Africa's Post-Summit Test: Turning Assets Into Delivery

Africa’s implementation challenge after the U.S.-Africa Futures Summit is not a shortage of assets but a deficit of delivery. The continent has value to negotiate with, yet the institutional and financial machinery to define and defend its own terms remains uneven. That was the central concern raised by Moses Mulumba, Director General, and Jessica Oga, Head of the Ubingwa Think Tank at Afya na Haki, writing in Alliance magazine (https://www.alliancemagazine.org/blog/the-united-states-knows-what-it-wants-from-africa-does-africa/).

Their argument, published as the Summit drew to a close, begins with an operational observation. The United States has maintained a presence at the African Union for more than two decades, a fact highlighted by the US representative to the African Union during discussions on the future of US-Africa relations. What such sustained presence produces, the authors note, is institutional knowledge, political intelligence and a working understanding of where interests lie, where opportunities exist and how they can be pursued. The United States has done that work.

The result is a proposition that is increasingly clear. Washington wants trade, investment and economic opportunity; security and political stability; and access to a continent whose markets, resources and geopolitical importance are growing. It increasingly frames this engagement less through the old donor-recipient relationship and more through trade, deals and mutual economic benefit. There is nothing unusual about the United States pursuing its interests, the authors argue. What should concern Africa is entering this new phase without an equally rigorous exercise of defining its own.

The test is already underway in health financing, where delivery on the ground reveals how differently African governments are executing their negotiations. Uganda signed a five year health agreement with the United States involving approximately US$1.7 billion in American commitments alongside increased domestic health spending, extending to disease surveillance, health information systems and data sharing. Ghana rejected a proposed agreement following concerns over sensitive health data. Zimbabwe’s negotiations broke down amid concerns over health data and biological resources, while Zambia pushed back against provisions on data and attempts to connect health financing with access to critical minerals.

These are not isolated disagreements over technical clauses. Health financing, data, biological resources, minerals, trade and security are increasingly meeting at the same negotiating table. African governments, the authors contend, must be clear about the health priorities they are negotiating to protect, not only the financing they are negotiating to secure.

Sexual and reproductive health sharpens the point. Contraception, safe abortion care and adolescent sexual and reproductive health remain public health and human rights obligations even when they carry little political or strategic value for an external partner. African states have already made commitments on these questions, including through the Maputo Protocol. Those commitments cannot become contingent on the political preferences of whichever administration occupies Washington.

From here the argument moves from health to the mechanics of sovereignty itself. Sovereignty cannot end with the assertion that Africa should determine its own future; its real test is the capacity to do so. That means knowing what a negotiation is meant to achieve, understanding the value brought to it, establishing what will not be conceded, and having the institutional and financial capacity to defend those choices afterwards. It also requires greater solidarity across the continent, since shared positions, information and negotiating intelligence can strengthen the hand of each state. A state that can reject an external condition but cannot sustain the programme affected by that decision has asserted sovereignty politically without securing it institutionally.

Fifty-four countries will not have identical interests. But some interests weaken when negotiated country by country. Health data, disease surveillance, pharmaceutical manufacturing, supply chains, critical minerals, financing and regional security all extend beyond national borders. Treating them entirely as bilateral transactions can diminish the collective value Africa brings to the table.

The continent’s history makes this urgent. Africa has never lacked value: land, labour, minerals, markets and geopolitical importance have been present for centuries. The recurring problem has been the terms under which that value is identified, priced, negotiated and transferred. Today the assets also include health and genomic data, pharmaceutical markets and manufacturing capacity. If those seeking access understand their value better, coordinate their interests better and negotiate more strategically than those who hold them, changing the vocabulary from aid to trade will not fundamentally alter the relationship.

Aid can produce dependency. Trade can reproduce extraction. Investment can build domestic capacity or simply move value elsewhere. None of these relationships becomes inherently equal because it is called a partnership; equality is produced in the terms. The United States has every right to define its interests in Africa and negotiate for them. African governments and institutions must become equally serious about Africa’s own. The United States has come to the table with an agenda. Africa must come with one too.