The White House on Monday announced $55 billion in economic aid, health care, and security support for Africa.
President Joe Biden hosted a meeting for African leaders that began on Tuesday, during which the White House promised more details of the massive benefits package would be divulged.
“Working closely with Congress, the U.S. will commit $55 billion to Africa over the course of the next three years across a wide range of sectors to tackle the core challenges of our time,” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday.
Sullivan said the funds would support the African Union’s Agenda 2063 plan for economic development, in a rather transparent attempt to dispel any notion that the U.S. seeks to control the destiny of African nations.
“That is not an American document. It is not an American Vision. It is the African Union’s document,” Sullivan insisted.
The White House was equally transparent in its desire to avoid being seen as buying influence in Africa to counter the political investments China and Russia have been making.
“It’s not going to be attempting to compare and contrast. This is going to be about what we can offer. It’s going to be a positive proposition about the United States, its partnership with Africa,” Sullivan bluntly insisted.
File/President Joe Biden speaks in the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex in Washington, Dec. 8, 2022. Biden is making his case to African leaders gathered in Washington that the United States can be a critical catalyst to their growing continent in the years ahead. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
The White House said its further plans for bolstering African development include pushing for an African country to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and inviting the African Union to join the Group of 20 (G20) association of top world economies. South Africa is currently the only African nation in the G20.
Agenda 2063 is a plan formulated by the African Union (AU) in 2013, designed to be implemented in five “ten-year plans.” The goal is to transform Africa into “the global powerhouse of the future” by promoting “inclusive social and economic development, continental and regional integration, democratic governance and peace and security.”
The second ten-year plan is scheduled to begin next year. The AU carefully controls information about how the plan is coming along, holding periodic training sessions to instruct African journalists on how they should cover Agenda 2063 topics with relentless optimism.
In February, the AU issued a report that conceded only 51 percent of anticipated progress was made during the first ten-year plan, a disappointing outcome the report blamed in part on the coronavirus pandemic, rising fuel prices, and later disruptions from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading: Breitbart.com
Leave a Reply