The White House (Washington, DC)
Barack Obama
11 July 2009
(Page 2 of 3)
Make no mistake: history is on the side of these brave Africans, and not with those who use coups or change Constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.
America will not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation – the essential truth of democracy is that each nation determines its own destiny. What we will do is increase assistance for responsible individuals and institutions, with a focus on supporting good governance – on parliaments, which check abuses of power and ensure that opposition voices are heard; on the rule of law, which ensures the equal administration of justice; on civic participation, so that young people get involved; and on concrete solutions to corruption like forensic accounting, automating services, strengthening hotlines, and protecting whistle-blowers to advance transparency and accountability.
As we provide this support, I have directed my Administration to give greater attention to corruption in our Human Rights report. People everywhere should have the right to start a business or get an education without paying a bribe. We have a responsibility to support those who act responsibly and to isolate those who don't, and that is exactly what America will do.
This leads directly to our second area of partnership – supporting development that provides opportunity for more people.
With better governance, I have no doubt that Africa holds the promise of a broader base for prosperity. The continent is rich in natural resources. And from cell phone entrepreneurs to small farmers, Africans have shown the capacity and commitment to create their own opportunities. But old habits must also be broken. Dependence on commodities – or on a single export – concentrates wealth in the hands of the few, and leaves people too vulnerable to downturns.
In Ghana, for instance, oil brings great opportunities, and you have been responsible in preparing for new revenue. But as so many Ghanaians know, oil cannot simply become the new cocoa. From South Korea to Singapore, history shows that countries thrive when they invest in their people and infrastructure; when they promote multiple export industries, develop a skilled workforce, and create space for small and medium-sized businesses that create jobs.
As Africans reach for this promise, America will be more responsible in extending our hand. By cutting costs that go to Western consultants and administration, we will put more resources in the hands of those who need it, while training people to do more for themselves. That is why our $3.5 billion food security initiative is focused on new methods and technologies for farmers – not simply sending American producers or goods to Africa. Aid is not an end in itself. The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it is no longer needed.
America can also do more to promote trade and investment. Wealthy nations must open our doors to goods and services from Africa in a meaningful way. And where there is good governance, we can broaden prosperity through public-private partnerships that invest in better roads and electricity; capacity-building that trains people to grow a business; and financial services that reach poor and rural areas. This is also in our own interest – for if people are lifted out of poverty and wealth is created in Africa, new markets will open for our own goods.
One area that holds out both undeniable peril and extraordinary promise is energy. Africa gives off less greenhouse gas than any other part of the world, but it is the most threatened by climate change. A warming planet will spread disease, shrink water resources, and deplete crops, creating conditions that produce more famine and conflict. All of us – particularly the developed world – have a responsibility to slow these trends – through mitigation, and by changing the way that we use energy. But we can also work with Africans to turn this crisis into opportunity.
Together, we can partner on behalf of our planet and prosperity, and help countries increase access to power while skipping the dirtier phase of development. Across Africa, there is bountiful wind and solar power; geothermal energy and bio-fuels. From the Rift Valley to the North African deserts; from the Western coast to South Africa's crops – Africa's boundless natural gifts can generate its own power, while exporting profitable, clean energy abroad.
These steps are about more than growth numbers on a balance sheet. They're about whether a young person with an education can get a job that supports a family; a farmer can transfer their goods to the market; or an entrepreneur with a good idea can start a business. It's about the dignity of work. It's about the opportunity that must exist for Africans in the 21st century.
Just as governance is vital to opportunity, it is also critical to the third area that I will talk about – strengthening public health.
In recent years, enormous progress has been made in parts of Africa. Far more people are living productively with HIV/AIDS, and getting the drugs they need. But too many still die from diseases that shouldn't kill them. When children are being killed because of a mosquito bite, and mothers are dying in childbirth, then we know that more progress must be made.
Yet because of incentives – often provided by donor nations – many African doctors and nurses understandably go overseas, or work for programs that focus on a single disease. This creates gaps in primary care and basic prevention. Meanwhile, individual Africans also have to make responsible choices that prevent the spread of disease, while promoting public health in their communities and countries.
Across Africa, we see examples of people tackling these problems. In Nigeria, an Interfaith effort of Christians and Muslims has set an example of cooperation to confront malaria. Here in Ghana and across Africa, we see innovative ideas for filling gaps in care – for instance, through E-Health initiatives that allow doctors in big cities to support those in small towns.
America will support these efforts through a comprehensive, global health strategy. Because in the 21st century, we are called to act by our conscience and our common interest. When a child dies of a preventable illness in Accra, that diminishes us everywhere. And when disease goes unchecked in any corner of the world, we know that it can spread across oceans and continents.
That is why my Administration has committed $63 billion to meet these challenges. Building on the strong efforts of President Bush, we will carry forward the fight against HIV/AIDS. We will pursue the goal of ending deaths from malaria and tuberculosis, and eradicating polio. We will fight neglected tropical disease. And we won't confront illnesses in isolation – we will invest in public health systems that promote wellness, and focus on the health of mothers and children.
