The How of US-Africa Policy

             As with any new U.S. administration, there is increasing talk about defining the Biden Africa policy.  There are articles and position papers, etc., calling for various policies to be developed and implemented.  Over the years, the various U.S. administrations have heeded such calls.  Bill Clinton had the African Growth and Opportunity Act; George W. Bush had the Millennium Challenge Account, the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief and the Presidential Malaria Initiative (all of which heavily benefited African countries and people); Barack Obama had Trade Africa, and Donald Trump had Prosper Africa.

            But all these programs dealt with the WHAT of Africa policy, but those who promoted these programs didn’t sufficiently delve into the HOW of implementation – not just the program mechanics, but also the contrasting missions of various stakeholders and how that would impact U.S. policy through these programs, and more generally, on how the U.S. government would address issues in Africa.  The numerous American stakeholders have specific missions that often clash and impact U.S. policy in ways not always anticipated and neither seen nor understood well by all Africa specialists.  Let me say that these separate missions are not nefarious, but rather reflect what their leaders, sponsors and supporters think should be done in their areas of responsibility.

            The military and intelligence communities are charged with protecting the homeland at any given time.  Usually, their time horizons are immediate or short-term at best.  So, their calculations are based on what they consider to be in the immediate interests of the United States.  Democratic development is not considered an immediate objective, and neither does human rights really figure into their decisions about working with African governments.  The focus is on military and intelligence operations.  The African Crisis Response Initiative is a program that the United States launched in 1996, two years after the Rwandan genocide, to address challenges of peacekeeping and conflict management in Africa. Its formation was prompted by concern that the ethnic massacres that occurred in Rwanda in 1994 also might take place in neighboring Burundi, and by the desire of our government to avoid getting entangled in local conflicts.  When we did so in 1993, 18 U.S. Army rangers were killed in Somalia, as part of an effort to provide humanitarian assistance. 

But this program was initially called the Africa Crisis Response Force, and the insufficient prior consultation with African governments led to fears throughout the continent of a standing American military unit whose mission was to intervene in Africa.  The name was changed, and consultations calmed concerns, but the reputational damage had been done.  Moreover, when the U.S. government was announcing the Africa Command, the justifiable consolidation of U.S. military operations in Africa for the sake of efficiency and policy coherence, it came at a time when the U.S. military was engaged in offensive operations in Somalia, even as that unit was being described as focusing on training rather than intervention.  The military, far more resourced than the State Department, largely ignored diplomatic warnings that describing the Africa Command as being managed by the Pentagon would be problematic.

            The role of diplomats in the State Department (and to some extent the U.S. Agency for International Development) is to foster good relations with governments with which we have or want to have harmonious relations.  That means that diplomats in foreign countries face difficult decisions on how to approach problems with governments in countries where they represent the United States.  Some diplomats consider their charge to be to promote American principles, while others feel establishing and maintaining good foreign relations is their paramount goal.  I have seen both.  I was asked in one country to soften criticism of an African government for clearly violating their own constitution as regards changing the mandated elections calendar for the advantage of the ruling party.  I also saw the State Department recommend that certain countries remain in the AGOA process even though that ignored the difficulty for U.S. businesses to operate in those countries.  The Department undoubtedly saw the benefit of maintaining good relations as more important in the immediate term than punishing a government that placed U.S. businesses at a disadvantage.

Thus, this government sometimes ends up looking the other way on the lack of democracy and rule of law if it means we work with an African government, for example, in fighting terrorism.  Unfortunately, doing so only encourages poor governance and confuses allies who are not as crucial to our immediate well-being.  The Kenyans in the 1990s objected to our pressure for them to move quickly to multi-party democracy at the same time we accepted Uganda’s claim that multiparty democracy there would be too disruptive in the short run and that they were really a no-party democracy when that government acted as a one-party state.  Uganda was and still is a valuable partner in fielding peacekeeping forces.

  I understand their prime mandate; without State Department efforts to create positive relations, our country would be at a tremendous global disadvantage.  But taking a government’s word that it is trying to implement reforms, to be achieved at some unspecified future date, too often undermines the ability of our business community to operate on a level playing field today, which diminishes interest in expanding U.S.-Africa trade.  Still, it must be acknowledged that there are ambassadors all over the world who have worked hard to help individual businesses work through problems, and ambassadors now lead all Prosper Africa deal teams in-country.

