International Reporting Project - Seminar Highlights

Bush Administration Should Continue Its Africa Momentum, says Africa Expert

By Jessie Deeter, Fall 2003 IRP Fellow

Washington, September 16, 2003- Spearheaded by Colin Powell, the Bush administration has taken a surprising amount of initiative in Africa, said Jennifer Cooke, Deputy Director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

When he entered office, "nation-building was not President Bush's thing," Cooke told the IRP Fellows in International Journalism. But the president's trip to Africa in July was symbolic of an increased awareness of the "increasingly mainstream" role Africa has to play in U.S. foreign policy, she said.

The events of September 11, 2001 drew additional attention to the continent that is home to 300 million Muslims, potential allies in the war on terror. The Administration, she said, now realizes that "failed states matter."

Bush's Millennium Challenge Account represents a major increase in U.S. assistance to Africa. U.S. efforts to help end Sudan's 20-year civil war and the deployment of U.S. troops to Liberia are signs of a growing awareness of Africa's strategic importance to the United States, Cooke said.

"Africa serves as something of a soft offset to perceptions of an increasingly military and hard U.S. engagement with the world," said Cooke, adding that it was no coincidence that the two major foreign policy components of the president's State of the Union Address were the case for the war on Iraq and the emergency plan for AIDS relief.

Not all effects of increased American dollars and attention have been positive, said Cooke. With America's war on terrorism has come a certain compromise of civil liberties. Cooke cited Kenya as a nation that has been insufficiently rewarded for its recent and significant strides towards democracy and support in the war against terrorism. American security concerns in the form of a travel ban have caused a revenue loss for the country that has yet to reap real material gains for its democratic progress.

Cooke is cautiously optimistic about the prospects for long-term U.S. interest in and commitment to Africa. "In many ways, Africa is still treated reflexively, or as an add-on," she said.