Why Africa Matters to America -- Seven Points To Remember

Ambassador Johnnie Carson

National Intelligence Officer for Africa , National Intelligence Council

Ambassador Marilyn McAfee.    Thank you for that very kind introduction.

Admiral Howe and the members of the Jacksonville World Affairs Council,

I am extremely pleased to be with you this evening to share some thoughts with you about Africa why Africa Matters to the United States .  Before I begin, I want to extend a special thanks to Ambassador McAfee for extending this invitation and for being persistent in her effort to get me to come down here.  This is my first visit to Jacksonville , and had I known how beautiful a place this is, I would not have hesitated.

At the time that Ambassador McAfee extended the invitation for me to speak, I was serving as Senior Vice President of the National Defense University .  In the past month, I have moved across town to join the National Intelligence Council, where I am now serving as the senior National Intelligence officer for Africa .  The National Intelligence Council is under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  However, the views I express here this evening do not represent any official position.    Secondly, while I will talk about all of Africa, most of my comments will focus on that part of Africa that is south of the Sahara and is frequently identified as black Africa or sub-Sahara Africa . With that caveat, let me begin.  And if time permits, I will be pleased to answer some questions at the end.

Africa is an enormously large and diverse region of the world.   With 53 countries, five major languages groups, approximately 800 million people and covering a geographic area two and a half times the size of the continental United States, Africa remains relatively unknown to all but a handful of Americans.  Most Americans would be hard put to identify five or six African countries on a large map or to name the presidents of the five or six most important Africa states.  Very few Americans have any serious understanding about the major political, economic or social developments that are occurring in Africa or about America ’s interests on the African continent.

When most Americas hear about Africa, it is generally in the context of a dramatic newspaper or television headline describing some type of serious problem – a devastating drought, the start of a bloody civil war, the outbreak of a public health crisis or the massacre of thousands of innocent men, women and children in some place like Darfur or Rwanda . 

While Africa continues to face a number of very serious problems -- famine, civil strife and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the stories and reporting behind those headlines do not give us a comprehensive and balanced picture of events in Africa today.  Nor do they tell us much about the developments that have occurred in Africa since the 1960’s – when most Africa states achieved their independence.  Nor do they explain what U.S. interests are in Africa and why we as Americans should be more informed and concerned about developments in Africa .  

I think there are seven fundamental reasons why Africa is important to the United States and why the U.S. should remain deeply engaged in Africa .  Several of these reasons are linked to our most important national security and international economic challenges.  The others reflect our broader political and economic principles and our  humanitarian values.  However, all seven of these reasons help to protect and promote America 's long term interests.  They also play a role in contributing to Africa 's democratic stability and economic growth.

What are the seven reasons why America should be interested in Africa ?

Establishing African Partners in the Global War on Terrorism:

The first is centered about the global war on terrorism and the threat posed by religious extremism.   

The struggle against international terrorism is the most serious national security problem we in the United States face today.  If we are to defeat this threat we need partners around the world, including in Africa, which has also experienced serious acts of terrorism and which has served as home to a few of the terrorists we currently seek.  

Three years before the tragic events of September 11 in this country, the same terrorist group that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York struck with equally deadly force in East Africa . On August 7, 1998 the United States Embassies in Nairobi , Kenya and Dar as Salaam , Tanzania were both severely damaged in well orchestrated al Qaeda attacks.

The Nairobi bombing was particularly devastating for the United States .  Forty four American and Kenyan nationals were killed inside the U.S. embassy.  On the streets and in some of the small buildings immediately adjacent to the American compound, over 200 Kenyans were killed and more than 5000 wounded -- many of them cut and blinded by flying glass. Since the attacks in Kenya and Tanzania , there have been a number of other terrorist incidents in Africa .  