            The U.S. Congress – the House of Representatives and the Senate – often make Africa policy.  For example, AGOA was created and passed into law by the Congress; it was signed by President Clinton.  Still, he was a huge champion of this trade process and Africa relations generally, sending just about all of his cabinet members to Africa to see what their agencies could do to further U.S.-Africa relations generally.  All of the programs I mentioned earlier would not have been possible without Congressional approval or continued without Congressional oversight. Yet Congressional influence on Africa policy goes beyond trade.  I was honored as a staff member to be a part of several pieces of legislation that signaled Congressional intent for a change in U.S. policy and actually provoked changes in U.S. policy toward Africa – from the decision to withdraw support for the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Mobutu Sese Seko to the declaration of Boko Haram as a terrorist organization.   

            Congressional action depends upon those in charge of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Africa, Global Health and Global Human Rights Subcommittee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Africa and Global Health Policy Subcommittee, but other committees, such as the House Ways & Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee and the House and Senate Appropriations Committees also play vital roles in policy development or implementation.  If these Congressional members are activist and seeking ways to help African people and not just their leaders, then the results are far different than when members seek to shield African governments from what they may consider undue criticism.  Nevertheless, there always has been some divergence in opinions on Africa policy between Congress and various administrations.  Currently, House Africa Subcommittee Chair Karen Bass is on record as opposing the supposed unilateral administration punishment of the Government of Ethiopia for its part in the destructive conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

            From the creation of USAID until the present time, the U.S. government has provided billions of dollars’ worth of foreign assistance.  However, the USAID budgets have shrunk in recent years, especially when it comes to democratic development.  The African Regional Electoral Assistance Fund of the early 1990s was generously funded to help African countries make the transition to multi-party democracy and rule of law during a period of rapid expansion of democracy coming due to the end of the Cold War.  Then successive U.S. administrations, reacting to the rising danger of HIV-AIDS and other highly transmittable diseases on the continent, focused aid funding on health.  That made sense given the global danger of diseases such as AIDS, Ebola and others that could be spread if not controlled globally, including in Africa.   

            But if we look at functions like elections, there is a circular process that extends from establishing electoral law and rules to delimiting constituencies to registering parties, candidates and voters to training election officials and handling the logistics of polling places and polling materials. Funding election missions without allowing for full monitoring of the entire process fails to allow for any effective assessment of the process and prevents warnings that could steer an election back on the right track before voting takes place if necessary.  Diagnosing problems post-election is too late, leaving the most expedient decisions on making the best of a corrupted outcome.

Of course, if governments don’t operate effectively and efficiently, aid funds will not achieve the goals for which they were intended, and the United States and other donor nations end up paying repeatedly to solve the same problems, and U.S.-Africa trade and other relations cannot proceed as they should.

            Human rights and rule of law are critical to the proper functioning of all governments.  No country without respect for the rule of law and human rights will have an acceptable commercial environment that enables trade to be robust or even to take place at all.  Our human rights agencies are quite good at quantifying human rights/rule of law status, reporting on situations in which human rights and rule of law have been violated and monitoring the treatment of individuals caught in a skewed legal process.  Still, no one is born knowing how human rights and rule of law should be honored; people go to school to study such issues, and the American system of justice adjudicates situations in which laws, regulations and standards are applicable. 

I have long thought that two factors could make the work of human rights organizations more fruitful.  First, there should be interaction with local human rights agencies and civil society groups to better understand cultures to find out which traditions are hampering progress in observing international norms on good governance, human rights and rule of law.  Second, using such information, training could be facilitated for all stakeholders – government officials, civil societies and business communities to ensure that all segments of African society are on the same page in this regard.  When we know what traditions are under which societies operate, then we can find a way to help local stakeholders better accept why the reforms we suggest are necessary – not to teach how to copy the American way, but rather to honor their own traditions that promoted human progress and safety.

So, all of the mechanisms by which the U.S. government interacts with Africa, directly or indirectly through support for private organizations, has an impact on trade, but more broadly, affects how our government reacts to situations such as coups or questionable election processes.  Prosper Africa is an attempt to get 17 agencies on the same page for trade purposes by helping to encourage welcoming political and commercial environments in the various countries, but these agencies and others will need to recognize their individual and shared impact on U.S.-Africa policy for any efforts to field a consistent, effective Africa strategy to be implemented.

A great deal of my focus here has been on U.S.-Africa policy and its impact on trade because robust commerce will create wealth in Africa and expand wealth in the United States.  Such an eventuality allows African governments and societies to amass the income to better prepare for and address health, civil and security crises even before requesting help, but certainly makes them better partners if outside help is required.  Trade with Africa lets Americans better understand why Africa is important to us, which enables more people to realize that they have a stake in a prosperous Africa and must sometimes take affirmative steps to ensure a viable policy toward Africa.

A mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and the countries in Africa certainly is desirable and is required in this multi-polar, competitive, tumultuous world in which we live.