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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
Remarks by Vivian Lowery Derryck,
Assistant Administrator, Bureau for AfricaThe Foreign Service Association of Northern California
San Francisco, CA
November 3, 2000
I'm delighted to be on the West Coast. While I appreciate your understandable attention to the Pacific Rim, I'm pleased that you're interested in a perspective on Africa. It's important to discuss Africa at a time when we as a nation are debating the U.S. role in the world and discussing the differing viewpoints of candidates. I appreciate your coming out to discuss foreign affairs. Jim Hoagland in yesterday's Washington Post reported that only two percent of likely voters consider foreign affairs a voting issue.
We are the hardy. For the hardy, today I want to make a case for engagement in Africa and share with you the issues I would highlight for the new administration. We must remain engaged in Africa. The continent includes 650 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone. Globalization, in and of itself, demands that we acknowledge and interact with the continent. It's far better for the U.S. to interact with stable, viable democratic nations than with failed states whose major exports are terrorism and infectious diseases.
In the past eight years, the U.S. has transformed its relationship with Africa. A bi-national commission with South Africa has demonstrated our steadfast support to that emerging democracy. The African Growth and Opportunity Act will open U.S. markets to more than 5,000 African products. The landmark African Trade Ministerial, a Joint Economic Partnership Committee with Nigeria and a Bi-national Consultative Committee with Angola all demonstrate a commitment to engage economically with the continent. More Cabinet officials have visited the continent to establish enduring program linkages than at any other time in U.S. history. President Clinton is the first sitting U.S. president to visit the continent. He has done so not once, but twice.
A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20. I know that it will see the virtues of continued engagement in Africa. This afternoon I will review key reasons for U.S. continued involvement in Africa, highlight three challenges facing the new administration and hopefully dispel some negative myths swirling about the continent.
Africa has been perilously close to having dashed its hopes for development, prosperity and democracies worthy of the name. Conflicts mar the continent, social indicators in many countries are moving in the wrong direction, and HIV/AIDS threatens to reverse development progress of the past 40 years.
The World Bank, acknowledging the problems and fits and starts of African development, tackled the uncertainty forthrightly, and entitled its latest publication, Can Africa Claim the Twenty-First Century? The answer to the Bank's question is an emphatic, resounding "yes." The U.S. can help Africa meet the challenge of claiming the 21st century through our investment in sustainable development.
Sustainable development is a term that goes in and out of fashion, but it means deepening and strengthening local institutions and capabilities in a way that will endure long after the last donor leaves. The U.S. has invested around $15 billion in sub-Saharan Africa in the past ten years in sustainable development, an investment well worthwhile.
We need to continue to invest in Africa for a variety of U.S. interests. Investment in Africa is in our national interest from a security standpoint, especially in terms of infectious diseases, sea-lanes and strategic minerals. In terms of infectious diseases, one has only to look at HIV/AIDS. Vice President Gore, in a historic address to the U.N. Security Council last January, described AIDS as a national security threat. The disease knows no boundaries. As it devastates economies throughout the developing world, it will have economic consequences for the U.S. as well. In terms of sea routes, shipping lanes in the Horn of Africa must be secure. Remember that Yemen is little more than 100 miles from Somalia. Africa is also the only source of several strategic minerals and has large deposits of copper, cobalt and chromium.
Investment in Africa is also in our national interest economically. More than 100,000 U.S. jobs depend on Africa. We import approximately 16 percent of our oil from Africa, more than from the Persian Gulf. Africa is the major source of myriad primary products used in manufacturing, including cocoa and gum Arabic. Many Americans don't realize that we do more trading with Africa than with Russia and all the countries of the former Soviet Union combined.
Investment in Africa is in our moral and ethical interest as well. The U.S. is the richest nation the world has ever known. Our economy dwarfs the second largest, Japan. At the same time, poverty wracks the developing world. Africa has become the poorest continent with 290 million people living on less than a dollar a day. The U.S. gives less than $2.00 a year to each African citizen. In fact, we give the lowest per capita contribution of official development assistance of any industrialized country.
