Snapshot: U.S. Policy Toward Africa
October 28, 2005 - Africa Action Baraza 2005
by Ann-Louise Colgan
As we approach the end of a year that was much hyped – particularly in Northern countries – as a “special year” for Africa, the Baraza provides us with an opportunity to assess the developments of recent months – to evaluate the promises made, to examine their context and to discuss where we go from here. Of course, this year also marked the beginning of George W. Bush’s second term as U.S. President, and we have seen a good deal of continuity in his Administration’s policies toward Africa this year.
In fact, I think our theme of debunking myths is especially important when it comes to U.S. policy toward Africa, for this is an Administration that has really been quite successful at portraying itself as a champion of the continent. The self-styled “compassionate conservative” President is hailed by many as one who has done a great deal for Africa, with numerous initiatives to address poverty and promote development on the continent.
I think many of us in this room would dispute that assessment, as would many around this country and across the African continent. Measuring the claims of the Bush Administration against the geostrategic priorities and ideological agenda that drive its Africa policy, we reach a very different understanding of the current state of U.S. policy toward Africa.
There were many international events this year that spotlighted Africa’s poverty-related challenges, and once again the Bush Administration came out with a flurry of new initiatives designed to create the impression that it was addressing these challenges. In June, President Bush announced new funding for education in Africa, as well as new monies to fight malaria, to empower Africa’s women, and to help countries facing famine.
As with previous such announcements on assistance to Africa, however, closer scrutiny revealed these promises to be largely hollow. Some of the money had already been appropriated for Africa, and was thus being re-packaged to appear as new pledges. Most of the money was being promised in future years, which the President was in no position to control or guarantee.
We also heard a great deal this year about how the Bush Administration has tripled aid to Africa, when the reality is that U.S. aid to Africa increased by just over 50% in the first Bush term – and most of that increase went to emergency humanitarian assistance rather than to true development assistance. The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which the President announced in 2002 as a vehicle to increase foreign aid, remains far behind schedule, and only 2 African countries have received any MCA funding to date.
When the Group of 8 (G-8) rich country leaders met in Scotland in July, they, too, offered new pledges to increase aid to Africa by 2010. They also struck a deal to cancel the debts of 14 African countries that have already spent years completing the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. But the UN Summit in September revealed once again how far Africa is from reaching the Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty even by half in the next decade.
And U.S. attempts at the eleventh hour to gut the UN Declaration document and erase any firm commitments to support development in Africa revealed much about the U.S. unwillingness to prioritize these concerns.
As the HIV/AIDS crisis continues to ravage the African continent, the weak U.S. support for the Global Fund to fight AIDS and the ideological bent of U.S. policies on HIV/AIDS have come under fire again this year. At the Global Fund replenishment conference in September, the U.S. and other rich countries again failed to pledge sufficient resources to support new prevention, treatment and care programs in coming years. The Global Fund is doing life-saving work in more than 125 countries worldwide, bit it has again had to curtail its operations and turn away solid proposals because of this lack of financial support.
At the same time, the Bush Administration’s continued emphasis on abstinence-only programs has undermined comprehensive prevention efforts in many African countries. Such ideologically based strings attached to U.S. HIV/AIDS funding have caused consternation among U.S. and African activists. In June, the Bush Administration went even further, decreeing that any non-governmental organization receiving U.S. government funding had to explicitly oppose prostitution. This left NGOs in Kenya and many other countries with no choice but to end their HIV education and prevention programs for sex workers, even when these activities are considered by public health experts to be critically important in combating HIV/AIDS.
The progress this year on the issue of debt cancellation was important, and represented a victory for civil society activists. But the majority of African countries are still left with massive and illegitimate debt burdens that undermine human development and the fight against HIV/AIDS.
As African countries struggle to cope with these challenges, the U.S. has other priorities in its Africa policy.
