Interview
Helping Africa boom

A poster showing Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Burkina Faso's interim leader Captain Faso Traoré, Ouagadougou, March 5, 2024. (Photo by Christina Peters/picture alliance via Getty Images)

As much of the world ages and faces rapid population decline, one region – Africa – stands out as an exception. Already huge, its youthful population is growing fast. It’s also richly endowed with vast natural resources, further contributing to its potential. Yet the United States has paid Africa little attention in recent years – an oversight that rivals such as Russia and China have noticed and taken advantage of. To better understand the continent’s importance, the obstacles it faces, and the shape American engagement should take, The Catalyst’s Jonathan Tepperman spoke with Jendayi Frazer, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa who is now Duignan Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the President and Chief Executive Officer of 50 Ventures. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity. To dig deeper into these issues, you can find the Bush Institute’s Africa policy brief here.

Over the last decade, U.S. involvement in Africa has decreased, even as Russia and China have greatly expanded their engagement. Why do you think that is? 

Russia and China are not democracies, they’re authoritarian states, and so their leaderships can make plans for the very long term. In the United States, our leadership turns over every four to eight years. Each administration comes in with its own agenda, and that disrupts the consistency of our policies. And we don’t have a strategic understanding of the importance of Africa, so each administration starts its Africa policy from scratch. 

The second thing to keep in mind is that Africa is made up of 54 different countries. There are some commonalities among them, of course, and there are regional organizations such as the African Union that one can engage. But when you’re dealing with 54 different countries, that complicates the capacity to develop a strategic understanding of the continent.  

Why should Africa be a priority for the United States and the new Trump Administration? 

One reason involves demographics. Africa is the youngest and fastest-growing continent on the planet. In about five years, 40% of the world’s working age population will be African. That explosion of young workers will drive economic growth, because young people have energy, they’re productive – especially if they’re well-educated and healthy. And they don’t pull in as many state resources as older populations do. Those kinds of demographics are part of the reason why China and India rose so fast in recent decades. 

The second reason Africa is important to the United States is because it represents a huge market. By 2050, there will be more than 2.5 billion people living on the continent. Third, Africa represents a major block of countries at the United Nations and other international organizations. That’s particularly important given that we’re in competition with adversaries like China and Russia. 

Finally, Africa occupies a critical geographical position. It is located amid sea and air lanes and communication lines, and all of those matter to commerce and to prices in the United States. 

What is currently holding Africa back from fully realizing its economic potential, and what should the United States do to help? 

Well, as I said, one of Africa’s biggest advantages is the size of the population. It is also extremely rich in natural resources, particularly natural resources that are critical to the new green economy and the tech revolution. Africa has the minerals necessary for electric vehicles. It has the minerals necessary for high-tech defense equipment. It has huge potential energy resources, in solar and hydro, as well as a huge amount of liquid natural gas. It’s rich in gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt, etc. So those are some of its advantages.  

The disadvantage is that its 54 countries are fragmented. Many of these countries are small, and some of them are landlocked. Until you can create integrated regional markets – and they’re trying to do that with the African Continental Free Trade Agreement – you’re left with tiny markets with different regulations, which makes it very difficult for private investors in the United States and other places to invest and achieve the economy of scale that’s necessary to be really profitable. 

So regional integration is one key to unlocking Africa’s economic potential. Another is investing in the education and health sectors, to help the many young people coming up. 

General Abdourahamane Tiani, Niger’s military ruler, at a rally in Niamey, July 26, 2024.  (Photo by BOUREIMA HAMA/AFP via Getty Images)

Let’s turn to security. Why has Africa experienced so much instability and so many coups in the last five or so years? 

There are both structural causes and short-term triggers for the instability in the Sahel and North Africa. Part of the answer involves the way these societies developed out of colonialism. The colonial state was not democratic; it was authoritarian. As a consequence, the relationship between state and society has been broken for a long time. After independence, a lot of Africa’s new leaders acted like colonial governors and never built up any legitimacy with their populations. A lot of the problems with Africa’s political culture and political institutions were inherited from the colonial period, and they remain a challenge today. 

But then you have more proximate causes. One is that many of these states don’t have strong security, and they have vast territories that they lack the effective capacity to govern and to secure. Both local militants and foreign terrorists from al-Qaida and the Islamic State have taken advantage of that lack of control. And then you have the challenges stemming from climate change, which has caused desertification, huge droughts, floods, fights over resources, and has undermined economic opportunity, which has caused greater unrest. Then, finally, you have had the impact of foreign actors, including the United States and other Western powers. 

When [Moammar] Gadhafi was overthrown with Western help, the failure to create a new Libyan state led to a proliferation of fighters and arms across the Sahel, and those arms and fighters are contributing to the insecurity we see today. And now Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey are funding different junta groups and different rebel groups in the region. These Middle Eastern states are mainly competing against one another; they’re effectively fighting proxy wars against one another. But also they want the gold and the minerals that are there. 

It’s easy to understand why some African states, especially authoritarian ones, would choose to work with China or Russia or the other states you just mentioned, because they don’t condition their aid on human rights or ask annoying questions about good governance. But do you think Moscow’s recent decision to allow the overthrow of Russia’s client Bashar Assad in Syria will hurt Russia’s reputation as a reliable partner in Africa? And more broadly, how can the United States compete with outside patrons that offer Africa support with fewer conditions? 