In April 2002, Islamic extremists attacked an ancient Jewish synagogue in Djerba , Tunisia , killing nineteen, mostly German and northern European tourists. In November 2002, al Qaeda operatives staged two simultaneous attacks in Mombasa , Kenya . One group of terrorists blew-up a well known Israeli hotel, killing nineteen Israeli and Kenyan citizens, while the second group shot two surface to air missiles at an Israeli passenger plane taking off for Tel Aviv.  Fortunately, no one was injured in the second attack on the plane, which was carrying over two hundred Israeli tourists.   And in May 2003, suicide bombers carried out five simultaneous attacks in Casablanca , Morocco against hotels and restaurants frequented by Spanish and French tourists.  Thirty nine people were killed in those attacks – mostly Europeans.

Some African nationals have been implicated and involved in terrorist events in Europe .  Many of the terrorists who took part in the Madrid train bombings on March 11, 2004 – which occurred just ten months after the bombings in Casablanca – were of Moroccan origin.  And three of the individuals arrested for trying to participating in the second waive of bus and train bombings in London in July  2005 were originally from the Horn of Africa.  It is also worth remembering that Osama Bin Laden lived in Sudan from 199l to 1996 and that the planning for the attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam probably began in Sudan before Bin Laden moved to Afghanistan in 1996.  The mastermind of    Nairobi and Dar attacks was Wahdi Al Hajj, Bin Laden’s personal assistant, who worked with him Sudan .

Although there have been no major terrorist attacks in Africa in the last two years, al  Qaeda has operated effectively in Africa before and it could do so again.  The potential for outside extremist groups to recruit terrorists and to carry out terrorists activities in Africa should remain an on-going concern. 

Africa is a potential locus for terrorist recruitment and operations because of its large Muslim population.  At least one third of Africa’s population is Muslim, and Islam is thought to be fastest growing religion region across many parts of Africa . Although Africa remains a hospitable and friendly environment for Americans, the religious extremism, political marginalization and anti-western sentiment that has been at the root of much of the recent terrorist violence around the world could gain a toehold in Africa .

However, Muslims in African follow develops in the Middle East closely and some share the belief that many people in the West have denigrated and humiliated their religion.

While we have close and friendly ties with a number of predominantly Muslim states in sub-Saharan Africa , some of them cannot safeguard their borders or stop the movement of foreign nationals or illegal weapons into or through their countries.  Some of them are weak or failed states – like Somalia . And a few have sizeable Muslim populations that feel disaffected and marginalized by their central governments. 

Contrary to common belief, Africa’s largest Muslim populations are not exclusively in North Africa .  In terms of population, Nigeria is the largest country in Africa with approximately 120 to 130 million people.  Slightly more that half of Nigeria ’s population is Muslim.  With over 60 million Muslim citizens, Nigeria is the eight largest Muslim country in the world.  Nigeria ’s Muslim population is larger than of Saudi Arabia ’s.  In fact, Nigeria ’s Muslim population is larger -- on a state to state basis – than that of Jordan , Syria , Morocco or Algeria .

Nigeria is not the only sub-Saharan African state with a substantial Muslim population.  In East Africa, a similar demographic portrait can be painted of Ethiopia – whose former traditional rulers traced their lineage back to early Christian roots.  Ethiopia , which lies just south of Egypt and just across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia , has a population of around 66 million people – half of whom are Muslim. Ethiopia ’s Muslim population is just as large as Saudi Arabia ’s Muslim population.   

There is no doubt that where large Muslim communities exist, conservative and sometimes radical Islamic organizations have been able to make enormous headway among small but vulnerable groups of disaffected, alienated and angry Muslims.  Given Africa ’s large Islamic community, we need to develop strong partnerships with African governments to strengthen their ability to combat terrorism and to protect American and western interests in their countries against potential terrorist threats.

Protecting America ’s Access to Hydrocarbons:

The second American interest in Africa concerns an issue that is on the mind over every American who drives a motor vehicle.

Although we frequently dismiss the importance of Africa as a critical economic partner, nothing could be further from the truth when we look at the petroleum and mineral sectors.  Despite what we hear and read about the Caspian region of Russia , oil experts acknowledge that Africa, especially West Africa , is one of the most exciting petroleum exploration and production regions in the world.

