Africa
in an Obama Administration
Senator Barack Obama's election
as the forty-fourth President of the United States is, of course, a
historic milestone in America. But it is also a major moment in
African history as well. The president-elect's unique personal
history means that he is the first son of Africa in the diaspora to
be entrusted with the leadership of any major power, much less the
chief magistry of what is still the world's political, military,
economic, and cultural superpower. As I traveled in Africa over the
course of the past year, the excitement of many Africans at the mere
prospect of an Obama presidency was palpable. The spontaneous
celebrations that broke out as word of the Democratic candidate's
victory spread across many parts of the continent, including in
Kenya, the president-elect's father was born on the shores of Lake
Victoria and raised in the nearby village of Nyang'oma Kogelo in
Nyanza Province, attest to the incredible emotional investment which
many Africans have made in the contest and the attention with which
they have followed its vicissitudes. What remains to be determined,
however, is what role Africa will actually play in the foreign
policy of President Obama and what approaches he might adopt in with
respect to the continent.
As an Africanist who has used this column space for more than two
years to make the case for Africa's strategic significance to the
United States, I was always convinced that the continent would have
an increasing prominence irrespective of who succeeded George W.
Bush. And while I had the honor of serving as the Africa advisor on
Senator John McCain's foreign policy and national security team
during the campaign, I believe that, for reasons of national
interests and domestic politics as well as his own personal history,
the incoming commander-in-chief can likewise be expected not only to
continue but to enhance America's already extensive engagement with
Africa.
At a panel discussion on the future of U.S.-African security and
defense relations hosted by the American Enterprise Institute last
month, I argued that there are three potential challenges to key
American interests in Africa which will need to be faced in the
near-to-intermediate term:
The first is, in the context of the ongoing global war on terrorism,
the necessity of preventing of Africa's poorly governed spaces being
exploited to provide facilitating environments, recruits, and
eventual targets for Islamist terrorists. As the 2002 National
Security Strategy of the United States of America noted, "Weak
states ... can pose as great a danger to our national interests as
strong states. Poverty does not make poor people into terrorists and
murderers. Yet poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make
weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels within
their borders." With the possible exception of the Greater Middle
East, nowhere did this analysis truer than Africa where, as the
document went on to acknowledge, regional conflicts arising from a
variety of causes, including poor governance, external aggression,
competing claims, internal revolt, and ethnic and religious tensions
all "lead to the same ends: failed states, humanitarian disasters,
and ungoverned areas that can become safe havens for terrorists."
The attacks by al-Qaeda on the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam
Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998, and on an Israeli-owned hotel
in Mombasa, Kenya, and, simultaneously, on an Israeli commercial
airliner in 2002 only underscore the deadly reality of the terrorist
threat in Africa, as have the "rebranding" and increased activism
and violence of the Algerian Islamist terrorist organization
Salafist Group for Call and Combat (usually known by its French
acronym GSPC) as "Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM) and the
ongoing activities of al-Qaeda-linked Islamists in the territory of
the former Somali Democratic Republic as well as the challenge of
Somali piracy, which events like the September 25 heist of a
Ukrainian-owned, Belizean-registered freighter, the MV Faina, which
was carrying thirty-three refurbished Russian-made T-72 tanks and
other armaments, have served to highlight (see the updated report
this week by the Voice of America's Andrι de Nesnera).
The second is protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic
resources which Africa has in abundance and promoting the
integration of African nations into the global economy. In his 2006
State of the Union address, President Bush called for the United
States to "replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the
Middle East by 2025" and to "make our dependence on Middle Eastern
oil a thing of the past." In 2007, according to data from the U.S.
Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration, African
countries accounted for more of America's petroleum imports than the
states of the Persian Gulf region: 969,722,000 barrels (19.8
percent) versus 791,928,000 barrels (16.1 percent). Moreover, most
of the petroleum from the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of West
Africa is light or "sweet" crude, which is preferred by U.S.
refiners because it is largely free of sulfur. While production
fluctuates, the significance of Africa for America's energy security
cannot be underestimated. And it goes without saying that U.S.
planners have not been oblivious to the fact that other countries,
including China, India, Japan, and Russia have been attracted by the
African continent's natural wealth and recently increased their own
engagements there. Although we should avoid the path of
confrontation and, indeed, seek cooperation in areas where our
interests complement, both our mutual benefit and that of Africans
we need to also be vigilant that there are no monopolies or
preferential treatment. Africa must have an "open door" to the
world.
