And multinational bodies on the continent such as the African Union, after decades in a Cold War deep freeze, are newly invigorated as these like-minded African nations assert a greater leadership role within them.
One US resident in particular made a meaningful contribution to mitigating some of these problems: George W. Bush.
He is widely viewed on the continent as a hero: His signature Africa initiative, “the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” (PEPFAR), saved millions of lives, and also drew praise on both sides of the American partisan divide.
He launched the single greatest initiative to fight malaria on the continent to date, and, as a private citizen together with his wife Laura, has since been committed to the struggle against cancer in Africa.
By contrast, President Obama’s legacy has been more hot air than action. It began with a preachy speech in Ghana early in his presidency, in which he called on African youth to succeed where their parents had failed.
Laden with identity politics, it married Obama’s personal narrative to the symbolic choice of the city of Accra — through which countless slaves passed en route to the Americas — to send a message that was as much about domestic American politics as the real challenges and promise of Africa.
His policies have since fallen flat: A US Government initiative to power up the continent with electricity, promising thirty thousand megawatts of power, came up 26 thousand megawatts short.
American commerce with the continent, via a free trade agreement dating back to the Clinton years, remains largely limited to the importation of natural resources from countries in which the extraction of those resources is itself a source of conflict — not in keeping with any responsible plan to develop the continent or fight terrorism.
The President’s “Africa Youth Summit,” a large student exchange program, has not been successful in attracting members of the young political class in any African country, upon whom so much of the continent’s hopes are placed.
Nor has the US-Africa Leaders Summit, convened repeatedly and with great fanfare during the second half of Obama’s second term, shown tangible effect on relations among the participating countries.
China has meanwhile exploited this vacuum to become the dominant foreign player in Africa. It has invested more than $100 billion in infrastructure and manufacturing, become the continent’s largest trading partner and even begun to flex military muscle: Earlier this year, Chinese armed forces began the construction of a base in Djibouti, a stone’s throw from USAFRICOM’s Camp Lemonnier. It is the first time in modern history that China established a base beyond its “near-abroad.”
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