Introduction

Africa has risen steadily in importance to the United States in

recent years. Traditionally, Africa has been thought of primarily
as an object of humanitarian concern. That perception has been
highlighted by popular figures, such as Bono, Bob Geldof, George
Clooney, and others, focusing public attention on Africa’s poverty,
conflicts, and major diseases. Worldwide concerts such as Live 8
in July 2005 focused on these themes and urged leaders of the
industrialized world to devote more aid, debt relief, and opening
of trade to assist Africa. The leaders of the G8 responded that
year, pledging to double aid to Africa to $50 billion annually by
2010 and eliminating the debt of some of Africa’s poorest countries.
Africa has further captured worldwide attention because of the
conflict in Darfur, Sudan. Because the United States has judged
the Sudanese government’s campaign in the region to be genocide,
the conflict has taken on enormous moral importance. Unfortu-
nately, despite many UN Security Council resolutions, special
envoys, and various peace agreements, not to mention the experi-
ence in Rwanda, the violence continues and has even worsened.
But Africa has other reasons, beyond these critical humanitarian
issues, to command America’s attention. Africa is currently the
scene of major competition for access to its natural resources.
China, India, Malaysia, South Korea, Brazil, and other countries
with rapidly growing economies are turning to Africa for oil,
minerals, timber, and other resources. China in particular has led
in this competition with significant amounts of aid along with
financial backing for hundreds of Chinese companies to invest in
Africa. China’s aid for infrastructure projects, long ignored by the
United States and other Western aid programs, and its readiness
to set aside issues of governance, human rights, and economic
transparency—issues of growing importance to the West—has
made it a formidable competitor for both influence and lucrative
contracts on the continent.
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This new competition comes at a time when Africa’s oil is
becoming more important to the United States. Currently, 15 per-
cent of U.S. oil imports come from Africa, as much as from the
Middle East. Moreover, Africa is poised to double its output over
the coming decade and potentially could provide as much as 25
percent of U.S. imports. African capacity to export natural gas is
also growing rapidly, with American and British companies making
billions of dollars in investments in liquefied natural gas (LNG)
plants along the Gulf of Guinea. Yet nearly all of Africa’s oil
reserves are in countries experiencing violence or instability, and
in some cases serious violations of human rights. As the United
States is discovering in the Middle East and Latin America, it is
impossible to count on a continuing supply of oil from Africa
without attention to the quality of governance, the degree that
indigenous populations are benefiting from oil, and long-term
stability.
Africa’s importance is also growing in trade negotiations. With
40 of the World Trade Organization’s 185 members, Africa is
demanding significant reduction of U.S. and European agricultural
subsidies and tariffs in return for agreement on a new round of
worldwide trade improvements. Teaming up with India, Brazil,
and other third world countries, Africa has essentially brought the
negotiations of the so-called Doha Round to a standstill pending
movement on these issues.
Africa is also rising in importance in the war on terror. Al-
Qaeda terrorists bombed the American embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania in 1998 and attacked Israeli facilities in Kenya in 2001.
These acts revealed an extensive network of terrorist cells along
the east African seaboard. The threat became apparent once again
when an Islamic movement captured control of Somalia’s capital,
Mogadishu, in 2006 and seemed headed toward confrontation
with America’s ally, Ethiopia, and to be taking steps hostile to
American objectives, e.g., protecting terrorists known to be associ-
ated with the 1998 embassy bombings.
In a lightning military move in December 2006, Ethiopia dis-
placed the Islamists from Mogadishu and drove the leadership out
of the country or into hiding. But the continuing weak government,
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clan warfare, and humanitarian disasters make Somalia vulnerable
to future infiltration and sources of trouble for the United States.
Elsewhere on the continent, the United States has initiated a
training and intelligence-gathering program throughout northwest
Africa, called the Trans Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative, and
sought to jump-start regional security efforts in the oil-rich Gulf
of Guinea. In 2008, the United States will establish a single Africa
Command to coordinate and amplify these programs.
Finally, Africa is at the center of worldwide concerns over global
health. Africa is the epicenter of the AIDS pandemic, with 28
million of the 40 million worldwide infected with HIV. Africa
suffers the most deaths from malaria, one million per year. And
most recently, Africa has been recognized as one of the most
vulnerable sources for the potential spread of avian flu, because of
weak infrastructure, monitoring capacity, and control mechanisms.
Led by the United States, annual worldwide expenditures on AIDS
have risen from less than $1 billion in 2000 to $8 billion in 2006,
and the United States has begun a major malaria initiative. But
estimates are that as much as $22 billion will be needed annually
in the next few years for AIDS alone. Whether these costs can
be met, or met without subtracting from other forms of aid for
education, agriculture, etc., is very uncertain. Meanwhile, invest-
ments in health and agricultural infrastructure for control of a
potential avian flu pandemic are only on the drawing board.
