What are the primary strategic considerations driving American policy on Africa?
Firstly, Africa is part of our global strategy; it is not separate and distinct. Africa is not treated as an area for humanitarian interest. We are interested in Africa just as we are interested in any other area: it is a mainstream policy.
Secondly, there is lot of discussion of pre 9-11, post 9-11 policy, but frankly there is tremendous continuity in our Africa policy, and it is based on the president’s global para-digm, which is to make the world safer, and to make the world better.
On the safer side that was always a focus on weapons of mass destruction, counterterrorism and tyranny. On the better side, it was an economic agenda, a free trade agenda, health and education. Those two overarching objectives continue, and frame up our Africa policy.
One of the key concerns of African governments has been to integrate Aid flows into long-term planning. The international finance facility [IFF] proposed by [British Finance Minister] Gordon Brown tries to address that. Does the United States’s Millennium Challenge Account [MCA] deal with that problem?
We can’t do the IFF because it commits funding in the future, and our budgetary process is annual. The IFF is still a proposal that is being discussed, what we’ve said is that those who’ve said they can do it should start doing it immediately. And we’ve started with the MCA immediately.
In terms of helping countries with multi-year planning, the approach of the MCA is country ownership; it is a compact, and some of the reason for the slowness is the countries have to write their compact. They have to tell us how they want to use the money. We will focus that money in their areas of priority. It has built in acknowledgement of the need for country ownership and accountability.
Can anything concrete come out of the G8 summit, given these kinds of differences, or should countries get on with their own initiatives?
A lot can come out of the G8 process. First of all the Commission for Africa report is just that, a report.
The G8 process has already had the Africa Action Plan in place. The Commission for Africa is not the basis for the conversation at the G8.
But there are areas where we should work together. For instance, debt relief: we are probably at the point where we should conclude an agreement. I think we are close, particularly the US and Britain, to agreement on 100% debt cancellation.
We should also give grants [through the International Development Agency of the World Bank], no more loans, and African countries should support this, because the recipients can’t pay back the loans.
Why can’t we do that at the G8? That would be an immediate structural reform that would benefit Africa.
Why can’t we as the G8 agree to the elimination of 100% of agricultural subsidies? That is something we should commit ourselves to seriously.
How do we finance regional peacekeeping operations? The past four or five [missions] have been African countries going in the lead, and we scramble around to finance them.
Why can’t the African Development Bank reform and increase financing so it can be the mechanism for operationalising the Nepad [New Partnership for Africa’s Development] vision on governance and infrastructure? Those are the structural changes that would be long lasting; it’s not the arbitrary “we need 25-billion by 20 something or other” approach.
Africans also want reform at other multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and, not least of all, more of a voice.
I understand the desire for greater voice in terms of governance in international institutions. Frankly, the US is under-represented. If you base it on the share of our economy, we are under-represented in the International Monetary Fund, so I represent an under represented constituency there [laughs]. Some of the European countries should have less of a share — their economies have actually shrunk — the US should have more of a share, and probably some developing countries should have more of a share. I am sympathetic; I don’t know where it will go.
Do you have a view on the expanding role of China in Africa?
I don’t think the US has any policy vis-Ã -vis China’s role in Africa. Maybe over time we’ll develop one. Certainly we saw that China played a role in Sudan, and not a very positive role, in terms of trying to get oil out, and allowing the government to continue with atrocities toward the south. There are issues relating to China in Zimbabwe. So it is a question of how will China play on the governance issues. Will it buy the Monterey Consensus that the other major economies have set up as a mutually agreed relationship with African countries?
We should encourage them, and African governments should encourage them, because good governance is absolutely essential.
Another area is on the nature of the trade relationship. China is looking at extractive industries; we are trying to move Africa toward value-added exports. So how will China transform? Certainly China needs to be a good corporate citizen and sign up to international standards.
We can encourage them. And if they are invited to the G8, we should make that an issue.