Barack Obama launches agenda in Ghana
The African audience hopes that President Obama's declared Africa policy will be both distinctive and practicable As in so many areas the expectations are that President Barack Obama's Africa policy will be a break with the past. In some respects, the President's decision to sketch out an African policy represents a new development in itself. Often in response to public demand, successive administrations – in Washington and elsewhere in the West – have spelt out wish lists of continental objectives for Africa without a policy plan or the resources to attain them. The result has been frequent and deep disappointment.
The Obama administration's advisors say they see a way to change that, partly because of changes within Africa itself and also because of wider international changes in economic and political conditions. The most important changes within Africa have been the improvements in macroeconomic management, the greater monetary stability and higher gross domestic product growth rates. The Africa policy debate has changed from an obsession with foreign assistance to the design of more effective policies to promote trade and investment, better corporate governance and less corruption on all sides. There have also been more African initiatives on regional integration and more determined attempts (albeit with mixed results) by the African Union to run its own peacekeeping and regional security operations.
The USA's new stance on the environment
Africa's centrality to the continuing global food and fuel crisis generates a new interest in food security strategies and ways that US policy can help promote the research and development that could rapidly increase yields from Africa's farms and sharply boost its processing and export capacity. As a Washington policy specialist told Africa Confidential, the plan is to rebalance spending from a position where over a billion dollars a year is going to food aid and about a tenth of that is going to sustainable programmes to promote rural development and farm yields.
On the environment, the break with the George W. Bush administration is clearest: the new adminstration accepts the need for carbon limits, and that climate change is man-made and an international security threat; it also accepts that Africa stands to lose the most if present trends continue. From this new stance, Washington will join in a defence of African interests at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.
The final area of international change that impells a rethink of Washington's Africa policy is the geopolitical and economic shift from the West to the hypereconomies of China and India. China has invested its two trillion dollars of foreign reserves across the world, but its transformative power is greatest in Africa. Its trade with Africa has grown from $18.5 bn. in 2003 to $107 bn. in 2008, eclipsing all of Africa's other trading partners apart from the USA and European Union. China alone now wins more than 50% of all new public works contracts in Africa. Together with Indian contractors, the figure is closer to 70%.
Although Africa policy has gradually climbed up the totem pole since President Jimmy Carter's administration (1976-1980), Africa still ranks well below Asia and Latin America in foreign affairs. The new Africa team at the State Department will have to battle to push African issues while foreign policy is dominated by the global slowdown and the reverberations of the 'war on terror'.
The appointment of an effective new Africa team at the State Department and the National Security Council is drawing attention to the region. The spur is Barack Obama's election and the expectation that he will launch important policy initiatives in Africa – and that for the first time, the US has a president with a clear commitment to the continent.
Scope for new thinking
In principle, the emphasis on smarter diplomacy, a bigger role for the State Department and less readiness to endorse a military approach should allow more scope for new thinking. Policy-making in Washington is not as monolithic as outsiders might suppose: the 'realists' and 'neoconservatives' who dominated over the past eight years have had to yield ground. Policy does not spring from the Departments of State and Defense, and the National Security Council alone. Many members of Congress with foreign policy expertise make key contributions and now the Congressional Black Caucus is expected to have added weight on Africa policy. Also making inputs are the Washington think tanks: the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the Centre for Global Development, universities such as Georgetown in DC and Johns Hopkins in nearby Baltimore.
Add to that the influence of the myriad advocacy groups on topics ranging from Darfur to pressuring multinational corporations to pay their taxes in Africa, and the plethora of lobbying companies on K Street, representing sectional and commercial interests within the USA or specific countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola and Sudan that hire professional lobbyists to promote their interests. Finally, there is the phenomenal importance of faith-based groups, which have been active on Darfur but also on less obvious issues such as Africa's foreign debt, which they said was un-Christian. The new philanthropists
In different ways, corporate interests exert more weight on policy: the business lobby, through groups such as the Corporate Council on Africa, is becoming more significant in uncertain economic times. At the same time, the new breed of corporate philanthropists such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has drawn contributions from fellow billionaire Warren Buffet, are now disbursing several billion dollars a year for health and education projects, sums that can exceed US and other bilateral aid. That buys them an important seat at the policy-making table, especially when they are asked to coordinate with US government entities.
Obama's political advisors are determined not to allow his opponents - capitalising on his cosmopolitan background and international popularity - to paint him as a foreign policy president. That makes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's position all the more critical. After their bitter rivalry for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama's appointment of Clinton was a high-risk strategy. So far it appears to be working. The first test in Africa will be Clinton's trip to Kenya in August leading a 300-strong delegation for talks on the the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The three-day conference is set to bring in officials from 38 African countries and is part of the US plan to reform trade policy, cut agricultural subsidies and expand export markets at the same time.
Kenya is a key issue, partly because of its centrality in US regional policy but also because of Obama's personal commitment. The post-election violence in December 2007 began at a high point of the US presidential primary campaign. Driven by personal history, Obama tried to assist efforts to end the violence and seek a compromise. He spoke to South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu and senior US diplomats in Kenya, and got through to opposition candidate Raila Odinga but not to President Mwai Kibaki. New Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson has also been talking about stronger engagement with South Africa under the new government of Jacob Zuma.
Whatever broad themes of policy Obama elaborates in Accra, the real test will be how they work on the ground in Africa's lead states - or pillar economies – such as Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya. That is when the going is likely to get rough for the new generation of Africa policy.