Russia doesn’t have a good reputation in Africa. If you look at polls there on Russia’s favorability, it’s in the 30% to 40% range. Russia has become a partner of desperation. When states have coups d’etat and then Western countries say we’re not going to engage with you, they turn to Russia. But it’s never the preferred partner. 

China is quite different, because the Chinese offer a lot more than the Russians. The Russians have always been a source of arms in Africa, and now they’re a source of mercenaries as well, through what was called the Wagner Group and is now called the Africa Corps. You can use those mercenaries to carry out security operations and suppress your population, if you let Russia take all the resources it wants in exchange. But China offers a broader set of its incentives, particularly investments in infrastructure. It will also help train your security forces, but China is much more popular in Africa – I think its poll numbers among the population are in the 70%-80% range, approaching the level enjoyed by the United States.  

So why would people choose to engage with the United States over China or Russia? First, it’s important to think about the fact that most African countries fought for independence from colonial rule, and so the principles of freedom and democracy are deeply embedded in African political culture. I think that that’s often forgotten. Everyone can see that China and Russia do not allow freedom for their populations at home. And most Africans, particularly young people, do not want to live under authoritarian rule. When African countries did gain independence in the 1960s, many of them became one-party authoritarian states, and people don’t want to go back to that. They know what the deal is with China, and they know what the deal is with Russia. 

On the political side, in other words, the United States offers a better model in terms of governance and freedom. On the economic side, the United States is also a better proposition, because people like the greater transparency it offers. They like the rule of law, the idea that you can go to court if you feel that you’ve been wronged on a financial or economic transaction. And U.S. rules of economic governance are much better.  

China comes in and builds big infrastructure projects, but no one knows what the terms of the deal are. It’s not transparent. And China has been caught over and over again contributing to huge levels of corruption.  

A protester opposing France’s role in Africa holds a Russian flag, Ouagadougou, October 4, 2022.  (Photo by ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images)

If the new Trump Administration decides to strategically engage with Africa as you recommend, what should be its main priorities, and what tools should it use? 

The major priority should be engagement itself. Making sure that our embassies have the personnel that they need at the highest level, making sure that our commercial officers in those embassies are in place and engaged. Making sure that President Trump calls African leaders on the phone.  

Engagement is absolutely critical, and that engagement should be fashioned in a strategic manner. Just like in Europe, there are certain countries that we need to touch base with and work through, because they have a major impact on their regions. Nigeria is critical for us. Kenya is critical. Egypt is extremely important. South Africa is critical, even though we’ve often had a problematic relationship with it. Economic powerhouses like Ethiopia and Tanzania are also important. We need to look at Africa’s 54 countries, figure out which ones have the most influence, and which are aligned with what we’re trying to accomplish there.  

As for the tools, we’re fortunate in that many of these have been built up over quite some time. When it comes to commercial engagement, which should be a priority, we have the African Growth and Opportunity Act. That needs to be reauthorized and modernized. We also have all of the programs from the Bush Administration. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief [PEPFAR] needs to be reauthorized. That’s critically important because it builds soft power; it improved the image of the United States across the continent, and, of course, saved so many lives. Another Bush Administration program is the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which also focuses on commercial activity. It is the answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative – it’s doing tremendous amounts of work on infrastructure development. But for some reason, we don’t measure its impact the way we do with PEPFAR. 

We also have the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, which was a Trump Administration initiative. It is crucial for driving private sector investment in the continent so that American companies can compete with Chinese companies. The Obama Administration had the Young African Leaders Initiative, now sometimes called the Mandela Fellowship; that’s a way to engage young people, win hearts and minds, and build strong partnerships with populations aligned with our interests and our values. We have so many different tools. 

Hopefully Trump will continue to build on these, as he did the last time he was president. I hope he’ll fund these programs, make sure that they’re properly staffed, and make sure that they are strategically postured to support America and Africa. I listened to Secretary of State Marco Rubio at his Senate confirmation hearing, and he said that the Trump Administration wants to focus on the United States being safe, strong, and prosperous. All three of those things require engagement with Africa. Safe because terrorism is a major problem there. Strong, because we need African voices to support us in international organizations. And prosperous, because Africa is the market of the future. We have the tools. We just need the strategy and the leadership. 

When you think about the future of Africa and U.S.-Africa ties, are you optimistic? And if so, why? 

Depends on the day. I’m an optimist by nature, so yes, I am optimistic. I’m studying the history of U.S.-Africa relations right now, and one thing I can say is that those relations have always been strongest at the people-to-people level. Look at our faith-based organizations and our many, many humanitarian [nongovernmental organizations]. Look at our student exchanges, which have built strong relationships between the people of Africa and the people of the United States. Those relationships are built on a fundamental tenet that we hold in common, which is the dignity and freedom of human beings. We have common values; we have common interests. We just need to make that connection at the state level, because our relationships at the state-to-state level have been troubling over time. The United States has often treated Africa as a subset of some other strategic interest. For instance, at the end of World War II, we were very interested in aiding Europe’s postwar recovery, so we sided with Europe to slow down the pace of decolonization on the continent. We treated Africa as a secondary issue. 

During the Cold War, there was a similar dynamic; we subordinated Africa to our competition with the Soviet Union. And today we will make a similar mistake if we treat Africa simply as a place to compete against China. That’s not going to be good enough. We need a more robust engagement, to see Africa as critical to the United States’ global position. We need a relationship that is built on the mutual benefit of Africa and United States.