U.S.-Africa Relations at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Africa is important to the United States. U.S. policy on Africa attempts to foster development and democracy in such a way that it builds on Africa’s traditions and advances U.S. interests.

Key Priorities

In this regards, Africa has an important place on the American agenda. That's why this administration has pursued the expansion of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the HIV/AIDS program, the Millennium Challenge Account.  We are offering Africa a partnership and the opportunity to join the growing circle of market oriented democracies and we are taking hard-earned American taxpayer resources to assist the continent in developing the capacity to play a constructive role in the world economy. This is an investment in the future of Africa; and not just aid for aid's sake, but aid to help Africans develop their infrastructure, educate their people, make themselves more attractive to outside investment so that trade will then follow. We are working to create an environment in which freedom, prosperity and security become benchmarks of success in a partnership between the U.S.- Sub-Saharan Africa – a new partnership for the 21st century.

To that end, the State Department has adopted six goals that guide policy efforts toward Africa:

• Increase democracy, good governance, and respect for the rule of law;

• Expand United States trade and investment with Africa to spur economic development and improve the well-being of Africans;

• Conserve Africa’s environment because people and the institutions they create to govern themselves cannot prosper when the air is unfit to breathe, water is unavailable and forests and farmlands have become barren;

• Combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases that threaten to cost Africa a generation of its most productive citizens;

• Reinforce African support in the Global War on Terrorism; and

• Promote regional stability by ending Africa’s wars. Doing so is an absolute necessity if the other five policies are to succeed.

During President Bush’s trip to Africa last year, he referred to Africa as the “last great emerging market of the world.” One of our top priorities has been fostering economic prosperity by encouraging trade with and investment in Africa. While most of the world has moved into the 21st century, Africa remains far behind. Recent statistics bring this picture into broad relief. Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest region in the world – accounting for 11 percent of the world’s population but only one percent of global GDP. The region’s share of world trade has declined from 3.5 percent of world exports in 1960 to a mere 1.6 percent of world exports in 2001; imports suffered a similar decline. The statist economic development policies adopted by African governments in the 1960s and 1970s bear much of the blame. The belief that protectionism and socialism would foster growth proved a failure. Today, we must now work closely with those African governments that are liberalizing and opening their economies. We must find ways to more deeply integrate Africa into the 21st century global economy. Increased participation into the world’s trading and finance networks benefits Africans, as well as outside investors and traders.

We believe the private sector has a major role to play in this effort. It is investment and trade, not aid, that will in the end create real and sustainable economic growth in Africa. By breaking down barriers to U.S. markets, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has had a major impact in Africa. AGOA has facilitated new investment, created jobs, and helped form linkages that will create new markets and investment opportunities over the long term. Since its inception just three years ago, AGOA-related opportunities have generated 190,000 jobs and over $340 million in new investment. AGOA has created real results for real people. In Tanzania, a small handicraft company that once employed 25 people and exported just $20,000 a year in arts and crafts to the U.S. has seen its employment rolls increase 300% as exports multiplied ten-fold. Not all AGOA-related successes involve export direct to the United States. AGOA is also stimulating intra-regional trade. For example, Namibian plants manufacture parts for South African cars exported to America. Zambian cotton exports to South Africa have doubled thanks to increased demand generated by AGOA. African firms are not only trading more with their neighbors because of AGOA, others are looking to invest like the Mauritian firm that is building a spinning plant in Mali to produce higher quality yarn for African textile exports to the U.S. AGOA is also changing governance in Africa. As governments compete for new investment to take advantage of AGOA trade opportunities, they have opened a dialogue with the private sector and civil society to cut unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape and to identify best practices. At the regional level the surge in exports is putting strains on old and often poorly maintained infrastructure. Governments are now cooperating on regional efforts for new rail links in east Africa and for an inter-modal transport corridor in Mozambique to facilitate the transit of goods to world markets.

For the first time, we are negotiating a U.S. Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) with sub-Saharan Africa, specifically with the five-member Southern African Customs Union. Negotiations, which began last year, will be difficult and time-consuming, but represent a fundamental shift in how we approach our economic relations with Africa – looking at African countries as equal trading partners, not merely recipients of aid.

