Joe Biden schedules summit with African leaders as US renews push to invest in the continent
South China Morning Post
7 min read
The US aims to pump billions of investment dollars into Africa in a renewed commitment to counter China's growing influence on the continent.
China overtook the US as Africa's biggest trading partner in 2009, and now Washington will partner with the Group of 7 wealthiest nations to mobilise the investment.
US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he would host African leaders at a summit scheduled for December 13-15 to discuss pressing problems including food security and climate change. He said the gathering would "demonstrate the United States' enduring commitment to Africa, and will underscore the importance of US-Africa relations and increased cooperation on shared global priorities".
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The most recent high-level US-Africa summit was held eight years ago during president Barack Obama's administration, with leaders from 50 African countries attending.
Beijing's equivalent, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, is held every three years. In November, the Senegalese capital of Dakar played host to the forum, with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who attended via video link, pledging to advance US$40 billion in funding and promising to increase the value of imports from Africa to US$300 billion in the next three years.
Wednesday's announcement was made simultaneously in virtual remarks by US Vice-President Kamala Harris to the US-Africa Business Summit in Marrakech, Morocco.
The United States "is committed to bring to bear all the tools at our disposal, including development financing, grants and technical assistance, and support for legal and regulatory reforms - all to help our African partners thrive", Harris said.
US officials will use the Marrakech meeting to "work to advance Washington's new global infrastructure initiative" and "to mobilise hundreds of billions of dollars for high-quality, sustainable infrastructure investment", she said.
In Germany last month, Biden proposed a US$600 billion initiative with the G7 to build infrastructure through the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII). Of that amount, Washington aims to mobilise US$200 billion for PGII over the next five years through grants, financing and private sector investments.
Beijing has funded and built huge infrastructure projects - such as ports, railways, highways and power dams - in Africa under its transcontinental Belt and Road Initiative. Examples include a US$4.7 billion railway in Kenya running from the Port of Mombasa to the capital Nairobi with an extension to Naivasha, a town in Central Rift Valley. It built a similar railway stretching from Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to Djibouti. In Djibouti, Beijing has also funded large port and free-trade zone projects and built its first overseas naval military base.
The US has accused China of putting developing countries into "debt traps" by offering unsustainable loans for BRI projects. Beijing has disputed the charge, saying: "The so-called 'Chinese debt trap' is pure disinformation and a narrative trap created by those who do not hope to see China-Africa cooperation pick up speed."
XN Iraki, an economics professor at the University of Nairobi, said the US was more visible on "soft issues" like democracy, health, human rights and education but not "hard things" like infrastructure, a gap China easily fills. "While we can point out the ports, airports, highways or rails that China has built on the continent, not the US," Iraki said.
He said the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment was a response to BRI, whose visibility might have rattled Washington. "Like other US projects that reach the grass roots, PGII would have to reach this level to countervail BRI," he said.
"Will PGII focus on neglected rural areas or countries that China has kept away from? Are there any strings attached? How much transparency will be there? We hope the details will emerge at the summit."
This is not the first time the US has tried to counter China in Africa. During president Donald Trump's administration, the US unveiled the Prosper Africa Initiative, but Trump left office before any major projects began. Prosper Africa's goal was to increase two-way trade and investment between the United States and African countries.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (centre right) speaks during a meeting with Kenyans in Nairobi on November 17. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (centre right) speaks during a meeting with Kenyans in Nairobi on November 17. Photo: EPA-EFE>
Alice Albright, chief executive of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an American foreign aid agency, is leading a delegation from 10 US government departments and agencies at the Morocco meeting. The group also includes investors who collectively manage more than a trillion dollars in assets.
Albright said since the launch of Prosper Africa two years ago, the US government has supported 800 two-way trade and investment deals in 45 countries in Africa, worth an estimated US$50 billion.
W. Gyude Moore, a former minister of public works in Liberia, said that on both perception and rhetoric, the Biden administration has been better than Trump's. "Whether it's the speech that Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken gave in Nigeria or the Africa strategy that is being developed, the US is saying all the right things about Africa. But the Trump administration was such an anomaly," Moore said.
Although not much has been done by Washington so far, Moore said he thought the US was "still attempting to come up with an adequate response to Africa's infrastructure deficit".
Moore, who is now with the Centre for Global Development, also said that PGII "appears like a rebranding" of Build Back Better World (B3W), which the G7 launched last year in Britain but flopped in the US Congress.
Hannah Ryder, chief executive officer of Development Reimagined, a Beijing-based consultancy, said Africa needed investment and would welcome finance for infrastructure. "So, a worldwide initiative of US$600 billion seems of a better scale than what has been discussed before, albeit still limited," she said.
But she said that given the experience with initiatives like Prosper Africa and climate financing, the US' and G7's collective track record was poor. "In this sense, new initiatives can damage the G7's credibility, meaning the G7 should be cautious when pitching this as a 'win' or 'counter' to China or others," Ryder said.
Adhere Cavince, an international relations analyst based in Nairobi, said a big question in many African capitals is who will be on the list of invites to Biden's summit. At the president's Summit for Democracy last December in Washington, "just about a quarter of African countries were invited", primarily because of concerns about the nations' values and commitment to democracy, Cavince said.
"This is dramatically different from China's engagement with Africa through avenues like the Forum on China Africa Cooperation, usually attended by nearly all African countries," he said.
Concrete pillars are erected during the construction of a highway in Nairobi Expressway in 2021. The project was undertaken by the China Road and Bridge Corporation on a public-private partnership basis. Photo: Reuters alt=Concrete pillars are erected during the construction of a highway in Nairobi Expressway in 2021. The project was undertaken by the China Road and Bridge Corporation on a public-private partnership basis. Photo: Reuters>
Cavince said there were still major gaps regarding US commitment to Africa's infrastructure modernisation. "Africa is clearly the neediest continent infrastructure-wise. The Build Back Better World programme launched last year doesn't seem to have stayed out. It is fast being replaced with the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment," he said.
Cavince cited an example from 2016 in Kenya, where a US firm was contracted to build the Nairobi-Mombasa Expressway but pulled out because of the financing model proposed by the Kenyan government. Nairobi wanted the road to be built on the public-private partnership model, which the US firm said required capital that it can't raise. US policy banks as well as private banks were unable to rally behind the construction firm to build the highway.
In contrast, China has since 2014 helped construct many infrastructure projects in Kenya, including the Standard Gauge Railway from Mombasa to Nairobi and the Nairobi Expressway (built on the public-private model).
Cavince said PGII would be a welcome initiative if the US was willing to listen to the needs of the continent and not tie American infrastructure development plans to extraneous factors like Western values. "A needs-based approach rather than a value-laden framework would better serve the US and its African partners," he said.
"While BRI is practical, with over 1 trillion dollars already committed to participating countries since inception in 2013, the PGII remains only aspirational at this stage," he added.
