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AN OVERVIEW OF U.S. POLICY IN AFRICA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA AND GLOBAL HEALTH

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 24, 2010

Serial No. 111–107

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MICHAEL E. MCMAHON, New York 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

LYNN WOOLSEY, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

VACANT 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

YLEEM POBLETE, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA AND GLOBAL HEALTH

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey, Chairman 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

BARBARA LEE, California 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

LYNN WOOLSEY, California 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, United States Department of State .......................................................... 7

Mr. Earl Gast, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Africa, 

U.S. Agency for International Development ...................................................... 23

The Honorable Princeton N. Lyman, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Africa Policy 

Studies, Council on Foreign Relations (Former United States Ambassador 

to South Africa and Nigeria) ............................................................................... 49

Mr. Almami Cyllah, Regional Director for Africa, International Foundation 

for Electoral Systems ........................................................................................... 59

Witney W. Schneidman, Ph.D., President, Schneidman & Associates International ................................................................................................................. 85

Mr. Gregory B. Simpkins, Vice President, Policy & Program Development, 

The Leon H. Sullivan Foundation ...................................................................... 94

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Johnnie Carson: Prepared statement ........................................... 11

Mr. Earl Gast: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 26

The Honorable Princeton N. Lyman: Prepared statement ................................... 52

Mr. Almami Cyllah: Prepared statement .............................................................. 62

Witney W. Schneidman, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ............................................ 88

Mr. Gregory B. Simpkins: Prepared statement ..................................................... 96

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 120

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 122

(1)

AN OVERVIEW OF U.S. POLICY IN AFRICA 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA AND GLOBAL HEALTH, 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:01 p.m., in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Donald Payne (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. PAYNE. Good afternoon. Let me welcome you to this critically 

important hearing entitled, ‘‘An Overview of U.S. Policy in Africa.’’ 

Let me begin by extending our apologies for the voting that we just 

completed. Hopefully, members will be coming in, although there 

are a number of conflicts because of the timing of the votes. Whenever the ranking member gets here, we will interrupt and allow 

him to give his remarks. Currently, he is on the Senate side, but 

he is on his way here. 

As the title suggests, the purpose of this hearing is to discuss the 

administration’s policy on the continent of Africa. And we are very 

pleased to be able to have this very important hearing. We can certainly tell by the audience here that there is a tremendous amount 

of interest in the continent, and we are here to gain an understanding of both the overall policy toward the region and the 

United States’ position on key and pressing issues of the day. 

To that end, we have two distinguished panels, which I will introduce following the members’ opening statements. Let me thank 

the witnesses for coming, particularly the Assistant Secretary of 

State, Ambassador Johnnie Carson, and USAID Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator Earl Gast, as well as our private panel consisting of Ambassador Princeton Lyman, Almami Cyllah, Witney 

Schneidman, and Gregory Simpkins. 

As someone who has followed and worked in Africa for over 40 

years, there have been many sweeping changes, especially in recent 

U.S. policy in Africa. The continent has gone from being a region 

with little strategic significance in the view of policymakers to one 

that holds critical and strategic economic, national security and humanitarian interests in just the last 20 years. 

Indeed, the United States has moved away from a policy in Africa that hinged on containing the Soviet sphere of influence during 

the Cold War, a policy, as many of us here know, that too often 

led the United States to support dictatorial regimes on the continent with disastrous results, which in some instances are still 

being felt. 

2

During the tenures of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. 

Bush, U.S. interests in the continent greatly increased and the 

focus began to shift away from solely humanitarian interest. The 

Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a preferential program designed to spur increased African imports to the United 

States and to build Africa trade capacity, and the President’s 

Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)—the landmark $15 billion, now $48 billion treatment programs were created by Presidents Clinton and Bush, respectively—both very important programs which have a tremendous impact on the continent. Both dramatically reshaped the discourse and the depth of U.S.-Africa policy. As a matter of fact, the Africa Diplomatic Corps did a great job 

in shaping the AGOA legislation, and we have certainly benefitted 

from their input. 

The Obama administration showed keen interest in Africa early 

on with a brief visit by President Obama himself to Ghana and an 

11-day trip to seven countries in Africa by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I accompanied Secretary Clinton on part of her trip, 

and must say that the response was overwhelmingly positive and 

hopeful in terms of closer bilateral relations and partnership in 

each of the African countries that she visited. Many others were 

asking why not us because they were all anxious to see the new 

team. You will hear also from our Assistant Secretary, who also 

was on that very important trip. 

In 2009, the President unveiled two new programs that will 

change the landscape and deepen U.S. support for long-term sustainable development on the continent. The Global Health Initiative is a 6-year, $63 billion program which includes the $48 billion authorized from PEPFAR initially 

plus an additional $3 billion for PEPFAR to make that $51 billion, 

and the remaining of the $63 billion to help the partner countries 

improve health outcomes through strengthening health systems, 

with particular focus on improving the health of women, newborns, 

and children. 

The U.S. Global Food Security Initiative is a welcome paradigm 

shift back to strong investments in agricultural development, both 

as a means to increased food security and as a critical element of 

long-term sustainable development in poor regions of the world, 

particularly in Africa. Both programs have significant impact on 

the continent. 

Another program which has a major impact on Africa is the Millennium Challenge Corporation, another program started during 

the Bush administration. The majority of the MCC compacts are 

with African nations, 11 active compacts out of 20. There were 20 

total compacts in Africa; however, Madagascar was suspended following the recent coup. While these initiatives are certainly very 

strong signs of U.S. focus on Africa, many challenges remain, particularly in the area of democracy and governance and conflict, 

which warrants an ongoing discussion of U.S. policy. 

