Clinton Africa Trip Seen Offering Opportunities

03 August 2009

By James Fisher-Thompson
Staff Writer

Documents & Texts from America.gov

Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's August 4–14, seven-nation trip to Africa presents a good opportunity to build on development partnerships set out by President Obama during his recent visit to the continent, says former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner.

Clinton's first official trip to Africa as secretary of state includes an initial stop in Kenya to attend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum followed by visits to South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.

Kansteiner said he believes Clinton's meeting with top South African officials is especially timely. "What a wonderful opportunity she has to really open up that dialogue with the new South African government as a representative of the new American government.

"This is really a clean slate in U.S. relations with not only South Africa but all of sub-Saharan Africa," Kansteiner told America.gov. "And it was facilitated by President Obama, who in his speech in Ghana approached the continent with a message of hope as well as understanding for its economic and political challenges."

Kansteiner was assistant secretary of state for African affairs under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003. As a founding member of the Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm, he helped broker the $1.3 billion privatization of Telkom South Africa, one of the largest privatizations in Africa, and continues to advise corporations on mergers, acquisitions and privatizations on the continent.

Obama's July 11 address to Ghana's Parliament is "one of the best speeches I've ever heard a president of the United States make concerning Africa," the former diplomat said.

"It was forthright and honest. It challenged the Africans, telling them how it was, and explained where the U.S. was on helping them overcome poverty. So I think it was a very good launch pad for this administration's ability to work and be a partner with Africa." (See Obama's Speech in Ghana.)

In Accra, Obama reiterated the $3.5 billion pledge he made at the G8 meeting in Italy to improve agriculture and food security in Africa. But he said that, in return, he expected African leaders to fight corruption and create an enabling environment for business because "development depends on good governance."

Professor Peter Pham, an Africanist who teaches political science at James Madison University and has completed a book about the rebirth of Liberia, also touched on the importance of Clinton's trip.

"I think it's a very significant visit," he told America.gov. "Africa is increasingly being recognized as important to U.S. strategic interests, and so it's very important that the secretary of state and other senior U.S. officials acknowledge this fact publicly with visits such as this."

Pham said Obama's "personal history" of an African father and now to be the first African-American elected U.S. president, "as well as steps he has already taken to aid development in Africa, like a request for increased funding for the Millennium Challenge Corporation [MCC], send the right signals that America takes the continent seriously."

Another program making a difference, Pham said, is AGOA, the trade act that grants duty-free access to U.S. markets from African countries that liberalize their economies.

Since it was passed by Congress in 2000, AGOA has proved "extraordinarily important to business development on the continent," Pham said. "We've seen its positive results in helping Africans expand their businesses in a number of places, like Lesotho and Swaziland, where employment in the textile industry has increased severalfold and exports to the United States upwards toward 700 percent from a decade ago.

"So AGOA is certainly emphasizing the right things: that trade — finding Africa's unique position in the global economy and integrating it are key to sustained development and prosperity," Pham concluded.