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Africa Important to Wide Array of US Strategic Interests, says SAIS Africa Expert
| Tom Bettag |
WASHINGTON, January 29, 2007 -- Next time someone asks why Americans – particularly American journalists – should care about Africa, take a page from the playbook of SAIS African Studies director Peter Lewis.
Point out – as Lewis did at a lunchtime seminar for IRP fellows and the SAIS community – that the U.S. gets 15 to 18 percent of its oil and gas from Africa, a number that will likely rise to 25 percent by the end of 2008. Say that Africa has the third largest proven oil reserves in the world, after South America and the Middle East, and that the 48 states of sub-Saharan Africa are home to 450 million Christians, 350 million Muslims and 60 percent of the world’s HIV cases, placing Africa at the heart of global trends in religion and public health.
“I think 800 million people anywhere in the world matter, and a large region that’s highly diverse is important to cover,” said Lewis, a former senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has consulted for USAID, the Carter Center and others.
In addition to Africa’s potential as a trading partner and energy producer, there are other, more negative reasons for journalists to pay attention, Lewis said. A third of sub-Saharan Africans live on a dollar a day or less, and illiteracy among women and girls hovers around 60 percent across much of the continent. After decades of slowly-rising life expectancies, HIV/AIDS has reduced life expectancy to the mid-40s in countries like Botswana, where 35 to 38 percent of adults are HIV positive. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, about 4 million people have died since 1999 in a poorly-covered war that Lewis called “the most lethal catastrophic conflict since World War II.” Civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, insurgency in Nigeria and genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
“An Africa that is insecure, riven with conflict, poorly-governed and impoverished is likely to make large claims on our resources,” Lewis said.
Failed states could become terrorist havens, threatening U.S. security, and fast-spreading diseases or cross-border conflicts could engulf a continent that is becoming ever more crucial to America’s energy supplies. Although Africa has many more democracies than it did 20 years ago, Lewis said, corruption and poor governance are persistent problems.
With China’s growing activity in Africa, the U.S. faces new competition. In the last five years, China has gone from a marginal partner to the second largest foreign investor in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike the U.S., which often grants aid with an eye to encouraging political change, Lewis said that China offers “a one-stop shop” for struggling African nations, doling out Security Council votes, arms trades and favorable loans along with cash. Yet that may soon change.
“I predict they’re going to have a rude awakening,” he said. “The Chinese can be quite insular and quite racist in their day to day dealings with Africans, so they don’t build a lot of goodwill in these countries. If they’re going to be involved in countries like Congo, Sudan, Nigeria, they may find themselves embroiled in civil conflicts or unrest or courting a great deal of resentment.”
Copyright © 2007 International Reporting Project. All Rights Reserved.