The State of U.S. Africa Policy
December 3, 2004 - Africa Action Baraza 2004
by Ann-Louise Colgan
This year’s Baraza is just one month after the U.S. elections. Over these two days, we want to not only take stock of the current state of U.S. Africa policy, but hopefully also be able to project into the future a vision of how U.S. relations with Africa are likely to evolve and how we can influence that evolution.
In order to project, we must start by reviewing the past four years. Looking back at the Bush Administration’s policies toward Africa, it is possible to identify some clear trends, and it is likely that these will continue to drive U.S. relations with Africa under a 2nd Bush term.
In general, the current state of U.S. Africa policy is characterized by a distinct duplicity. On the one hand, Africa’s priorities have been marginalized and undermined by a U.S. foreign policy preoccupied with other parts of the world. On the other hand, the Bush White House has callously manipulated Africa, claiming to champion the continent’s needs with its compassionate conservative agenda. It has touted new initiatives on HIV/AIDS and development assistance, misleading Africans and Americans alike as to how much the U.S. is really doing to address Africa’s needs.
In reality, the twin perceived priorities of oil and strategic military relations have been the driving forces of Africa policy under the Bush team, and the pursuit of this agenda is likely to continue to define U.S. Africa policy in the second Bush term. The appointment of Condoleezza Rice as the new Secretary of State only confirms the centrality of these priorities in the definition of U.S. interests in Africa.
The recent elections here and the foreign policy discussions during the election campaign reveal the extent to which Africa remains marginalized in U.S. policy discourse. The only Africa-related issue to make mention during the Presidential debates was the crisis in Darfur, western Sudan, and this, rather counter-intuitively, provides us with a good example of the failure of U.S. policy on Africa and the persistent marginalization of Africa’s priorities.
When asked whether U.S. intervention should be an option to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur, both Presidential candidates emphasized the role and responsibility of the African Union in this regard, and neither stated that the U.S. should take a leadership role in intervening to stop the violence. President Bush said he would not agree with committing troops to this cause, just as, four years before, he had said in a Presidential debate that he would not send troops to the African continent to stop another Rwanda. So it is, that despite considerable political activism and media attention around the Darfur crisis during the summer and early fall, and despite the consensus among the legislative and executive branch in the U.S. that genocide is taking place, the U.S. has not taken urgent action to address this crisis.
Meanwhile, the government-sponsored genocide continues in Darfur. Tens of thousands have been killed or raped, and millions displaced from their homes still live in insecurity.
For a variety of reasons, the U.S. has an obligation and a unique capability to take the lead on this crisis and to stop the genocide. It is also uniquely placed within the international community to promote international action on this crisis. But partly because it has lost credibility with the war on Iraq, and partly because the U.S. hasn’t been willing to really make the strong case needed at the UN, the response has been absolutely impotent, and the genocide continues.
In this case, the question we must ask ourselves is this – in the face of genocide or other crimes against humanity, when intervention is necessary, who can you call? This is not an academic question, this is a very pressing and urgent question that begs our attention, and we will have a chance to talk a little more about this in one of our panels this morning.
In the meantime, the U.S. indicates that it has done enough in Darfur by offering some logistical support to the African Union forces, and there is no sign that Bush is willing to do more. Congress is considering some sanctions against the Sudanese government, but these are not immediate or strong enough to do what is urgently needed – stop the violence, provide protection for nearly 2 million internally-displaced Sudanese, facilitate the humanitarian effort and create a climate in which political negotiations can take place.
In terms of general trends in U.S. relations with Africa, the past few years have seen an increasing move toward selectivity in U.S. programs and initiatives. Whether we are talking about development assistance or HIV/AIDS, the Bush Administration prefers to unilaterally pick and choose which African countries are “worthy” to be rewarded with eligibility, thus giving priority and privilege to countries that are considered to be good performers or good allies. In doing so, the U.S. bypasses and undermines African regional and pan-African institutions such as the African Union, SADC and ECOWAS.
One clear example of this trend is the Millennium Challenge Account or MCA, which is the new foreign aid initiative officially launched this year. The MCA is intended to increase U.S. foreign aid in increments over the next three years, so that by 2006 an annual doubling of current levels will be achieved. In 2004, $1 billion was appropriated for the MCA, and for next year this is likely to be only slightly increased to about $1.25 billion, which is only half of the $2.5 billion requested by the White House.
Overall, this initiative still proposes a far smaller increase in assistance than the U.S. can and should provide. The U.S. still ranks at the bottom of all donor countries, with only 0.1% of GNP going to foreign aid worldwide and only about one-tenth of that amount going to Africa. So despite the MCA’s importance to Africa, the reality is that the amount of money is relatively modest, and especially in relation both to the wealth of the U.S. and the challenges Africa faces.
The MCA process is highly selective, with only a handful of countries that meet certain economic and political criteria, defined by Washington, considered eligible to receive this assistance. The selective approach risks punishing those countries whose people are the worst off and in greatest need of development assistance. Of the 16 countries voted earlier this year to be eligible for MCA money in 2004, only 8 of these were in Africa.
Next year is a benchmark year for the Millennium Development Goals, and the United Nations continues to emphasize that African countries will be unable to meet these goals without a significant increase in assistance from rich countries. But the MCA does little to bridge this gap, when it is estimated that the additional foreign aid required to meet these goals by 2015 is between $40 and $70 billion per year. Even if the MCA is fully funded, it will only increase U.S. foreign aid to $5 billion per year by 2006.
