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USA/Africa: Obama in Ghana, What Kind of Change?

AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jul 10, 2009 (090710)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor's Note

President Barack Obama's trip to Ghana, beginning today, will be rich in symbolism. But those hoping for a new direction in U.S. Africa policy are tempering their hopes with skepticism. The issue posed, parallel to that in other policy spheres, is to what extent change will remain symbolic or reflect substantive shifts, even if small, away from U.S. policies based on unilateral geostrategic goals or unexamined economic policy assumptions.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains two documents highlighting key policy issues related to President Obama's visit to Ghana. The first, from Pambazuka News (http://www.pambazuka.org), is by Charles Abugre. Abugre, the head of global policy and advocacy for Christian AID (http://www.christianaid.org.uk), is a Ghanaian development activist who previously headed the Africa Secretariat of the Third World Network and the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC). Also included is an open letter from U.S. advocacy groups proposing a new framework for U.S. Africa policy.

Other recent related articles of likely interest to AfricaFocus readers include:

Exclusive pre-trip AllAfrica.com interview by Charles Cobb, Jr., with President Obama.July 2, 2009 [scroll down for commentaries, including an insightful dissection of half-truths in Obama's approach by Canadian author Gerald Caplan, dated July 9.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200907021302.html
For more AllAfrica.com coverage, including a youtube video of the interview, visit http://allafrica.com/usafrica/

Africa Action Talking Points on the G8 and Africa, July http://www.africaaction.org/newsroom/docs/G8TalkingPoints09.doc

What the G8 Leaders Say on Africa, July 9, 2009
http://allafrica.com/stories/200907090339.html

Kevin Kelley, "Ghana: There's More than Democracy in Obama's Visit", Daily Nation, Kenya, July 8, 2009
http://allafrica.com/stories/200907080871.html

Africa Faith and Justice Network, "Rewriting U.S.-Africa Policy," July 6, 2009
http://www.afjn.org / http://tinyurl.com/mcrbsd

Media Briefing Booklet on the occasion of President Barack Obama's visit to Ghana, July 10, 2009, by Foreign Policy in Focus and a coalition of allied organizations
http://www.fpif.org/pdf/reports/Press%20booklet-ObamaGhana.pdf

AfroPop's Guide for Obama's Ghana Visit
http://tinyurl.com/ldbojp

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on US-Africa relations, see http://www.africafocus.org/country/usa-africa.php

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Ghana, visit http://www.africafocus.org/country/ghana.php

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As regular visitors to the AfricaFocus website know, French and Portuguese translations of the site have been available (using Google automatic translation) for some time. Automatic translation is, of course, very imperfect. But it is improving, and these pages are being increasingly used, including by repeat visitors.

So I'm adding several other languages for which I'm fairly confident the translations are at least usable (I've checked with Chinese-speaking friends on the Chinese). And I'm asking you to visit those pages for the languages you know, and, if you think the translation is good enough, please pass on the link to friends and colleagues who you think might prefer to see AfricaFocus in those languages (the original version of each section of text is also visible in a pop-up box).

For translations of the home page and of the new AfricaFocus FYI, please visit the following links. Clicking on links within each translation will link to a translated version of the linked page. Additional languages are available through a Google drop-down list.

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The 'change we need'? Obama in Ghana

Charles Abugre

Pambazuka News, 2009-07-09, Issue 441

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/57585

Charles Abugre is the head of global policy and advocacy at Christian Aid.

As US President Barack Obama heads to Accra, Ghana, this week, Charles Abugre hopes a new 'wind for change' is blowing. Coming from a 'son of Africa' held with pride and esteem by Africans across the continent, Obama's speech will have major influence on the way the world regards Africa. For all the anticipated talk about 'good governance' and 'democracy', Abugre stresses, the US president should first acknowledge his country's historical role in undermining African countries' stability and progress. If Obama is to spark a new beginning in US-Africa relations based on genuinely mutual interests and respect, he must actively allay fears around US militarisation and seek to review US economic relations with the continent. Through building trust and commending Ghana's democratic successes, who better, asks Abugre, to understand the wind of change than Barack Obama?

