Change at home opens US road to Africa

BARACK Obama is the US’s first, but unlikely to be its only, president with family ties to Africa, Latin America or Asia. The US Census Bureau forecasts that the country’s historically dominant European majority will decline to just 47% by midcentury, while fastgrowing populations of African, Asian and Latin descent will make up the new majority.

Recent trends in US politics give credibility to the promise of more equitable partnerships that Obama called for during his recent visits to Kenya and Ethiopia.

Obama won re-election in 2012 because much higher margins among Hispanics (71%), Asians (73%) and African-Americans (93%) secured him an overall national majority of just more than 50%. Young voters of all races also helped seal Obama’s win in key states, giving him 60% of their vote. Polling data suggests this millennial generation is the least racist, most cosmopolitan, and one of the biggest in US history. A 2012 study by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics showed these voters, by a 73% to 24% majority, preferred letting other countries or the United Nations, not the US, take the lead in international crises, an attitude that should restrain future US military adventurism.

Recent African, Asian and Latin immigrants retain tighter ties to families and communities abroad, and these relationships and interests differ significantly from those of the descendants of earlier waves of immigrants to the US, who fled wartorn and impoverished regions in west, central and eastern Europe. Remittances from first- and secondgeneration members of Africa’s diaspora, for example, have grown sixfold since 2000 and are projected to reach $64.5bn this year, exceeding official development assistance of just $54.9bn, according to the latest African Economic Outlook.

Diaspora investment in sovereign African debt and private equities is also rising and, despite variations in the specific sources and use of funds, the African Development Bank’s African Economic Outlook notes growing financial transparency and accountability in how diaspora money is used. Rapidly spreading information and communication technologies abet growing networks of transnational co-operation.

At the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, Obama announced the US government had leveraged a $1bn fund of mostly private capital to fund innovation, with preference to be given to young entrepreneurs and women across Africa. He highlighted the several Africa-specific initiatives in core areas of development — Feed the Future, Power Africa, Africa Trade, and Young African Leaders Initiative — that depart from traditional donor-driven projects, with fresh emphasis on forging more equitable crossnational and public-private partnerships, which won’t succeed without both sides adhering to higher standards of transparency, accountability, and more effective prevention and prosecution of corruption.

At the same time, Obama made it clear that US-Africa co-operation on security would remain primarily intergovernmental and would likely override bilateral differences over democratic values and human rights.

Many Africans and Americans would prefer a smaller US military presence and there is dissent among Obama supporters about his use of military means to deal with unconventional threats. In the cases of African extremist groups al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, or the war in South Sudan, most accept the need and legitimacy of extraordinary security measures, provided these can be justified under international law.

Obama, as a son of Africa and a son of the US, has taken positions, reiterated in Nairobi and Addis Ababa, that open new possibilities for co-operation, challenging citizens on both sides to understand each other’s hopes and fears in deeper and more practical ways, and demanding more of their leaders and of each other, for the benefit of all.

Stremlau is visiting professor of international relations at Wits University.