Challenges facing Africa's entrepreneurs

BBC

Africa is often seen as a high-risk place to do business, but the continent is increasingly becoming a hospitable destination for investors.

At the start of a special series looking at business in Africa, BBC World Service Africa editor Martin Plaut assesses the challenges facing the continent's entrepreneurs.

Africa's wars, coups and famines are constantly in the news - the image of starving children is what often comes to mind every time the continent is mentioned.

But what about the men and women who are starting businesses, and risking their own money to build Africa's economies?

HAVE YOUR SAY In especially stable countries foreigners are taking advantage. Are they seeing something we Africans are not? Wesley Ngwenya

Despite all the obstacles, growth rates across much of Africa are rising and there are successful ventures to be found everywhere from Mogadishu to Dakar.

It is one of those seldom told stories - the success now being notched up by men and women doing business across Africa.

The results are not hard to see.

Economic growth has been running at a very respectable 4% in at least 15 African countries for the last decade.

Red tape

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, registering a business takes 155 days, while enforcing a contract in Angola involves 47 procedures and takes over 1,000 days

Of course a good deal of the growth can be put down to rising prices of minerals.

Oil is now benefiting countries all along the West African coast, from Nigeria to Angola.

But there is much more to it than that.

From telecommunications and banking to the export of fruit and flowers, Africa is now finding and cultivating niche markets around the world.

Behind these statistics are stories of initiative and drive to overcome the familiar problems of endemic corruption and mountains of red tape.

Business of politics

The absence of a strong business class at independence for many countries in the 1960s was a major inhibition to growth, argues Teddy Brett, of the London School of Economics.

It meant that fighting to control the levers of politics became a key way of winning economic advantage.

And the results are plain to see.

Doing business in Africa is still hard work, as a recent World Bank study indicated.

It showed that out of the 35 least business-friendly countries in the world, 27 were in sub-Saharan Africa.

Some are impossibly hard. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, registering a business takes 155 days, while enforcing a contract in Angola involves 47 procedures and takes over 1,000 days.

All this means plenty of room for the so called "gate-keepers" - the bureaucrats whose palms must be greased to get things done.

Taking risks

As if that isn't bad enough, roads are bad, electricity unreliable and skilled labour in short supply.

But if you succeed, the profits can be large.

South African mobile phone company MTN took a risk and invested in a country as notoriously difficult as Nigeria, but has made a tidy profit.

And the business climate across the continent is improving.

Fresh funding

Promises made by world leaders at last year's G8 summit in Gleneagles are beginning to come through.

In August, Malawi became the twentieth African country to have its debts cancelled.

And fresh funding is beginning to come through, to meet the promise of doubling aid to Africa by 2010.

This means more money for improving the energy supplies and renovating everything from airports to shipping terminals.

This has provided an environment in which business can begin to grow, and it is a challenge that men and women across the continent are starting to take up.

Guinea Takes Control of "Its" Minerals

By Katrina Manson and James Knight
Sangaredi, Guinea, West Africa



"It is not hot news that most African countries possess resources-natural, human, and otherwise that if properly exploited would place African countries as one of the most richest in the world. But most of the continents resources are being exploited and taken to the western world at cheap rates, where they are processed and who becomes the sole consumer of the more expensive end products? The same people who produced the raw material in the first place. What is wrong with investing in Africa? This trend seems to have no end at hand.
Natives of this rural community in Guinea have every cause to become agog, their hearts filled with great anticipation for the future.
But the questions that pops up in mind is "How far will this go? When the need for increased production arises and computers begin to take over peoples jobs...will there still be anything left for these poor people who are devotedly making big sacrifices for their future and the future of their nation?"
We hope that this does not become another case of the Niger Delta in Nigeria; we hope that the plan in place is both efficient and effective, to ensure that these people are not only given fish but also taught how to fish-that they become trully empowered. We hope that this step taken by Global Alumina, will be followed by many more other foreign investors to help develop Africa.
Let us hope and pray that the future for the Sangaredi community, for Guinea, for Africa and indeed the third world will be as bright and beautiful as the smiles on the faces of these people."