That there is a carnival spirit in Accra, Ghana, ahead of Barack Obama's visit to this small West African country is to be expected. I recall the excitement on the streets of Accra in October 1994, when Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam led 2,000 blacks from America to Accra for the Nation of Islam's first International Saviours' Day. Crowds poured out on the streets to greet them. He came to preach awakening and redemption. In March 1998, amidst low approval ratings and sex scandals, the Clintons took Accra by storm. Bill Clinton was mobbed - much like a rock star - and later draped in colourful Ghanaian kente. He preached hope for Africa, offered aid but also apologised for America's standing by as hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide. A decade later, President George W. Bush, suffering the lowest approval rating of any US president and the villain of an illegal and murderous war in Iraq, rolled into town. He was received as a hero, a saviour of Africa from diseases. He danced and was fettered. He preached freedom and democracy and promised to increase aid for HIV/AIDS and malaria, whilst denying an aggressive American agenda to militarise the continent in order to secure strategic access to petroleum resources.

So what is new about Obama's visit? The trip to Ghana will be his second trip to Africa in a month, only seven months into his presidency. He went first to Cairo, Egypt, early in June. This is a record and signifies that Africa is more than of passing interest. Second, there has never been an American president with roots in Africa, making his visit something of a homecoming, whether he sees it that way or not. Being a 'son of Africa' carries more meaning to Africans - not least pride, dignity and hope - than anything he might say or do. Yet the significance of what he says about Africa on this trip will carry significantly more meaning for this same reason. Third, Obama means more to the world than a mere US politician. He has become a brand, for which, like all brands, there is a massive contestation of the values and meanings underpinning it. He means hope, a 'wind of change', the triumph of common humanity, equality of peoples and cultures and many more. But he also means pragmatism, a manifestation of American power, responsibility and interests.

President Obama is scheduled to make a major speech in Ghana. He will address Africans through a Ghanaian audience. What he says will influence the way the world sees Africa and Africa's place in the world. What he says will reveal his attitude towards a continent much preached to and done to, and whose history is often discarded. He will address the Ghanaian parliament and by extension African lawmakers. He will visit the slaveholding castles in the west of Ghana, and by that act, reach out to the history of slavery, the civil rights movement and the history of colonisation that followed slavery.

What will be a good speech for Africa which breaks from the paternalism of his predecessors and yet lays grounds for America's better interests based on Africa's progress? First, there should be an acknowledgement of history - how the current is shaped by the past. His Cairo speech, believed to be directed largely at the 'Muslim' world, is an excellent parallel. There he acknowledged that today's realities are rooted in centuries of coexistence as well as in conflicts and wars. A new beginning will need to acknowledge this history and be built on mutual respect, mutual interest and mutual listening. He talked about what Islamic culture had given to the world - timeless poetry, cherished music, elegant calligraphy, for example. He talked about the unbreakable bond with Israel because it is based on cultural and historical ties. He acknowledged America's wrongs against Iran, especially the role the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) played in the overthrow of a democratically elected government.

The parallels with Africa are stark. Nowhere else can one better acknowledge humanity's collective debt in relation to culture, music and calligraphy (at least in the case of Ethiopia), multiculturalism and the history of the coexistence of diverse cultures than Africa. If anyone will acknowledge what Africa offers to the rest of the world other than mineral resources, it has to be a 'son of Africa'. It will be good to hear that Africa doesn't only export poverty and conflict. There is much more in the history between Africa and America to make the bonds 'unbreakable'.

