To be very frank, if I could remember how many times I have had discussions with distinguished leaders, in the United States and across Africa were talking about how we could relate to each other. There have been so many meetings over so many years and we always come back to more or less the same thing. We keep asking what is it that we could do and yet we end up not doing much about that.
But Africa has changed tremendously and so has America and the rest of the world. Therefore, it is important to rethink how Africa and the United States relate to each other.
Dr Kissinja, your presence signals the weight and promise of this initiative. The conclusions of your analysis of the central issues of American foreign policy in 1968 are as fresh and relevant as today. I wish to highlight two of them this morning.
First in all advanced countries, political stability was a precondition for industrialization rather than an outcome. Technical economic factors alone cannot offer a sufficient moral foundation for good politics. Business and trade should rightly constitute the depth the subject matter of enhanced relations between Africa and the United States but it should be mistake to avoid the frank exchanges about values.
Second, the core challenge in developing countries is the consolidation of political legitimacy even two generations ago, the futility of a strategy based on transferring or imposing American institutions on others was clear. I was glad, the other day, to hear President trump saying something about it. Imposing on people what others are thinking isn’t going to be very helpful. Yet too often, political structures in Africa are evaluated against abstract notions of process almost on autopilot.
This is done without reference to either the objective outcomes or views of the citizens directly concerned and affected. When innovative forms of democratic stability are undermined, nobody’s interest is served and the tendency to elevate obstructions about democratic process into a precondition for engagement rather than a basis for discussion is counterproductive.
Third, America succeeds whenever it is able to generate willing cooperation based on a sense of sherd purpose. This brings me to recent developments in Africa, particularly on the Continent Free Trade Area that Dr Kissinger referred to earlier. It was signed in March in Kigali. We view this as a historic step that will transform trade within our continent while requiring the world to relate to the fastest growing continent as a single block for trade purposes.
In fact, this consolidates the efforts that have already been underway for continental integration. This agreement should be understood in a wider context the CFTA heralds new political reality in Africa. We also signed an agreement on the free movement of people within Africa, for example, as part of that. Africa is currently undertaking coordinated action in the United Nations Security Council to use UN assist contribution to fund necessary African union mandated peace support operations that the United Nations cannot conduct on its own.
In addition, we have made major reforms to the financing and institutional functioning of the African Union. The United States initially responded to this obviously positive development sometimes by the discussion that involved whether this was a new financial levy that wired trade organisation that violated or contravened the provisions of the World Trade Organisation. We have had discussions back and forth.
I think most of the misunderstandings have been found to be inaccurate and therefore done away with, but the confusion served to highlight the need for improved dialogue about how Africa and the United States can better collaborate because this is the main objective to enhance each other’s prosperity.
The New Africa Dialogue can be an effective platform for these efforts. I look forward to working with you on this matter. Once again, thank you very much for inviting me and for listening.
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