‘AFRICA DOESN’T need strong men, it needs strong institutions”. US president Barack Obama’s visit to Ghana at the weekend, and his keynote speech to the Ghanaian parliament, highlighted democratic change and self-determination of the continent’s affairs.
As he said, its future is up to Africans and they must take full responsibility for its development, including escape from poverty, instability and corruption. This was a refreshing statement of a new perspective for US policy, made more credible and appealing by Mr Obama’s own family background in Kenya where his father was born and by his wife Michelle’s direct ancestry from transported slaves.
Mr Obama related African development directly to good governance. In a pointed comparison, he contrasted Kenya’s development over the last generation to South Korea’s, saying they had a similar level of income in the 1980s but have since diverged significantly. Democratisation intervened in the Asian state, whereas Kenya was afflicted by poor leadership, corruption and tribalism. Ghana, in further contrast, had a generation of coups and dictators after its independence in 1957, but since then has had five successful elections and a succession of relatively effective alternating governments.
In Mr Obama’s view Ghana has set an example other African states should follow. It has developed several of the institutions he identified as necessary for good governance, including a strong parliament, honest policing, an independent media, strong private sector and civil society. This is a conventional liberal checklist, but Mr Obama put it creatively in the context of four specific challenges facing African states: democratic development, public health, opening up opportunities for individuals and the peaceful resolution of conflict. He committed future US policy to foster them in partnership with African leaders. Development aid programmes will be reinforced, building on the solid achievement of the Bush administration in the field of Aids and malaria prevention.
Mr Obama warned against a new cycle of aid or food dependence, insisting that Africans have more than enough resources to feed themselves. But it is worth recalling that one major reason this has changed over the last 40 years is that financial aid was made conditional on reduced food tariffs by international financial institutions. That allowed subsidised food imports to displace local produce, reinforcing the neglect of agriculture by African governments. This too will have to change if the sector is to develop. Mr Obama also denied US policy is dictated by oil or security interests. But Africa now provides 19 per cent of US oil and gas; and his own priorities for economic recovery and budgetary restructuring will leave him precious few extra resources to help the ambitious development programme he sketched out for the continent.
Nevertheless this was a deeply symbolic moment for Africans and Americans, as the first black US president recognised his country’s historical relations with the continent and pledged to renew them. His message of a more hopeful future can make a real difference there.