Ansata Bah jiggles the baby wrapped to her back. At 13 years old, she has the weight of her world on her shoulders.

In March, she, along with her child, husband and fellow villagers, have to move out of their settlement in rural Guinea, West Africa.

They are making way for a new $3bn (£1.5bn) factory that in 2009 will start to turn Guinea's vast supplies of bauxite into alumina, the aluminium ore from which aluminium is made.

But what could have been a nightmarish corporate attack on village life may prove a blessing.

The project, based in Sangaredi, is giving hope to poor communities desperate for jobs that have for decades seen their region's mineral wealth exploited abroad.

"If I can get some activity, it doesn't matter what - washing clothes, preparing food - I won't hesitate to do it," says Ms Bah.

"Whether it's during the phase of construction or exploitation, anything that I can do to earn money I'll do.

"If I gain work here, living standards will improve compared with now."

Exploited abroad

Despite possessing at least a third of the world's bauxite reserves, Guinea has failed to convert it into a more precious commodity.

Foreign aluminium companies, such as US-based Alcoa and Canadian firm Alcan, mine the rock in Guinea, but transport it abroad for refining.

It means the country misses out on a crucial economic boost: whereas a tonne of bauxite costs about $20 on the world market, spot prices for refined alumina can reach $400 a tonne.

Global Alumina, the Canadian-listed company behind the new plan, hopes to produce 2.8m tonnes of alumina per year from the new plant when it opens in 2009.

Often critical of the motives and priorities of big business in Africa, development organisations are behind the project.

"Nothing of this scale has been done in Guinea before," says Lamine Bangura at Centre d'Appui au Developpement (CAD), a local non-governmental organisation supported by the US-backed African Development Foundation, which has entered into a $10m partnership with Global Alumina to oversee training, construction and sustainability issues related to the refinery in the area.

"It will create a great deal of employment.

"The installation of the factory will bring great development for this community."

Social developments

"Global is a detonator," says Noramou Cece, technical advisor at the Ministry of Mines.

"The company has consulted at the base, family by family, individual by individual, to reassure the population that Global Alumina will listen to them.

"As a result, there is a new spirit taken on by the mining companies that come here - that they must be involved in the development of community at the grassroots level."

A four-year social and environmental impact assessment, one of the most far-reaching of its kind, sought out the opinions of each of the 4,000 locals affected by the refinery.

Ansata Bah is one of the beneficiaries of a $10m compensation package that will see two new villages built, complete with new sanitation, schools and dispensaries, compensation for lost trees and parcel lands, alongside increasing roles for women and the much-hoped-for prospect of jobs.

Ms Bah personally received compensation for her own mango and lemon trees and the palm oil that she makes with the other women.

The women in her village know how much she has received, but she says the men, including her husband, are not allowed to know the amount.

Social change

Bringing an in-depth consultation process to traditional village communities has had far-reaching effects.

Many women have found a voice and independence for the first time.

"Women here are starting to have free thoughts as a result of our discussions," says Marliatou Diallo, women and vulnerable persons officer at Global Alumina.

"Before, women could not even express themselves in front of men, and definitely not take a decision.

"Now they can explain their problems to the men and give their opinions and concerns."

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has partnered with Global Alumina to try to meet the Millennium Development Goals on halving extreme poverty by 2015.

Together Global Alumina and the UNDP will commit hundreds of thousands of dollars for projects including vocational training, developing small businesses and financing micro enterprises.

Global Alumina will also fund mid-wife training and poverty-alleviation programmes.

Job hopes

As Guinea's largest foreign direct investment yet, the whole country is waiting for jobs at the factory with bated breath.

Guinea suffers from chronic unemployment, particularly among young people, and even those with secondary and tertiary qualifications struggle to find jobs.

The economy is in freefall, with spiralling inflation, and the dire economic prospects sparked strikes and protests in 2006.

"We're going to take 3-4,000 workers from this area alone during construction, so that will have a big impact for the inhabitants of this region," says Mamady Youla, Director General of Guinea Alumina Corporation, Global Alumina's subsidiary in Guinea.