As we partner on behalf of a healthier future, we must also stop the destruction that comes not from illness, but from human beings – and so the final area that I will address is conflict.
Now let me be clear: Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at war. But for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into fighting among faiths and tribes.
These conflicts are a millstone around Africa's neck. We all have many identities – of tribe and ethnicity; of religion and nationality. But defining oneself in opposition to someone who belongs to a different tribe, or who worships a different prophet, has no place in the 21st century. Africa's diversity should be a source of strength, not a cause for division. We are all God's children. We all share common aspirations – to live in peace and security; to access education and opportunity; to love our families, our communities, and our faith. That is our common humanity.
That is why we must stand up to inhumanity in our midst. It is never justifiable to target innocents in the name of ideology. It is the death sentence of a society to force children to kill in wars. It is the ultimate mark of criminality and cowardice to condemn women to relentless and systematic rape. We must bear witness to the value of every child in Darfur and the dignity of every woman in Congo. No faith or culture should condone the outrages against them. All of us must strive for the peace and security necessary for progress.
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Obama should not absolve the West of problems in Africa.The continent is still battling with colonial legacies. For him to try to absolve US, Britain and the West of causing problems in Zimbabwe is just plain arrogance & extremely disturbing.African leaders are well aware of the fact that Land issue is the core of Zimbabwe's problems,even the 2001 Commonwealth Summit in Abuja acknowledged this fact.Zimbabwe's political problems started in 1997 when Britain's new Labour Party refused to honour the 1979 Lancaster House agreement that made Britain responsible for compensating white farmers for land reform under the willing buyer willing seller basis.Britain's refusal to honour their colonial obligations to support land reform sparked a countrywide revolution by angry,landless peasants from february 1998 to 2000, when President R.G Mugabe rightfully decided to compulsorily acquire all the land from British settlers. Britain & US reacted against the land reclamation movement with a distabilization campaign using puppets,political interference,media lies& exaggeration and illegal economic sanctions& subbotage.They used puppets in MDC&NGOs along with western media to validate their redherrings of democracy, human rights, rule of law etc while glossing over Britain's flagrant disregard of its colonial obligations.
The fact that up to now, Britain is still refusing to acknowledge its 1979 lancaster house obligations shows the worst kind of arrogant,deceitful racists the US leader is seeking to defend.Obama should think before he opens his dirty mouth otherwise African leaders will just see him as a George Bush reincarnation.He speaks as if he is unaware that the United States imposed illegal economic sanctions on 14 million Zimbabweans and they have been subbotaging our economy for the last decade inorder to effect a regime change and reverse land reform.The US and the West were not supportive of the Sadc mediated process regarding the Zimbabwean conflict.Obama speaks as if he is unaware that the United states tried to subbotage the GPA unity gvt agreement until february 2009 when it was thwarted.
If Obama is a big believer that 'Africans are responsible for Africa', how does he explain the American sponsored civil wars and insurgencies that brought untold suffering to people in Liberia,Sierra Leone,Somalia,DRC,Angola,Mozambique?.Africans can recall how the United States and Belgium killed Patrice Lumumba and plundered and looted the then Zaire for decades through their stooge Mobutu Sese Seko.DRC is in poverty and conflict today because of that legacy.That the West were oppressive and racist in their dealings with Africa since the colonial era up to now is a widely acknowledged fact which President Obama cannot water down..
The west's divide and rule tactics during colonisation left a lasting legacy that played a part in civil wars that afflicted some countries in Africa.Diplomatic, political and developmental engagement with Africa will only yield long lasting solutions if the US and the West do not continue on a condescending attitude of pretending to know what's best for Africa. There is colonial history like the land issues in Zim,Kenya,Namibia,South Africa which he can not try to sweep under the carpet. Whilst the West was busy developing, Africa was fighting colonisation to as late as 1994 and there is no way he can absolve the West completely for the problems affecting Africa today.We are not completely exonerating africans from their continent's problems.When it comes to corruption,economic mismanagement,human rights violations and bad governace africans are not blameless, but certainly the West carries part of the blame.
Well said Mabiza. It is the “same old same” stereotypical platitudes that former Presidents Carter, Clinton and Bush gave at the same location that go nowhere beyond the “points of no return” of Goree Island or CC Castle. For the first Black President, one would think that he would be less of an “August tourist’ who breaks from the mold by been bold enough to admonish the modern-day plantation owners like Shell, Halliburton, Firestone, Anglo and Xstrata mining, etc. that keep encouraging the ills these Presidents’ speech talk about. Whatever happens to calling a spade a spade? When it comes to corruption & dictatorship in Africa, it takes two to tango – from the givers to the takers, from the aiders and the abettors, from the African dictatorship and their Western backers, from the African Treasuries to the Western Banks where the loot and the identity of the looters are stashed. Africans know better than to believe these rigmaroles – we are just going along with the sad “tragic-come-drama” as if reading a very interesting novel - a saga that Stephen King could not write any better.
