The much-heralded US-Africa Summit held in Washington DC on December 13-15, 2022 and what remains is a scrutiny of the outcome. In the last two decades, Africa has been the center of attraction for the great powers as it was in the 18th and 19th centuries until the decolonization period in the late 1950s. There was the struggle for human beings as chattels. Secondly, the continent was the center of the colonial exploitation of raw materials and the market for finished products, a phenomenon that diverted the productive orientation of the continent. Third, colonialism gave rise to neocolonial exploitation in ways that ensured dependence on received policies from metropolitan countries.
The totalizing global exploitation of resources by the world’s industrialized countries has depleted global resources in such a way that Africa, to borrow the words of Paul Collier, has become the last resource continent. According to Collier, “Africa is the last frontier for resource discovery, having long been relatively neglected by mining and other resource extraction companies due to difficult political conditions. But rising commodity prices are overcoming reluctance, and prospecting is generating a multitude of new discoveries… Given that resource extraction per square kilometer in Africa is about 20 per cent of the OECD average , the total volume of extraction could easily be multiplied by five.”
This is perhaps the latent function, in other words the ulterior motive, of the new scramble for Africa by the great powers, namely Britain, China, India, Japan, Russia, Turkey and the United States. In American thinking, “Africa is a major geopolitical force. It is one that has shaped our past, is shaping our present, and will shape our future.” It seems like an inadvertent admission of the role the continent has played as a beast of burden for the rest of humanity. The summit was ostensibly intended to “Strengthen ties with African partners based on the principles of mutual respect and shared interests and values” and, in specific terms, “better foster new economic engagement; reinforce the commitment of the United States and Africa to democracy and human rights; mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and future pandemics; work collaboratively to strengthen regional and global health; promote food security; promote peace and security; respond to the climate crisis; and amplify the ties of the diaspora”. This, to be precise, is the manifest function.
The praxis of the summit denied the previous objectives. In addition to the group ceremonies, the US entered into the usual divide-and-conquer by signing bilateral agreements with individual countries in ways that undermined any possible reciprocity in the process. It should be noted that the invitation to African leaders was biased; some African countries were not invited due to ideological differences and political orientation. Countries like Burkina-Faso, Eritrea, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Sudan and Western Sahara were not present at the summit. At last count, there was a pledge of $55 billion to advance so-called shared priorities over the next three years, $15 billion of which will go toward “two-way investment and trade commitments, deals, and partnerships.” Keen observers of US-Africa relations have noted that the realization of some of the promises would depend on the willingness of the US Congress and have questioned the outcome of previous promises under past administrations, namely Power Obama’s Africa; President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); and Donald Trump’s Prosper Africa initiative.
Overall, the summit was a deepening of neocolonial relations. Some of the bilateral deals that were endorsed by African leaders on the US-Africa Business Forum platform left much to be desired. There was no common African position on how such a meeting should be attended by a delegate of African leaders led by the AU president. Closer examination revealed that the agreements focused on the extraction of resources such as cobalt, copper and nickel mines in Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania; construction contracts in Angola, Ford Car assemblies in South Africa and purchase of energy storage systems by Nigeria, the “creeping giant”. For its part, the US will finance the export of goods and services to Africa. These agreements, according to observers, were tilted in favor of the US. As always, African leaders signed them without careful reading.
Furthermore, the summit exposed the ugly facade of the continent’s leadership. An incapacitated Cameroonian leader, Paul Biya, in power for more than 40 years, struggled to open his file without success. Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, whose country has already become a water lily of US military adventures on the continent, expressed open hatred for another African country, Burkina-Faso, over the latter’s decision to break free of Imperial restrictions. Here is a leader whose founding president, Kwame Nkrumah, wrote the seminal work Neocolonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism.
It should be noted that part of the latent function of the summit is geopolitics, that is, who controls the continent? China’s foray into the mainland has made the West uncomfortable. The Chinese launched the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000. After much propaganda about why Africa should be wary of China, the US made an offer in 2014 to launch the US-Africa Leaders Summit. . However, China has invested more in Africa, despite some inequality contradictions in the relationship. On this issue, Qin Gang, the Chinese ambassador to Washington, has pointed out that China-Africa relations are the foundation of his country’s foreign policy.
It’s not all a troubled story, Africa must tap into the diaspora community in the United States. African Americans share a common ancestry with the continent and are therefore part of Africa’s manifest destiny. The creation of the President’s Advisory Council on Engagement with the African Diaspora in the US (PAC-ADE) announced by Vice President Kamala Harris to enhance the dialogue between US officials and the African Diaspora is forward-thinking and should be embraced .
Africa must come out of age and unite to prevent other countries from determining its future. As Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, has rightly pointed out, the rest of the world should come to Africa rather than the other way around. Africa must enter the new world order to be born out of the old order under “constructive destruction” by the Kremlin and other global social forces eager for a new deal.
