ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL -
A BI-PARTISAN LOOK AT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES' VIEWS ON
US-AFRICA RELATIONS...in their own words

1. Despite international efforts to resolve the Darfur conflict peacefully, the killings and rape continue in western Sudan, and the conflict is described as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. Similar mass atrocities have been visited on the people of northern Uganda and eastern Congo. If elected President of the United States, what specific actions would you take to end the genocide in Darfur, as well as the mass killings in Uganda and Congo? What preventive measures would you recommend to keep similar tragedies from becoming full-blown genocide in the future?

There is a real mismatch between the urgency of the genocide in Darfur, where innocent civilians are dying every day, and an international response that won’t be providing any additional protection until many months down the road. 

The United States needs to lead the world in ending this genocide, including by imposing much tougher sanctions that target Sudan’s oil revenue, implementing and helping to enforce a no-fly zone, and engaging in more intense, effective diplomacy to get a political roadmap to peace. Rather than pressure the perpetrators of genocide to stop the killing, for four years we have been negotiating compromise after feckless compromise with the Khartoum regime, while it continues its campaign of atrocities. 

To stop the genocide, the international community needs to deploy a large, capable force with a robust enforcement mandate to protect civilians. This force should be commanded, funded, mandated and staffed by the UN. This force is needed now, not at some point next year, and it needs to be free from restrictions and obstacles thrown up by the Government of Sudan. I await concrete evidence that the Sudanese government is finally prepared to halt atrocities, re-engage in a peace process, and allow an unfettered peacekeeping mission to do its work.

Although the Sudanese government recently accepted a UN-AU hybrid peacekeeping force, the government typically fails to fulfill its commitments. True to form, since accepting the hybrid force, Khartoum has continued to bombard civilian targets, obstruct non-African participants in the hybrid force and expel foreign diplomats. The U.S. needs urgently to change the calculus in Khartoum and stop the genocide. Therefore, the Administration should immediately implement the oil sanctions it threatened last year and still failed to impose last May. I worked with Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) on the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, a version of which was signed into law, to impose targeted sanctions on the leading perpetrators of the genocide.

With our allies and our partners in Africa, we need to take immediate steps – economic and military – to let Khartoum know we will not tolerate continued genocide. These steps should include more effective sanctions by the U.S., the EU and the UNSC. We also need to establish a no-fly zone to protect civilians and increase pressure on Khartoum to halt the killing and consent to the robust international force. 

In addition to taking immediate steps to protect civilians and end the genocide, the U.S. should step up its diplomatic efforts to negotiate a lasting peace among the Darfur rebel groups and the Sudanese Government. 

The situation in Congo is very different. A newly elected democratic government has just come to power. That government faces major challenges, including consolidating control over parts of Eastern Congo and responding to a continuing humanitarian emergency there. I was the principal author of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act that passed Congress last year. The legislation revamped U.S. policy in the Congo to include a commitment to help rebuild the country, develop lasting political structures, hold accountable destabilizing foreign governments, crack down on corrupt politicians, and professionalize the military. The bill also authorizes $52 million in U.S. assistance for the Congo, calls for a Special U.S. Envoy to resolve ongoing violence, and urges the administration to strengthen the U.N. peacekeeping force.

A lasting peace appears potentially within the grasp of the people of northern Uganda.  The United States should continue to use its diplomatic muscle to keep peace talks on track and work with Ugandan civil society, the Ugandan government, and the rest of the international community to address the vast development needs of the north, which has been neglected for far too long.

In the future, the U.S. needs to exercise far greater foresight, maintaining energized, high level diplomatic efforts to prevent conflict and crisis rather than merely reacting to it, often inadequately, after catastrophe has struck. As the alarming situation in Somalia today makes plain, standing by while order deteriorates and desperation takes hold is never a viable policy, even when engagement is tremendously difficult. Working to combat pervasive corruption, government-sponsored repression, and utter decay in state institutions before conflicts emerge and spiral out of control won’t be easy, but it will save lives. Poverty and declining GDP per capita also substantially increase the risk of civil conflict. In Africa, as elsewhere, we must confront the economic as well as political drivers of conflict. Promoting good governance and poverty reduction are security imperatives, which deserve far greater U.S. attention and investment.

2. Africa is blessed with abundant natural resources, especially petroleum, diamonds and valuable products. Unfortunately, much of this natural wealth is not brought to bear for the benefit of African citizens. As President, how would you work with resource-rich but economically poor countries in Africa to ensure that their incoming revenues from oil, gas and mining, as well as from other resources, are used to promote poverty alleviation and development rather than simply to fill the coffers of corrupt officials? How would you act to effectively seek the recovery of stolen bilateral aid money?