The third, which arises out of both the calculus of national
interest as well as the inherent moral strain in American foreign
policy, is empowering Africans and other partners to cope with the
myriad humanitarian challenges, both man-made and natural, which
afflict the continent with seeming disproportion not just the
devastating toll which conflict, poverty, and disease, especially
HIV/AIDS, exact on Africans, but the depredations of the continent's
remaining rogue regimes. The United Nations Development Programme's
Human Development Report 2007/2008 determined that all twenty-two of
the countries found to have "low development" were African states.
While the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism argued that
terrorist organizations have little in common with the poor and
destitute, it also acknowledged that terrorists can exploit these
socio-economic conditions to their advantage. Under this heading the
complex humanitarian emergencies of which Africa has perhaps more
than its share. The ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing in the
western Sudanese region of Darfur whether or not one calls it a
"genocide," as both President Bush and the U.S. Congress did has
already taken a toll of at least 250,000 victims and more than two
million displaced; a hybrid United Nations-African Union
peacekeeping force (UNAMID) is both undermanned and lacking in basic
resources. In the same country, the fragile peace that has existed
between the regime in Khartoum and the government of South Sudan
since the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) brokered with the
help of the United States shows signs of unraveling as the deadlines
for both the 2009 nationwide elections and the 2011 referendum on
South Sudanese self-determination rapidly approach (see my July 15
update on Sudan). Somalia, with the exception of the self-declared
"Republic of Somaliland" in the northwest, remains without an
effective government for over a decade and a half as a growing
Islamist and clan insurgency threatens not only the current interim
authorities (and their Ethiopian backers), but the stability of the
entire Horn of Africa as waves of hundreds of thousands of civilians
flee the conflict and more than half of the remaining 6 million face
what might be the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the region
since the 1984-1985 Ethiopian famine. And while the intensity of the
conflict is lower, Zimbabwe, once the bread basket of Southern
Africa, continues to present a major humanitarian challenge as well
as an uncertain future with the refusal of the Robert Mugabe regime
to implement the power-sharing agreement it signed with the Movement
for Democratic Change and its continual use of violence against its
political opponents.
These relatively fixed considerations of the national interest, I
would argue, virtually guaranteed that either a McCain or an Obama
administration would have built on the foundations laid by its Bush
predecessor whose numerous initiatives including the Millennium
Challenge Corporation, the President's Emergency Program for AIDS
Relief (PEPFAR), the extensions and expansions of the Africa Growth
and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and the establishment of the U.S. Africa
Command (AFRICOM), which became fully operational as a unified
combatant command last month have cumulatively result in the
United States being more engaged with Africa than at any other
period in American history (see my survey of the incumbent
administration's Africa policy). Over the course of the campaign, I
had the opportunity on a number of occasions to speak alongside and
debate Dr. Witney W. Schneidman, the co-chair of Senator Obama's
Africa advisory group. At forum sponsored by the Constituency for
Africa at the National Press Club in Washington last month, we both
had the opportunity to present the Africa vision of our respective
principals (see Dr. Schneidman's "Africa: Obama's Three Objectives
for the Continent" as well as my "Africa: McCain's Vision for
Freedom, Peace, and Prosperity"). While some pundits on the right
have already begun to express reservations about the priorities
which might be embraced by the incoming administration, at least
with respect to Africa policy, I have little to quarrel with the
three fundamental objectives outlined by Dr. Schneidman on behalf
Barack Obama: "to accelerate Africa's integration into the global
economy...to enhance the peace and security of African states...to
strengthen relationships with those governments, institutions and
civil society organizations committed to deepening democracy,
accountability and reducing poverty in Africa."
Dr. Schneidman, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state
for Africa affairs in the Clinton administration, was also quite
balanced in his assessment to President Bush's accomplishments:
But let's give credit where it is due. PEPFAR, with 1.7 million
people in Africa on anti-retrovirals, has been an extremely
important initiative, as has the Bush administration's program to
eradicate malaria and address neglected tropical diseases. It is
often said that this administration's legacy in Africa will revolve
around these programs and the tripling in development assistance
from $2 billion in 2000 to $6 billion today and rightly so.
