White House — President Joe Biden will make his first presidential trip to Africa next week, visiting Angola and making a stop in the island nation of Cabo Verde, a top White House official told VOA. His short visit will center around the Lobito Corridor, a 1,300-kilometer rail line that brings resources from the continent’s rich interior to Angola’s busiest port. VOA’s Philip Alexiou spoke exclusively with Frances Brown, senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
VOA: How is the president feeling about this trip and what does he want to accomplish?
Frances Brown, White House director for African affairs: He is excited and really looking forward to the trip. The president often talks about how it’s impossible to meet today’s global challenges without African leadership and African partnership, and we really see Angola as exhibit A. We are working with Angola on a few really important things. One is bolstering peace and security in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Another is growing economic opportunities in the region. A third is technological and scientific cooperation.
VOA: What are the deliverables? Are they going to be substantial?
Brown: You will see a lot of announcements and deliverables on the Lobito Corridor. Already the U.S. has mobilized billions of dollars towards the corridor. I think you can expect the president to engage with various components of that infrastructure effort. I think you can expect to hear more as well on the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which recently signed a compact in Zambia. And I think you’ll hear a lot of new deliverables on global health security, on agribusiness, on new forms of security sector cooperation.
VOA: With so many moving parts in these efforts, what level of transparency can the U.S. ensure? What kind of accountability can it offer the people in the region?
Brown: This is something that’s really important to the president. The Lobito Corridor is about investment, it’s about infrastructure, but it’s also about ensuring that it benefits communities more broadly. It’s part of the broader initiative, the Partnership on Global Investment and Infrastructure, that the president has laid out. And this is really signaling how under President Biden’s administration, we’ve gone from an aid-driven model on engagement with Africa to an investment-driven model, and how we’re thinking creatively about how to demonstrate that value proposition. When we think about the Lobito Corridor, it’s all about sustainable economic development, it’s all about a transparent contracting process. It’s about ensuring that it boosts regional trade, that it creates quality jobs and improves lives.
VOA: Is President Biden going to bring up human rights issues with Angolan President Joao Lorenzo?
Brown: President Biden never shies away from talking about democracy and human rights issues with counterparts. And I think that’s pretty consistent with the way he’s been throughout his long career in public service.
VOA: Focusing now on Sudan, President Biden has called for peace. It’s one of the worst crises that we’ve seen in a long time. The U.N. is saying it’s a neglected and ignored crisis, the worst humanitarian situation in recent history. Does the administration see it that way? And what can be done?
Brown: President Biden has been really outspoken on Sudan. You might have seen in his big speech at the U.N. General Assembly, he talked about the level of suffering in Sudan. He talked about how it was essential that the generals silence the guns and that we avert a wider famine. He’s also been pretty forthright on calling for those who are obstructing humanitarian assistance to let that aid in. He’s also talked about outside actors being an important part of this equation.
This month, every member of the Security Council at the U.N., except for Russia, voted in favor of a resolution that would have further called for humanitarian assistance, protections for civilians and an end to the violence. The president has instructed his team to work this hard. Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken, in the last couple of weeks, has continued to engage regional states and other actors to press for unhindered humanitarian access.
VOA: Moving on to the Sahel, a number of Francophone countries are forming new regional blocs, shifting away from the West and sort of aligning themselves with Russian mercenaries, the Wagner Group, and groups of this nature. How concerning is this to the administration?
Brown: Even though there have been those changes that you’ve mentioned in the Sahelian states — particularly Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali — other West African partners, including those along the coast, have been really clear to us that they want the durability and longevity of U.S. security engagement in the region. So, we continue to work very closely on that. I’d also say more broadly that President Biden has made it really clear that he thinks it’s important we continue to engage particularly with democratic partners. And on this trip that is forthcoming, the president will be stopping as well in West Africa, in Cabo Verde, which is a key democratic partner on the continent.
VOA: Is there anything that the U.S. can do to counter extremism on the continent, especially since U.S. influence has been sort of downgraded since they’ve had to leave Niger?
Brown: It’s worth remembering that we don’t have a military footprint in the majority of countries on the continent. And that’s been the case always. We make security arrangements with host countries, with partners based on specific shared interests. And through the administration, we’ve worked to foster mutually beneficial security partnerships by working by, with and through African partners. So that’s how we see those collaborations.
VOA: Finally, the continent is very young — the median age around 19 years old. And its leaders are really old. How does the U.S. leadership deal with that?
Brown: You’re absolutely right. It is an extremely young continent, and it is the future. President Biden often talks about how by 2050, one in four humans on Earth will be from Africa. So that’s very much guiding President Biden’s engagement with the continent. I think the way the administration takes that forward is by thinking about how no challenge that we’re trying to solve globally, we can solve without African partnership and African leadership. That’s why we’ve championed African voices at the U.N. Security Council, on the boards of the international financial institutions, at the G20 — we successfully got the African Union seat there. So, I think from the administration’s perspective, just continuing to elevate and champion African voices so they can be part of shaping the future is how we think that’s best approached.
VOA: What does the president want to leave behind when he departs the continent and he winds down as president?
Brown: I think the president wants to leave, first, the recognition of U.S. leadership and partnership, particularly on trade, investment and a new approach to the continent that’s not defined by assistance, but instead by investment and partnership. I think he wants to leave behind his recognition that African leadership for solving some of these challenges is essential, and that’s why he’ll be amplifying Angola’s role mediating in the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere. And I think he wants to convey the remarkable evolution of the U.S.-Angolan partnership, which is in many ways the story of the remarkable evolution of the U.S.-African relationship over many centuries.
