Upon return from his trip to Africa with Bono, O'Neill reported his findings to the President. Progress on fighting poverty and disease on the continent, O'Neill wrote, was much too slow. "A significant amount of the foreign aid that has been spent in the last three decades has failed to achieve strong results," he wrote. "It seems to me that aid donors and recipients alike need to set our goals higher, demand more in terms of measurable results, and expect those results to be achieved sooner." He pushed for funding for AIDS and initiatives to provide clean water.