Africa supplies just over 16 per cent of America 's petroleum imports and the vast majority of our low sulfur "sweet" crude.  A recent oil sector study predicted that over the next ten years, Africa's supply of the America market will increase from sixteen to twenty-five percent.   Most this oil will be coming out of sub-Saharan Africa .

Nigeria is the dominant player in the African oil market.  With production averaging about 2.4 million barrels of oil a day, Nigeria is Africa ’s largest oil exporting country.  It supplies approximately eight percent of America ’s oil imports, and American investment in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria runs into the billions of dollars. Nigeria ’s main production region in the Niger Delta has been the center of on-going civil and political strife, but the long term out look remains good for increased growth in Nigeria ’s export production – especially from deep and ultra deep offshore wells.  

Angola is the second largest oil producer in African and it is slated to increase its production from 1.4 million barrels a day to nearly 2 million in the next five years. Most of Angola ’s production is offshore and in the tiny enclave of Cabinda .

In addition to Nigeria and Angola , Gabon , Cameroon , Chad , Sudan , Algeria and Libya also produce exportable quantites of petroleum.

But the most exciting prospects are in the Gulf of Guinea , where the small country of Equatorial Guinea , which produced no petroleum a few years ago, will shortly become one of the most significant producers in the region. Another African island state -- Sao Tome and Principe – is also poised to become a significant petroleum producer.  

In addition to oil, Africa is one America ’s leading suppliers of LNG – liquefied natural gas.  One country, Algeria , is the single largest supplier of LNG to the eastern half of the United States .  As the demand for natural gas increases other African countries are taking a hard look at the LNG market in the United States . 

African oil and gas will be critical to the United States over the next two or three decades.  And with continued turbulence in the Middle East, African crude will have a number of advantages over oil coming out of  the Middle East and central Asia . In addition to being low sulfur crude, it will be closer to U.S. markets, mostly produced from deep water wells and probably less susceptible to political turmoil and upheaval.

Strengthening Democracy and The Rule of Law

The third interest is strengthening democracy and the rule of law throughout Africa .  The  reason for this is clea

Democratic countries have a common set of set of shared values and principles.  They treat their citizens well; they abide by laws and regulations; and they are generally responsible international citizens. For all of those reasons, democracies are frequently our closest allies and partners.

Africa 's democratic track record has been relatively weak throughout much of its post-colonial history.  And the absence of democracy and the rule of law has been one of the primary reasons for the civil strife, military conflict and sometimes appalling human rights abuses that have plagued the continent.

Over the last decade Africa has made some impressive gains in establishing more responsible and representative governments. Today, military coups and extra legal changes of government have decreased in frequency, especially in larger African states. In 1974, Freedom House, a well know democracy and human rights advocacy group, began a program to classify governments into three categories:  free, partly free and not free.  In the first years of the survey only three African states ( Gambia / Mauritius/Botswana and South Africa ) were classified as free and democratic; only nine African States were considered partly free; and the remaining 31 were not considered free at all.  In last year’s survey for 2005, Freedom House reported that eleven African states were free – and had fully democratic governments.  Twenty one African countries were described as partly free and had partial democracies.  And twenty two were listed as not free.

Although it goes largely un-noticed in the press, half of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa now have democratically elected governments and in the last decade over a dozen countries ( Nigeria , Ghana , Mali , Kenya , Senegal , Benin , Namibia , Mauritius , Madagascar , Mozambique , Kenya and Tanzania ) have held successful and peaceful multiparty elections that have resulted in smooth and orderly changes of government.

The African Union has also made democracy and good governance a higher priority, and six years ago it passed a resolution stating that it would not allow any government that came to power through a military coup d’etat or unconstitutional means to participate in its deliberations.  The African Union has established a peer review mechanism to evaluate how well countries are living up their commitments to strengthen the rule of law, protect humans rights and fight corruption.  These measures are still relatively new, but they represent dramatic steps in the right direction.

