Africa

Where Obama Stands

• Obama has articulated three main goals for the region, but hasn’t yet outlined country priorities. His goals are:

- to further integrate Africa into the global economy;
- to promote democracy, good governance and poverty reduction;
- and enhance peace & security.

• While Obama is likely to re-energize US diplomacy in Africa, his approach does not signal a break from past US policies towards Africa:  
• Obama appointed Susan Rice, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs, to represent the US at the United Nations. Rice is a strong advocate of military solutions to the kind of social and political problems that confront Africa. 
• Obama will likely continue and even expand the economic and military policies that undermine his stated goals of reducing poverty and promoting peace.

What We Can Build On

• Obama’s approach to combating AIDS in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the epicenter of the pandemic. Obama has said that he will prioritize science and public health over religious dogma in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) programs. PEPFAR must also prioritize universal access to treatment over intellectual property rights of drug companies. Saving lives, not maximizing profit for pharmaceutical companies, should be the goal.

• Obama’s commitment to addressing the crisis in Congo. The death toll in Congo is now over five million, making this the bloodiest conflict since World War II. Women, in particular, are being devastated by the systematic use of sexual violence in a war over the country’s vast mineral wealth. We want the Administration to:

- work cooperatively with the United Nations to protect civilians and boost a negotiated settlement to the war.
- meet with the new Coalition for Women’s Human Rights in Conflict Situations Working Group, which should be included in peace talks and at all levels of reconstruction.

What We Want to Change

• Obama’s strong support for AFRICOM.

- The newest US military command, launched by President Bush, is so unpopular in Africa that no country is willing to host it. 
- The underlying goals are to control African oil and contain the influence of China on the continent.
- The US military does not have a good track record in Africa. It supported Apartheid South Africa and murderous regimes in Zaire, Liberia and Kenya. Today, US militarism underwrites Rwanda’s destabilization of the Congo and Ethiopia’s wars against Somalia.
- AFRICOM would expand the role of the military in humanitarian assistance and development programs. The last thing Africa needs is further militarization.

• Obama’s support for unregulated free market policies for Africa (yes, the same policies that have virtually destroyed the US economy). He supports the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which:

- offers manufacturing corporations tax breaks and cheap non-union labor
- does not require companies to invest in local economies
- does not promote national industry
- leaves Africa with little to export, except its natural resources.

• Obama’s approach to combating poverty in Africa.  Like most US leaders, Obama thinks in terms of development assistance through which the US “helps” Africa. Combating poverty could better be achieved by ending unjust economic policies than by increasing assistance that many Africans view as "paternalistic foreign aid that masks unequal trade." For example, US farm subsidies cost Africa twice as much as the continent receives in aid. These subsidies should be shifted to support small-scale sustainable farms and fair global trade.

*Photo credit: Elizabeth Rappaport