In Ghana, President Obama made a strong, albeit not new, call for better governance in Africa. I was there and witnessed the extraordinary enthusiasm that met the president and also the ambivalence among Africans about his message.
Why did Mr. Obama not call upon the Russians to embrace better governance when he was there just days before arriving in Accra? Indeed, why had he not delivered a similar message to the people of the Middle East during his historic speech in Cairo in June? And while he was on the subject of accountability, why did he not pause to reflect on the disastrous unregulated conduct of the US banking industry that has plunged the world into recession and threatens to undo many of Africa's gains over the past decade? These were just some of the questions Ghanaians asked me.
Africans do not need to be told (once again) that corruption and governance issues remain problems in many parts of the continent—they live with the challenge every day. They have learned through bitter experience that democracy does not grow well in the stony ground of poverty. Indeed, until people no longer have to spend most of their waking hours merely struggling to survive, they will not be able to build the strong institutions and civil society that are prerequisites to good governance.
There is nothing in the African culture or psyche that makes them more corrupt than any other people in the world. When institutions are weak and lack the ability to provide checks and balances and regulate behavior, people will be corrupt. This is demonstrated all over the world, from Afghanistan to Paraguay to Bangladesh. Even in our own sophisticated system, when Wall Street bandits like Bernie Madoff and co. were able to outsmart the system, corruption flourished.
Perhaps the answer to why the President felt comfortable delivering a message of "tough love" lies in the dependent relationship between Africa and the developed world. As long as the United States and its G8 partners are in the business of dispensing aid, and Africa in the unhappy situation of having to ask for and receive it, the relationship between the continent and its development partners will retain the odor of patronage.
The fact is, Russia and Egypt are not begging. Egypt, while a major recipient of US aid, has smartly posited its requests in the framework of US strategic interests and not charity. A multi-faceted strategic relationship also prevents President Obama from publicly chastising UK leaders over the recent Parliament scandal. Africa is strategic but its leaders, while trying, have yet to fully convince America of its strategic value—and America is certainly not getting it on its own.
The most useful thing the Obama Administration can do for Africa is to fully realize the potential depth of the strategic relationship between the US and Africa. In essence, the US can support Africans as they work to achieve sustainable economic growth through trade, effective aid, investment and capacity-building, while getting enhanced energy and mineral security, new markets for its products and technology, partners against transnational threats, and support in multilateral efforts such as nuclear nonproliferation and climate change. In short, the US has moral, economic and strategic imperatives for engaging Africa. Fortunately, President Obama understands this. Buried in his speech were these words: "The true sign of success is not whether we are a source of perpetual aid that helps people scrape by – it's whether we are partners in building the capacity for transformational change."
Mr. Obama's African audience would have been delighted to hear him flesh out this insight. They hoped to hear where he stands on the future of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and what his Administration plans to do to help reverse this year's contraction in African exports under AGOA, which are down 60% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same time in 2008. Ghana's are down 86%. They wanted some indication that he is a President who is able to translate "announceables" (for example, the multiple pledges by the G8 nations to give billions to Africa) into "deliverables" and to learn more about when the G8 is going to end the $300 billion in agricultural subsidies that is crippling African economies.
Corruption and governance are serious issues in Africa—the region of the world that can least afford such devastating proclivities. However, Africa was poor long before it was corrupt and even the best efforts to address corruption will not close the gap of hundreds of billions of dollars that Africa will need annually to converge economically with the rest of the world. We do know that if sub-Saharan Africa had maintained the level of exports it enjoyed in the 1980's, the continent would have received about $100 billion dollars more in annual income—far surpassing all aid and enough to develop stronger systems of accountability.
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Africans want President Obama, whom they have embraced with such hope and enthusiasm, to bring the kind of complex strategic thinking to the US relationship with Africa that the US has long accorded other parts of the world. Good governance in Africa must go hand-in-hand with sustainable economic growth and that cannot happen until trade and investment – rather than aid – become the central focus of the US-Africa relationship.
Trade Talk is a regular column by Rosa Whitaker, president and CEO of The Whitaker Group. She was a hands-on architect of the African Growth and Opportunity Act and the first ever Assistant US Trade Representative for Africa. To read other columns by Rosa Whitaker, visit The Whitaker Group website.
