U.S. embassy and consulate websites or www.state.gov.
We’ve gone social!
Follow us on our facebook pages and join the conversation.
12 August 2009
Former U.S. Diplomat for Africa Lauds Focus on Corruption
Calls new emphasis on improving African agriculture the right thing to do
Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s trip to Africa, where she is “talking truth to Africans about corruption and bad governance while emphasizing food security, is the right thing to do,” says former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen.
Clinton’s first official visit to seven African nations is “important because it indicates a strong strategic interest by the Obama administration and a willingness to help Africans tackle problems that earlier proved very nettlesome to diplomats like me,” Cohen told America.gov August 12.
Clinton voiced a major concern of the Obama administration to a gathering of business leaders and government officials at her stop in Johannesburg August 7, when she said, “Improving governance across Africa is one of the most important challenges we face.”
The secretary echoed the “fundamental truth” noted by Obama in a speech he delivered to Ghana’s Parliament July 11 condemning bribery and stressing that “development depends on good governance.” The president added that “perpetual aid” is no solution to Africa’s problems.
Cohen said, “The extent to which the secretary is hammering home the anti-corruption message is very important and something new by President Obama that has not happened before.”
The retired diplomat was assistant secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993. During his 38-year foreign service career, Cohen served in five African countries and was U.S. ambassador to Senegal. He also served as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan for African affairs in the 1980s.
The diplomat came to be called “Mr. Africa” because of his expertise and the close relations forged with African leaders during negotiations he facilitated on conflicts in Mozambique and Ethiopia. He is currently a consultant to several U.S. companies doing business on the continent.
Commenting on Clinton’s August 4–14 trip to Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde, Cohen said, “I believe the secretary is handling herself quite well. She is very professional and articulate and her messages are well understood and the Africans are taking her seriously.”
In South Africa, Clinton said: “There is so much that can be done if we can break the link of corruption and poor governance. … It is a simple fact that investors are not attracted to states with failed or weak leadership, crime and civil unrest or corruption that taints every transaction and decision.”
Holding it up as a model, she said, “I think that the example of South Africa’s entrepreneurs and business leaders can sell the idea that openness, transparency, adherence to the rule of law, a fight that is never-ending against corruption are the conditions that will benefit investment.”
According to Cohen, “No American president or secretary of state has ever talked so forthrightly in terms like that to Africans, and this is in itself a very important point.
“Up until Obama,” he said, “we all, including diplomats like me, were very delicate about these [governance] issues. We didn’t want to be accused by the Africans of racism or colonialism. But the Obama administration came right out with it, and that’s something that should have been driven home a long time ago.”
In addition to the good governance message broached by President Obama in his Accra speech, Clinton also emphasized that the United States would continue to support Africa and would not diminish foreign aid, especially to improve agriculture, leading to better food security.
In Ghana, Obama reiterated the pledge he made at the G8 meeting in Italy of $3.5 billion for agricultural assistance programs in Africa focused on new methods, tools and technologies for farmers aimed at ensuring food security for the continent.
“The African farmer is a good farmer,” Cohen said, “but he needs fertilizer and good irrigation tools as well as more technical assistance. If he gets it, he can triple and quadruple his yields.”
Like governance, poor food security in Africa was also something previous administrations did not push because U.S. foreign aid programs did not emphasize agriculture, Cohen said. “There was no constituency in the United States to promote Africans expanding their agricultural exports because U.S. farmers did not want the competition.
“So, the Obama administration’s emphasis on helping Africans improve agriculture is not only a departure from the past but is also the right thing to do. Unless Africa regains the greatness it once had in agricultural production, it will never make much progress,” Cohen concluded.