"Once the factory starts we will employ around 2,000 people directly, but you must also take into account the indirect employment generated by the project - we expect about 10,000 jobs to be generated in the region."

The Guinean government has realised the importance of the project, and created incentives, including a fifteen-year tax holiday, with no taxes on profits for the first five years, to sweeten the deal.

As a result, other companies, including Alcoa/Alcan, Mitsubishi, Chalco and Brazilian firm CVRD, are looking at the possibility of establishing alumina refineries in the country.

In the long-term, Youla estimates that revenues in the order of $100m could accrue to government every year.

He is pushing for a greater percentage of these taxes to go to the local community. Currently only 0.4% of revenues has to go to the local area, but he would like to see this increased to 5% or 10%.

Better living standards

Souleymane Bah, 70, a village elder from Petoun Djiga, one of the two villages that will be relocated, cannot wait for the project to gather pace.

He received a cheque compensating him and his family for 50 trees.

"We are only farmers, so it's thanks to Global that I ever touched a cheque. We are very content for them to be here," he says.

"I want the project to develop as quickly as possible, he says.

"We ourselves think of development, and that's why we accepted to be relocated.

"If young people can find employment around the project here, then we think living standards will improve."

Oil Gunmen kill Nigerian Chiefs

BBC NEWS

Gunmen in Nigeria's oil region have attacked and killed 12 people including four local chiefs, police say.

When The Foreign Expatriates are gone they turn to the "Local Expatriates", like crocodiles who eat their own eggs. "The popular quote in economics is thus justified: when the desireable is unavailable, the available becomes the desireable".

Two passengers who suffered gunshot wounds during the attack escaped from a boat that was carrying 14 passengers to Kula village in the Niger Delta.

The four chiefs were from the Kula kingdom in Rivers State.

Western oil companies have also evacuated their staff from three oil fields in the area, where kidnappings by armed groups are quite common.

Sources in the Kula community say the attack was prompted by disagreements between local groups over sharing out money distributed by oil companies operating there.

There are also reports that the attack could have been a result of a long-standing chieftaincy tussle.

The chiefs who were killed on Sunday had been in control in Kula over the past two years.

The faction that launched the boat attack are said to have been driven out of Kula two years ago after they challenged the authority of local chiefs to share oil money.

Although all of Nigeria's oil exports come from the Niger Delta, the region remains poor with local groups taking up arms to demand larger control of the oil wealth.

The government says instability in the Delta cost some $4.4bn last year.

Attackers fire rocket at U.S. embassy in Athens

By Karolos Grohmann

Attackers fired a rocket at the U.S. embassy in Athens on Friday but no one was hurt, police and the U.S. embassy said.

Greek anti-terrorist officers were on the scene.

"This was a rocket attack launched from a building across the street. It landed inside a toilet on the third floor of the embassy," a senior police official told Reuters.

"There are no injuries from the blast," a U.S. embassy spokesman said.

The senior police official said Greece's deputy police chief and Athens police chief had gone into the building together with officers of the national security and anti-terrorist squads.

Dozens of police cars surrounded the embassy and police cordoned off all roads in the area, including a major boulevard in front of the mission.

The tightly guarded U.S. mission is surrounded by a 3-meter (9-feet)-high steel fence. Guards are posted at every entrance and at street corners around it.

Local residents called in to state television saying they had felt the explosion, which shattered some windows.

Greece's biggest domestic security threat, the leftist November 17 guerrilla group, which had in the past killed U.S. and other foreign diplomats in Greece, was dismantled in 2002.

In November last year, Greek riot police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators marching to the U.S. embassy in Athens who chanted slogans including "Bush the butcher, out of Iraq" and "The USA is the real terrorist."

In February 1996, unidentified assailants fired a rocket at the U.S. embassy compound in Athens, causing minor damage to three diplomatic vehicles and some surrounding buildings.

Blast at U.S. Embassy called 'Terrorism'

By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS, Associated Press Writer

A rocket was fired at the U.S. embassy early Friday, striking the front of the building but causing no injuries. A senior police official said the blast was an act of terrorism.

