Jimmy Carter

I liked knowing he was around. I liked knowing of a living former U.S. president with a truly good and kind soul.

I met him in Accra when the Carter Center visited Ghana in 2010 for an update on its successful Guinea Worm eradication program. He was humble, polite, and eager to hear from the embassy and USAID briefers.

It felt very informal and relaxed briefing the former president. He’d visited the country a few years before and was comfortable traveling well beyond the capital. He arrived to meet with us in the company of his wife, Rosalynn.

What a sweet couple. I’m glad they are together again. They were apart too long, and I’m happy for him to suffer no more.

Carter will be remembered for many things, some of it unkind. But looking deep within, even his worst detractors will recognize the goodness he brought to this world.

From his Ghana trip report:

February 15, 2010

Rosalynn, John Hardman, Nancy Konigsmark, and I were fortunate to travel with Carter Center Trustee Richard Blum in his new Gulfstream. The purpose of this trip was to promote health programs in both countries, to attend a regional conference on Access to Information (ATI) in Accra, and help to prepare for April elections in Sudan and a referendum in Southern Sudan scheduled for next January.

ACCRA: Ghana has reduced the level of trachoma low enough for our program to be terminated, and progress on Guinea worm is (finally) very satisfactory. From an original 176,000 cases in 1989, there were 242 in 2009, and although the first three months of the year are the most endemic season, only three cases were discovered through the first week of February. It was obvious that President Mills and all his ministers were familiar with our program and deeply interested and involved in its gratifying progress.

Directed by Laura Neuman of The Carter Center, the ATI conference was attended by 130 ministers and other officials from 20 African countries, plus experts from about 10 other nations. Africa is lagging far behind other regions in guaranteeing its citizens access to information about the activities of governments and public officials. This is a basic human right, and the intense interest in our conference showed a realization that unwarranted secrecy promotes corruption and impedes democracy, economic progress, trust of citizens in their government, and is of great concern to international donors. South Africa has had such a law for ten years, Mali is making some progress, and Ghana has a bill pending in its parliament with excellent prospects for adoption. The recent discovery of oil in Ghana makes this especially urgent to avoid the attendant increase in corruption that usually occurs.

The value of making foreign aid projects fully transparent was emphasized, so that potential recipients of announced schools, roads, or health care could detect the loss of their funds to corrupt domestic officials or to intermediate “contractors” of donor nations. USAID was singled out for special criticism because of frequent failure to publicize prospective funding and compare final results with original plans. On the other hand, it was pointed out that the U.S. passed a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (outlawing corporate bribery) in 1978, and no other developed country has a prohibition or penalty of equal severity to prevent bribery.

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