Paradoxically, we are generous people. A University of Maryland study indicates that we want to be generous and help countries develop strong democratic institutions and robust market-based economies, as well as provide humanitarian assistance. As a people, we sleep better when we respond generously to development assistance and humanitarian needs in the developing world.
Here in the U.S., we like to think in terms of cost-benefit analysis. In Africa we can build upon success. We can make a difference. For instance, famine threatened the Horn of Africa earlier this year. However, thanks to the early warning systems put in place by USAID and the contributions of the donor community, famine was averted for 16 million people who had been at risk. Seventy-seven percent of aid committed came from the U.S. We can say that we were able to both sound the alarm and save lives.
Why continue to invest in Africa: because it's in U.S. national security, strategic, economic and ethical interests to engage the continent. And it is cost effective as well.
I've worked in Africa for the past 35 years. My involvement began in Cote d'Ivoire, 35 years ago a bustling, thriving new nation, teeming with optimism. Thirty-five years later, ethnic tensions and failed institutions mar the once-prosperous nation. Thirty-five years later, the continent is characterized by three tensions that weren't apparent in those early years: war versus peace; poverty versus wealth; and marginalization versus integration. USAID is working for positive outcomes and making major investments to address all three.
Conflict presents the greatest challenge to the continent at the moment. USAID has missions in 23 countries. Eighteen of those countries have high to medium levels of conflict. Conflict roils the continent from Sierra Leone to Cote d'Ivoire in West Africa. The war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo involves six other nations, while hostilities continue in Burundi, despite the signing of a peace accord in the presence of several heads of state, including President Clinton in late August.
The conflicts raise profound question for the USG: How do we continue to work in countries where important gains in rule of law have been overturned? Do we continue to work in situations in which egregious human rights violations have occurred? If we decide to scale down, how do we protect the investments we've made to date? At USAID, we've determined that in order to tackle conflict, we must focus on strengthening institutions of governance.
Stable, democratic states are unlikely to become involved in internal or inter-state conflicts. Therefore, it's in our interest to promote democratic states in Africa. USAID helps advance democracy in Africa by promoting the rule of law; free and fair elections; a politically active civil society; and transparent, accountable, and participatory governance. USAID spends approximately $100 million annually in supporting democracy, governance and human rights in Africa.
Overall, Africa has made major progress towards democratic governance in the past decade. Widespread increases in freedom of speech, unfettered access to and for the media, freedom of association and assembly, competitive national and local elections, and the growth of civil society are all testaments to positive change.
A number of countries that began the transition process in the early 1990s, such as Benin, Ghana and Mali, have now instituted democratic political systems and are in the process of consolidating reforms. Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and Tanzania continue to implement political reforms in the wake of their democratizing elections.
However, longer-term obstacles to democratic consolidation in Africa still bedevil the continent. Measures to combat corruption and increase accountability and transparency are urgently needed. Many countries are undertaking efforts to implement macro-level governance reforms with USG assistance. When these programs of accountability and transparency take hold, citizens are empowered to demand peace from their governments. It was the citizenry that ultimately ended the Mozambique war. Currently, Angolans are holding peace rallies, urging their government to conclude a 26-year civil war. And vocal citizenries in several parties to the Congo conflict want their armies to come home.
In other words, democracy is a potent antidote to conflict. USAID's work in democratic development includes partnering with civil society, promoting conflict resolution, and working with militaries to promote improved civilian-military relations. These are major investments, but we know that until conflicts are ended, there will be no overall sustainable development.
The second major challenge is poverty alleviation. Our emphasis on poverty alleviation separates USAID development diplomats from traditional diplomats. Our passion as development diplomats is our enduring effort to try to address the needs of the world's 1.2 billion people living on $1 day. More than 30 years after Barbara Tuchman's landmark best seller, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, the rich are still getting richer and the poor aren't keeping up. In 1960, the 20 percent of the world's richest people had 30 times the income of the poorest 20 percent. In 1995, the richest 20 percent had 82 times the income of the poorest 20 percent. In 1998, the differential had grown to 86 times. The three richest people in the world had assets that exceeded the combined GDP of the 48 least developed countries. The 15 richest persons had assets that exceeded the total GDP of sub-Saharan Africa.
