Washington’s Failed Africa Policy Needs a Reset
Instead of trying to put out security fires, U.S. policy should focus on governance and growth.
April 15, 2024,
The latest evidence that Washington needs a new Africa policy is on display in Niger. After many months of intense political jockeying, the United States’ security partnership with the country looks likely to end. Following a recent visit by Molly Phee, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, and Gen. Michael Langley, the chief of the U.S. Africa Command, the Nigerien junta abruptly declared more than a decade of training and operational partnership to be over.
After new regimes in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger forced the French military out of the region, the U.S. military now risks becoming the next casualty in the spate of coups and violent insurgencies plaguing countries across a large swath of the continent. The pullout of U.S. forces from Niger—and the closure of the U.S.-funded air bases in its cities of Niamey and Agadez—would jeopardize Washington’s efforts to address transnational terrorist threats and other sources of instability in North and West Africa. The impact of such a strategic shift cannot be ignored.
Yet despite serious setbacks to security and political stability, the region has also shown signs of democratic strength that Washington should nurture as part of a new policy approach. On March 25, Senegal elected a new president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a 44-year-old leader of the opposition and a relative political unknown. Senegal can now emerge from the turmoil into which outgoing President Macky Sall threw the country when he attempted to cancel the elections three weeks before they were to take place, triggering widespread domestic protests and international alarm.
But on Feb. 17, the Senegalese Supreme Court annulled the cancellation and ordered the vote to be held “as soon as possible.” The region was bracing for one of Africa’s most important democracies to fall into authoritarianism, but instead, the rule of law and an engaged citizenry delivered a different outcome.
The strategic imperative for the United States is to support countries that foster democracy, such as Senegal, and prevent democratic backsliding, à la Niger. Much is at stake: Within 15 years, Africa is projected to have the world’s largest population of working-age adults, surpassing both China and India. By 2050, Africa will contain 25 percent of the global population, and Nigeria will surpass the United States to become the third-most-populous country in the world. Africa is already home to six of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies. The continent’s abundant natural resources—including rare earth minerals—are not only a source of potentially immense wealth, but will also be crucial to the ongoing technological revolution.
The United Arab Emirates, China, and Britain pledged the most foreign direct investment in Africa in 2023—promising three to five times the amount from U.S. sources. The United States should finally begin investing at a scale commensurate with the continent’s great promise, as U.S. allies and adversaries alike have done.
Instead of pursuing overarching strategic goals in Africa, Washington has pursued circumscribed partnerships focused primarily on security cooperation while doing little to change the systemic factors driving instability. The approach has not worked: Violent extremism, state failure, malign foreign influence, and military rule have spiked, creating security threats to U.S. citizens, reducing bilateral trade, and fueling migration challenges that have affected U.S. partners in Europe. Without a more comprehensive policy that prioritizes security, better governance, and improved economic opportunities to foster stability, the United States will continue to cede influence to groups—such as the Islamic State—that are intent on exploiting instability in Africa for their own ends.
One of the urgent reasons for a new U.S. strategy is that Africa has become the global epicenter of transnational terrorism. In 2023, the continent accounted for nearly half of global deaths related to terrorism, the majority of which were in the Sahel countries, which include Nigeria. Perhaps no country feels the danger of violent extremism more acutely than Niger’s neighbor, Burkina Faso, where fighting between insurgent forces and the government led to nearly 8,000 deaths in 2023 in the once-quiet country.
This breakdown in security is the direct result of exclusionary governance practices. Numerous studies suggest that violent extremism proliferates when citizens do not feel that their basic needs are being met; have no say in determining their own futures; and are suffering at the hands of unaccountable, corrupt, and abusive governments. In places where the central government fails, traditional leaders have often stepped in to fill the gap, but in countries such as Mali and Niger, insurgents have co-opted or killed traditional leaders in order to take control of rural areas. In some cases, insurgent groups have assumed governing functions—such as mediating conflicts, an area in which these groups can provide a brutal if critical justice service that state actors have failed to supply.