" Your prosperity can expand America's. Your health and security can contribute to the world's. And the strength of your democracy can help advance human rights for people everywhere." -------------------------------------------- Africa, listen. That quotation implies that global prosperity, health and security and the democracy are retrogressing because of you Africa. You keep bringing down standards for humanity.
Classic Obama rhetoric: full of aspirational crap, devoid of practical intiatives. This is classic Obama: flowery praises, usually looping the common places of a distorted doctrine of Liberalism, but short on specific projects.
This is his play book: talk big, and pretend to do something, and then promise nirvana, while noting the obvious truth that getting to nirvana will be tough, hard, bla, bla, bla.
Power then to the African youth; and down with their fathers, those fathers who have, for fifty years, made most of Africa the butt of political jokes in the world..
Obamas visit to Africa is a significant historical event. He is half African, president of US and the most powerful man in the world. His achievements in Africa would not be as revolutionary as what he symbolises. He will make history. He has achieved more that any serious man could dream. He is on the top of the world but Africa wouldn’t.
Most Africans are delusional about how the relationship of Africa and Europe is and should be. Africans thinks shell or total or Anglo should voluntarily pay tax on moral ground, Europe should share their wealth with them and Europe should not exploit Africa or have an advantage over it on trade.
Perhaps they have not hard about competitive relationship between business and states and countries over countries. That what business do. They want to pay lower taxes and exploit workers. If one doesn’t understand that one most be delusional and Obama cannot do noting about it. If shell or Anglo comes to Africa and bribe Africans and exploit them who is stupid fool.
Why do you think slavery took place in Africa and not Asia or South America because African sold Africans to Europeans for the price of nothing but sugar. If Africans don’t want Europeans to mine their resources let them do it for them self but you know what they can’t do it. Their leaders don’t have the vision and creativity to do it.
If Africa wants to develop it has to compete and not ask for anything base on social or humanitarian grounds. For example if they want free trade they can set a free trade zone in Africa. Hyper increase tax on European good and make a deal with the likes of china and India to reduce their taxes to make sure food prices don’t rise. With in six months Europe will allow African good in Europe. Africa should be competing not begging or blaming Europe for their problems.
Obamas visit to Africa is a significant historical event. He is half African, president of US and the most powerful man in the world. His achievements in Africa would not be as revolutionary as what he symbolises. He will make history. He has achieved more that any serious man could dream. He is on the top of the world but Africa wouldn’t.
Most Africans are delusional about how the relationship of Africa and Europe is and should be. Africans thinks shell or total or Anglo should voluntarily pay tax on moral ground, Europe should share their wealth with them and Europe should not exploit Africa or have an advantage over it on trade.
Perhaps they have not hard about competitive relationship between business and states and countries over countries. That what business do. They want to pay lower taxes and exploit workers. If one doesn’t understand that one most be delusional and Obama cannot do noting about it. If shell or Anglo comes to Africa and bribe Africans and exploit them who is stupid fool.
Why do you think slavery took place in Africa and not Asia or South America because African sold Africans to Europeans for the price of nothing but sugar. If Africans don’t want Europeans to mine their resources let them do it for them self but you know what they can’t do it. Their leaders don’t have the vision and creativity to do it.
If Africa wants to develop it has to compete and not ask for anything base on social or humanitarian grounds. For example if they want free trade they can set a free trade zone in Africa. Hyper increase tax on European good and make a deal with the likes of china and India to reduce their taxes to make sure food prices don’t rise. With in six months Europe will allow African good in Europe. Africa should be competing not begging or blaming Europe for their problems.
Man, you are a one heck of a delusional African, matching the illusion of the empty rhetoric of Mr. Obama.
The facts of slavery and colonialism are documented: that some Africans participated in selling other Africans, who they considered inferior and weak, and that some Africans collaborated with THE INVADERS.
Who is blaming the West for Africa's woes?
The same African leaders who are in bed with capitalist formations in INVADERLANDS.
Progressive Africans, who include the youth, have no time to blame the West; the task is not to blame the West, but to tame the West's financial, cultural and political imperialistic factions.
Got a problem with THAT?
Blame the West, my foot. The lackeys of the West in Africa, in their attempt to grab more Benjamins from the West, hypocritically blame the West.
What matters here?
Not the flowery, xanax rhetoric of Mr. Obama on his obscurantist and one-sided conception of "good governance,"---a favorite nonsensical phrase from the Washington Consensus, and highjacked by the irrationalist neo-conservatives---BUT THE MORAL IMPERATIVE THAT A TERRITORY OR A CONTINENT MUST CONTROL ITS RESOURCES.
That is the issue, and no rhetorical tour de force can efface it. Witness the Chinese bashing in America: "the Chinese are coming"; and, other xenophobic expressions of ignorance are the staple of the 'thought' of the average American.
Accordingly, the issue is RESOURCE CONTROL, not some ideological claptrap called "good governance."
And, do you have the moral backbone to deny that Africa's resources have been, and continue to be, looted by INVADERS with the help of the fathers of African 'independence'?
what a fair minded but an unraveling speech of what ails the continent and more importantly how we can advance democracy in the continent.are african leaders listening?and what a lash out to kenya.?