parties will emphasize global economic growth, free trade, and accountability systems of governance as the foundations for effective poverty alleviation," she said.

"They will also stress that poverty alleviation must be a partnership based on mutual responsibility, where developing countries put in place the policies to attract private investment, while industrialized countries ensure that they have the tools to do so."

Bush, she said, "believes that global growth and global trade are of themselves absolutely necessary for poverty-alleviation, and that what the G-7 does to make market access possible for poor countries is perhaps the most important poverty-alleviation strategy of all."

In addition, Bush, while in Europe, "will also build on the progress made during his June trip to advance the European agenda, building a Europe whole, free, and at peace, and working with Europe to realize our common global responsibilities," Rice said.

Since the 1970's the G7 economic summit has been an annual event bringing together the heads of state from the world's leading industrialized nations -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the President of the European Union.

Russia began participating in the summit discussions at the Denver Summit in 1997, and has been included since then, although the leaders of the world's seven most industrialized nations still open each summit with their own meeting.

This year the G7 leaders will meet the afternoon of July 20 and will discuss the world economic outlook, oil prices, "perhaps the launch of a new trade round, debt relief and issues concerning Russia," Rice said.

"A significant focus of that first session," she said, "will be the formal launching of the United Nations trust fund to fight HIV/AIDS throughout the world." United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will attend that event, she said.

That evening there will be an outreach working session and dinner that will be hosted by Italy's President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to provide G-8 leaders an opportunity to discuss poverty alleviation with the leaders of Mali, Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria, Bangladesh and El Salvador, Rice said.

In addition, U.N. Secretary-General Annan and World Bank President James Wolfensohn, as well as the directors general of the World Health Organization, the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Trade Organization will attend the working session and dinner, which together are expected to last about three hours.

Four substantive G8 working sessions will be held the next day, on Saturday, July 21, she said, as well as luncheon and dinner discussions that will cover market access, private investment, education, the Digital Opportunity Task Force created at the 2000 Okinawa Summit, and climate change.

On Sunday, July 22, the 2001 summit will conclude with the issuance of the G8 communique, she said.

It will be the first summit that President Bush has attended, Rice noted, as well as the first summit for Japan's new Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi presided over the last summit in Italy, in 1994 in Naples, which, Rice said, was also the first year that the Russians were invited to attend.

During the Genoa Summit, Bush is also scheduled to have bilateral meetings with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Jacques Chirac of France, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany and Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada, Rice said.

On the way to Genoa, Bush will stop in the United Kingdom, where he is scheduled to have lunch with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace and hold a bilateral meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair at Chequers, the prime minister's country residence.

Following the Summit, Bush will go to Rome where he will hold bilateral meetings with Italy's President and Prime Minister, and meet at the Vatican with Pope John Paul II. Bush will conclude his European trip with a visit with U.S. troops at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, Rice said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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