Nevertheless, the picture is incomplete if we stop there. The
reality is that the bulk of this increase is due to increased
spending on HIV/AIDS, humanitarian assistance and debt relief. In
fact, development assistance to the poorest countries in Africa has
decreased by half in this time frame. Ironically, the percentage of
development going to the best-governed countries has dropped even
more, by two-thirds, in this period. The Millennium Challenge
Account may change this latter trend, given the $3.7 billion in
commitments to ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
As Gregory Simpkins, vice president for policy and program
development at the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation and a former
professional staff member of the Africa subcommittee of the U.S.
House of Representatives, pointed out in an allAfrica.com op-ed last
month, there has been remarkable continuity in recent U.S. policy
toward Africa, with succeeding administrations building on their
predecessor's legacies. I anticipate that that bipartisan tradition
will continue, as my hitherto counterpart has acknowledged it needs
to:
What all of us who are engaged in Africa have in common is a
willingness to put partisanship aside when it comes to advocating
for resources for Africa. There is no question that this bipartisan
consensus, especially in Congress, needs to be nurtured, deepened
and expanded. The consensus was first forged in 2000, when the
Clinton administration advocated for the African Growth and
Opportunity Act. It was enhanced during the Bush administration,
which extended AGOA three times, created the Millennium Challenge
Account and, of course, the $15 billion PEPFAR program. This
bipartisan consensus was evident several months ago when the Bush
administration asked Congress to double to $30 million the amount
that the U.S would spend on AIDS relief. In a stirring act of
American compassion, Congress funded the program at $48 billion with
another $2 million being allocated for programs in the U.S.
I would suggest that that bipartisanship will be more needed in the
coming months than ever. Achieving U.S. strategic interests in
Africa and advancing the just causes like ending the genocide in
Darfur, assuring the full implementation of the CPA between the
Khartoum regime and the South Sudanese, and resolving the conflict
in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo are not
Democratic or Republican causes, but American priorities on which
both presidential candidates largely converged, even if they
differed on emphases (see the responses by both to a comprehensive
questionnaire submitted by the Enough Action Fund, the Save Darfur
Coalition, and the Genocide Intervention Network). However, given
the recent financial panics and the overall climate of uncertainty
with respect to the economy, mustering the political wherewithal to
pursue these consensus goals to say nothing of President-elect
Obama's ambitious Africa agenda, including the doubling of America's
foreign assistance budget to $50 billion per year will require
that Africa's advocates on both sides of the political aisle work
together. And, given the large areas where Democratic and Republican
positions on Africa have overlapped, the incoming administration
might find that Africa policy might be one are where it can most
easily achieve an early success in the drive for "bipartisan unity
on foreign policy" that the Obama-Biden campaign has promised to
deliver.
Just one possible avenue for bipartisan cooperation is ensuring that
the new Africa Command receives the resources it needs to adequately
assume the responsibilities which have been entrusted to it,
including fighting the global war on terror's African front and
managing the military relationships America must maintain with
African countries in order to assist in the building up of their own
security and other governance capabilities. Another is accelerating
Africa's integration into the global economy. As Liberian President
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and DeBeers Chairman Nicky Oppenheimer argued
in an International Herald Tribune op-ed two months ago, "Aid is
good, business is better." While advocating free trade is a
sensitive issue with some elements in the Democratic coalition, the
Obama administration should nonetheless not only seek to open up
additional trade opportunities for African economies under a
strengthened AGOA framework, but it should work to mobilize the
private sector to invest in Africa, creating new opportunities not
only for American business, but also for Africans to achieve their
own dreams. After all, worldwide it is private enterprise,
especially small-to-medium firms, which delivers the sustainable
economic growth which so many Africans and their friends seek to
jump-start. Republicans, whose 2008 national platform strongly
advocated this position, should not hesitate to support President
Obama in expanding trade with Africa. The new administration also
needs to call for an intensified effort by African governments to
eliminate unnecessary barriers, uncertainties, and other
disincentives that continue to discourage both African and foreign
private investors from doing business in Africa. The U.S.-Rwanda
bilateral investment treaty, signed earlier this year by President
Bush and President Paul Kagame, is one of only a handful of such
accords that America has with a Sub-Saharan African nation (the
others currently in force are those with Cameroon, the Republic of
Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, and Senegal)
and ought to be a model which the incoming administration should try
to replicate across the continent.