Obama's visit to Ghana coincides with the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founding father Kwame Nkrumah. He will be arriving at an airport built by Nkrumah, speaking in a parliament building constructed by Nkrumah and enjoying electricity which is the product of Nkrumah's investments. All these projects were once touted in the West as 'white elephants', including the expansion of the port, harbours and trunk roads. He will be speaking to an educated elite, most of whom will have had their foundations in Nkrumah's relentless investments in education. When he lauds Ghana's relative peace, he will be minded to note that this has its roots in the pursuit of equitable development strategies of the 1960s that have spread opportunities to all ethnic groups. That the state means something to Ghanaians - well worth risking to promote democratic governance - is rooted in a culture of essential service provisioning by the state, began in the 1960s.

When Obama reflects on these he may be minded to apologise for the CIA's role in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Kwame Nkrumah to satisfy Cold War strategic interests. In doing so, he may also be minded to extend this apology for the role the CIA played in Patrice Lumumba's removal from power and the resulting mess that is today's Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Military coups in Africa - the biggest threat to democracy and good governance - were introduced by the CIA and other Western intelligence. Not to acknowledge that in a speech focused on good governance is to trivialise Africa's history of struggle for democracy. A good son of Africa couldn't possibly do that.

In his focus on good governance, President Obama may be minded to note that the experience that Africans have of the military is not of protectors but of instruments of destructive interests whether these are domestic or foreign. Militarisation portends interference in democratic processes. The experience of foreign military build-ups portend external intervention to prop up dictators, or mess up the electoral process, for the protection of strategic foreign interests. If Obama is serious about democratic and accountable governance taking root in Africa, he will be minded to dispel the fear (and the rumour) that the United States is actively militarising the Gulf of Guinea through increases in the activities of US naval forces. He should signal loud and clear that he respects the African Union's reluctance to extend the US military footprint in Africa, whether by providing landing facilities or hosting an AFRICOM (United States African Command) facility. He should dispel the rumour circulating in Ghana, when he speaks to the Ghanaian parliament, to the effect that Ghana's former president John Kufuor had done a deal allowing US forces on Ghanaian soil.

Democracy and good governance are hard to sustain in a peaceful atmosphere when the mass of the population do not have an education and jobs - the latter being a source of taxation to sustain the institutions of democracy. When public institutions are funded either by foreign aid or indirectly by foreign companies, rather than the tax system, government accountability tends to de facto be externally focused. Not all types of jobs are conducive to democracy. Jobs that are concentrated in rural primary production tend not to produce the critical mass of activism and awareness necessary to hold governments to account, compared with jobs in manufacturing and value-added services. The value-added production of goods and services as well as taxation, in my view, are the most potent instruments for democratisation. This is the sense in which one cannot separate the economy from democracy.

Obama's speech could helpfully draw on these parallels. More than that, he can do something about it in two main ways: by extending his crusade against tax-dodging in Africa and reviewing current US economic relations with Africa. The issue of taxation applies to the capacity to collect tax, the sharing of natural-resource rents between Africans and foreign mining companies - many of which are American or trade on US stock markets- and tax-dodging through the use of tax havens. It will be wonderful if Obama were to call upon the Newmonts of this world and other multinational companies to publish their accounts on a country-by-country basis, including the profits they make and how the profit is shared or reinvested. It will be sufficient even to note the harmful nature of tax-dodging by multinational companies. Similarly, it will be helpful if Obama were to state that in accordance with the UN Convention on Corruption, the United States will prosecute American or African companies or individuals operating in American markets who are suspected of bribery, tax-evasion or aggressive tax-avoidance. This will send a wonderful deterrence signal. Addressing the tax problem can put no less than US$50 billion into the African economy annually.

An associated issue of resource outflow is the renewed debt problem. The limited debt relief delivered by the multilateral debt relief initiative has been all but reversed by the combined effects of the food and financial crisis. Two things need to happen. Obama should support the UN's call for a debt servicing moratorium using the US bankruptcy legislation as a guide. This is only fair and will signify that Obama is listening to the UN when it comes to economic matters. Secondly, there is a crying need for a structural solution. This should be in the form of an independent debt-arbitration panel operating under the auspices of the UN to mediate between debtors and creditors, rather the current system in which debtors are totally at the mercy of creditors. This is not only fair, but it is also necessary for a stable international system benefitting rich and poor alike.

