US-Africa Leaders Summit: evaluating progress made six months on
US special presidential representative has reassured that the global superpower remained committed to maintaining strong trade ties with the African continent, something the Biden administration believed faltered with Trump’s presidency.
The special presidential representative for the United States-Africa Leaders Summit, Johnnie Carson, made these comments Tuesday (13 June) as a way to reassure America’s African partners following the December summit designed to tighten programs on shared priorities, including health, climate change, food security, and conflict issues.
“The United States has been the continent’s strongest partner in the most important areas of development over the last three or four decades, and a lot of the very great and outstanding work that we do across the continent is not seen as visibly as some other things,” Carson said, adding that extra work was being done to address the continent’s energy crisis.
Relations with Pretoria came under pressure recently after Washington called into question South Africa’s relationship with Russia, following its invasion of Ukraine.
Top US officials also provided comprehensive updates on the progress made in implementing the initiatives and goals set during the summit. One of the top priorities was boosting investment deals with African nations and on this point, investments have increased to $16.2 billion from $15.7 billion pledged in agreements between US and African companies, the officials noted.
As to the Digital Transformation with Africa (DTA) initiative designed to boost digital collaboration, one of the US officials said that the initiative would create “a private sector arm to the digital transformation with Africa.” At the G7 summit last month, the US official noted, the US pledged a $300 million investment in Ghana for the development of data centers and highlighted ongoing efforts to secure $250 million for a railway corridor from Angola to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since the US-Africa Summit, Biden has sent an unprecedented nine administration officials to the region.