Primary among these is acquiring access to Africa’s oil. The most recent U.S. Africa trade profile reveals that oil accounted for more than 72% of U.S. imports from Africa in 2004.
U.S. trade with Africa remains highly concentrated among a small number of countries, mainly the big oil producers on the continent – Nigeria and Angola – as well as South Africa, which provides other precious resources like platinum and diamonds. Overall, U.S. trade with Africa was about $44 billion in 2004, up more than 35% from the previous year. This increase is largely accounted for by increased imports of crude oil, and increased exports of oil field equipment and parts.
Aside from oil, the other driving force of this Administration’s engagement with Africa is at the military-security level.
While this trend has been apparent for some time, it was very clearly articulated in a briefing last month by General James L. Jones, Commander of the U.S. European Command before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The General characterized the growing strategic importance of Africa to the U.S. in stark terms, referring to the continent’s “spawning grounds” for future terrorists and illicit activities. He emphasized that a more pro-active U.S. approach to building security on the continent would offer a “powerful inoculation” against future terrorist activity, and he repeatedly noted that African security issues directly affect U.S. homeland security.
General Jones described dozens of U.S. initiatives on the continent designed to develop effective security structures in Africa and boost African governments’ counter-terrorism efforts –
from NATO action on the Mediterranean in North Africa, to the Trans-Sahara Counter-terrorism Initiative – the long-term interagency plan to combat terrorism on the continent. The U.S. military is also working with the AU to develop its operational capability to respond to crises.
This U.S. engagement in military training and security initiatives in Africa is aimed at helping the U.S. achieve its national security goals and win the so-called “War on Terror”. This trend is highly significant. Africa Action and others forecast after September 11, 2001, that U.S. relations with Africa would increasingly be re-cast in a Cold War era model, where geo-strategic concerns trumped human rights and human development. These predictions have since been borne out in the course of U.S. Africa policy.
Perhaps the most stark example of this “strategic” rejection of human rights concerns is in the U.S. response to the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. On the one hand, the White House has acknowledged that what is happening in Darfur constitutes genocide – a crime against humanity. On the other hand, the Bush Administration is anxious to maintain an intelligence-sharing relationship with the government in Khartoum in the context of the so-called War on Terror, and has therefore been impotent in its response to the crisis in Darfur.
It is clear from recent reports that the situation on the ground in Darfur is deteriorating and the death toll continues to rise above 400,000 people. Very recently, the African Union and NGOs on the ground have reported new violence in Darfur, and humanitarian operations are increasingly unable to reach millions of people in displacement camps. The African Union is doing what it can, but it lacks the mandate, the troop strength, and the logistical capacity to protect Darfur.
Although the U.S. is the only country to have recognized what’s happening in Darfur as genocide, and although there is growing domestic pressure on the President to take action to stop the genocide, the Bush Administration calculates that its other interests in Sudan are more important than saving lives in Darfur. The White House does not wish to alienate the Sudanese government, even though it has accused this government of genocide, and it continues to foster ties with this government as it turns a blind eye to the ongoing genocide.
When we look at the current state of U.S. relations with Africa, the subordination of human rights concerns to this military-strategic agenda is a central theme. And this Bush Administration approach is not unique to its Africa policy. Indeed, Americans have experienced a similar trend since 9/11, with civil and political rights in this country curtailed in the name of “protecting homeland security”. More recently, we saw this in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, where the basic needs of displaced hurricane victims were subordinated to pre-occupations with security, and armed guards were sent into that city long before food and water arrived. When it comes to the priorities of this Administration, at home or abroad, human rights concerns are fully sidelined by the agenda of the neo-conservatives.
Finally, if we needed one last measure of Africa’s standing in U.S. foreign policy, we could look to the priority placed on that part of the world by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who made her first official trip to the continent after 6 months in office and more than 30 other international trips. Africa was the last region in the world that Condi visited. If Africa really were important to this Administration, we can be sure that those kinds of choices would be very different.
Thank you.
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