At USAID, poverty alleviation is the core of our mandate. We work every day to stimulate income generation, redistribution and human capacity development. All of our interventions aim ultimately to increase the incomes of poor Africans.
We realize that poverty reduction is a long-term undertaking. We focus on increasing rural incomes, providing guidance for the shift to market economies through macro-economic reform and promoting micro-credit.
We've invested about $117 million a year in FY 1999, 2000 and 2001 on policies and programs to promote growth. And we're seeing some major successes. Excluding South Africa and Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa's GDP grew by 4.1 percent per annum over the past five years. This is a huge improvement over the previous five years when the annual growth rate was less than one percent per annum. Key indicators of economic progress have improved along with the GDP growth rate. Budget deficits have been dramatically reduced. Inflation rates have dropped by fourth fifths and exports have grown at an annual average rate of 4.8 percent.
Economic liberalization has played a crucial role in bringing about these improvements. In most countries, fiscal policies and management have noticeably improved. And USAID has been a prime mover. We've worked to encourage policy reforms directly through technical assistance, training, policy-oriented research and capacity-building of institutions.
Investment in agriculture is a cornerstone of poverty reduction. Africa is the only region that is food insecure. Poor people are often malnourished people. Our investment in agriculture is doubly beneficial because it increases both domestic consumption and exports. USAID's major investment of $250 million in the last three years has resulted in successful rural development and agriculture programs with increased access to credit, seeds and markets, increased food production, and increased incomes for large numbers of poor, rural-based Africans.
Where there are good markets, effective policies, and sufficient services to farmers, productivity and incomes rise. Mozambique, Uganda, Ghana, Rwanda, Mali, Senegal, and Guinea are among the countries that have achieved some of the highest gains in agricultural productivity.
Our work in agriculture provides a telling example of the mutual benefits of assistance. Let me give you an example from Ghana. Americans devour more than $12 billion worth of chocolate each year. Over 65 percent of the cocoa for chocolate comes from Africa. USAID is working with the U.S. chocolate industry to increase incomes of African cocoa producers' households and to ensure the supply of quality products for U.S. markets. This is good for the U.S. economy. Each year, U.S. chocolate manufacturers use about 250,000 tons of dry milk, 400,000 tons of sugar and 350,000 tons of peanuts. In a typical year, the chocolate industry uses more than $3 billion of U.S. agricultural products. USAID's work with the chocolate industry helps ensure a stable supply of coca products that drives the demand for these other U.S. products. Our investment directly increases U.S. employment, trade and incomes for U.S. households.
This is an example of a win for Africa and a win for the U.S.
The third dilemma facing the new administration is integration versus marginalization. For much of the 1980s Africanists lamented the continent's marginalization. During the Cold War, Africans complained that their nations were important only as proxies for the Great Powers. Africa enjoyed a positive resurgence in the mid-90s, so much so that President Clinton heralded the African Renaissance during his historic 1998 trip. Now Africa again faces the risk of marginalization. This time the culprit is the digital divide.
To end African marginalization and ensure integration into the global economy, USAID is making major investments in education. Education is the key to sustainable development and the key to African integration into the global economy.
Education provides a broad range of benefits, including increased productivity, higher individual and national incomes, lower fertility, lower mortality (one year of a mother's education is associated with a 9% decrease in under-five mortality), improved health, greater labor force participation, and higher agricultural productivity (farmers having completed four years of basic education produce 8% more than farmers who have none).
But in sub-Saharan Africa, half of the primary school-aged population is not enrolled in school. Of the children who are, fewer than fifty percent of those entering first grade will complete the primary school cycle. Many of these primary school graduates -- as well as their less fortunate schoolmates who drop-out along the way -- will not have acquired the minimal levels of literacy and numeracy to allow them to advance to secondary school or to benefit from their families' investment in their schooling.