However, despite this progress, there are still several large holes in Africa ’s democratic canvas and much remains to be done before democracy is deeply rooted throughout the continent.  Several of Africa 's most important countries remain outside of the democratic framework.   Sudan and the Congo , two of the largest and most important states, are not yet democratic and are struggling to emerge from long periods of autocratic rule, civil war and serious human rights abuses. Two other regionally significant countries, Zimbabwe and Guinea Conakry, are still under the control of aging and autocratic leaders. And in a number of countries, like Zambia, Nigeria and Malawi, where democratic elections have been held and constitutional governments are place, democratic institutions remain fragile and under recurring political stress.  

While these shortfalls in democratic institution building cannot be ignored, we must recognize that a more democracy Africa is in the long term interest of the United States as well as Africa .   America ’s strongest and most productive relationships around the world are with democracies and as Africa becomes more democratic our relationships on that continent will become more deeply rooted and productive. Our ability to work well with different African countries on questions related to counter terrorism and energy production will also be enhanced even further.

Encouraging Economic Reform, Liberalization and Growth:

The fourth interest is encouraging economic reform and sustainable economic development in Africa .

Africa -- for the most part --- is a continent of great mineral wealth and agricultural potential.  However, sustained economic growth and prosperity have proven extremely elusive for most African states.

According to the World Bank, Africa is the poorest continent and the least integrated into the global economy. For most of its most post-colonial history, Africa has moved sideways or backwards economically.  It has suffered from slow economic growth, declining levels of per capita income, modest inflows of foreign investment and a woefully small and stagnant percentage of the world’s trade flows.  And in the information and digital world in which we live today, Africa is the least wired and connected continent on the globe.

There are many reasons for Africa ’s poor economic performance.  Some are of African origin and some are international. But much of this gloomy picture is the result of bad economic and financial policies, bloated and inefficient government bureaucracies, and an over-reliance on poorly managed state run marketing boards and cooperatives.  Corruption has also been a cancer on Africa ’s economic development.

African countries lucky enough to have large mineral and oil wealth have not escaped Africa ’s cycle of poverty.  Many of the countries with substantial mineral and petroleum resources have not benefited economically or financially from that wealth. In several parts of Africa , major mineral earnings have frequently resulted in massive corruption and have sometimes sparked political conflicts and civil wars rather than economic growth and national prosperity. Diamonds, for example, have fueled prolonged conflicts in Angola , Sierra Leone , the Central African Republic and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo .  Oil wealth has resulted in violent conflict and recurring political tensions in Nigeria , Angola , Chad and Cameroon .

But this picture is starting to change slowly.  

In the last decade, many African countries have undertaken much needed and long-delayed economic and financial reforms. A number of governments have adopted World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs, privatized inefficient state owned industries, floated their currencies and allowed their markets to play a substantially greater role in their economies.   Governments have also become more aggressive in seeking better terms of trade, creating better conditions for their business communities and courting foreign investment.  Some governments have also begun to tackle the issue of corruption.

There are signs that these moves have begun to pay off.  Throughout the 1990s, economic growth in Africa was flat and a number of countries registered negative growth.  But since 2000, the overall macro economics numbers for the continent have turned positive.  Africa has experienced positive economic growth for five straight years.  In 2003, Africa registered a GDP increase of 3.8 percent and in 2004 GDP jumped to 4.4 percent.  In 2005, Africa’s GDP increased to 5.5 per cent, and the World Bank expects that Africa will show continued growth in 2006.

While Africa can take pride in its positive macro economic numbers and the positive trend they suggest, Africa ’s overall social indicators remain a source of deep concern for all those who follow the continent’s economic progress. And while some countries have done well, others are struggling to survive economically and socially.  One third of all Africans still live on less than one dollar a day.  Nearly forty percent of Africans suffer from malnutrition. Only fifty percent of Africans have access to hospitals and doctors.  And nearly three hundred million Africans have no access to safe drinking water. African children are the most vulnerable in the world. Infant mortality is extremely high with one in every six African children dying before the age of five.  If they live, their chances of receiving a good education are slim. Only fifty seven percent of African children are enrolled in primary school and only one in three will have an opportunity to compete their primary education.  Water borne diseases, aids, malaria and tuberculosis kill millions of Africans every year.   Africa ’s roads, railways and public utilities suffer from a lack of investment and maintenance.   

