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- The US hosts the African Union Commission in the first high-level meeting since the Covid-19 outbreak.
- The country has promised to work with the continent to deal with possible food shortages and higher food prices in the coming months.
- The AU Commission says it needs more support in fighting insurgents and coups in West Africa.
As Russia continues its war against Ukraine and ripple effects are felt in Africa, the US is seeking to cement relations with the African Union (AU).
This was the outcome of a high-level dialogue between the AU Commission and the US in Washington DC on Thursday and Friday last week, coincidentally a week after African countries voted equivocally at the United Nations General Assembly's resolution on the invasion of Ukraine.
The UN vote, according to Abhishek Mishra, an associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), "is now going to have both immediate and lasting implications for Africa's economics and politics".
Seventeen African countries abstained from the UN vote, almost half of the AU member states that are sitting on the fence. Twenty-eight voted in favour of Ukraine and only one, Eritrea voted against Ukraine.
The war is affecting Africa because "both Russia and Ukraine are major suppliers of food commodities such as soya beans, wheat, barley, and sunflower oil to African countries", Mishra said.
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In his address at the high-level meeting, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was ready to work with AU member states to avert hunger and starvation that could be caused by the "unjust war on Ukraine".
"We're also mindful that Russia's war of choice on Ukraine threatens to cause food shortages [and] higher food prices across Africa in the coming months – we're committed to finding ways to address these challenges together," he said.
The Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) noted that "the global number of undernourished people could increase by 8 to 13 million" mostly sub-Saharan Africa and other poor parts of the world because of the ongoing war.
The US is home to the biggest donor community in the world and that is a muscle it could use to cover the food gap caused by the war.
In 2021, 50 Americans, outside the government, gave or pledged US$27.7 billion to charity, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual report.
Blinken said through the African Continental Free Trade (AfCFTA) secretariat, the continent could benefit from its relationship with the US.
"We're ready to intensify our engagement with the African Continental Free Trade secretariat to increase mutually beneficial trade and investment opportunities between us," he said.
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By sitting on the fence during the vote, African leaders also showed that Russia's interest and courtship of African presidents had an impact.
This, according to Mishra is because: "Russia has steadily provided broad intelligence and military support to African countries like Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), Mozambique, Burkina Faso, and Mali. Particularly, Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group have been involved in conflicts in the CAR and Mali. Such form of military and material support with no strings attached comes in handy for African countries in their fight against rebels and Jihadist insurgents."
The US is mindful of this.
In his address, Blinken spoke about America's resolve to promote democracy and human rights, a somewhat non-Russian philosophy.
"We've supported these efforts with robust diplomatic engagement, capacity-building programmes, technical assistance for continental early-warning systems, which monitor and identify conflicts in their earliest stages so that they can be addressed immediately," he said.
For his part, AU Commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat said at the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation between the US and AU that democracy was under threat.
"In fact, there has been also (inaudible) a phenomenon of terrorism and violent extremism, which starts gaining ground and destabilises member states."
"And, in fact, it is even making democracy sort of retreat, and if you look at West Africa, where two, three, four coups d’état have taken place. And the justification for these coups d’état, which is fallacious, that the civilian regimes are not capable of ensuring security and, therefore, the military regime can – which is, naturally, not true," he said.
The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
