This article originally appeared in World Politics Review.
Last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield both visited Africa as part of a larger effort to expand high-level diplomatic engagement on the continent after the recently held U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. Notably missing from the agenda of both of these trips, however, was an emphasis on good governance, a topic that was also largely absent from the summit’s expansive program.
The summit, hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington in December and attended by 49 African heads of state and government, rightfully focused on key areas such as investment, climate adaptation and health. But good governance in the form of capable and accountable public institutions is necessary for progress to be made on these other important issues, something that should be reflected in the language U.S. officials use to discuss them.
One notable drawback of the summit agenda and the U.S. Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa, which Secretary of State Antony Blinken unveiled during his own trip to Africa in August 2022, was that they covered a wide range of topics but did not set any as priorities. Moreover, despite assertions that the sheer number of topics engaged can be considered a demonstration of the breadth of U.S. interest in Africa, it is far more important that this interest not remain merely rhetorical. Rather, it should open up avenues for mutually beneficial engagement. Promoting investment, climate adaptation and health on the continent is a good place to start. But the value of this strategy is questionable if support for effective governance does not underpin these efforts.
U.S. support for governance is certainly no guarantee that stronger governance will emerge, nor is it a necessary condition for it in Africa. But making sure it is part of the conversation could potentially lead to reforms that are in the mutual interests of African citizens and the United States. As Ken Opalo of Georgetown University put it in early January, “A core priority of American friendship ought to be to help its African allies in their state-building efforts,” including the “monopolization of the use of force and capacity to provide essential public goods and services.”
In other words, U.S. policymakers should not shy away from the promotion of good governance, as it is the most effective way to achieve the commitments and goals outlined at the U.S.-Africa Summit.
In fact, though the Biden team didn’t emphasize it at the summit, Kenyan President William Ruto did. Ruto underscored the role that good governance plays in creating an enabling environment that can attract and best utilize foreign investment. He argued that African countries need institutions that will allow the private sector to invest confidently, including things like legal infrastructure, such as property rights laws and other practices that protect investors, as well as open economies and institutional resilience to changes in government. Much evidence exists validating the relationship between the quality of institutions and the quantity and impact of foreign direct investment. Kenya, with its “positive investment climate,” is a case in point, particularly when it comes to attracting FDI that is unrelated to natural resource extraction.
Ruto specifically linked good governance to attracting more U.S. investment to the continent. And one potentially fruitful and mutually beneficial area of U.S. economic investment is the green energy sector, a growing necessity given the escalating climate crises facing the continent. Yet risks in this industry are exacerbated by a lack of good governance.
U.S. policymakers should not shy away from the promotion of good governance, as it is the most effective way to achieve the goals outlined at the U.S.-Africa Summit.
Speaking at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi blamed devastating floods that were then sweeping through his country’s capital, Kinshasa, on climate change, and he lambasted developed countries for failing to live up to their climate commitments. Though Tshisekedi is correct in his assessment of the ultimate cause of the flooding, poor governance exacerbated the storm’s impact. As Flavia Mwangovya of Amnesty International argued, Congolese authorities have “failed to learn from previous disasters.” And writing in The Great Lakes Eye, Samson Kasujja cited “poorly regulated urbanization,” “authoritarian rule” and a “governance deficit” as worsening the impact of the flooding and other climate disasters.
While climate change will continue to pose serious challenges, one country in particular, Gambia, “has been singled out as the only nation with adequate plans to avert a climate catastrophe.” Gambia is no stranger to severe flooding, having experienced its worst floods in 50 years last August. But in part because of its vastly smaller geographical size compared to the Congo, as well as its more streamlined and effective governance, Gambia has more adeptly developed and implemented strategies to mitigate climate catastrophes, including drainage projects for severe flooding.
Improving health, the sector that receives the largest share of U.S. foreign aid in Africa, is also largely dependent on good governance and greater accountability. Short-term positive health outcomes, such as vaccination campaigns, may be possible largely through NGO programs outside the purview of the state. But long-term and sustainable outcomes require quality health care delivery, for which state performance, answerable through democratic means, is key. Speaking at the U.S.-Africa Summit, Rochelle Walensky—the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—accentuated the importance of host-country ownership, investment in local partnerships, development of sustainable capabilities and the formation of a robust local public health workforce as keys to success.
Here, though, democratic accountability can also play a major role, as indicated by a comparative glance at the realities on the ground across the continent. For example, contrast the health care environment in Botswana, a relatively capable democracy, with that in Zimbabwe, an autocracy where even in urban areas, service delivery “is experiencing a downward spiral.” According to recent Afrobarometer survey data, 67 percent of Botswanans said that their government is doing very well or fairly well at improving basic health services; in Zimbabwe, about the same proportion of respondents—65.3 percent—believed the opposite.
Though health care quality and access are not perfect in Botswana, its government’s higher level of accountability and superior capacity provide it with both the incentives and the means to improve services, such as developing the national public health institute that President Mokgweetsi Masisi mentioned at the summit in Washington. That stands in sharp contrast with Zimbabwe, where the quality of the health care system’s performance is at its worst level in decades. Social scientists have generally found a strong correlation between liberal democratic governance and more positive health care outcomes.
Promoting investment, adapting to climate change and delivering quality health care services to citizens across the African continent all hinge on good governance. So if the U.S. wishes to be a key partner with African governments in these areas, it must make the promotion of good governance central to its engagement with them. In addition to pursuing course corrections in countries where U.S. policy directly undermines the existence of good governance, such as in Chad, Uganda and Equatorial Guinea, Washington must also provide assistance to develop the capacity and accountability of African governments.
This may include initiatives that improve the rule of law and strengthen institutions. But it can also mean scaling up programs such as the Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment, which ameliorates environmental policy and regulatory capabilities, as well as increasing support for African governments to deliver critical health services themselves, rather than through a parallel NGO sector.
In the end, the success or failure of the Biden administration’s Africa Strategy and the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit will be determined by their implementation. To achieve the mutually beneficial commitments in Africa that Washington has made over the past few months, it must place good governance front and center.
Greg Kearns is the regional director for Africa at the International Republican Institute.
Mike Brodo serves as a program associate for Southern Africa at IRI. His Twitter handle is @MikeBrodo.
Mike Brodo 