Fifty African leaders are expected to join President Biden in Washington, DC to discuss many issues, including food security.
President Joe Biden has announced that the United States will bring together leaders from across the African continent at a major summit in Washington, DC this December to discuss pressing challenges from food security to climate change.
“The summit will demonstrate America’s enduring commitment to Africa and underscore the importance of US-Africa relations and increased cooperation on shared global priorities,” Biden said in a statement Wednesday.
The US-Africa Leaders Summit, scheduled for December 13-15, was simultaneously announced in virtual remarks by Vice President Kamala Harris at the US-Africa Business Summit in Marrakech, Morocco. This latest event is being organized by the Africa Corporate Council and the Kingdom of Morocco.
A senior administration official, while discussing plans for the US-Africa summit on condition of anonymity, told the Reuters news agency that about 50 African leaders are expected to join Biden for the series of meetings on 13 to December 15.
It will come at the end of a year when Biden has engaged in other regions of the world with trips to visit US allies in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Biden has yet to visit Africa since he became president, and the summit will be his most comprehensive look at the continent’s complexities.
So far, Biden’s diplomatic efforts have focused on promoting Western democracies as a counterbalance to China, but the official said the US-Africa summit is not just about Beijing.
“We are not asking our African partners to choose,” the official told Reuters. “We think the United States offers a better model, but we are not asking our African partners to choose.”
The US Agency for International Development announced Monday that it will provide nearly $1.3 billion in aid to the nations of the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, to help avert famine and mass deaths in the disaster-hit region. the drought.
Biden said the summit will work toward a new economic compromise, promote democracy and human rights, advance peace and security, and address challenges such as food security and climate change, as well as the pandemic.
The president believes that the United States’ collaboration with African government leaders, civil society, the private sector and the African diaspora will help address some of the challenges, the official said.