Police cordoned off streets around the heavily guarded building after the explosion shortly before 6 a.m. The shell struck the third floor and smashed glass in nearby buildings.

Investigators found the device used to fire the rocket shell at a construction site near the embassy.

"This is an act of terrorism. We don't know where from," Attica Police Chief Asimakis Golfis said. "There was a shell that exploded in the toilets of the building ... It was fired from street level."

Embassy officials confirmed that an explosion had taken place and said that no one had been injured. U.S. ambassador Charles Reis said the damage was "not extensive."

"There can be no justification for such a senseless act of violence ... The embassy was occupied at the time (but) nobody was hurt, he said.

Authorities were searching apartment buildings near the U.S. Embassy and a nearby hospital for evidence.

"I heard a loud bang I didn't realize what was going on," said Giorgos Yiannoulis, who runs a kiosk near the embassy.

Traffic came to a standstill across parts of central Athens, as police and emergency services scrambled to the embassy building, which is a frequent destination for protest groups.

It was the first major attack against a U.S. target in more than a decade, following the arrest of members of Greece's far-left November 17 terrorist group. The group was blamed for killing 23 people — including U.S., British and Turkish officials — and dozens of bomb attacks.

In 2003, a special court gave multiple life sentences to November 17's leader, chief assassin and three other members. Lesser sentences were given to 10 others.

Pelosi bans smoking near House floor

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

Smokers may be one minority in Congress with even fewer rights than newly demoted Republicans. Now they are losing one of their last, cherished prerogatives — a smoke break in the ornate Speaker's Lobby just off the House floor.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., announced a ban Wednesday, effective immediately.

"The days of smoke-filled rooms in the United States Capitol are over," Pelosi said. "Medical science has unquestionably established the dangerous effects of secondhand smoke, including an increased risk of cancer and respiratory diseases. I am a firm believer that Congress should lead by example."

Lawmakers will be free to light up in their own offices. But no longer can they mingle in the Speaker's Lobby in a haze of cigarette smoke during House votes, as they did just Tuesday night while passing anti-terrorism legislation.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, is a heavy smoker, often found at the center of a group puffing away in a corner of the lobby. He had little to say Wednesday about Pelosi's move. Questioned at a news conference, Boehner described it as "fine." He did not elaborate.

Smoking is banned in most federal buildings. The District of Columbia recently barred it in public areas, as has Pelosi's home district of San Francisco and a few other cities.

So congressional smokers will be forced outside — onto the balcony off the Speaker's Lobby, perhaps.

"That's how life is now. They're banning smoking everywhere," said Rep. Devin Nunes (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., an occasional smoker.

The scent of California GOP Rep. David Dreier (news, bio, voting record)'s cigars has filled the third floor of the Capitol, especially during visits from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Dreier took Pelosi's decision in stride.

"I like to have an occasional cigar in my office," Dreier said, but "she's the speaker of the House, she can make these kinds of decisions. ... No one wants to encourage smoking."

The news had not filtered to everyone early Wednesday. There were still ash trays in the Speaker's Lobby and around noon a House official sank into an armchair and lit a cigarette. Informed about the hours-old ban, he made his way to the balcony.

By the time the first House votes came in the late afternoon, the ash trays had disappeared.

"It was so bad I couldn't even come into the Speaker's Lobby," said Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), one of the House's most vocal opponents of smoking, breathing deep to relish the clear air. "The whole place was quite polluted," said Waxman, D-Calif.

Capitol Hill smokers have seen their habitat shrink for more than a decade. In 1993, then-Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash., banned smoking in hallways and other public areas. Last year, smoking was banned within 25 feet of the entrances to House office buildings.

Reminders of the days when tobacco was king remain throughout the Capitol.

Tobacco was a leading export of the early colonies and a mainstay of the economy well into the 20th century, a fact recognized in the tobacco-leaf motifs carved into the top of many of Capitol's columns.

Cigarettes can be purchased in a House store and are sold by the carton at a sundry shop underneath the Hart and Dirksen Senate office buildings where the phone is answered, "Hart tobacco shop."