The lack of educational excellence and weak educational systems severely constrain Africa's ability to fully benefit from information technology and thereby enter the globalized economy. The globalized economy and its manifestation, globalization, is ubiquitous and its implications still are not fully understood. Globalization has brought us borderless societies that are redefining the meaning of the nation-state. Nation-states are no longer able to control the flow of information or financial transactions. Globalization is relentless, fast and devastating to those not ready for it.
In terms of education and skilled preparedness, Africa is, by and large, not ready. Globalization demands literacy, numeracy and technical ability. It has spawned the need for a new technological literacy and a new, technology-driven world that requires extensive formal education and an ability to acquire and apply theoretical and analytical knowledge.
The inability to benefit from globalization is truly marginalizing.
Lack of competitiveness through information technology (IT) weakness is a major threat to long-term competitiveness and integration into the global economy. USAID has grappled with the IT question and developed an innovative program that promotes Internet connectivity continent-wide. Our Leland Initiative is helping to ensure that Africa is a player in the global information revolution.
Conflict, poverty and marginalization all converge around a new factor in the sustainable development equation: HIV/AIDS. AIDS is a devastating disease that threatens to undermine all development successes of the past 40 years. HIV/AIDS is a global pandemic, but Africa is hardest hit. AIDS is more than a health problem; it's a development problem, impacting national economies, education systems, agricultural productivity and demographic trends.
Development practitioners and those seized with this issue must find long-term strategies because the disease will be with us for at least the next decade.
The pandemic is a security threat to the entire world. It is clearly in our national interest to engage in combating this scourge. Fortunately, there are new opportunities in voluntary counseling and testing. New technology has made the tests faster--a pinprick; cheaper -- the cost is about $4 per test; and quicker -- results in 45 minutes.
But we also must deal with orphans. The number will explode from 10 million today to 38 million by 2010 on the African continent. Without schools, without parents, without social supports, these young people are a recipe for social disaster.
USAID is addressing the problem with a presidential initiative to combat the scourge, LIFE: Leadership and Investment to Fight an Epidemic. We anticipate a $300 million program for 2001 that will focus on prevention, home-based care and treatment, care for orphans and strengthening infrastructures.
These development investments in strengthening democracies, reforming economies, revitalizing agriculture, supporting education and combating HIV/AIDS not only fight conflict, poverty and marginalization, these five investments also form a virtuous circle. A strong democracy will attract foreign investment, increasing Africa's share from a paltry .3 % of foreign direct investment for 1999. Agriculture will be a basis for economic rebirth as well as providing basic nutrition. Economic investment will occur with a literate labor force that can compete with other regions through IT. And strategies for dealing with HIV/AIDS will help further integrate Africa into the global family.
These investments in supporting democracy and governance programs, strengthening institutions, reforming economies, re-orienting education policy and reforming health care systems are building a new continent. They are investments that should dispel myths that bedevil U.S. government efforts in Africa.
The first of these myths asserts that foreign aid is a charity give-away and is irrelevant to foreign policy. This is the myth that I object to most strongly. The U.S. has two foreign policy goals in Africa: to reduce global threats and to facilitate African integration into the global economy. Foreign assistance is integral to foreign policy. The U.S. needs strong democracies to counter terrorism and become good trading partners. USAID programs help to develop those democracies and strengthen economies.
The second myth is that investment is Africa is money down a rathole. I hope that I've demonstrated that our investments on the continent help African states and help the U.S. Think about our national chocolate habit and the $3 billion associated with the industry for the first repudiation of that myth. But I want to offer a second example that demonstrates that foreign assistance promotes stable democracy and thereby supports foreign policy.
This is a story about cassava. More cassava is produced in Africa than anywhere else in the world -- 80-90 million metric tons annually. More than 200 million people depend on cassava as their main staple food. It is the most important food security crop in sub-Saharan Africa. In Uganda, between 12 and 15 million people grow cassava on 400,000 hectares of land. Annual production peaked at 3.5 million tons in 1989, until a new and devastating form of cassava mosaic disease struck, reducing national production levels by approximately 40 percent.