It is a cruel paradox that natural resource wealth has so far harmed more than benefited many developing countries. Natural resource wealth in many places has exacerbated corruption, stifled healthy entrepreneurship and diversification, and encouraged political centralization, autocracy, and dangerous economic volatility.

The United States should encourage resource-rich countries to adopt legal structures that provide full transparency of the natural resource industry and reserve a percentage of natural resource income for social programs. Some countries, like Nigeria, Ghana, Gabon, and Angola, have begun taking steps to expose their management of oil, gas or mineral revenues to external audit and review by civil society through the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative or IMF programs. Several diamond-producing African states have worked hard to implement the Kimberley Process and establish greater transparency in the diamond industry. But more remains to be done. The Bush administration has done little either to acknowledge the progress that has been made or to invest in improving the capacity of these nations to manage their resource revenues. My administration will raise anti-corruption and transparency to the top of our agenda in Africa. I will make improved governance a priority for foreign assistance, and will work to ensure that the information gleaned from transparency initiatives is actually available to African publics, empowering citizens to drive demand for better governance. I will also direct my Administration to work with African officials to help track down stolen public funds.

3. Africa is facing several environmental challenges, including climate change that threatens traditional African livelihoods, dwindling water resources that deprive more than 300 million people access to safe water and may lead to conflict, diminishing agricultural capacity that has lead to food dependency and disappearing plant and animal species that threaten Africa’s great biodiversity. Given the importance of African ecosystems to the continent and the world as a whole, what policies would you pursue as President to help African nations face these challenges such that the solutions are linked to sustainable development practices?

Africa is filled with environmental riches. The Central African tropical forest, for example, is second only to the Amazon among the most important such forests in the world. As president, I will work to promote sustainable development, preserve biodiversity, and critically, combat and help African nations adapt to global warming.

It is unfortunate that the people of Africa bear little historical responsibility for the carbon emissions that are driving global warming, but they will be among the most severely impacted by it. For years to come, they will have to contend with climate change-induced droughts, floods, famines, and disease outbreaks. Ultimately, all of the high-profile efforts by the United States and other wealthy countries to fight poverty and disease around the world -- and to help to create the socio-economic conditions in which effective and responsible governments can thrive -- are being undermined by the Bush administration’s failure to make similar efforts to combat climate change. If we continue to ignore the threat, African countries will increasingly be compelled to devote their resources to combating famines, providing care for displaced populations, and other climate change-driven crises, rather than to the education or long-term health programs that are critical to development and prosperity.

Some of the countries that will be most adversely affected, moreover, are precisely those that are already fragile, and thus have the least capacity to adapt or respond. The threat that climate change will contribute to state failure presents a national security challenge, as well as a moral challenge, to the United States.

President Bush had eight years to begin to transition to a low carbon economy and to lead the world toward a sustainable energy future. He began by denying the problem, and then as the scientific evidence became irrefutable and overwhelming he proceeded to ignore its implications. The world has lost precious time in its attempts to avert destabilizing climate change, and we must take immediate steps to ensure that we do not cause yet more severe, even catastrophic, climatic changes. That is why I support legislation to reduce America’s carbon emissions and would help to put our country on a path to a low carbon future. And that is why as president, I will push for a market-based cap-and-trade strategy that will enable the United States to gradually cut emissions in the most economic and efficient manner possible. Putting our own house in order is the vital first step to building an international effort needed to stop climate change. Under my leadership, the United States will once again demonstrate its ability to take strong stands on issues of global concern and lead the way forward.

4. Two years ago, the G8 discussed 100% debt relief for the poorest countries, a large increase in development aid and changes to world trade rules that to make it easier for African economies to grow. However, these ideas have yet to be fulfilled through the policies of donor nations. The United Kingdom took the lead on these issues, but the United States and other G8 nations have been reluctant to follow through. As President, how would you deal with the issue of African debt so that poor nations are not crushed under this growing financial burden while ensuring that monies that formerly went to debt service were now able to be devoted to the social and economic needs of these nations?

