America Tries to Win Africa Back

Hillary Clinton is doing a tour of eight countries. Barack Obama is showing a new interest in the continent.

This Friday, Hillary Clinton will finish her 11-day tour of the African continent in Ghana and Benin. In the context of this diplomatic marathon, which has brought the American secretary of state to Senegal, South Sudan, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa and Nigeria, how should we assess the Africa policy carried out by the U.S. president within the past four years?

First observation: Barack Obama, whose election gave birth to very high expectations in Africa because of his Kenyan origins, has not made an effort to build a special relationship with the continent. His only visit to the territory was back in 2009. That year, the head of state spent a total of 19 hours on African soil and chose to go to Ghana, a stable country led by democratically elected authorities and not very representative of the problems that other sub-Saharan states face.

During the course of that voyage, Barack Obama made a strong speech, underlining the importance of democratic institutions by drawing on Africans’ sense of responsibility. “Such remarks would have never been accepted coming from a white president,” remarks J. Peter Pham, director of the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center in Washington, also highlighting that the president “has been totally disengaged personally on the African front during his tenure.” But this “is not surprising really,” he believes, “because nothing in his life or in his political career indicated that he would be particularly active in this area. Some have developed unrealistic expectations, simply because of the color of his skin.”*

The lack of personal involvement from the head of state in Africa did not frustrate the activity carried out during his administration on the continent. “U.S. policy in Africa does not break down as a result of political change,” says Pham, “but rather it is characterized by its continuity. It is one of those rare topics upon which there is a consensus between Republicans and Democrats.” In his time, Bill Clinton created the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which permitted African explorations and is still in effect today. After him, George W. Bush, whose activity in Africa is considered one of his rare successes in international politics, established the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief for the fight against AIDS. “This project was expanded during Obama’s tenure, who largely built upon the foundations laid by his predecessors,” Pham highlights. In South Africa, where she stayed from August 5 through 9, Hillary Clinton recalled that, between 2003 and 2011, the United States allocated more than $3.2 billion for the country via the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.*

Philippe Hugon, a researcher at the French Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques (French Institute of International and Strategic Relations) also recalled the absence of any “particular orientation” of U.S. Africa policy under the aegis of Obama, “even though the United States had been present on the continent over the course of the past few years on a variety of fronts, in particular on the military situation, because of the rise in radical Islamism on the continent.”

However, over the course of the past few months, Barack Obama himself has shown a renewed interest in African affairs. On July 29 of last year, he welcomed to the White House four black francophone African leaders, Thomas Boni Yayi from Benin, Alpha Conde from Guinea, Mahamadou Issoufou from Nigeria and Alassane Ouattara from Cote d’Ivoire, paying tribute to the democratic nature of their elections. On July 14, he presented his plan for African development. The document, which was promoted by Hillary Clinton among her host countries during her tour, does not contain any major innovations but pronounces four major goals: To reinforce democratic institutions, stimulate growth and investments, give priority to peace and security and promote development.

“Two factors contribute today to increased investment in the United States and in Africa,” points out Philippe Hugon, “competition with China, which is very active south of the Sahara and strategically dangerous, and the potential market of one billion people that represents the continent.” [Translator’s note: China, Africa’s primary trading partner, has announced its loans to Africa have doubled, to $20 billion.]

During her visit to South Africa, the primary economic partner of the U.S. on the continent, Hillary Clinton did not fail to acknowledge the strong growth in various African countries and emphasized the willingness of Americans to contribute. Without directly mentioning China, the secretary of state spoke in favor of democracy in her various speeches, underlining the impossibility of “governing as before,” while denouncing the byproducts of autocracy and insisting on the United States’ willingness to offer Africa “partnership, not patronage.”

While waiting to see if her activism will pay off, the secretary of state already has the satisfaction of bringing back something that resembles a concrete success, with the agreement made between Sudan and South Sudan to resolve their dispute over petroleum. The document was signed last Saturday, the day after the secretary of state’s stay in Juba, where she had urged the authorities to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.

*Editor’s and translator’s note: An exhaustive search failed to locate the original article in English, but the French article appears to accurately quote J. Peter Pham.