Obama Stirs Africa

The visit to Ghana on Saturday by U.S. President Barack Obama, his first trip to Africa as president, is renewing attention to most of the continent’s continuing slow ride away from underdevelopment, corruption, civil war and faltering institutions. Obama’s highly symbolic one-day trip to Ghana — located in sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region in the world (and the only region where absolute poverty continues to grow) — included an historic address to the Ghana parliament. Judging from news reports, his speech appears to have been well-received by Africans (it was also Tweeted). As one Nigerian journalist puts it, Obama delivered “a wake-up call for Africa.”  

The Obama speech was part hopeful, holding up for example the host country Ghana, which appears to be making great strides with its economy and government. But maybe even more effective was Obama’s straight-on criticism of Africa’s long, bloody line of corrupt tyrants who have sold out their countrymen, with lines such as “The West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants,” and “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, but strong institutions.” Coming from a much admired African-American president, Africans are likely to take Obama’s “tough love” critique to heart. 

What’s next for Obama, the United States and Africa? There are several good sources of analysis around the web about how Obama and the United States should help facilitate progress in Africa. An Op-Ed in The New York Times on Saturday by U2′s Bono talks about investing in countries turning things around the right way, like Ghana, and the need for accountability in aid regimes. One international NGO that has an especially good grasp of the African challenge, Oxfam, focuses this July 10 release on pressing the Obama Administration to make reforms to its development aid in the region and implement “new measures to increase transparency and accountability.” And David Gartner of the Brookings Institute writes about the need to untie aid packages that finance Western consultants more than the countries they intend to serve.