Alex Duval Smith reports on the United States president’s visit to a continent reborn as a trading partner
Bill Clinton’s six-nation tour of Africa next week – the first by a serving United States president for almost 20 years – will reward good book-balancers and strategic friends. But it will also lay bare mixed African feelings about the extent to which fr agile economies can live up to Washington’s expectations.
Last week 16 West African foreign affairs ministers, meeting in the Ivory Coast, resolved that Ecomog – the Nigerian-led force which ousted the military junta in Sierra Leone – should become the region’s permanent peacekeeping force.
The hard-won decision was a signal to the US, Britain and France – which like the idea of hands-on input in African peacekeeping without the messy business of providing troops – that at least part of the continent can police itself.
At the same time, Washington sent back the message – through a House of Representatives vote on measures to encourage trade with Africa – that it has its eye on 700-million potential consumers.
As Susan Rice, the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said: “Africans are taking their seats at the global economic table and arriving with hearty appetites for lucrative commercial dealings.”
Clinton claims that his 12-day visit to Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda (for a brief stopover), South Africa, Botswana and Senegal is about “delivering the message that the US stands ready to be a partner in Africa’s prosperity”.
He will signal to the US, and especially African Americans, that there is more to this continent than starvation, drought and war. Hillary and Chelsea Clinton will add a human touch, joining him on visits to upbeat development projects, successful Aids c ampaigns and women’s groups.
That the famine-ridden Africans of the Cold War years have been reinvented as trading partners grates somewhat with the likes of President Nelson Mandela. South Africa, unavoidable for Clinton because of its economic might, is also Clinton’s most sceptic al host.
In his new year speech at Mafikeng, Mandela pulled no punches in his condemnation of what he called the US’s “ambitious and extensive” aid-for-trade agenda and the debt noose in which the Western world holds Africa. On the other hand, Deputy President Th abo Mbeki is known as an economic realist who will lend a ready ear to Clinton.
Although it detracts from his feel-good agenda, Clinton decided last weekend that a stop-off in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, was unavoidable. He will “address the gross genocide and violence that has so disrupted Central Africa”, said the presidential re presentatiave, Mike McCurry.
Senegal will provide Clinton with an opportunity to address slavery – and possibly to apologise for it – but it is also a Francophone country looking for new partners.
France recently disbanded its colonial “co-operation ministry” and announced military cutbacks in Africa. Its former West African colonies fear for their single currency, the CFA, which is pegged to the franc and faces an uncertain future after the intro duction of the euro.
Uganda, where Clinton will meet heads of state from 10 Central African countries on March 25, is one of the darlings of development economists and has a good human rights record. It meets the good governance criteria of the growth and opportunity Bill – the trade plan passed by the House of Representatives last week.
Another top pupil on the itinerary is Botswana, recently rated third by a Harvard study which listed African countries according to good governance and competition. It has gone from being among the world’s 20 poorest countries at independence in 1966 to being described as an “upper-middle-income” country by the World Bank.
Ghana has textbook qualities among cash-crop economies, cocoa being its mainstay. Having had one of the strongest economies at independence in 1957, it went into free fall only to re-establish fiscal control and engage in a privatisation programme. Fact sheets handed to accompanying journalists are likely to feature an impressive graph showing declining inflation – from more than 100% in 1983 to a lmost single figures today.
While most observers can see why Clinton has selected each of his hosts, there is some criticism of his lack of a human rights agenda and the fact that Rwanda was an afterthought. But most agree that his visit is good news for Africa.
Steven Friedman, director of the South African Centre for Policy Studies, said: “Few people expect new factories to spring up just because Clinton has dropped by. But there is a pretty broad consensus that Africa needs investment and that we are now a co ntinent divided not by superpowers but between super business.”