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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
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Africa: Thinking Regionally, Update
Africa: Thinking Regionally, Update
Date distributed (ymd): 980319
APIC Document
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +economy/development+
+security/peace+ +US policy focus+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains an update supplement to the APIC Background Paper
"Thinking Regionally,"
as well as an announcement of major new additions to the Africa Policy
Web Site.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NEWLY AVAILABLE ON AFRICA POLICY WEB SITE
(1) APIC Background Paper Thinking Regionally
http://www.africapolicy.org/bp/region.htm
(2) Top Country-Specific Sites for Clinton's Africa Trip
http://www.africapolicy.org/featdocs/triptop.htm
(3) Strategic Action Issue Area resource pages
http://www.africapolicy.org/action/action.htm
including:
debt relief (http://www.africapolicy.org/action/debt.htm)
landmines (http://www.africapolicy.org/action/lmine.htm)
Nigeria (http://www.africapolicy.org/action/nigeria.htm)
women's rights (http://www.africapolicy.org/action/women.htm)
Also, check out the APIC Africa Web Bookshop
http://www.africapolicy.org/books/vbooks.shtml
In March 1996, APIC published "Thinking Regionally: Priorities
for U.S. Policy Toward Africa," by Salih Booker, Fellow for Africa
at the Council on Foreign Relations. This background paper, based on an
earlier presentation by Mr. Booker to the Council on Foreign Relations,
argued for a comprehensive approach to African issues, encompassing Africa's
five regions and the full range of issues: security, democracy and human
rights, and economic development, including aid, public investment and
debt relief as well as trade and private investment.
As President Bill Clinton prepares for his trip to Africa later this
month, the level of attention to African issues is sure to increase. Questions
remain, however, as to whether the trip's commendable emphasis on Africa's
"success stories" will eclipse a more comprehensive regional
view, and whether the stress on trade and private investment will crowd
out a broader understanding of sustainable and equitable economic development,
as well as fundamental issues of human rights and democratization.
The original version of "Thinking Regionally" is now also
available on-line
(http://www.africapolicy.org/bp/region.htm).
The typeset version is still available from APIC for $2 each or $1.60 each
for 20 or more.
Please add 15% for postage and handling.
In the following update, Mr. Booker reviews current developments and
reiterates his call for "Thinking Regionally."
Update
In the nearly three years since the initial presentation of the Thinking
Regionally framework much has changed both in Africa and in U.S. policy
toward Africa. The following is a brief update focusing on the implications
of key developments in each subregion and emerging U.S. policy approaches
toward each of the priority issues.
Southern Africa
Intergovernmental cooperation on security and economic issues is most
pronounced in the southern subregion of the continent. The Southern Africa
Development Community (SADC) has continued to evolve as the principal vehicle
for promoting greater intra-regional trade and cooperation on security.
Nearly every country in the subregion has experienced fairly healthy GDP
growth rates over the past three years, though an El-Nino inspired drought
may threaten the growth trend this year. In 1997, the US government signed
an MOU with the Finance Ministers of the SADC countries on U.S. trade relations
with the region.
Each country in SADC boasted an elected government, with the exception
of the Democratic Republic of Congo which gained membership at the end
of last year. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela stepped down from his leadership
of the ANC and general elections are slated for 1999. The country's economic
growth while relatively small at 2-3%, has nevertheless represented a dramatic
turnaround from the negative growth that prevailed during apartheid's waning
years. On the political front, South Africa continued to defy the pessimists
by continuing to promote reconciliation while maintaining the ruling coalition
alliance of the ANC, the Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party
despite the adoption of a relatively conservative economic policy.
U.S. trade with the region increased steadily during this period. South
Africa will continue to be Washington's principal partner in Africa, and
the major force for political stability and economic growth in the subregion.
Central Africa
The overthrow of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 represented
a victory for collective action by Rwanda, Uganda, and Angola, whose military
intervention and promotion of a Congolese rebel alliance has resulted in
a dramatically changed environment in the great lakes region. Emboldened
by this intervention, the Angolan army later invaded Congo-Brazzaville
and toppled the elected government of Pascal Lissouba. The enormous and
potentially rich Congo-Kinshasa is poised to begin a process of economic
reconstruction and political transition this year. However, persistent
conflict in Burundi, a return of the genocidal attacks in Rwanda, general
instability in eastern DRC and Congo-Brazzaville, and Laurent Kabila's
failure to engage the democratic forces in his own country to create a
successful transition process, all suggest that greater regional turbulence
lies ahead.
While vibrant informal sector economic activity continues to grow across
borders throughout the region, more formal mechanisms for promoting cooperation
await the resolution of DRC's transition and economic rebirth. The planned
exploitation of Chadian oil finds and the development of a pipeline through
Cameroon represents another important effort at economic cooperation.
Eastern Africa
The East African Cooperation (EAC) was formally born in 1996 and is
slowly evolving as a pragmatic mechanism to promote greater economic ties
and benefits in the subregion. However, Kenyan strongman Daniel arap Moi's
determination to reimpose himself on his electorate for another five years
provoked a militant constitutional reform movement that was only out-maneuvered
at the 11th hour. Continued corruption and the repression of a growing
democratic movement in Kenya threaten to undermine East Africa's precarious
stability, and has already slowed the progress of the EAC.