One additional task that the new administration might undertake is
to develop a comprehensive national strategy for U.S. engagement in
Africa. It's a step that I advocated for during the campaign, not
for political points, but because I am convinced it is genuinely
required as a tool of statecraft. As needed and welcome as the
acknowledgment of select American stakes in Africa and consequent
new programming, institutional design, and personnel deployments
all undertakings which have gotten underway during the eight years
of President Bush's tenure were, these steps by themselves do not
equal what is really required: a high-level national dialogue aimed
at building a policy consensus, captured perhaps in a document,
which articulates American strategic interests in Africa
(especially, obviously, those interests which coincide with the
needs and wants of our partners on the continent), prioritizes them,
defines the vehicles for achieving these objectives, and allocates
the relevant responsibilities. During the campaign, Senator Obama
and his running mate, Senator Joseph Biden, pledged to convene a
bipartisan consultative group of leading members of Congress
including the chairs and ranking members of the Armed Services,
Foreign Relations, Intelligence, and Appropriations Committees to
foster better executive-legislative relations and review foreign
policy priorities. A similar consultative effort, perhaps modeled on
a study body like the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission, ought to be set in motion to consider America's Africa
strategy.
Alongside developing a more comprehensive strategic approach to
Africa, the new administration needs to think about better
coordination of the various governmental stakeholders. While AFRICOM
and other institutions of U.S. government has made tremendous
strides towards achieving greater cooperation between themselves on
the continent, the reality is that National Security Council process
which is supposed to coordinate the action of the interagency
community does little than provide opportunities for dialogue and
information sharing without the ability to actually prioritize and
ensure the resources are forthcoming from individual departments to
actually implement agreed-upon national policies.
Of course, America's Africa policy needs to be a two-way street.
Many Africans I have spoken with over the course of the last
eighteen months or so were not only highly enthused by the Obama
candidacy, but have very high I would even say unreasonable
expectations of what he would do for the continent once he is
ensconced in the Oval Office. The new president and his team will
need to be very careful in their management of these expectations. A
more realistic list of what African leaders would want from the next
administration was ticked off by Jean Ping, the chairperson of the
African Union (AU) Commission, in a speech he gave in Washington
last month:
Firstly, it is our hope that a new U.S. administration will remain
engaged with Africa as it has been over the last few years. This
engagement is illustrated by the establishment of a U.S. mission
dedicated to the African Union Commission separate from the U.S.
mission to Ethiopia. Thus far, the U.S. is the only country with
such a mission in Addis Ababa and the granting of diplomatic status
to the African Union mission in Washington is also unique.
Consequently, it is our hope that strengthening Africa-U.S.
Partnership, underpinned by carefully balanced strategic approach to
U.S.-Africa relations will continue to be maintained.
Secondly, encouraging more regular high-level interactions and
dialogue both on the continent and in the U.S. for first-hand
knowledge of African needs and realities as well as U.S.
expectations, will also be very helpful. This will ensure that the
U.S. is able to act on Africa on the basis of facts and Africa's
real needs.
Thirdly, strengthening institutional working relations between both
the executive and the legislative branches and the African Union
Commission as well as working relations with the newly established
African Union mission in Washington will be well appreciated.
Fourthly, it will be our hope that the U.S. will play a leadership
role in ensuring that global commitments that are so crucial for
Africa's development are duly implemented through the G-8 and other
global fora.
Fifthly, encouraging targeted support to the implementation of
existing African Union initiatives and programs will be, we hope, a
major focus of the new administration.
All five of these are modest enough requests and one would expect
that President Obama would get bipartisan backing for Washington's
enhanced support of the AU and subregional bodies for especially for
such African-led undertakings which truly strengthen legitimate and
accountable governance on the continent, such as the African Peer
Review Mechanism and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD),
which promise so much, even if they have yet to be proven.
While there are strategic and political reasons which will drive it,
there is no denying that the Africa policy of an Obama
administration will be given added momentum by the incoming
president's personal story. What Senator McCain said in his
extraordinarily moving election night concession speech about Barack
Obama "inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had
once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little
influence in the election of an American president" and his
recognition of "the special significance [the historic election] has
for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs"
could be easily be extended to include Africans, both on the
continent and in the diaspora. The excitement sweeping across Africa
now presents the new U.S. chief executive with a rare opportunity to
translate effusive sentiments of good will into a windfall of
diplomatic capital which, if he husbands it prudently, can
significantly advance America's values and interests on the
continent while helping to achieve Africans' aspirations for peace,
stability, and development.
by J. Peter Pham, Ph.D.
World Defense Review columnist
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