confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
Rising hopes for Obama's second coming in Africa
Patrick Smith
BAMAKO: Mali
and Libya were the only African states to surface in the three US
presidential debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. In fact it
was Romney who raised the spectre of the jihadist takeover of
northern Mali, fresh from his latest briefing session on Al Qaida.
It didn't do him much good in Mali. From a trawl through the streets
of Bamako on the US election night, I would reckon that support for
Obama was running at around 99.9%. The following day, there was
jubilation in Bamako and neighbouring capitals at the second US
victory for Africa's Obama.
The
main gripe with Obama was that he hadn't turned up in Africa –
apart from his three day visit to Ghana in mid-2010. Some Malian
politicians railed against US and European backing for the Libyan
rebels against Colonel Muammar el-Gadaffi. Mostly, they were furious
as the west's lack of interest in the consequences of Gadaffi's
overthrow: the southward migration of his Tuareg supporters, then the
unilateral declaration of an independent northern Mali, and soon
afterwards a takeover by jihadists.
After
initial doubts, Obama's administration now backs, along with West
Africa's regional organisation Ecowas, a military intervention in
northern Mali. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been trying to
persuade Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to join – or at
least not obstruct – the action. With another UN security council
resolution due later this month, the Mali intervention leaping up up
the agenda.
Hillary
Clinton has coordinated US diplomacy on Mali with US Ambassador to
the UN, Susan Rice, who is now frontrunner to take over from her as
Secretary of State in January. Clinton says wants to leave the post
after four tough years – although there's much speculation that she
will run for the presidency in 2016.
Rice,
a former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa and an Africa
specialist on the National Security Council, is well known on the
continent. She takes a robust line with Sudan's Islamist regime; in
Kigali she is seen as a good friend of Rwanda as other Western
governments pull back on diplomacy and aid after successive UN
reports accused Kigali of backing for militias in eastern Congo.
Accused
by her opponents of misreading or misreporting events leading to the
murder of the US envoy in Benghazi, Rice has fought back with backing
from unexpected quarters such as Republican former Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz.
In
Obama2, expectations are running way beyond the Sahel and Horn of
Africa flashpoints. Top of the list would be to reform US trade
policy: for example, ending the billions of dollars of subisidies to
US cotton farmers that drive down the world price of cotton and help
impoverish cotton farmers in Mali and Nigeria.
Another
demand is to boost US market access for African producers and
manufacturers, cutting bureaucracy that holds back African exporters.
The USA's market access provisions for African exporters may be light
years ahead of Europe's, but these days most African exporters are
looking east.
A
rethink on Washington's agricultural initiative -- Feed the Future –
looks necessary. The idea was to boost productivity in 12 African
states. But the collective push by GM specialists Monsanto and the
Gates Foundation has raised concerns across the continent.
Linked
to that, politicians and activists are demanding that the USA to
review the excessive demands that the West is making for trade and
investment policy liberalisation in Africa. The gap on trade policy
between the West and Africa could open as Chinese companies streak
ahead in the business stakes.
Activists
are also demanding tougher regulation of oil and mining conglomerates
to bar them from corrupt deals with ministers and officials in
Africa. African anti-corruption campaigners are asking the Obama
administration to match its rhetoric on the tax avoidance schemes and
the ubiquitous Cayman-Island registered shell companies.
Research
from the African Development Bank and Raymond Baker's Global
Financial Integrity, a blocks north of the White House, closely
monitors how
transfer
pricing scams are racking up illicit capital flight from Africa –
faster than new investment is coming in.
However,
drafting effective laws that don't punish legitimate business takes
time and expertise. The Dodd-Franks financial reforms, among much
else, penalise mineral-grabbing militias and their corporate cohorts
but also have hit hard-pressed local producers in eastern Congo.
Two
areas where liberal critics targeted Obama1were immigration and
climate change. Both have a critical African dimension. There are as
many as 10 million Africans in the USA, many without official papers:
they could be among the first beneficiaries of some form of amnesty
scheme.
But
such a plan remains strongly opposed by the Republican majority in
the House of Representatives. A grand-sounding Global Climate Change
Initiative to promote renewable energy in Africa is yet to bear fruit
in the wake of international failures on a workable treaty on carbon
emissions.
Another
byproduct of Obama2 might be a rethinking of electoral tactics in
Africa. A few hours after Obama's victory speech, a politician friend
from Accra phoned up to say his party was studying how money and
demographics swayed the vote.
Grassroots
organisation and tactics had proved more important than cash – even
if both campaigns were swimming in dollars, he concluded. And the
power of the women's and youth vote for US parties was a wake-up call
for their African counterparts, he insisted. All this, he said, would
be put to the test in Ghana's elections next month.