Between 1992 and 1997, annual losses to Ugandan farmers as a result of cassava mosaic disease were approximately $60 million; total losses have exceeded $400 million in the past 10 years. To make matters worse, the decline in cassava production severely disrupted household food security. Cassava functions as a "food bank" because it is drought-resistant and can be left in the ground for two to three years without being harvested. It serves as a bridge when more vulnerable annual crops are not available. In addition to Uganda, neighboring countries had also been affected by cassava mosaic disease, so Uganda was unable to look to these neighbors to fill the deficit.
USAID and other donors quickly responded to the crisis. In collaboration with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture and Uganda's National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO), USAID supported basic research, institutional development, and the multiplication and dissemination of disease-resistant cassava planting materials held in reserve by NARO. Over the past 10 years, USAID has invested approximately $5.3 million, half of the total funds required to combat the decline in cassava production. The return on this investment has been enormous. Cassava production in USAID's target areas increased from less than 1,000 metric tons in 1997, to 342,000 metric tons in 1999. The Kampala wholesale market value of the 1999 crop from these target areas was estimated at over $40 million, exceeding the amount of USAID's initial investment by 700 percent in this year alone. (Source: UGANDA FY2002 R4)
Uganda, with political and economic stability remains an important U.S. partner. Food security strengthened enormously Uganda's contribution to the partnership.
Another myth decrees that Africa is not ready for democracy. Although 18 countries are in conflict, many others are struggling to become good development partners. Africans have the same desires for free speech, leadership accountability, government transparency and rule of law as any other peoples. They, too, want democracies worthy of the name and they, too, when they have the chance, will fight for it. In the most recent demonstration of their commitment to democracy, flawed elections in Cote d'Ivoire marked the first time that Africans had taken to the streets to demand an elected leader be installed. Earlier this year, now former Senegalese President Abdou Diouf, gracefully acknowledged defeat by his longtime opponent, Abdoulaye Wade. Over 23 African countries, including Botswana, South Africa and Mali, have held elections deemed free and fair by international observers.
Myths can be overcome. Progress can be made. It is not inevitable that bad things will happen in Africa. Major progress can be made through donor/local community cooperation and public/private partnerships. Development successes can be achieved through citizen-to-citizen involvement.
Among the great movements in international affairs at the end of the twentieth century, two are particularly important for sustainable development. The first we've already discussed: globalization and the related inability of governments to control economic activities. The second is the growth of non-state actors in international affairs. An NGO energized the debate on land mines. Jubilee 2000 successfully challenged national governments to change their positions on debt relief. Citizens no longer cede foreign affairs to professionals. Citizens now believe that they can rightfully influence international actions. One vehicle through which they can work is non-governmental organizations. For instance, a Rotary Club in New York sponsored eight Sierra Leone war victims for new prostheses earlier this month. Their generosity brings foreign affairs to a local level. New Yorkers have opinions on everything. I'll bet that many New York Rotarians have an opinion on whether Sierra Leone should have a war crimes tribunal and whether the USG should support it.
Other important new actors include women's groups, faith-based organizations and business groups. There is new acknowledgement of importance of the private sector and growing awareness that public/private partnerships benefit both the companies and the communities in which they work. Companies are finding that social responsibility is good for business.
Non-state actors are a positive development for Africa and for U.S. investments in the continent. Informed, committed internationalists bring knowledgeable perspectives into foreign policy discussions. Their views of the importance and effectiveness of foreign assistance and its necessary place in the foreign affairs paradigm carry weight. Their involvement and relationships with non-governmental organizations and professional groups in Africa provide valuable insights for policy-makers and their constituencies.
In conclusion, I thank you for thinking about Africa this afternoon. It's a continent worthy of our consideration and our investments. It's in our national interest to do so. Because it's in our national interest, the new administration will find willing partners among NGOs, in the private sector and among Africans, as it deals with the major challenges of conflict, poverty, marginalization and HIV/AIDS. It will be able to effectively continue the battle to dispel myths and help Africa retain its optimism and realize its potential. With the new administration's help, Africa can indeed claim the 21st century.
Thank you again for inviting me and for your commitment to Africa.
This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
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Last Updated on: July 12, 2001 |