Alleviating Africa’s external debt is central to sustained economic growth, increased foreign investment and the continent’s full integration into the global economy. I am encouraged by the progress that has been made in canceling significant portions of the debt that African nations have owed multilateral and bilateral creditors. Over the last two years, eighteen African countries have benefited from what is known as the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) and another 15 African countries are eligible to receive similar debt cancellation once they meet the required benchmarks. In two years, this initiative has eliminated $38.9 billion in current and future debt service for 24 countries in Africa and elsewhere. Nevertheless, the G8 in 2005 committed to 100 percent cancellation of heavily indebted poor countries’ (HIPC) debt obligations to the World Bank, the IMF and the African Development Bank. We need to make sure this commitment is fulfilled as soon as possible.

In addition to working to eliminate Africa’s debt burden, as president, I will double our annual investments in foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those new resources are directed towards strategic goals. As part of my commitment, I propose to establish a two billion dollar Global Education Fund that calls on the world to join together in eliminating the global education deficit, similar to what the 9/11 commission proposed. For the last twenty years, U.S. foreign aid funding has done little more than keep pace with inflation. Doubling our foreign assistance spending by 2012 will help meet our commitment at the 2005 G-8 conference at Gleneagles and push the rest of the developed world to invest in security and opportunity. We need to manage and spend these new resources wisely. As we’ve seen from the failure of the Bush Administration’s reconstruction efforts in Iraq, economic assistance is not just money to be thrown at a problem – it is a tool we must use to invest in a more secure and prosperous future. The crisis in Iraq makes all too clear the need to complement our military power with capable diplomatic and economic tools, and we need new capabilities to manage new challenges – weak and failing states, post-crisis reconstruction, transnational threats ranging from climate change to avian flu, and democracies that deliver.

5. When the African Growth and Opportunity Act was first introduced in Congress in the mid-1990s, its mantra was “trade not aid.” However, at least 80% of AGOA trade involved oil and natural gas. What strategies would you propose as President to ensure that African small and medium enterprises outside the extractive industries more broadly realized the benefits of AGOA, which offer more than 6,500 items that Africans can export to America quota-free and duty-free? What would your guiding principles be as regards American trade and investment in Africa?

To achieve sustainable growth, Africa needs to participate fully in the global economy.  Eliminating barriers to trade, enhancing regional integration and promoting American investment are essential to achieving high growth rates and broad scale development. To ensure that these goals are achieved, my Administration will seek to expand the African Growth and Opportunity Act, press for the successful conclusion of regional free trade agreements, and work to ensure that Africa’s key exports, such as agricultural products, gain greater access to the American market.

AGOA has demonstrated that trade and increased exports can be a vital stimulus to investment – and thus to new jobs and the reduction of poverty. But U.S. imports from Africa outside the energy sector remain modest ($3 billion in 2006) and have fluctuated (2006 imports were 7 percent higher than in 2005, but 10 percent lower than 2004). The U.S. must work to expand the benefits of AGOA outside the energy sector by encouraging more investment in Africa. Greater U.S. investment will increase the capacity of African industry and better allow it take advantage of AGOA opportunities. This is especially true in areas such as textiles, where currently African countries lack fabric capacity and are forced to rely on third-country fabric. Increased trade and investment flows between the United States and our African partners will be to our mutual economic and security benefit.

Therefore, we need to be more creative in ensuring AGOA’s ongoing relevance while enhancing American investment in Africa. For example, I would ensure that OPIC deals with individual investments on a case by case basis, measuring the likely impact on the U.S. economy of any particular investment. This approach would enable OPIC to attract and enhance American investment into some of Africa’s most promising sectors.

6. China has become a major international player in Africa through its increasing level of investments in Africa, especially in the extractive industries, as well as numerous infrastructure projects. The Chinese also have promised African leaders that they will double aid and scholarships for African students. However, the G8 nations have warned China that its promise of $5 billion in cheap loans and credit without conditions could worsen Africa’s debt crisis and cause a repayment problem. Moreover, Western nations are concerned that China will be an impediment to the promotion of transparency and good governance in Africa if China is not supportive of international efforts in this regard. What steps would you take as President to address the issue of China’s role in Africa? Do you see the Chinese role as harmful or helpful overall to African nations?

The emergence of China’s influence in Africa is among the most significant developments on the continent since the end of the Cold War. China has become a significant player in Africa, competing for contracts, access to resources, and political influence. China’s growing presence in Africa challenges us to improve our own policies and programs and to find the common ground on which both the U.S. and China can better contribute to Africa’s development. Moreover, it would be to Africa’s benefit, as well as our own, if we can develop strategies for cooperating with China in critical areas such as poverty alleviation, healthcare and protection of the environment.

China’s increased engagement in Africa should provide a wake-up call to the Bush Administration. My administration will make high-level engagement in Africa a significant priority.

