Under the chairmanship of U.S. President Joe Biden, the second edition of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit held mid-December has practically registered significant successes. The first summit was in 2014 during the presidency of Barack Obama, the administration officials in reports have however acknowledged regret for the long gap.
The landmark summit offered the platform for 49 African
leaders + the African Union to highlight both new and longstanding challenges,
and to pitch their collective expectations and aspirations in the emerging new
global world.
African leaders are equally looking to voice out
conveniently its development directions into the future as external forces are
competing for consistent political and economic influence across Africa. The
U.S. does not chart routine slogans but offers a better comparative option to
African partners.
1. Biden administration is closing up the gap. African
leaders will return with cheerful smile and great satisfaction. The White
House, during the first day of arrival in Washington, announced a $55-billion
commitment to Africa over the next three years across various sectors. U.S. is
sending best technologies and innovations, attempt to maintain the highest
standards in the market and further looking for direct investment in Africa,
but argued that it would remain the “partner of choice” in Africa.
It was in consultation with African partners to show a new
era of partnership and broad-based commitment on the critical development
issues that matter most to Africa. Therefore, the United States is defining its
relationship with Africa on African terms.
2. In addition, Biden has urged that the African Union,
which represents 55 African states, be given a seat in the Group of 20, an
influential collection of the strongest economies in the world. South Africa is
the only member from the continent. Biden has thrown his backing behind the
African Union getting permanent membership in the Group of 20 during the summit
which enhances economic ties in its own right.
Even before the summit officially began, the White House
announced Biden’s support for the African Union becoming a permanent member of
the Group of 20 nations and that it had appointed Johnnie Carson, a
well-regarded veteran diplomat, to serve as point person for implementing
initiatives that come out of the summit.
3. The United States two-way trade with sub-Saharan Africa
was $44.9 billion last year, a 22% increase from 2019, while foreign direct
investment into the region fell by 5.3% to $30.3 billion in 2021.
In January 2021, the African Continental Free Trade Area -
designed to be the world’s biggest free-trade zone by area when it kicks into
full gear in 2030 – already became operational and making headways. The
initiative is likely to become a key pillar in facilitating trade between the
US and Africa. The bloc has a potential market of 1.3 billion people with a
combined gross domestic product of $2.6 trillion.
Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of AfCFTA, and his
counterpart US Trade Representative Katherine Tai are preparing to sign a
memorandum to create a platform for ongoing work. “We’ve consistently seen
that there are opportunities for the program to be better – there could be much
better uptake and utilization of the program,” Katherine Tai said in Washington.
Asked about her vision for the evolution of the program, Tai said the United
States would like to explore the “middle ground” between the current
AGOA system and traditional full free trade agreements and developing new
relationships that are focused on “resilience and inclusion.”
It is described as an “incredibly supportive” of
the continental-integration efforts and promote trade and economic cooperation
between the two regions. It is meant to assist the economies of sub-Saharan
Africa and improve economic relations between the United States and Africa.
With the next phase in mind new legislation at facilitating trade offers basis
for widening overall economic ties with Africa.
Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on
Africa, Chris Van Hollen, and Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee
on Africa, Karen Bass, proposed legislation to increase US assistance to
implement the African free-trade area. That requires to develop an interagency,
long-term strategy on infrastructure development and technical support to
promote African continental trade. The African Growth and Opportunity Act,
which expires in 2025 and also gives about three dozen African countries
duty-free access to the world’s biggest economy for almost 7,000 products.
4. Biden has signed an executive order to establish the
President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United
States, as Washington seeks to deepen ties with the region. It will advise the
president on a range of issues. African-American and African immigrant
communities will coordinate various emerging questions in government, business,
social work, sports and other areas. The African Diaspora includes African
Americans, including descendants of enslaved Africans, and nearly 2 million
African immigrants.
According to World Bank Statistics, remittance inflows to
Sub-Saharan Africa soared 14.1 percent to $49 billion in 2021 following an 8.1
percent decline in the prior year. Beyond remittances, African stands to
benefit from the input of its diaspora considered as the most progressive in
some of the most developed countries in the world.
Ultimately, African leaders have to engage with their
diaspora, excelling in sports, academia, business, science, technology,
engineering and all those other significant sectors that the continent needs to
beef up to optimize its potential and meet development priorities.
“African voices are essential to solving global
problems. To elevate these voices, one of our primary focuses is to widen our
circle of engagement to include African Diaspora communities,” Dana Banks,
Special Assistant to the President and Special Adviser for the U.S.-Africa
Leaders Summit, said. “It will advise the President on a wide range of
issues, enhance the dialogue between U.S. officials and the African Diaspora,
and strengthen cultural, social, political, and economic ties between African
communities, the global African Diaspora, and the United States.”
5. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo sounded the alarm
about petering private investment in middle- and low-income countries,
particularly in Africa. The infrastructure finance gap, or money needed for
essential projects like lighting homes and businesses, responding to the
coronavirus pandemic and to making communities resilient against extreme
weather, sits at $68 billion to $108 billion per year, Adeyemo said.
At the same time, Adeyemo lamented that huge amounts of
private capital among the wealthy nations around the globe remains untapped.
“There is a clear disconnect between the large amount of available private
sector capital and the urgent need to fund critical infrastructure projects in
Africa and elsewhere. The question for us is: how do we connect this massive
supply of savings with high-quality infrastructure projects in Africa?”
Adeyemo said at the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.
Trade between the U.S. and sub-Saharan Africa was $44.9
billion last year, a 22% increase from 2019. But foreign direct investment into
the region fell by 5.3% to $30.31 billion in 2021. According to reports, trade
between Africa and China last year surged to $254 billion last year, up about
35% as Chinese exports increased on the continent.
Ahead of the symbolic gatherings, Witney Schneidman, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Clinton
administration, said focusing on China and Russia would distract from the more
important topic of U.S. private sector investment.
The simple fact is that African leaders arriving in the U.S.
capital are clamoring for more U.S. business in the region, he said, where a
glaring gap has led to the U.S. ceding Africa not just to China, but also to
the European Union, India, Turkey and other countries that have invested in the
region in recent years.
According to reports, the summit was to “really to
highlight how the United States and African partners are strengthening partnerships
and advancing shared priorities and indicates a reflection of the U.S. strategy
towards sub-Saharan Africa and the African Union’s Agenda 2063, both of which
emphasize the critical importance of the region in meeting this era’s defining
challenges.”
The irreversible fact is that the United States is
broadening its engagement and partnership, reviewing institutional capacity and
strategic approach towards offering a comprehensive relationship based on
mutual respect and values, while African leaders are also pushing for advancing
efforts at achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Agenda 2063
of the African Union.
