African leaders come to Washington as US tries to reset relationship

African leaders are descending on Washington, D.C. for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, a key moment for the United States to try to reset its relationship with African countries. The question as heads of state, business leaders, and civil society experts gather is whether the event can deliver on its myriad objectives, from addressing food security to expanding trade.

The long gap since the last summit in 2014, along with the tense relationship between the U.S. and the continent during former President Donald Trump’s administration — during which he infamously called African nations “shithole countries” — places extra pressure on the meeting, which starts Tuesday. It is also the first real test of the new sub-Saharan Africa policy President Joe Biden’s administration released earlier this year.

“After not having an Africa policy during the Trump years, the fact that there was the strategic document that came out in the summer and now this summit, that is a positive step,” said Abdullahi Boru Halakhe, a senior policy analyst focused on Africa at Refugees International.

But in order to demonstrate a real shift in U.S. policy and attitudes, the summit needs to go beyond pageantry, canned speeches, and a parade of symbolic announcements, experts and observers told Devex. Instead, they hope it delivers concrete policies, agreements, and business deals.

“This shouldn’t be just a photo op, but an opportunity to engage on a shared vision,” said Nathan Chiume, a New York-based Africa analyst. “Africa needs structural changes that the U.S. can help with. The U.S. can work with Africa on post-COVID economic recovery, job creation, equity on natural resources.”

The gathering is coming at a fraught time for the continent. Countries are dealing with a deluge of shocks: lingering economic effects of the pandemic, historic high inflation, a mounting debt crisis, rising fuel and food prices, and devastating natural disasters connected to climate change.

What to expect

One key question ahead of the summit is whether Biden will announce a signature initiative for the continent — his version of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, Power Africa, or Prosper Africa, three initiatives introduced by past presidents.

“This is what’s been missing over the last two years,” Chiume said.

If the conversation doesn’t move beyond PEPFAR and Power Africa — both decades-old programs — it “shows you the desert of innovation that exists in U.S. policymaking towards Africa,” Eric Olander, co-founder of the China Africa Project, told Devex.

Sources tell Devex they expect a big announcement around a new Digital Africa initiative aimed at improving digital connectivity. While Biden’s sub-Saharan Africa policy hinted at an expanded focus on digital access, there have been few details to date.

By 2025 the African internet economy is expected to be worth about $180 billion, and the U.S. needs “concerted” partnerships with the private sector to improve internet access and scale the industry, Pren-Tsilya Boa-Guehe, a government affairs and public policy manager at Google, said at a Wilson Center event last week in Washington.

Partnerships should focus on providing skills and education to improve tech talent, support the startup ecosystem, drive investment, address infrastructure limitations, and work on internet-related legislation with African governments, she said.

An announcement related to food security, a few announcements from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and a plethora of private sector commitments are also expected.

The agenda is “focused on what Africans want” and aligns with the African Union priorities in Agenda 2063, the AU’s blueprint for Africa’s sustainable development transformation, Judd Devermont, senior director for African affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, told reporters last week.

An entire day of the forum will be dedicated to the private sector and is being billed as an opportunity for American and African businesses to network and announce deals. African leaders have for years called for the U.S. relationship to focus more on trade and investment rather than foreign aid.

The agenda includes a civil society forum, a young leaders forum, and discussions about food security, governance, democracy, climate adaptation, and the just energy transition.

Health and health security will be another focus. John Nkengasong, the new head of PEPFAR, told Devex he hopes to use the summit to elevate the political visibility of the HIV/AIDS response.

“We have less African political leadership than we used to on HIV,” he said, adding that it will be increasingly critical as PEPFAR works to strengthen national capacity.

PEPFAR also plans to announce a commitment to train or support 300,000 health workers on the continent as part of an effort to strengthen health systems, and Nkengasong plans to discuss how countries can accelerate medical manufacturing on the continent.

A healthy dose of skepticism

The summit, which some experts said has been hastily planned, faces questions about whether it will actually deliver.

Despite low expectations and feelings of being slighted by the lack of one-on-one meetings with Biden – none have been announced yet — African leaders will still attend because “there is no replacement in the international system,” and the U.S. remains the continent’s largest development partner, said W. Gyude Moore, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development.

Leaders and observers will be watching closely to see if the event goes beyond rhetoric.

“The Americans need to put their money where their mouths are,” Halakhe of Refugees International said.

How much new money the Biden administration can promise is unclear. With a divided Congress beginning next year, getting new funds for any foreign affairs programs will be a challenge.

But beyond bilateral initiatives, the U.S. can also better support African priorities on the global stage and demonstrate respect for positions that may not align with American priorities, experts said.

The U.S. should provide greater support for debt problems, including advocating for a debt freeze at World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and approving a reallocation of IMF Special Drawing Rights, Halakhe said.

Others will look to the U.S. to support a bid from the African Union to gain a seat at the Group of 20 — which seems likely — and greater representation in other global decision-making bodies.

Biden administration officials have emphasized that the U.S.-Africa relationship is a collaborative partnership to address global challenges, rather than being about global power competition. Nonetheless, geopolitics — be it African nations’ relationships with Russia or China — will be a running subtext at the summit.

But one summit may not be enough to demonstrate a real change. The administration should announce that it will make the summit a regular event, perhaps every three years, similar to efforts between the European Union and African countries, or China and African countries, Moore said. It both needs to make significant commitments — Japan, for its part, pledged $30 billion in aid to the continent over the next 3 years at the recent Tokyo International Conference on African Development — but will also have to be accountable to those commitments.

The commercial relationship

Central to reframing the U.S.-Africa relationship is a focus on business, trade, and investment. African leaders are calling for it, and if the U.S. is listening, it will adjust accordingly, experts said.

“We're moving into this space where private sector-led economic development is at the front and center of what our engagement on the continent is going to be going forward,” Witney Schneidman, a senior international advisor at the Covington & Burling law firm, told Devex. “People aren't talking about aid. They're talking about investment. They're talking about trade, they want productive capital coming on to the market. And that's what American companies are uniquely defined by, how productive their capital can be.”

The U.S. can provide incentives to mobilize investment, he said, and through initiatives such as Prosper Africa, it can organize more trade missions to introduce American companies and investors to opportunities on the continent.

Prosper Africa, which launched during the Trump administration, is charged with increasing two-way trade between the U.S. and Africa.

The U.S. used to be Africa’s largest trading partner, but two-way trade dropped from just over $140 billion in 2008 to $64 billion last year. By contrast, China-Africa trade reached an all-time high of about $254 billion last year.

A ministerial meeting at the summit about the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, legislation that is designed to help boost trade and ease access to the U.S. market for specific products from qualifying countries, could also start to create a framework for boosting trade.

The AGOA meeting comes at a critical point as the debate about whether to reauthorize the legislation or replace it with something different, heats up ahead of its 2025 expiration date.

Africa is much different than when AGOA was first created and the next iteration should take into account Agenda 2063, the African Continental Free Trade Area, and lessons learned from past challenges, Joy Kategekwa, strategy adviser to the assistant administrator and director at the United Nations Development Programme Regional Bureau for Africa, said at the Wilson Center event.

“Reform of AGOA should be more than just goods related but services focused too as that will really help with youth job creation, a real problem for African countries,” Chiume said. Others recommended that any future iteration be co-created with African partners and be paired with an investment that helps African countries improve local manufacturing and ensure that their goods can meet American standards.