Africa is well aware of both its challenges and potential. In
recent years African countries have taken several steps to strengthen
electoral democracy, economic policies, good governance, and the
reduction of conflict. Nearly two-thirds of African governments
today are elected, and the African Union (AU)—the continent’s
political body—will not seat a government that comes to power
through nonconstitutional means. Under a program called the New
Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), Africa has set
forth principles of governance, human rights, and economic man-
agement and instituted a peer review mechanism to help hold
governments to these principles. With all the rightful attention to
the ongoing violence in Darfur and the recent civil war in Congo,
many international observers have not focused on the significant
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decline of conflict on the continent. Civil wars in Angola, Mozam-
bique, Liberia, and Sierra Leone have been brought to a close,
often with active African leadership in the negotiations and the
contribution of peacekeepers. A near repeat of the Rwanda-type
genocide in neighboring Burundi has been averted by a strong
African diplomatic initiative that helped shape an elected national
unity government and by the African Union providing a timely
presence of peacekeepers. Even in Darfur the AU has so far pro-
vided the only peacekeepers, though well below the numbers and
capabilities needed to control the situation.
Africa’s democratic trend is nevertheless fragile. In Uganda,
President Yoweri Museveni spurned international pleas and
obtained parliamentary approval to run and be elected yet again
after twenty years in power. In Ethiopia, elections in 2005 led to
charges of rigging, violence, and the jailing of leading opposition
politicians. In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe continues to
rule autocratically, cracking down on dissent, the media, judges,
and even religious leaders while the once-promising economy
plunges into ruin.
Nigeria may be the bellwether of Africa’s democratic future.
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation, with as many as 130
million people. Nigeria’s president over the past eight years, Olu-
segun Obasanjo, has been a leader in the formation of NEPAD
and personally led the return to civilian rule in Nigeria with his
election in 1999. In the spring of 2007, Nigeria faced a major
milestone. After decades of largely military rule and two terms of
Obasanjo’s elected presidency, Nigeria for the first time had the
opportunity to experience a democratic transfer of power from one
civilian administration to another. But the election was deeply
flawed through poor preparation, extensive legal battles over who
could be on the ballot, violence, and considerable ballot stuffing and
other irregularities. The newly elected president, Umaru Yar’Adua,
will be seriously challenged to build credibility and the capacity
to govern in the wake of the deep disillusionment and disputes
about the electoral process. Much of Africa’s future support for
democracy will depend on the outcome of events in Nigeria.
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At the center of all Africa’s issues and challenges lies the persis-
tence of poverty. Africa is by far the poorest continent, poorer
even than other developing regions, and marginal in the global
trading system. Poverty adds to the potential for conflict, the
vulnerability to terrorist influence, the pressures of illegal migra-
tion, the spread of disease, and it constitutes a drain on worldwide
aid resources. Thus, the humanitarian problems return to center
stage in contemplating U.S. policy. But they cannot be treated as
objects of charity, nor be satisfied with emergency aid for relief and
postconflict emergencies, which have comprised much of America’s
recent increases in assistance. The growing importance of Africa,
in so many ways, demands a much more focused, long-term, and
carefully directed program of economic assistance and trade reform.
The Bush administration has begun in that direction with the
Millennium Challenge Account, and Congress has contributed
with the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which opens the
U.S. market to African exports. But much more needs to be done.
The United States also lacks the personnel to develop and man-
age a truly comprehensive policy toward Africa, one that would
address the full panoply of issues described above. As Congressman
Frank Wolf (R-VA) recently said, ‘‘the bench is thin’’ when it
comes to the State Department dealing with crises in Sudan,
Somalia, and elsewhere. It is all the more shorthanded for develop-
ing long-term policies addressing oil-producing states or program-
matic support for democracy. Only when Africa is recognized for
the growing importance it has for America will these shortcomings
be overcome. That is the theme and purpose of this publication.
The Council on Foreign Relations has had a strong program
on Africa for several years. In 2003, it established the Ralph Bunche
Chair on Africa Policy Studies, the first endowed Africa policy
chair of any think tank in the United States. The holder of the
chair has organized regular reviews of current developments in
Africa, directed numerous studies, and published many articles
and reports. In addition, the Council maintains on its website,
CFR.org, a regular stream of updates and analyses on African
issues. This book offers a selection of those reports and publica-
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tions, designed to provide a picture of the broad range of African
issues of importance to the United States and some recommenda-
tions for U.S. policy. If the book helps generate greater attention
and understanding of Africa by both the public and policymakers,
it will have served its purpose.

Princeton N. Lyman

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