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December 4, 2005
Council on Foreign Relations
December 4, 2005—2005 was the “year of Africa,” with world summits and rock stars focused on the plight of the continent. But a report by an Independent Task Force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations finds that “a policy based on humanitarian concerns alone serves neither U.S. interests nor Africa’s.”
“We will know that the response to this opportunity has failed if, in another ten years, U.S. policymakers link hands once again with other world leaders around Africa’s problems and the world witnesses another global concert to end Africa’s poverty. The United States cannot afford to let another decade go by without effective solutions, and Africa deserves far better,” concludes the Task Force.
The report, More than Humanitarianism: A Strategic Approach Toward Africa, notes that Africa is of growing international importance, playing an increasingly significant role in supplying energy, preventing the spread of terrorism, and halting the devastation of HIV/AIDS.
African production of oil and gas is increasing rapidly as U.S. competition with China and other countries is intensifying for access to resources on the continent. By 2010, Africa may be supplying the United States as much of America’s energy imports as the Middle East.
The continuing atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan are also testing the international community’s resolve to devote meaningful resources to Africa. The Task Force calls on the United States to “mobilize international support to secure the ground and compel a negotiated settlement.”
The Task Force notes that some 40 percent of African states are now electoral democracies and calls for greater partnership to support the many positive changes taking place in Africa. “A core of democratically elected presidents is leading the continent in the direction of greater democracy, improved governance, and sound economic policies,” says the report.
The Task Force is chaired by former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and former EPA Administrator and member of the board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation Christine Todd Whitman. Princeton N. Lyman, the Council’s Ralph Bunche senior fellow and director of Africa policy studies, and J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, serve as directors. The Task Force brought together religious and business leaders, humanitarian and human rights advocates, and security and foreign policy experts.
The Task Force recommends that Africa be more fully integrated into the global economy and that Africa be an active partner in U.S. programs to assure reliable supplies of energy, combat terrorism, reduce conflict, control pandemic diseases, and enlarge the worldwide community of democracies.
The following priorities and goals are central to a comprehensive Africa policy:
Independent Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward Africa
J. Dennis Bonney
Business Consultant
Lael Brainard
The Brookings Institution
Chester A. Crocker
Georgetown University
Alex de Waal
Harvard University
Nicholas Eberstadt
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Richard Furman
Samaritan’s Purse
Helene D. Gayle
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Victoria K. Holt
Stimson Center
Gregory G. Johnson
U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Richard A. Joseph
Northwestern University
Nicholas P. Lapham
African Parks Foundation of America
Rick A. Lazio
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
Raymond C. Offenheiser
Oxfam America
Michael O’Hanlon
The Brookings Institution
Samantha Power
Harvard University
John H. Ricard
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Gayle E. Smith
Center for American Progress
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