We are helping develop capital markets in Africa by assisting governments there to obtain sovereign credit ratings. Sovereign credit ratings announce a country’s openness to private capital flows and facilitate investment. When this Administration started, there were only four African countries with sovereign credit ratings – South Africa, Botswana, Mauritius and Senegal. Now six additional countries have ratings, and ten more are in the queue. We now have a number of Treasury technical advisors in Africa, assisting governments in developing national bond markets and, in the case of the East Africa Community, a regional bond market, and reforming antiquated stock exchange listing requirements to help a broader range of companies gain access to equity finance. Uganda recently floated a two-year bond, attracting significant investor interest from neighboring countries, especially Kenya – instead of capital flight these kinds of programs are encouraging Africans to invest in Africa.

The Administration’s Millennium Challenge Account is another new initiative that radically changes our approach to foreign aid, recognizing that economic growth is fundamental to development and that development is primarily the responsibility of countries themselves. The President requested $1.3 billion for MCA this fiscal year, this over and above the nearly $11 billion we already spend on development assistance around the world. This new type of assistance will only be available to developing nations that demonstrate a strong commitment to the principles of just government, investment in people through health and education, and promoting economic freedom. MCA is meant to be a means to create an expanding circle of opportunity in Africa. It uses a performance-based approach because it was shaped with the knowledge that development assistance can only be effective when it is linked to good policies in these key areas.

I would note that as we pursue these new initiatives, such as MCA, we seek to complement our traditional development activities in education, agriculture, and health, particularly in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS. This year, we are providing nearly $1.3 billion to development activities in Africa, and have requested a similar commitment in next year’s budget.

Promoting Democracy and Human Rights

We are committed to helping African countries become more democratic. Freedom House lists 19 African nations as electoral democracies. But we know that while elections are important, there is much more to democracy than going to the polls.

Our policies and programs encourage good governance and rule of law through development or strengthening of democratic institutions, such as independent media, effective parliaments, and independent judiciaries. We also support anti-corruption programs and respect for internationally recognized human rights. These efforts help to deepen the fragile roots of new democracies in Africa.

We have seen progress in the spread of democracy in Africa. The Kenyan elections ushered in a change for that important country. Peaceful transitions from one party to another in Senegal, Mali and Ghana demonstrate the growing maturity of African electorates and leaders. This improvement follows on the progress we saw in the 1990s in Benin, Zambia, Malawi and South Africa; countries that had all witnessed peaceful transfers of power in the early 1990s.

Challenges remain, most notably the lack of credible governance in Zimbabwe. The country’s rapidly declining economy and political instability are taking a toll not only in Zimbabwe, but also in the southern Africa as a region, discouraging foreign investment, creating the potential for a refugee crisis, and reducing trade within the region. A food shortage -- created largely due to the government's policies and actions -- threatens to develop into a true humanitarian crisis in the coming months. We remain hopeful that the people of Zimbabwe will gain a voice in their government, and positive change will come.

Protecting the Environment

Just as we work to foster African economies and improve governance and human rights, we are also working to protect Africa’s natural environment. Africa is home to a remarkable biological diversity and extensive natural resources that are important not only to Africa, but to us all. Ensuring that Africans are able to manage and protect this bounty is a policy priority. We support efforts to improve natural resource management through the development of well-managed protected areas, the implementation of policies and practices for sustainable use of resources and the development of sustainable economic opportunities for communities that depend on forest resources.

The United States is looking for ways to engage with Africans to preserve and conserve their distinctive ecology in a sustainable way, in part because of the importance of the environment to tourism, Africa’s second largest earner of hard currency. Without the forests and natural beauty, tourists will not come. Moreover, we firmly believe that Africa cannot successfully address conflict, poverty or health challenges without also addressing natural resource and environmental management. As we have seen with diamonds and timber, natural resources are inextricably linked to questions of national and international peace and security. Conflict over resources and poor environmental practices undermine stability, hamper prospects for economic growth, and threaten human health.

Fighting HIV/AIDS

As everyone in this room knows, HIV/AIDS is affecting sub-Saharan Africa with devastating consequences. It is a pandemic that is causing immense human suffering, destroying Africa’s social fabric, and undermining its efforts at development. We are committed to working with Africa on what is literally a life-or-death struggle.

Studies supported by the World Bank point to a grim scenario that will carry over to future generations. HIV/AIDS leads to declines in labor productivity and the loss of human capital, including the loss of the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next. Savings rates decline and resources that might have been put into growth-inducing investment are spent for health care, orphan care, and funerals.

