Bill Gates cast as Ben Affleck's heroic sidekick in lobbying for Africa aid

Ben Affleck and Bill Gates testified before the Senate on Thursday, with the actor plugging his new Batman movie, joking about sitting next to “the greatest and most important philanthropist in the history of the world”, praising Starbucks – and describing how coffee could remake the economy of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It was Affleck’s fourth time before the Senate. He had been summoned to discuss the importance of US foreign aid in Congo, where an organization he founded, the Eastern Congo Initiative, is trying to rebuild the country’s coffee industry.

Testifying alongside Affleck was Gates, the Microsoft founder and richest man in the world, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has set a goal of helping to end African dependence on food imports within 15 years.

“Thanks for having me follow the greatest and most important philanthropist in the history of the world,” Affleck told the appropriations subcommittee panel. “I’m sure I’m going to come off great.”

The witnesses testified to the crucial value of the more than $50bn the United States disburses annually for overseas poverty and hunger relief. The Republican senator Lindsey Graham, the committee chairman, called the amount “a rounding error” in the $4tn federal budget.

“To those who constantly demagogue foreign aid as being at the root of our financial problems, please stop,” Graham said. “Because you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Affleck opened his testimony by pointing out that the ranking member on the committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, had appeared in a Batman movie.

Affleck will star as Batman in the forthcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Leahy had one line in 2008’s The Dark Knight.

“I would be remiss not to recognize my co-star in Batman,” Affleck said. “Your role was marginally smaller than mine, but I understand you were quite good. Good morning, sir.”

Gates said US aid had “a major impact” in improving agricultural productivity in the world’s poorest nations. “Given that 70% of all people living in extreme poverty are in rural areas, and most are engaged in farming,” he said, “the renewed US commitment to agricultural development represents a very sensible, cost-effective approach to reducing global poverty.”

Affleck said that Starbucks had just purchased 40 tons of coffee from eastern Congo – the entirety of the first export of an industry cooperative supported by his organization – for consumption in the United States. Congo’s coffee industry, once among the world’s largest, was destroyed by two decades of conflict and has shrunk to less than a tenth of its former size.

“That’s a clear testament to what’s possible for Congo,” Affleck said of the Starbucks purchase. “This isn’t charity or aid in the traditional sense. It’s good business.”

Affleck’s Eastern Congo Initiative arranges financing for Congolese farmers and grants for grassroots organizations, including schools and aid outlets. In 2008, Affleck explained his early work in the region in a report for ABC News’s Nightline program.