A more dramatic development in the region is the advance of the SPLA-NDA
alliance against the dictatorial Islamist regime in Sudan. Cooperation
by Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda in support of this project is seen by many
as offering hopes for a repeat of the successful intervention in Congo
by a similar collective last year. The leaders of these three states plus
Rwandan VP Paul Kagame are often described as the "new generation"
of African leaders, a disciplined, incorruptible if authoritarian group
that acts aggressively to promote their national and shared regional security
interests. The Clinton administration imposed financial sanctions on Khartoum
in 1997 and is providing "non-lethal" support to Sudan's allied
neighbors. Washington's new Africa Policy team has placed a high priority
on supporting the effort to change the regime in Khartoum.
West Africa
Through military intervention and political intrigue, Nigeria has continued
to demonstrate its strength as the subregional powerhouse while repressing
all democratization efforts at home.
The subregion continues to defy the larger trend in Africa toward elected
civilian governments based on peaceful political competition. Following
eight years of fratricidal war, Liberians went to the polls and elected
Charles Taylor president in 1997. The Nigerian-led ECOMOG force that brokered
the peace deal and provided a shaky security in the country will withdraw
this year. In neighboring Sierra Leone, elections in 1996 ended that country's
related war and produced a civilian government that was overthrown in a
coup in 1997. ECOMOG, already present in Freetown, has sought militarily
and diplomatically to force the military junta to relinquish power. A peace
agreement intended to achieve this purpose appears unlikely to succeed
at present. Elsewhere in West Africa military juntas in Gambia and Niger
civilianized themselves through questionable elections, and Nigerian dictator
Sani Abacha appears likely to use his transition plan culminating in elections
this year to achieve the same result.
Mainly civilian-led governments in francophone West Africa continued
to promote regional economic cooperation through UEMOA and launched a collective
stock exchange based in Abidjan. Most of these states boasted positive
economic growth as did Ghana. The subregion's overall economic, political
and security prospects are, however, directly undermined by Abuja's refusal
to countenance political and economic freedom for its over 100 million
strong population.
North Africa
The carnage occurring almost daily in Algeria has highlighted the impotence
and disinterest of the international community, including all Arab and
African regional institutions, in initiating a dialogue for peace or an
intervention to protect Algerian lives. The extreme violence of fundamentalist
Islamist opponents of the state, and the government's own culpability in
massacres and continued political repression show no signs of abating.
Next door, however, Morocco has finally agreed to allow the people of the
Western Sahara to vote in a referendum this year to determine the fate
of Africa's last colony.
Throughout the region, the growing percentage of the population comprising
unemployed youth combined with politically repressive regimes and Islamist
movements often offering the only alternative to the status quo, portend
a growing instability that threatens to overwhelm what little economic
progress most states are achieving.
U.S. Policy
On the economic front, the Congress and the Administration have advanced
a new framework for promoting greater trade and investment with Africa
-- the President's Partnership for Growth and Opportunity in Africa, and
the legislation still pending in Congress which gave rise to this policy.
This emphasis on trade and investment, and the concurrent decline in commitments
to development cooperation have provoked a debate regarding what is the
right mix of development assistance, debt reduction, trade incentives and
investment promotion needed to support economic growth and sustainable
development in Africa. Secretary of State Albright has listed the passage
of the African Growth and Opportunity Act of one of the four top US foreign
policy priorities for 1998.
On the security front, the Administration has continued to develop its
year old African Crisis Response Initiative by providing training and communications
equipment to select African armies. Critics challenge the viability of
the plan because of unanswered questions regarding how such capacity building
efforts can be turned into the mobilization of a regional African force
to intervene in specific conflicts to perform peacekeeping, humanitarian
assistance, or other conflict prevention or resolution roles. The implementation
of this initiative has, however, created a new discussion of U.S. security
cooperation in Africa and raises important budgetary and national security
issues.
On the third front, political reform or democratization, the Clinton
Administration has not offered a particular framework for supporting African
efforts to establish systems of more accountable governance guided by the
rule of law and respect for human rights. However, the centrality of this
problem in such priority countries as Nigeria, Congo and Kenya, has forced
analysts and practitioners to rethink their assumptions about the course
of political change in Africa. The emphasis in these debates has shifted
from the mechanics of multi-party elections to issues of legal and constitutional
reform and the roles of civil society.
President Clinton has, however, appointed the Reverend Jesse Jackson
as Special Envoy for the Promotion of Democracy in Africa. His initial
visits, to Kenya and Zambia, triggered widespread criticism from human
rights groups in Africa and the US because of Washington perceived failure
to embrace the democratic forces in those two countries seeking constitutional
change and the protection of basic political freedoms.
In the context of this new debate on where and how the U.S. should engage
in Africa, suggestions have tended to emphasize partnerships with "successfully
reforming states" and/or with those states whose leaders are considered
to represent the "new generation" of African leaders, such as
Eritrea or Uganda. These approaches are more opportunistic than strategic.
A framework for unbundling Africa that makes sense on the ground and takes
into consideration the subregional context within which states are seeking
to make economic and political progress continues to warrant serious consideration.
President Clinton will visit Africa for the first time in March 1998.
His visit, along with the new economic and security initiatives being promoted
by the new Africa policy team, will raise Africa's prominence on the US
foreign policy agenda. Subregional cooperation in Africa will be crucial
to the success of any renaissance in African affairs. Without a framework
for supporting subregional cooperation, Washington's various new initiatives
toward Africa will not succeed in maximizing the opportunities now emerging
nor in solving key problems which threaten to undermine the progress being
achieved in many countries.
This material is produced and distributed by the Africa Policy Information
Center (APIC), the educational affiliate of the Washington Office on Africa.
APIC's primary objective is to widen the policy debate in the United States
around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa, by providing accessible
policy-relevant information and analysis usable by a wide range of groups
individuals.
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