As countries such as the Central African Republic and Mali search for new allies, Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries has used the opportunity to make itself an unsavory but locally welcomed security partner despite being implicated in allegations of corruption and human rights abuses.
Despite these negative developments, there is reason to hope that the governance reforms needed to turn the situation around would be welcomed by citizens in Africa. According to independent research network Afrobarometer, democracy remains the most popular form of government in Africa, with 66 percent supporting it across 36 countries polled. And while at first blush it may seem alarming that 53 percent of Africans—and an even higher share among the young—would support a military intervention if a government abuses its power, this data point suggests that Africans are not prepared to tolerate democracy in name only. It must deliver for them.
Washington’s approach to the region has failed to achieve its objectives of shoring up stability and creating the conditions favorable to both Africans’ and the United States’ interests. A revitalized strategy should combine support for security with programs to help aspiring African leaders hone the skills to lead and govern, particularly among marginalized populations. This includes, for example, the Fulani, the ethnic group that constitutes the largest percentage of insurgent groups in the Sahel. Niger’s positive experience integrating the Tuareg into the government following a disruptive insurgency could be instructive.
Economic opportunity is also crucial to the region’s long-term stability. The need to make a living is often the driver for young men to join armed groups; the availability of more and better opportunities elsewhere can create powerful incentives to leave such groups. Washington has an important role to play in encouraging private sector engagement with West Africa’s more stable countries as they face threats of broader regional instability. Ghana’s burgeoning information technology sector, for example, has already attracted investment from IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco, and the country is currently the United States’ third-largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa. Such long-term economic investments are the United States’ comparative advantage to further partnerships with African countries.
The African Growth and Opportunities Act, which allows qualifying African states to export goods duty-free to the U.S., expires in 2025. Its renewal—or the creation of a successor trade agreement—can be used to incentivize governments in the region. In addition, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. foreign aid agency, can make substantial investments in critical infrastructure—such as water and transportation—and improved agricultural practices, which would help African politicians deliver for their people.
For all their shortcomings, Africa’s multilateral bodies—such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)—will be critical partners in fostering improved security and stability. Critics of ECOWAS argue that the group has been ineffective: For example, neither the threat of ECOWAS sanctions nor public calls for the bloc to deploy its standby military force to depose the Nigerien junta caused the latter to back down. Nonetheless, ECOWAS has historically been one of Africa’s stronger regional groupings and has consistently supported democracy when civilian governments are under threat. With United Nations peacekeeping missions across Africa drawing down and traditional power players such as France losing influence, the United States has a clear interest in helping ECOWAS to build its capacity to manage and mitigate regional crises.
The strategy of focusing only on the most problematic countries and making policy crisis by crisis has served neither the United States nor Africa well. In addition to improving rapid response capacity for crises such as the Sudanese civil war, Washington should focus at least as much on investing in countries that are making democratic progress to help them fulfill their potential and serve as magnets for regional development. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visit to Ivory Coast and announcement of additional U.S. funding is a good example of the kind of positive reinforcement that Washington should scale up.
Finally, Washington should incentivize post-coup transitional governments to follow the path back to democracy. Merely holding a promised election does not mean a transition is complete; rebuilding democratic norms and institutions following such ruptures requires sustained progress.
Practically speaking, this could include helping a new government deliver for its people by investing in services such as health care and education. Support for civil society, political parties, and national and local governance should continue in the long term to solidify gains. The presidential election scheduled in Chad next month will provide an early opportunity to pursue this strategy.
Robust democratic governance is directly tied to Africa’s long-term stability and prosperity. The United States must show Africans that it sees them as equal partners in democratization, not pawns in a new era of great-power competition. Washington’s interest in and ability to support civilian-controlled security forces, inclusive economic growth, and sustained democratic development give it a unique advantage over competitors such as Moscow and Beijing, which strike deals with elites at the expense of citizens.
The time for the United States to enshrine this approach in a thoughtful, comprehensive new policy toward Africa is now.
Daniel Twining is the president of the International Republican Institute and a former counselor at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Twitter: @DCTwining
Will Meeker is the senior director for Africa at the International Republican Institute.