China’s willingness to sweep important governance and human rights issues aside in making deals in Africa is of grave concern. The U.S. must work to convince China that support for a genocidal government in Sudan, or for the repressive regime in Zimbabwe, runs counter to its own long term strategic interests, as well as ours and Africa’s. Even in Sudan where our preoccupation with Darfur’s genocide is in sharp contrast to China’s close relations with President Bashir’s government, China has begun moderating its approach. International pressure and efforts by activists to target the upcoming Beijing Olympics may have helped persuade China not to stand in the way of world opinion.

I have had extensive conversations with the Chinese Ambassador on the issue of Darfur and traveled to the United Nations to meet personally with the Chinese Permanent Representative to discuss the issue of Darfur. We need to continue this dialogue, and to use all the tools available to us to convince the Chinese to use their leverage with the Sudanese leadership to end the killings in Darfur. We also need to forge programs of cooperation with Chinese in numerous areas in order to benefit Africa’s benefit.

7. The creation of a combined Africa Command, uniting military, diplomatic and humanitarian assistance personnel under one umbrella, has many in civil society concerned about what is perceived to be a militarization of Africa policy. The concern is that the War on Terror is at the top of all considerations for U.S. action, such as has been the case recently in Somalia. As President, what would be your overall policy thrust toward Africa?  How important a role would you assign to military and intelligence considerations in devising an Africa policy? What policies would be adjusted to minimize the security dangers from insecurity due to high unemployment among young, rising numbers of orphans due to AIDS and conflicts and the large number of internally displaced persons?

Africa is a complex continent with many challenges. Although many advances are taking place throughout the continent, extreme poverty, the youth bulge, insufficient job opportunities, corruption, and weak governance continue to fuel feelings of hopelessness and despair. This is a complex environment in which to implement effective security programs and complicates Africa’s efforts to fulfill its enormous human and resource potential. Within this context, the continent’s security issues are linked to its significant development and governance challenges.

AFRICOM, the new unified command, should serve to coordinate and synchronize our military activities with our other strategic objectives in Africa. Working under the foreign policy leadership of the State Department, this command should help to integrate military (especially non-lethal capabilities) with all the other elements of US power and diplomacy. AFRICOM should promote a more united and coordinated engagement plan for Africa.

Security cooperation at the AU and national level is extremely important, and the US military has made great strides in this area. This effort must be matched by a similar interagency commitment to enhance and fund a more robust “stability cooperation” program. Increased security depends on better governance and plans for long-term stability that foster a believable hope among Africans that tomorrow will be better. This means cleaner water, adequate food, better schools, available and affordable healthcare, improved infrastructure and communications, more employment opportunities, human rights, and total gender equality.

There will be situations that require the United States to work with its partners in Africa to fight terrorism with lethal force. Having a unified command operating in Africa will facilitate this action. That means AFRICOM must forge genuine military partnerships that are predicated on mutual respect and responsibility. There must be joint training exercises to ensure interoperability in operations and logistics. The effort against terrorists operating in Africa will require a joint and combined effort with African countries to achieve lasting mutual progress—that is one of AFRICOM’s missions.

An Obama Administration, therefore, will pursue an Africa policy that seeks to work with its partners in Africa to realize the goals of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. These include the eradication of poverty, putting Africa on a sustainable path of growth and development and reversing the marginalization of the continent in the global economy. An Obama Administration will work to help ensure that Africa is seen as a desirable destination for American trade and investment and that the continent is a priority for the United States. It will also work to ensure that transparency, accountability, and rule of law are widely upheld. An Obama Administration will pursue effective partnerships to combat terrorism while making the continent a safer and healthier place to live.

8. Africa’s institutions are increasingly more active in peacekeeping and peacemaking.  Most notably, the Economic Community of West African States served as the primary mediator and peacekeeping force in the sub-region during the conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea Bissau. More recently, the AU has dispatched missions to Darfur, Sudan, Burundi, and Somalia. However, Africa’s sub-regional and continental organizations suffer from severe logistical, resource and capacity constraints. How will the US Government in your Administration work to increase their effectiveness in peace activities, as well as in other governance and economic pursuits?

United States policy towards Africa should include as a priority initiatives to build effective peace and stability operations capacity, including within the structures of African regional organizations and the African Union. Africa, as a continent, hosts more peacekeepers than any other region. However, the African Union can not fully implement its peacekeeping efforts because of a lack of resources, personnel, equipment, training, and logistical support.