Africa’s continued impoverishment is not just a problem for Africa, however, as a nation, the United States often responds to Africa ’s humanitarian needs and economic distress. We respond through our USAID foreign assistance programs, our contributions to a variety of UN organizations, and through the various institutions of the World Bank and IMF.  If Africa’s economy was healthy, the global community would be better off and the cost to the United States would be less.   

One final note on this point: The road to sustained and long term economic growth in Africa will not be found in donor assistance and development aid alone. A robust, free market economy, based on equitable trading relationships and foreign investment, coupled with the strategic use of foreign assistance, is the best way to achieve long term economic growth and stability. African governments should be encouraged to follow this path.  And it is in the interest of the United States to assist them. 

Combating HIV and AIDS:

Our fourth interest in Africa is helping that continent address its number one public health crisis. 

AIDS is by far the most serious challenge facing contemporary Africa . If AIDS is allowed to go unchecked, Africa will never realize its dream of economic prosperity and democratic stability. It will have difficulty carrying out its international obligations and it will be an unhealthy and weak partner.

The magnitude of the AIDS problem is without precedent in the era of modern medicine, and Africa has been hit hardest. With roughly 800 million people, Africa has only ten percent of the global population, but it has roughly sixty percent of the world's forty million AIDS cases. Of the top fifteen countries in the world affected by HIV/AIDS, the majority are African. In Lesotho , Botswana and Swaziland , AIDS infection rates hover around thirty-five to forty percent and in Zimbabwe , Zambia and South Africa twenty percent or more of the people are infected.

The situation in Kenya , where I served as the United States Ambassador, is not untypical of many other African counties. By one recent estimate, "36 Kenyans die every hour” as a result of AIDS.  That is equal to 864 every day, 6,048 every week, 24,192 every month, and 290,304 every year".    The situation throughout Africa is equally grim.  On the continent as a whole, nearly three thousand people die every day because of this disease and in some African countries the sheer size of the problem is almost beyond human imagination.

As a result of this disease, life expectancy in nine African countries – Botswana, Center African Republic, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe – has dropped to below 40 years.  In Botswana , if you are sixteen year old boy, you only have two chances out of ten to live to the age of thirty eight.  And in Zambia , a country particularly hard hit at the start of the AIDS pandemic, life expectancy at birth in 2003 for a Zambian citizen was 34 years of age.  Thirteen years earlier, in 1990, Zambia ’s life expectancy was 52 years of age.

AIDS has taken the lives of some of Africa’s most senior leaders -- a foreign minister from Uganda , a finance minister in Zimbabwe , a labor minister in Zambia and the son and daughter-in-law of Nelson Mandela.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic also leaves behind another burgeoning problem -- orphans. There are nearly twelve million orphans living in sub-Saharan Africa , and that number is expected to double by the end of this decade.

Among western governments, the United States has taken the lead in providing funding and assistance to fight AIDS throughout Africa . Working through the Centers for Disease Control, USAID, the National Institutes for Health and the U.S. Army Medical Research Unit, President Bush has launched an extraordinary initiative that will provide $15 billion in funding over five years to provide anti-retrovirals to those suffering from AIDS in Africa . The U.S. program is working very well, but African countries will also have to do.

Those countries that have made progress to date in reducing HIV infection rates have relied on four principles to do so: strong leadership from the President, the Cabinet and other influential national leaders; a broad based and sustained information and education campaign; the availability of counseling and testing centers where people can find out their HIV status; and a willingness to talk openly about, and change, fundamental cultural traditions and habits that may unwittingly foster HIV/AIDS.  A few countries, led by Botswana , are encouraging informed mandatory HIV testing for all those who use government health services. 