In relation to value-added production, Obama is already one step in the right direction by pushing for agricultural productivity to be up on the international agenda. But first a few cautions. A focus on agricultural productivity should not become a cover for foreign private companies to grab land or impose expensive, input-intensive methods in the name of modernisation. The issue of land-grabbing is particularly worrying. A recent study by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) of five African countries, including Ghana, showed that 2.5 million hectares of land of sizes exceeding 1,000 hectares has been acquired, all in the name of promoting foreign direct investment. Single acquisitions have been as large as 450,000 hectares (Madagascar) and 400,000 (Ghana), most of which has been directed at biofuel production. Total investment commitments for land acquisitions of over 1,000 hectares exceed US$1 billion to date. The myth that Africa is a continent of abundant land with no claimants is dangerous for both future peace and social equity.

On a more positive note, Obama has an opportunity in the form of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Millennium Challenge fund to demonstrate his support for a focus on productivity. To do so however will require a radical review of both instruments. As they currently stand, they achieve the opposite goals. The eligibility criteria discourages and undermines Africa's capacity to produce by imposing US intellectual property, imposing privatisation and insisting as a precondition that governments are not directly engaged in economic activities. It also discourages them from using industrial policies to move out of commodity dependence and by using technical assistance as a means to cajole governments to implement trade liberalisation policies which directly undermine the goal of diversifying their economies. The view that liberalisation-at-all-costs is good for the economy has now been shown to be false. This is even more so with African countries. If Obama really does mean to promote value-added production in Africa he should indicate that the era of the extremes of economic ideology is over, that Africans are unlikely to ever break out of primary commodity production and joblessness without an active but balanced role of the state in investments, manufacturing and in enhancing their share of the value chain.

Such a strategy already exists in Africa. In 2004, the African Union, the African Ministers of Industry, and NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development) adopted an African Productivity Capacity Initiative (ACPI) aimed precisely at a wise use of industrial policy and public-private investments aimed at value-added production. Such a strategy cannot succeed without targeted and time-bound infant industry protection, including more pragmatic use of trade policy. Obama should indicate support for such approaches and align his strategy for agriculture with this African-driven initiative. Such a support, even with modest financial means, will be invaluable politically and in terms of policy space. He should indicate to the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank that the neoliberal development model they work with is rendered out-of-date by the global poverty, financial and trading crisis.

Obama must continue to emphasise the personal responsibility of African leaders and African people. He should ask them to do more with what they have, mobilise more resources from within, stamp out corruption and live less lavishly. He should commend Professor John Atta Mills for the small size of his motorcade and for not moving into the ridiculously luxurious new presidential palace built with huge loans (as people hungered). He should remind African and all other parliamentarians that they do not have a right to a standard of living several times the average of their populations. He should discourage African politicians from being businessmen - a clear root to conflicts of interest and corruption. He should remind them that the only way to measure their worth to their citizens is the extent to which citizens have jobs and access to healthcare, education, water and personal protection.

Above all he should remind himself and us all that the wind of change that began in Accra in 1957 and swept across the African continent only to be suppressed for several decades may well be on the rise again. Who better to understand this than Barack Hussein Obama.

Open Letter to President Barack Obama

July 7, 2009

The Honorable Barack H. Obama
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, write to express sincere appreciation for your upcoming travel to Ghana, West Africa. Other U.S. presidents have traveled to sub-Saharan Africa while in office, but none has prioritized a trip to the Continent so early in his term. Africa, her Diaspora, and all social justice advocates eagerly look forward to the dawning of a new relationship with the Continent, and believe that your trip can be the first step in establishing new policy, based upon mutual collaboration and respect between the nations of Africa and the United States.

