US Needs to Revamp its Africa Policy, Says CSIS Specialist
WASHINGTON, January 24, 2006 — Terrorism threats, the search for oil reserves, and the spread of global diseases such as HIV/AIDS are forcing the United States to re-evaluate its approach to Africa, according to J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Africa program.
The common perception that Africa is simply a humanitarian disaster area is outdated and in some ways, dangerous, Morrison told the spring 2006 International Reporting Project Fellows. “It ignores reality,” he said. “It ignores the rising stakes.”
Currently, the United States receives 15 percent of its oil from Africa. That figure is expected to rise to 25 percent within the next five years. Liquid natural gas is also being discovered in the Niger Delta and elsewhere. In a few years, the region is expected to be a major oil producer to the U.S., China, and other countries, Morrison said.
Morrison cited oil piracy and increasing lawlessness in West Africa as well as the emergence of China as a major competitor for access to oil as additional reasons for the United States to beef up its military and diplomatic involvement in the region. “You’ve got to get serious,” said Morrison, the co-director of a task force that produced a recent report on Africa for the Council on Foreign Relations. “If you’re 25 percent dependent on their oil, you can’t whistle past the graveyard every day.”
The United States’ own security concerns in Africa also require more high-level attention, he argued. Morrison listed warnings such as the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, Osama bin Laden’s presence in Sudan before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and the 2003 suicide explosions of a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, as examples of al-Qaida activity in the region. U.S. interests in Africa are vulnerable, Morrison said, and policymakers need to get serious about building better relationships with African governments.
Africa has made progress in the war on AIDS, but response to the pandemic needs to be sustained, Morrison said. Of the $8 billion that African countries receive in AIDS programs, $3 billion comes from the United States. Yet, Morrison worried that U.S. attention to HIV/AIDS is starting to lag because of other concerns, such as the war in Iraq, US budget deficits, and cultural conflicts between secular and conservative AIDS activists over the content of AIDS education and prevention.
Morrison said he was encouraged by the recent high-profile attention Africa has received from this past summer’s Live 8 concerts. Bono, the lead singer of U2, has been an effective lobbyist for debt relief and has an “amazing grasp” of African political issues, Morrison said. But he criticized the tendency of Westerners to relapse into sentimentality and pity towards Africans, and exclude Africans from the table. African performers and leaders were conspicuously missing from the Live AID concerts.
Africa matters to the United States and vice versa, Morrison said, and “there’s a very mixed picture of promise and peril.”
described the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, Burma, Sudan, Egypt, and China. He said much of that repression still exists.
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