Matt Damon gave George W. Bush some major props for his foreign aid efforts in a recent interview with the Atlantic.
Reporter Jeffrey Goldberg pointed out that Bush increased funding for AIDS relief through PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
What ensues is a conversation that's more awesome than it is awkward:
MD: I would kiss George W. Bush on the mouth for what he did on PEPFAR.
JG: How long would you kiss him?
MD: Three seconds. No tongue.
Damon, who was being interviewed along with his Water.org co-founder, Gary White, goes on to point out that Obama should create a PEPFAR for water and sanitation. Damon concedes, however, that if Obama were to allocate money to Africa, he'd encounter backlash given the state of the economy.
"It's a different world now than it was when Bush was President," Damon tells the Atlantic.
In addition to government, Damon and White, HuffPost bloggers, have largely called on non-government organizations, utilities and philanthropists to help fight the water crisis.
Damon and White write in their HuffPost blog that the water crisis should be the next global movement in a similar way to the fight against HIV/AIDS.
The two water activists cite statistics such as the fact that those living in slums pay 7 to 15 times more per liter of water than owners of nearby five-star hotels due to subsidies delivered through unjustly low water tariffs
"In the end we know that we cannot fund-raise our way out of this crisis," Damon and White write. "Ultimately, it will be creativity, innovation, and collective action that will allow us to achieve universal access to water and sanitation, and do so in our lifetime."
Check out more on the world water crisis at HuffPost Water.
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Posted: 04/21/2012 12:45 pm Updated: 04/21/2012 12:45 pm