In charting a new course for our country's relationship with Africa, we assert that there are several critical general principles of engagement:

_ A recognition of that our global interdependence requires sustainable, multilateral cooperation.

_ Our long-term security depends on working together with others to find ways to increase common security, including less conventional threats that endanger us all: climate change, epidemics, natural disasters, economic disasters, and even the unpredictable side effects of accelerating technological changes.

_ Our self-interest as a nation and our common humanity require investment in basic economic and social rights for all.

With specific regard to Africa, there is urgent need for the creation of a comprehensive new policy. During the period of the Cold War, U.S. relations with Africa were overwhelmingly dominated by the global rivalry with the Soviet Union. The consequences, in which both superpowers supported their clients with little regard to human rights or development concerns, remain visible today. Today, almost 15 years after Nelson Mandela took office in South Africa, the U.S. requires a comprehensive new Africa policy that builds upon affirmative general principles and fosters multilateral African-led solutions to create a stronger foundation for a mutually beneficial relationship.

There are pieces of such a policy which include the following four strategies:

1. Reform structures for economic recovery to reflect interdependence and cooperation rather than blind reliance on market forces. Specifically, the United States should accelerate bilateral and international actions to cancel unsustainable debt of African countries. It should also support reform of international financial agencies dealing with Africa to promote democratization and transparency of decision-making, open dialogue on economic policies without ideological preconceptions, and accountability to and input from national and legislative bodies and regional civil society. It should cooperate with UN-specialized agencies and African policy analysts, instead of privileging narrow macroeconomic prescriptions from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

2. Restructure U.S. foreign assistance agencies to foster cooperative engagement with other countries and international agencies to confront global problems. It is essential not only to restructure foreign assistance programs for greater efficiency, but also to reframe U.S. contribution to internationally agreed efforts to meet common goals. The Obama administration can adopt a just approach to development, anchored in principles of mutual respects in a range of issues: food security, human rights, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and global health. The United States should: A) contribute its fair share to multi-lateral agencies; B) coordinate bilateral programs with international programs, e.g., the universally agreed-upon Millennium Development Goals, and C) ensure the integration of U.S. funded development programs within broader frameworks of regional and bilateral cooperation.

3. Integrate regional collaboration and bilateral partnerships to foster an inclusive approach to resolve issues within each region. It is urgent to establish frameworks for broader dialogue, including African and U.S. civil society, policy analysts, legislators, and a wide variety of government sectors rather than, as is now the case, to privilege the expansion of military ties through AFRICOM and of trade ties through the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

4. Reduce u.s. military spending and investment and defuse threats through cooperative security measures, arms reduction, and multilateral peace initiatives. Importantly, the United States should stop the militarization of U.S. policy towards Africa by suspending all bilateral military cooperation with African states and anti-terrorism initiatives until and unless it can ensure that they do not reinforce nondemocratic regimes, contribute to ongoing conflicts, or stimulate new conflicts. Instead, U.S. security policy towards Africa should focus on strengthening multilateral peacemaking and peacekeeping capacity, by the African Union, African regional groups, and the United Nations.

We thank you for the opportunity to share these views with you and look forward to an opportunity to discuss them in greater depth.

Respectfully,

Cc: The Honorable Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State; Ambassador Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa

A partial list of organizational signatories to the letter includes:

ACT UP/East Bay, Africa Alliance for the 21st Century, Africa Action, African Security Research Institute, African Faith and Justice Network, African Peoples Action Congress, African Network for African Development (ANAD), Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, California Newsreel, Federation Council For African Foundation, Kenya Chapter, Friends of the Congo, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Gender Action, Global Aids Alliance, Health GAP, Institute of the Black World 21st Century, International Forum on Globalization, ISODEC, Jubilee USA Network, Just Foreign Policy, Justice in Nigeria Now, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Mennonite Central Committee, Positive East Tennesseans, Priority Africa Network, TANEPHA, Transafrica Forum, TWN Africa, United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society, United African Organization, Vermont Global Health Coalition

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