|
 But when "son of Africa" U.S. President Barack Obama hosts 50
African leaders in Washington this week, the admiration may be less
than mutual. Many Africans feel America is lagging behind China and
others in its engagement with their continent.
The Aug. 4-6 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, billed by U.S. officials as
a first-of-its-kind event, looks like a belated imitation of Africa
gatherings hosted in recent years by China, India, Japan and the
continent's former colonial master Europe.
The world's richest nation has been slow coming to the party of an
economically rising Africa, long dismissed as a hopeless morass of
poverty and war, but now offering investors a huge market for
everything from banking and retail to mobile phones.
"The United States has fallen perhaps a little bit behind in the
race to win African hearts and minds. So I think this is an attempt
to compete with the likes of China and the European Union," said
Christopher Wood, an analyst in economic diplomacy at the South
African Institute of International Affairs.
The top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Linda Thomas-Greenfield bridles at
suggestions that the Obama administration is playing catch-up.
"Absolutely not," she said.
"Our relationship with Africa is a very strong historic relationship
... We see this as an opportunity to reaffirm that to African
leaders," she said in a pre-summit conference call.
CHINA RACES AHEAD
China overtook the United States as Africa's biggest trade partner
in 2009. Its leaders have criss-crossed the continent, proffering
multi-billion dollar loans, aid and investment deals.
From Malabo to Maputo, Africa is studded with signs of Beijing's
diplomatic and commercial outreach: Chinese-built roads, bridges,
airports, stadiums, ministries and presidencies.
Since 2009, Obama, despite his African blood through a Kenyan
father, has been a far less frequent visitor. His first substantial
trip to the continent was only made last year.
Washington's many embassies in Africa - imposing concrete fortresses
built to protect against angry mobs or terrorist attacks - project a
cautious engagement from an Obama administration highly sensitive to
a home public which has no appetite for overseas interventions after
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even U.S. Army Major-General Grigsby, surrounded by F-18s, C130
transports, helicopters and Humvees at his Camp Lemonnier toehold in
the turbulent Horn of Africa, acknowledges the U.S. military's
"small footprint" on a continent where flaring Islamist insurgencies
are stirring international concern.
Security, governance and democracy will be on the agenda when Obama
engages the leaders in an "interactive" discussion on Wednesday,
following business talks with U.S. CEOs on Tuesday and discussions
about health and wildlife trafficking on Monday.
Presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Omar Hassan al-Bashir of
Sudan are among a few left off the invitation list because they are
not "in good standing" with Washington for failing to respect human
rights and democracy.
Presidents Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Ernest Bai Koroma of
Sierra Leone have dropped out because of the deadly Ebola epidemic
ravaging their nations. Thomas-Greenfield said ways of fighting the
outbreak would be discussed at the summit.
TRADE IN FOCUS
Some concrete initiatives are expected from the meeting.
The United States will announce nearly $1 billion in business deals
for the region, increase funding for peacekeeping in six African
countries and boost food and power programmes.
Uppermost too will be Obama's strong recommendation for Congress to
renew the African Growth Opportunity Act, or AGOA, a 14-year-old
trade programme giving most African countries duty-free access to
U.S. markets that expires on Sept. 30 next year.
Total U.S. two-way trade in Africa has actually fallen off in recent
years, to about $60 billion in 2013, far eclipsed by the European
Union with over $200 billion and China, whose $170 billion is a huge
increase from $10 billion in 2000, according to a recent Africa in
Focus post by the Brookings Institution.
While African leaders are keen on the AGOA renewal, Robert
Besseling, Principal Africa Analyst, Economics and Country Risk, at
IHS consultancy, said some are seeking better terms of trade.
"Some countries are sceptical about AGOA because it is oriented
towards the U.S. companies and can be politically manipulated,"
Besseling said. For example Swaziland was cut from AGOA last month
due to U.S. concerns over democracy there.
[to top of second column]
|
Obama officials are hoping to leverage U.S. corporations like
General Electric Co, Caterpillar Inc and Procter & Gamble Co into
more business opportunities in Africa amid intense competition from
across the globe.
"In the boards of directors of big global U.S. companies, more and
more people are raising their hands at meetings and saying 'why
aren't we in Africa?'," said Toby Moffett, a former Congressman from
Connecticut and a senior adviser at law firm Mayer Brown LLP, who
has represented African governments. Orji Uzor Kalu, a Nigerian
businessman with oil, tourism and other interests in West Africa,
echoed such complaints. "I'm not seeing the effort the U.S. made in
Asia, they're not making the same effort in Africa," Kalu said from
his Washington D.C. home.
BUILDING SECURITY, DEMOCRACY
Pointing to an Africa map showing hotspots like Somalia,
Major-General Grigsby toes the line of a cautious security policy
that involves keeping U.S. "boots on the ground" to a minimum while
financing African peacekeeping and local training.
"My responsibility from a regional approach is to assist my East
African teammates to be able to neutralize violent extremists and
conduct their crisis response," Grigsby told Reuters at the Africa
Command's Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, where some 3,500
U.S. service personnel are based.
Obama said last year during his Africa trip his country put "muscle
behind African efforts" to fight Islamist militants or brutal
warlords in the Sahel, Central Africa and Somalia.
Although French forces did the heavy lifting on the ground in
driving back an offensive by al Qaeda-allied Islamists in Mali in
2012, Washington has stepped up training African armies and
deploying surveillance drones - to Niamey and N'Djamena besides
those already operating over the Horn of Africa.
Some of the latest U.S. initiatives have clearly played to American
domestic opinion and social media campaigns, such as sending a
specialist team to help Nigeria search for the more than 200
schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamist group Boko Haram.
While U.S. officials say Washington remains influential, it may no
longer wield the diplomatic clout it once had in Africa when it was
squaring up to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Many noted how Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, an ally in
turbulent central Africa, went ahead in February with signing into
law tougher penalties against homosexuality, ignoring an appeal from
Obama who warned it would "complicate" relations.
This kind of diplomatic slap in the face "shows they have to reboot
the relationship" with Africa, IHS's Besseling said.
On Friday, Uganda's constitutional court struck down the law, citing
procedural irregularities.
African leaders have made clear they do not take kindly to moral
lectures from Western leaders. By contrast, Beijing's pledges of aid
and investment come with "no-strings attached".
But Moffett believes the U.S. insistence on democracy and good
governance, which U.S. officials say will be re-affirmed at the
summit, reflects a real transformation underway in Africa.
"President (Obama) can actually say, with a straight face, that the
trajectory across Africa ... (is) towards more democracy, more
adherence to rule of law, more transparency, more judicial
independence, less corruption.
"The Chinese guys don't give that speech," Moffett said.
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Steve Holland and Lesley
Wroughton in Washington, Edmund Blair in Nairobi, David Lewis in
Dakar, Nomatter Ndebele, Siyabonga Sishi and Joe Brock in
Johannesburg; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Gareth Jones)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