This Administration has shown bold leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We are, without doubt, among the world’s leader in this effort. Last year, the President announced a five-year, $15 billion program to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. The program includes nearly $10 billion in new funding which will be targeted at 12 African and two Caribbean countries. The program will prevent an estimated 7 million new infections, provide anti-retroviral therapy to 2 million people, and care for 10 million HIV-infected people and children who have been orphaned by AIDS.

The countries that are not identified as target countries will, in no way, be ignored. Robust programs will continue in virtually all African countries facing a serious AIDS crisis. Our Ambassadors and their staffs on the ground are one of our most important assets in fighting HIV/AIDS. All are personally engaged in raising awareness and fighting stigma in their host nations and ensuring that Washington is providing needed resources and support.

Countering Terrorism

As in nearly all regions of the world, terrorists threaten African countries and sometimes use these countries as a base for their operations. We are working with our African partners to address this critical challenge – a challenge to our own national security. We are working with several governments to help them better control their borders, disrupt terrorist financial networks, and improve aviation security and safety. We are working to strengthen military capabilities to counter terrorism. In addition, we expanding our efforts to reach out to various communities, especially Islamic groups, to better explain U.S. policies and goals.
On June 26, 2003, President Bush announced, before a gathering of African Heads of State at the CCA Summit, a new Presidential Initiative, the East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative. Although the region faces serious challenges, the willingness of our East African partner states to fight this battle presents a significant opportunity to reverse terrorist inroads in this important region.

The East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative is a $100 million dollar package designed to increase the regional counterterrorism capacities of Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, Tanzania, and Eritrea over the next 15 months. The Initiative will reduce the scope and capacity of terrorists to act in the region by focusing on critical areas, which include: costal and border security; immigration and customs; airport/seaport security; police and law enforcement training; terrorist tracking databases; disruption of terrorist financing; regional information sharing and cooperation; and community outreach through education, assistance and public information.

Promoting Regional Stability

The final challenge for Africa is perhaps the most important – conflict resolution and regional stability. Africans have suffered too long from war, which undermines efforts at effective governance, human rights and economic growth. The World Bank has identified conflict as the single greatest impediment to Africa’s development since independence with countries suffering from civil conflict and war experiencing rates of growth significantly lower than those countries that have remained at peace. Unfortunately, those countries in Africa are too few. But to demonstrate the promise of Africa, one such country Botswana has experienced one of the highest sustained rates of economic growth of any country in the world and currently ranks with Japan and Denmark in terms of the quality of its economic governance and investment climate. We have used a variety of diplomatic and foreign assistance tools to attempt to end conflict and assist with the reintegration into society of former combatants and those affected by conflict.

To end conflict, we have worked with Africans to increase capacity to respond to their own problems and enable African armies to build and rebuild their societies rather than tear them down. Modest investments in these areas provide improved U.S. access, increase U.S. leverage to press parties to fulfill commitments, open the way for American participation in international coalitions, and most importantly make it more likely that capable African forces will respond regionally, reducing a potential need to deploy U.S. troops.

We also support the development of capabilities of regional organizations, such as The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to oversee and support regional peace, humanitarian response requirements, and encourage them to help resolve conflicts. As we work with African militaries and regional organizations, the United States continues to play an important role in advancing the cause of peace and encouraging negotiations. While challenges remain, we have seen significant progress toward resolving Africa’s long-running conflicts, from Burundi to DRC, Sudan to Liberia.

Conclusion

As you can see, we have a full agenda in Africa, a continent full of potential and challenge. While we take pride in the accomplishments I described, we look ahead at a year of continuing, and new, challenges. We must work to consolidate the tentative steps toward peace in Liberia, Burundi, and DRC, and reach a lasting peace agreement in Sudan. We must do what we can to prevent new conflict, such as in Eritrea and Ethiopia. We must continue our efforts to stop terrorists in Africa and around the world. Finally, with the approval of additional funding for HIV/AIDS, we must now effectively utilize those resources, and quickly, to stop of spread of this deadly disease. In this context, we will work with African governments individually, within the framework of regional institutions such as the African Union, and in international fora, such as the United Nations.

The challenges are real but we are undaunted by them. I am confident that the prospects of a U.S.- African partnership will provide Africans and Americans the means to address these issues of mutual concern in a real and sustainable way.

Thank you very much