The Bush Administration initiative on HIV/AIDS is another example of the selective approach to Africa policy. Only 12 African countries were selected to benefit from this initiative, without prior consultation or logical criteria. This is also an example of the callous efforts of the Bush Administration to place Africa at the center of a so-called compassionate conservative agenda.
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, announced in 2003, promised to increase U.S. funding to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa, to amount to $15 billion over 5 years. In both FY2004 and FY2005, the amount actually appropriated to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa was far less than this initiative promised.
Beyond the inadequate funding levels, the very approach of this initiative contradicts what are some of the most important ways to address HIV/AIDS in Africa. The U.S. program is administered by a new duplicative bureaucracy headed up by Randall Tobias, a former pharmaceutical executive. The strong ties between the Bush Administration and the pharmaceutical lobby prevent access to cheaper, generic versions of essential HIV/AIDS medications from becoming part of the U.S. strategy. Instead, money is being spent on expensive name-brand drugs which often cost 3 times as much as the generic versions, thereby reaching only one-third of potential beneficiaries.
In addition, the Bush Administration continues to promote an abstinence-only approach to prevention strategies, which places a premium on ideology over science and flies in the face of what is known about the most effective ways to stem the spread of this disease in Africa and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has proven to be an effective mechanism for addressing this pandemic at various levels remains under-resourced. It continues to be slighted by the U.S., which favors its own unilateral approach. While HIV/AIDS remains the biggest challenge facing the African continent, the U.S. response is still far from what is needed to turn the tide of this pandemic.
Here again, this selective U.S. approach blocks the emergence of a more comprehensive and coherent response to Africa’s challenges – such as HIV/AIDS – that are rooted in specific regional realities.
Of course, economic ties remain a major U.S. policy focus, and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) remains the cornerstone of U.S. trade relations with Africa. This was further extended this year by the “AGOA Acceleration Act”. The latest trade profile indicates that two-way trade between the U.S. and Sub-Saharan remains highly concentrated, both in terms of partners and in terms of products. A very small number of African countries account for the lion’s share of total imports and exports. In addition, 70% of all U.S. imports from Africa last year were oil imports, and fully 80% of AGOA imports were petroleum products.
Key US trading partners in Africa are the key oil producers on the continent, including Nigeria, Angola and Gabon. When it comes to investment flows, the largest recipients in sub-Saharan Africa are the major oil producers on the continent – Angola and Nigeria – and FDI inflows to these countries are concentrated in the petroleum sector.
Overall, the U.S. is increasingly interested in African oil resources as an alternative to the Middle East, and the U.S. now defines Africa’s oil as a strategic national interest. The U.S. preoccupation with “energy security” makes these certain African countries important sources of oil and therefore important strategic partners for the U.S. At present, sub-Saharan Africa supplies almost one-fifth of U.S. oil imports, and this is projected to increase to 25% by 2015. This would surpass current U.S. oil imports from the Persian Gulf.
As the U.S. seeks to gain greater access to African markets it has been pursuing a free trade agreement with the Southern African Custom Union (SACU), which would guarantee preferential access for U.S. companies to this export market.
These negotiations were on a fast-track earlier this year but then were stalled by disagreements on some key issues, including intellectual property rights and investment rules.
Of course, Africa’s economic potential is still heavily circumscribed by the burden of illegitimate foreign debt, which African countries continue to have to service to rich country creditors each year. It is also clear that as long as Africa’s debt is not addressed, African countries will have little hope of tackling their urgent human development priorities, or of meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
The past few months have seen some important progress on the debt issue, and 100% multilateral debt cancellation was put on the table for the first time in history during discussions among the Group of 8 leaders in June and then among their Finance Ministers in the Fall.
Of course, since the invasion of Iraq the Bush Administration has been actively promoting the cancellation of Iraq’s “odious debts”, while at the same time, it practiced a double standard by ignoring the illegitimate & odious nature of African countries’ debts. Recently, the Bush Administration indicated that it now supports 100% multilateral debt cancellation for 33 of the most impoverished and indebted countries, and that the resources to realize this should come from the World Bank and IMF themselves.
There are indications that an agreement can be expected in 2005 on some form of debt cancellation for some sub-set of deeply impoverished countries, and this will next be discussed at the “Group of 7” Finance Ministers meeting in February.
In the area of peace & security, it is the Bush Administration agenda of the so-called “war on terrorism” and strategic military relations that defines its relations with Africa. Increased U.S. interest in projecting military force into the Persian Gulf has led to a massive increase in the U.S. military presence in the Horn of Africa, and elsewhere on the continent. The Bush Administration is concerned with the counter-terrorism efforts of African countries, to the extent that they promote security for U.S. interests.
When it comes to dealing with African conflicts, the U.S. prefers a largely “hands off” approach, and plays only a minor role in supporting some of the peace-making initiatives of African leaders, as is the case in Darfur. Another example of this “hands off” approach is the new global initiative announced at the G-8 summit this year. This initiative would train 75,000 peacekeepers over the next five years to help bring security to troubled regions, such as Africa. In cases where the U.S. does make a limited diplomatic investment, such as in Sudan, it is eager to push a peace process forward and to claim credit for its role.
Overall, the very unilateral bent of the current Administration is likely to continue, and this directly undermines the multilateral cooperation that is so important for the success of efforts to address AIDS, poverty and other African and global priorities.
Given the priorities of the Bush Administration, oil and military relations are likely to remain the pillars of U.S. Africa policy once again in the second Bush term...unless we in this room are able to force a different evolution of U.S. policies toward Africa.
Thank you.
*Ann-Louise Colgan is the Director for Policy Analysis and Communications at Africa Action, the oldest Africa advocacy organization in the U.S.
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