The
Biden Administration pledged to listen at the recent US-Africa Leaders’ Summit,
but said it also would demonstrate its interest in a robust partnership with
the nations of Africa, as signified by its closing statement on the conference:
“Our partnership is based
on a conviction that Africa’s governments and peoples will help define the
future of the international order to address our world’s most pressing
challenges. The United States, for its part, will support and work to
realize greater – and long overdue – African representation in international
institutions, including those that shape global governance,” the White House
statement read. “The United States has announced a plan to reform the
United Nations Security Council, including support for permanent seats for
countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and voiced support for
the African Union to join the G20 as a permanent member.”
To that end, the Biden Administration
announced several programs of cooperation with African countries during the
government and private sector portions, including:
The Biden Administration plans to invest
at least $55 billion in Africa over the next three years, working closely with
Congress on the specific plans for this spending.
To implement its Africa policy, the Biden Administration
has established a new Special
Presidential Representative for U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit Implementation to
coordinate these efforts. Ambassador Johnnie Carson, former Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs and Ambassador to Kenya, Uganda, and
Zimbabwe was selected for this role.
The President issued an executive order
directing the Secretary of State to establish the President’s Advisory Council
on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States (PAC-ADE). The
PAC-ADE will deepen the dialogue between U.S. officials and the African
Diaspora in the United States, as described in the U.S. Strategy Toward
Sub-Saharan Africa. The executive order encourages efforts to advance
equity and opportunity for the African Diaspora in the United States and
strengthen cultural, social, political, and economic ties between African
communities, the global African Diaspora, and the United States.
The Biden Administration announced plans
to work with Congress to provide more than $100 million toward the Young
African Leaders Initiative (YALI) over multiple years to support innovative,
diverse young African women and men to excel in a 21st century
economy and catalyze transformational change in their communities, countries,
and continent. The YALI expansion seeks to harness the support of the
private sector, the Diaspora, and bilateral partners to facilitate networking,
expand digital literacy, accelerate gender equality and women’s leadership,
advance transparent governance, foster a vibrant civil society, and increase
economic opportunities.
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President Biden highlighted his Administration’s
commitment to working closely with Congress to lend up to $21 billion
through the International Monetary Fund for low- and middle-income countries,
which will support African resilience and recovery efforts and is calling for
all bilateral and relevant private creditors to provide meaningful debt relief
so countries can regain their footing after years of extreme stress.
The United States government and the African
Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat signed a Memorandum of
Understanding to expand engagement to promote equitable, sustainable, and
inclusive trade; boost competitiveness, and attract investment to the
continent. Once fully implemented, AfCFTA will create a combined
continent-wide market of 1.3 billion people and $3.4 trillion, which would be
the fifth-largest economy in the world.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)
announced its first regional compacts, totaling $504 million, with the
Governments of Benin and Niger, with additional contributions of $15 million
from Benin and Niger. The compacts support regional economic integration,
trade, and cross-border collaboration. In the last two years, MCC also has
signed agreements with the Governments of The Gambia, Lesotho, and Malawi
totaling $675 million. The agency currently is working in 14 African
countries with more than $3.0 billion in active compact and threshold programs
and approximately $2.5 billion in the pipeline.
The U.S. International Development Finance
Corporation (DFC) announced $369 million in new investment across Africa in
food security, renewable energy infrastructure, and health projects, including
a $100 million transaction with Mirova SunFunder for the Mirova Gigaton Fund to
support clean energy across Africa. DFC has more than $11 billion in
commitments across Africa.
At the U.S.-Africa Business Forum,
President Biden launched the Initiative on Digital Transformation with Africa
(DTA), a new initiative to expand digital access and literacy across the
continent. Working with Congress, this new initiative intends to invest more
than $350 million and facilitate more than $450 million in financing for
Africa, in line with the African Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy.
As part of the Global Health Worker
Initiative, the Administration plans to work with Congress to invest $1.33
billion annually from 2022 to 2024 in health workforce in the Africa region,
for a total of at least $4 billion by Fiscal Year 2025, to help African
partners close the gap in health workers, including clinicians, community
health and care workers, and public health professionals. During the past
two years, the United States has invested and committed to provide $782 million
in global health security programs to work with partner countries in Africa to
close major gaps outlined in their national action plans for health security
and to build resilient health systems in critical technical areas. The
United States announced $215 million in new funding to address the COVID-19
pandemic in Africa.
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS
Relief (PEPFAR), the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), and DFC also announced
plans to accelerate regional manufacturing capacity for vaccines, tests, and
therapeutics, including PEPFAR’s plans to procure 15 million HIV tests produced
by African manufacturers by 2025 and to shift at least 2 million patients on
HIV treatments to use African-made products by 2030.
Since the Clinton Administration,
the U.S. government has devoted billions of dollars to projects in Africa, though
mostly in health. It is true that China has committed more in infrastructure
and in business development, but both countries have neglected efforts to
create self-reliance in Africa. Focusing on responding to emergencies is
laudable, but there are too many natural and man-made disasters in Africa to continue
to prioritize the requirements of today instead of preparing for a sustainable
future. The motto of the U.S. Peace Corps since the 1960s has been: “If you
give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach him how to fish, he can
feed himself for a lifetime.”
Somehow, this government
(except for Peace Corps) has largely forgotten that goal, but the United States
and other donor nations and development finance institutions must get back to
the mission of building self-reliance in Africa, as well as the rest of the
world’s emerging economies. However, self-reliance for Africans is not what
either China or Russia promise.
The programs created by
this Administration can refocus U.S. policy toward that end. However, it will
depend on diligent staff to see these goals through. Ambassador Carson is a
knowledgeable and committed Africanist, and Judd Devermont at the National Security
Council and Dana Banks at the Department of State largely crafted a summit with
substance, but they all will have to stay on top of implementation efforts for them
to be realized.
In the Trump Administration’s
U.S. Agency for International Development, Administrator Ambassador Mark Green
and Assistant Administrator for Africa Ramsey Day fought doubt and
institutional obstacles throughout the federal government, including in
Congress, to help create the Prosper Africa initiative against the odds. It was
built on Ambassador Green’s vision of building self-reliance among emerging economies
and genuine commercial partnerships. Staff tasked with implementation in the
Biden Administration will have to overcome similar obstacles and doubts to make
their promising plans come to fruition.
Republicans and Democrats
in the House and Senate will have to work together in what is being predicted
as rough economic times ahead to see these ambitious Africa plans through. Over
the years when I worked in the House, there was bipartisan cooperation on
Africa, even though politics did occasionally interfere. There must be a
realization that the White House conviction that “Africa’s governments and
peoples will help define the future of the international order” is true and not
just a pleasantry to make summit goers happy. There are significant
opportunities ahead for Africa and the United States if there is trust,
collaboration and genuine vision. Let’s hope that can be the reality that makes
the big dreams expressed come to pass.
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