There is no smoking in public areas near the Senate floor. New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record) is trying to get rid of cigarette sales at the tobacco shop.

Admitting Strategy Error, Bush Adds Iraq Troops

Culled From MSNBC

Bush says 21,500 new troops will help quell violence, hasten homecoming

Defying public opinion polls and newly empowered Democratic lawmakers, President Bush told Americans Wednesday that he is dispatching 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. And in a rare admission, he said he made a mistake by not deploying more forces sooner.

“The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me,” Bush said in a televised address from the White House. “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”

With American patience running thin over his handling of the war, Bush said he would put greater pressure on Iraqis to restore order in Baghdad and used blunt language to warn Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that “America’s commitment is not open-ended.”

“If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people, and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people,” Bush said.

Bush said his new strategy, in which Iraqis will try to take responsibility for security in all 18 provinces by November rather than just three now, “will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings” and other violence.

But he said the increased military presence would help break the cycle of violence gripping Iraq and “hasten the day our troops begin coming home.”

Bush said that 17,500 troops would go to Baghdad and 4,000 to the volatile Anbar province, Senior administration officials said before the president spoke that the first wave of troops is expected to arrive in five days, with others joining about 130,000 U.S. troops already in Iraq in the coming weeks.

Bush’s decision will push the American presence in Iraq toward its highest level and puts him on a collision course with the new Democratic Congress.

Democrats: Strategy bound to fail
Democratic congressional leaders said shortly after Bush spoke that Bush's failure to impose a deadline on the Iraqis to assume responsibility for their own security doomed the initiative to failure.

“Iraqi political leaders will not take the necessary steps to achieve a political resolution to the sectarian problems in their country until they understand that the U.S. commitment is not open-ended," said the statement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democratic Whip Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. "Escalating our military involvement in Iraq sends precisely the wrong message and we oppose it.”

Anticipating such reaction, Bush warned in his speech that “to step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear that country apart and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale.”

Senate and House Democrats are arranging votes urging the president not to send more troops. While lacking the force of law, the measures would compel Republicans to go on record as either bucking the president or supporting an escalation.

Usually loath to admit error, Bush acknowledged in his speech that it was a mistake to have allowed American forces to be restricted by the Iraqi government, which tried to prevent U.S. military operations against fighters controlled by the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful political ally of al-Maliki. This time, the president said, al-Maliki had assured him there will be no such interference and that “political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.”

The president also accused Iran and Syria of allowing use of their territory for terrorists and insurgents to move in and out of Iraq and vowed, “We will interrupt the flow of support from Syria and Iran. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

Ahead of a visit to the Middle East by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bush said Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Persian Gulf states needed to understand that a U.S. defeat in Iraq ”would create a new sanctuary for extremists — and a strategic threat to their survival.”

Last chance to sway public opinion?
After nearly four years of bloody combat, the speech was perhaps Bush’s last credible chance to try to present a winning strategy in Iraq and persuade Americans to change their minds about the unpopular war, which has cost the lives of more than 3,000 members of the U.S. military as well as more than $400 billion.

Bush’s approach amounts to a huge gamble on al-Maliki’s willingness — and ability — to deliver on promises he has consistently failed to keep: to disband Shiite militias, pursue national reconciliation and make good on commitments for Iraqi forces to handle security operations in Baghdad.

“Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents,” the president said. “And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.”

He said American commanders have reviewed the Iraqi plan “to ensure that it addressed these mistakes.”

Bush said that under his plan, U.S. forces will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations.

‘Clearly defined mission’
Responding to concerns from U.S. commanders, Bush said American troops will have a "clearly defined mission" to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, assist in the protection of the local population and “to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.”

While Bush is putting the onus on the Iraqis to meet their responsibilities and commit more troops, he did not threaten specific consequences if they do not. Iraq has missed previous self-imposed timetables for taking over security responsibilities.

But the president said that the risk of troop reductions at this stage of the conflict would be grave. “Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States," he said. "A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them.”

But Bush warned that his strategy would, in a short term he did not define, bring more violence rather than less.

“Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue, and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties,” he said. “The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will.”

‘Casualties are going to go up’
Bush’s warning was echoed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leading proponent of a troop increase. “Is it going to be a strain on the military? Absolutely. Casualties are going to go up,” the senator said.

Bush said he considered calls from Democrats and some Republicans to pull back American forces. He concluded it would rip Iraq apart.

“Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay even longer and confront an enemy that is even more lethal,” the president said. “If we increase our support at this crucial moment and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.”

Still, Bush said that “America’s commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act.”

In a signal that al-Maliki intends to make good on his vow to clamp down on Shiite militias, senior Iraqi officials told the Associated Press shortly before Bush spoke that al-Maliki had warned militiamen loyal to al-Sadr to surrender their arms or face an all-out assault by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces.

“Prime Minister al-Maliki has told everyone that there will be no escape from attack,” said a senior Shiite legislator and close al-Maliki adviser. “The government has told the Sadrists: ‘If we want to build a state we have no other choice but to attack armed groups.”’

Al-Maliki had previously resisted issuing an ultimatum to al-Sadr, a close political ally.

The U.S. move to ramp up its presence in Iraq came as there were indications that a key ally in the war was scaling back.

British reportedly to scale back presence
London's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that Prime Minister Tony Blair is preparing to announce that Britain will cut troop levels in Iraq by almost 3,000 at the end of May. The newspaper, citing a timetable for withdrawal that it said it had seen, said Blair would make the announcement within two weeks.

The withdrawal would reduce the 7,200-strong British force based in southern Iraq by about 40 percent.

The cost of the troop increase would be around $5.6 billion, administration sources said before Bush spoke. An additional $1.2 billion would finance rebuilding and jobs programs with the aim of cutting down on the supply of new recruits for anti-government militias.

The $6.8 billion will be added to a broader war-spending package for fiscal year 2007 that was already expected to hit $100 billion. The current fiscal year is on track to become the costliest yet for the Iraq war.

Many of Bush’s own Republicans expressed unease with the idea of a troop increase, noting that an effort last year to try to stabilize Baghdad by adding troops was followed by more violence.

“I don’t know the numbers, but we’ve done 20,000 before,” Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, told CNN. “It has made no difference because the Iraqis whom we have trained have simply not shown up to the fight. This is their fight, it’s not our fight.”

It will be different this time, White House counselor Dan Bartlett responded.

“I think the concerns they’re raising is because in the previous attempts the Iraqis hadn’t stepped up with the number of troops that they said they would commit,” he said. “That is going to be a difference this time.”

One official said Bush believes there is a need to “muscle up to step back.” They expect that by summer, perhaps August, they can gauge whether the strategy is working.

GOP leaders vow support
Republican leaders emerged from the meeting promising to back Bush. “The fundamental decision to stay on offense and to finish the job, I think is correct,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

But many of their own were growing restless. “I do not want to embarrass the president, but I do not support a surge” in troops, said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who said he told Bush as much last week.

But Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican who is eyeing a presidential bid, on Wednesday released a statement opposing a troop increase. That puts him at odds with two other prominent Republicans gunning for the White House: Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

After nearly four years of fighting, $400 billion and thousands of American and Iraqi lives lost, approval of Bush’s handling of the war hit a record low of 27 percent in December, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Among other steps by the United States is expansion of an existing program to decentralize reconstruction efforts. Ten units known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams will be expanded to 19, with the additional units based in Baghdad and in Anbar province, seats of most of the worst violence. The teams, under State Department control, will administer some of the economic aid, including an effort to provide small loans to start or expand businesses.

The president ignored key recommendations of the bipartisan, independent Iraq Study Group, including that he include Syria and Iran in discussions about efforts to staunch Iraqi bloodshed, the official said. Instead, he will call for increased operations against nations meddling in Iraq, aimed at Iran and, to a lesser degree, Syria.

The president’s address is the centerpiece of an aggressive public relations campaign that also includes detailed briefings for lawmakers and reporters and a series of appearances by Bush starting with a trip Thursday to Fort Benning, Ga.