American assistance in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa is a genuine humanitarian response to a major African problem, but should also be seen as broader recognition  that we as nation have a continuing and compelling need to work with other countries to not only protect our borders against terrorists and extremists but also against transnational health threats.  HIV/AIDS originated in Africa in the late 1970s and spread quickly around the world. There are other viruses in Africa that could be just as devastating as HIV/AIDS.  Ebola, Marburg and Congo Lassa fever are just a few that come quickly to mind.  Just as we have worked with key Asian countries to detect and prevent the spread of Avian Flu and SARS, it is in our mutual interest to work with Africa and other nations to deal with serious health crises that have transnational implications as well as serious humanitarian concerns.

Helping to Prevent and Resolve Conflicts:  

The sixth interest is helping Africa to resolve some of its most serious conflicts.

Political strife and civil conflict continue to plague a number of African countries, setting back economic development, generating large flows of refugees and displaced people and causing enormous loss of life and destruction. While the sources of these conflicts are local, the United States and other members of the international community are frequently drawn in to provide emergency assistance, peace keepers or conflict mediation when they spin out of control.

Today, there is significant political unrest and civil strife in five African countries:  Sudan , Somalia , the Ivory Coast , the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , and eastern Chad . 

These conflicts affect the United States in a variety of ways.  They consume a great deal of American diplomatic attention in Washington and New York and we are frequently one of the largest contributors to humanitarian and peacekeeping response.  A review of UN peacekeeping activities is illustrative. 

Currently, the United Nations has sixteen active peacekeeping missions throughout the world.  Seven of those missions are in Africa in:  the Congo , along the Ethiopian-Eritrean border, in Liberia , in the Ivory Coast and in the western Sahara.  Although there are slightly more peacekeeping operations spread around the other four points of the globe, the bulk of the UN’s peacekeeping resources are devoted to Africa .  The two largest peace keeping operations in the world are in the Congo and Liberia .    Of the approximately eighty thousand UN military, police and civilian personnel deployed overseas, approximately 50, 000 are in Africa .   Africa also soaks up the bulk of the UN’s peacekeeping budget.  The UN has appropriated $4.77 billion dollars in his regular budge for peacekeeping.  Two thirds of this amount is expected to be spent in Africa .

Conflicts in Africa also take a great deal of time in the United Nations Security Council.  Although problems in the Middle East and South Asia garner significant amounts of media attention, the UN Security Council spends approximately sixty-five to seventy percent of its time on African issues.

The current crisis in Darfur and the recent elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are a good current example of this.   Darfur has been the predominant issue on the Security Council agenda for the past eighteen months.   

As the largest single contributor to the United Nations and as the most prominent member of the Security Council, we have an interest in reducing the number of conflicts in Africa .  Conflicts that are brought before the United Nations become diplomatic and resource issues for the United States .

Promoting Regional Integration:   Our last interest is helping to promote regional integration. A number of Africa 's states are too small or geographically disadvantaged to be economically viable.  However, by establishing broader regional linkages, many African states can expand their markets, improve their economic prospects, foster stronger political linkages and reduce cross border frictions with their neighbors. 

The United States is strong politically, economically and militarily because we have molded fifty states of various sizes and wealth into a single unit.  Europe has learned that lesson and is now fashioning a new, stronger and more peaceful Europe with over twenty five states.  At the root of regional integration is the belief that if nations are talking to one another on a regular basis in an established forum they will settle their differences peacefully and will also look for mutually beneficial ways to improve their countries and the lives of their citizens.  The value of regional integration is a useful lesson for Africa to learn and a good one for the United States promote. 

A number of regional organizations exist today in Africa -- SADC (the Southern African Development Community); ECOWAS (the Economic Community for West Africa); COMESA (the Economic Community of East and Southern Africa); and EAC (the East African Community). The United States has encouraged regional institutions throughout Africa to help them achieve the type of economic, social and political advantages that have been achieved in the European Community, Canada and the United States .

Conclusion:

I have outlined seven key reasons why Africa is important to the United States and why we as citizens should pay more attention to African and the developments that arise in that continent.  I hope that when you read or hear another story about Africa, the thoughts I have shared with you will give you a slightly different view of the continent and the economic and political interests the United States has there. 

Thank you.

September 20, 2006

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