The United States should fully fund its share of GPOI, a 2004 G8 agreement to support a five year program to support training and equipment for 75,000 peacekeepers worldwide, with 40,000 in Africa. The U.S. should also assist the African Union in crystallizing their adopted mechanism by increasing the capacity of the African Stand-by Force. This will help relieve conflicts before they escalate and could reduce the need for additional resources being spent on long term engagements. In order to increase the capacity of the African Union to organize, deploy, and manage peacekeeping operations, additional technical and financial support should be provided by the United States to AU headquarters. In addition, the U.S. needs to help harmonize multiple bilateral efforts to train and equip African forces to avoid duplication and enhance coordination in all areas. A headquarters database and tracking system to handle offers of training, material, financial, and personnel support could be useful for supporting NGOs, the United Nations, and partner countries.

As for Africa’s regional organizations, they are the key to the continent’s peace, stability, and prosperity, and are ideally suited to be both the “first responders” when conflicts threaten, as well as the best instruments for longer term regional development. Given Africa’s political and geographic structure – i.e. states which often split ethnic groups and logical commercial activities – problems often spill over national boundaries, so solutions to many issues must be regional, not simply national. In addition to enhancing peace and security, issues such as transportation infrastructure and mobility, uniform duties and tariffs, standardized telecommunications, movement of labor, sharing of natural\ resources, are all best addressed at the regional level. Ironically, the very regions with the most acute problems (Central Africa, the Greater Horn) also have the weakest regional organizations.

Not only is it logical to work through Africa’s regional organizations when crises arise, but the United States should cooperate with them to avert crises before they erupt. The United States needs to be proactive in supporting each of the regional organizations to be effective in addressing the issues unique to its own area. In some cases this would involve helping to strengthen the organization’s fundamental structure and build trust among the members, while with more integrated organizations, US cooperation could extend to helping develop telecommunications or trade policies. Africa’s future success will hinge on successful regional integration, and it is clearly in our interest to be a key contributor to the process. In fact, an Obama Administration would seek to establish more formal mechanisms between the U.S. and the key regional organizations.

9. Over the last five years, African states have taken bold steps towards institutional reform through the adoption of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and its accompanying African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). These new institutions seek to increase economic development and encourage good corporate and political governance. Indeed, the 2002 G8 summit at Kananakis, Canada, adopted NEPAD as the framework by which it would approach development assistance. How will you, as President, work to reinforce NEPAD and the APRM as development and accountability standards for Africa?

NEPAD is an innovative and important initiative developed by some of Africa’s most respected leaders. Donors have indicated a willingness to be full partners in NEPAD’s implementation just as most African leaders have expressed a commitment to NEPAD’s peer review mechanism. Now the process needs to move further to assure NEPAD’s eventual success with African governments and civil societies taking the steps envisioned by NEPAD’s creators.

At the same time, the NEPAD mechanism is still young, and the U.S. should pay careful attention to how African governments and civil society organizations react to its ongoing development. As long as African confidence and support remain invested in NEPAD and the APRM, the U.S., too, should support these mechanisms. The most important accountability mechanisms in Africa will be those that empower African citizens to demand better governance, and the U.S. should use its voice and diplomatic muscle to strengthen those tools that serve this purpose. Countries that fare well in a credible review process that is governed by Africans and is well received by African civic leaders, not just government elites, will deserve strong support from the United States.

10. It is estimated that women in African nations are responsible for three-quarters of all agricultural work and comprise about three-quarters of overall economic output. Nevertheless, women continue to lack full ability to exercise their political and economic rights in many nations, and girls are still too often prevented from receiving an education that will enable them to take their full place in society. As President, how would you integrate efforts to enhance the status of women and girls in Africa into overall Africa policy?

There is no question that the political, economic, and social empowerment of women and girls is essential to Africa’s successful development. Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai are compelling examples of what African women can contribute to their societies and the world at large.

As president, I would re-invigorate our commitment to promoting and expanding education in Africa. By targeting girls and supporting the push for universal free primary education, we would apply universally accepted best practices. Education must be central to the design and delivery of our development assistance programs. Education is key to economic advancement, good health, and political stability. That’s why I have proposed to establish a $2 billion dollar Global Education Fund that calls on the world to join together in eliminating the global education deficit, similar to what the 9/11 commission proposed.

Finally, I will use our diplomatic power and meaningful foreign assistance resources to combat gender-based violence, which has reached horrific levels in such places such as Darfur and Eastern Congo. Redressing sexual violence will be a priority in my Administration’s post-conflict reconstruction and recovery efforts