Critics of Obama's efforts in Africa abound, but they may be rushing to judgment — and missing the bigger picture. Dr. K.Y. Amoako, founder and president of the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) and former executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, analyzes Obama's Africa legacy in the winter edition of the Wilson Quarterly. Excerpt below:
During the summer of 2009, Barack Obama visited Accra, Ghana, during his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as president of the United States. At the time, I served alongside a small group of veteran Ghanaian policy experts offering advice to John Atta Mills, then Ghana's president. During one of our meetings, talk turned to Obama and whether he intended to use the historic nature of his visit — the first American president of African descent coming to Africa — to announce new policy initiatives or aid packages that would dwarf the substantial efforts of his predecessor, George W. Bush. One after another, my fellow advisory council members predicted big things, major things.
But I had bad news for them.
A few weeks prior, I had the opportunity to discuss Obama's upcoming trip with a delegation of American political, business, and philanthropic leaders who were convened by the ONE campaign, an organization I had advised on matters of policy. The group's members — several of whom had served in Bill Clinton's administration or had contacts in the Obama White House — came to Ghana to explore developmental issues and learn about what was working, what was not, and what more was needed to empower poor people. What they said surprised me: Obama planned to focus his "African message" primarily on the continent's ongoing need for better political and economic leadership at home. He would not make any grand pronouncements. He would not propose any bold policy.
When I passed this information along to the others on the council, no one believed me — or, at least, none of them wanted to believe. Surely Obama, the son of a Kenyan, would have to do more than Bush, right?
Read the full story on the Wilson Quarterly website.
