Africa's Economic, Security, and Development
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AFRICA’S ECONOMIC, SECURITY, AND DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES AND THE U.S. ROLE August 12 – 19, 2019 Kigali, Musanze, and Muhanga, Rwanda AFRICA’S ECONOMIC, SECURITY, AND DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES AND THE U.S. ROLE The Aspen Institute Congressional Program August 12-19, 2019 Kigali, Musanze, and Muhanga, Rwanda TABLE OF CONTENTS Rapporteur’s Summary Elsie Eyakuze ..................................................................................................................... 3 A Call for a Transformative Agenda for Women for 2020 and Beyond Madeleine K. Albright, Mary Robinson, and Peggy Clark ......................................................... 9 Recovering from National Trauma: Reconciliation after the 1994 Genocide against Tutsis Jennie Burnet ...................................................................................................................15 U.S. Foreign Aid to Africa: Change or Continuity? Agnes Binagwaho .............................................................................................................21 Conference Agenda ...........................................................................................................29 Conference Participants .....................................................................................................37 1 2 RAPPORTEUR’S SUMMARY Elsie Eyakuze Columnist for The East African, Dar es Salaam The views expressed here are not the author’s, but rather the rapporteur’s effort to reflect the discussion The Aspen Institute Congressional patriarchal norms. For most of its history, Program held a conference in Kigali, men were prominent in business and Rwanda, August 12-19, 2019 on Africa’s politics while women did domestic work. Economic, Security, And Development Rwanda’s 1994 genocide served as an Challenges and the U.S. Role. Participants inflection point for the country. The new included eight Members of the Congress, government faced significant challenges in USAID and U.S. Embassy staff, and unifying its people, solidifying peace, and representatives of supporting foundations. A rebuilding the country. Reconciliation was highlight of the conference was a meeting determined to be the key to survival; with Rwanda’s President, Paul Kagame. nobody was to be left behind. After the Conference participants visited the Kigali genocide many women lost access to land, Genocide Memorial as well as numerous given the precedent of customary land projects supported by U.S. foreign rights that favored men. In 1998, assistance. inheritance laws were changed to allow females the same inheritance rights as In 1994, Rwanda experienced a males. horrific genocide that decimated the country’s population. The genocide was a In Rwanda, women have been result of a complex and long-standing considered rebuilders, peacemakers, and competition for power in which perpetrators politicians, and have performed a crucial exploited class and racial politics. After the role in transforming the country from Rwandan People’s Front, under General devastating violence to prosperity. Today, Paul Kagame, stabilized the country, 61% of the representation in its bicameral reconstruction began. This involved a Parliament are women, the highest number of policy programs, including a percentage in the world. While the strong push for gender parity in several governance of most modern political sectors, including education, health, and systems is dominated by men, Rwanda has government. been exemplary in making progress in this area. From a development perspective, Like any other country, Rwandan Rwandans feel that empowering women is society has been marked by a history of 3 one of the most powerful ways to influence as well as on malaria and HIV/AIDS. In multi-generational progress. preparation for a possible outbreak, treatment centers have been built along the While many strides were made to border. All individuals legally crossing at unify the country in the aftermath of the the Rwanda-Congo border are subject to a genocide, there are many perpetrators who thermal scan, in order to detect whether have still not been brought to justice. they have fever – if so, they are turned Challenges To Development back. Due to the transferability of these Rwanda is extremely committed to diseases, to the U.S. and other countries, it its aspiration of becoming a middle-income is essential that key regions are able to country. Quality healthcare, education, and treat this disease quickly and effectively. the modernization of farming are priorities. The biggest challenge is human capacity: Rwanda has very strong accountability detection, field work, epidemiology systems in regard to the productivity of its programs, data collection, laboratory investments. The relatively small private analysis, and government cooperation are sector poses a challenge to this landlocked all required to effectively mitigate the country. Although coffee and tea are spread of contagious disease. Rwanda’s major exports, most agriculture The State of Democracy, Civil Society, hasn’t developed at the pace needed to and Human Rights in Africa and the support a thriving service sector. A large Role They Play in Development percentage of population suffers from low It is a mistake to talk about Sub literacy and stunting. Because Rwanda is Saharan Africa (SSA) as a singular entity. small, both by territory and population, There is incredible diversity, especially in development projects, such as PEPFAR, the last 20 years, in terms of economic and (The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS political developments. Over the last 20 Relief, started by President George W. years, child mortality has dropped from Bush) can have a high impact. 10% to 5%, and Africans in general are In the last five years, the number of living with less poverty and better Rwandan children under five who are education. malnourished has dropped from 50% to It is notable, however, that as part roughly 37%. Sixteen years of partnership of a larger global phenomenon in the last with the Ministry of Health of Rwanda with ten years, democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa the Center for Disease Control has produced has been declining. Of the 21 countries that tangible results in combatting HIV/AIDS. became democracies in the 1990s, only 16 Rwanda has used PEPFAR funding and the are still democratic today. These countries 90/90/90 formula to meet and surpass are reverting to autocracy with restraints on targets for treatment: 90% tested, 90% opposition and parliament and critics. treated, 90% faithfully taking medication. Some argue that autocracy is With 2.8 million people crossing beneficial to development, and eventually back and forth at the Rwandan border with leads to democracy. This is an appealing Democratic Republic of the Congo every story, but intelligent and benign dictators year, the current challenge is managing are rare, and often autocracy can result in Ebola and preventing an outbreak. The CDC economic stagnation. A strong argument has been working with USAID in this area 4 was made that democracy is better for individual. Thus, focusing on the mother development in the long run. The world is and child in the first two years of pregnancy at an inflection point, similar to that of and infancy yields massive returns. 1989, when it was assumed that liberal Sixty percent of the arable land in democracy would ascend. The U.S. has SSA has not been developed. The challenge stepped back its international engagements is unlocking the benefits that agriculture can after the Iraq war as well as the 2008 offer to poverty reduction and development. recession. If the U.S. continues to retreat, Governments tend to give loans to small China and Russia will fill that geopolitical agribusiness, while private banks would vacuum and continue expanding their roles rather ask for collateral. In fact, agriculture on the global stage. is not a bad investment – the default rate is Local, regional and pan-African lower in the smallholder farm sector than in institutions are central to security on the most other sectors. Private sector interest African continent. Rwanda exports security rates are prohibitive for farmers. By in the form of peacekeeping units and changing the model of collateral to movable sharing best practices. The African Union commodities and fostering SACCOS and ECOWAS (the Economic Community of (savings and cooperative credit West African States) have been associations) rather than land or housing to instrumental in addressing instability in help farmers access funds is instrumental, West African Countries and dealing with especially in countries where property incursions of extremist movements across ownership laws do not resemble those of the continent. U.S. interests in Africa are the U.S. affected directly by U.S. public policies and The U.S. government, via USAID, public figures, especially those with high has supported agriculture through its Feed visibility. the Future initiative along with other In Rwanda, where President Kagame agencies. Rwanda has been taken off the has led the country now for 25 years and Feed the Future priority list because of its has the legal right to stay in power until success in integrating nutrition into its 2035, a concern is: What happens after his health and social welfare systems. African tenure? countries like Rwanda have very small internal tax bases which compromises their Nutrition, Food Security, and Africa’s ability to support public delivery programs. Ability to Feed its Growing Population The Vision 2020 Omuranga