My concerns over Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria, and elsewhere are 

well known. So I will instead highlight troubling issues of three 

other countries emerging with problems—Ethiopia, Somaliland, 

and Djibouti. I am deeply concerned and troubled about the deteriorating conditions in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Peoples’ RevoluVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:29 Aug 25, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\032410\55689 HFA PsN: SHIRL
3

tionary Democratic Front (EPRDR) regime is becoming increasingly 

totalitarian. A few weeks ago, the government began to jam the 

Voice of America Amharic program, and the Prime Minister compared the VOA to the hate radio station Libres des Mille Collines, 

the radio station which was used by the Rwandan Government, 

who committed the genocide in Rwanda. This is just unbelievable. 

My concern continues for the deteriorating condition of Mrs. 

Birtukan, who testified right here before this committee and continues to languish in prison in Ethiopia, along with hundreds of 

others without access to medical care, and her situation is deteriorating as we speak. I hope to learn more today on what our policy 

is toward Ethiopia. 

The Government of Somaliland in February handed over a 

woman named Mrs. Bishaaro, a registered refugee in Somaliland 

to Ethiopian security forces. A few years ago, she was arrested and 

tortured by Ethiopian security, and her husband was executed. I 

understand there is a delegation visiting from Somaliland currently 

and hope to learn what the United States’ position is on this case, 

and on Somaliland more broadly. 

I am also concerned about the lack of development assistance 

funding for Djibouti, a strong ally to the United States, which plays 

an important role in the promotion of peace on the Horn of Africa. 

I will speak more details on all of these three countries during the 

question and answer period of this hearing. 

The committee looks forward to this very important hearing and 

all of the witnesses and their testimonies. And let me once again 

thank the witnesses and all of you for being here today. And as you 

see, our ranking member has arrived, and so I will now turn over 

the time to our ranking member for his opening statement. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As you may 

know, I also serve as ranking on the Executive Commission on 

China, and we had a hearing on Google and the whole human 

rights issue there, which unfortunately, countries like Ethiopia and 

a growing number of countries of Africa are taking the capability 

and the expertise, technologically and otherwise, that China provides, and they are using it as a tool of repression. So this issue 

is certainly applicable to a growing number of African countries 

where there are despotic regimes. 

I do want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this timely 

hearing to examine the current U.S. policy in Africa. I am pleased 

to have the opportunity to engage in this discussion with senior administration officials, the Honorable Johnnie Carson and Mr. Earl 

Gast, as well as our second panel of distinguished witnesses. I especially want to welcome my good friend, Greg Simpkins, vice 

president of the Leon Sullivan Foundation, who used to be our staff 

director on the Africa Subcommittee when I chaired it. And it is 

a delight to welcome him back to the committee this time as a witness. 

While there are numerous, and I mean numerous, major issues—

and you brought up Ethiopia, Mr. Chairman. And as you know, we 

together worked on the Ethiopia Human Rights Act. Unfortunately, 

President Meles shows increasing signs of deterioration when it 

comes to human rights and respect for other parties. I hope our distinguished witnesses will speak to that. 

4

But let me raise three particular issues of concern to me, but in 

no way is this an exhaustive list. One is with respect to U.N. 

peacekeeping missions in Africa. There are seven such missions 

spanning the same number of countries. These peacekeeping operations have a critical role to play in some of the most volatile areas 

in the world, among vulnerable populations that have suffered extraordinary violence and human rights violations. Countries that 

contribute their personnel to this highly laudable undertaking are 

to be commended for doing so. But they must also accept responsibility for ensuring that military personnel from their country do 

not exploit the populations that they are assigned to protect. 

Following deeply troubling reports about peacekeeping personnel 

engaging in trafficking of persons, I chaired several hearings—as 

you know, Mr. Chairman, because you were very much a part of 

that—that focused on those egregious abuses, particularly against 

children, particularly in the DR Congo. When I rewrote the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act—as you know, I am 

the prime sponsor of the original bill—when we did the authorization in 2005, we addressed this issue. One provision amended the 

minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking to include an 

assessment of measures that respective countries are taking to ensure that their nationals who are deployed abroad as part of a 

peacekeeping operation do not engage in or facilitate severe forms 

of trafficking in persons or exploit victims through other means. 

A second provision requires that the Secretary of State submit a 

report to Congress at least 15 days prior to a vote for a new or reauthorized peacekeeping mission that contains a description of the 

measures taken to prevent peacekeeping forces from ‘‘trafficking in 

person, exploiting victims of trafficking, or committing acts of sexual exploitation or abuse, and the measures in place to hold accountable any such individuals who engage in any such acts while 

participating in a peacekeeping mission.’’ And I would encourage 

the administration to clearly comply with that law. Sometimes we 

have less than stellar cooperation from any administration. So I 

would ask that you really look to live up to that. 

One might question the compliance with this reporting mandate, 

both in terms of meeting the congressional intent of this statutory 

provision, and in fulfilling the purpose for which it was implemented. It is deeply disturbing that the problem of sexual exploitation and trafficking by peacekeeping personnel not only continues, but is growing worse. I learned of continuing problems 

when I visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo and inquired 

about MONUC 2 years ago. Not only were serious allegations being 

made against peacekeeping soldiers, but the United Nations Office 

of Internal Oversight Services that is responsible for investigating 

those allegations was moving its personnel to Nairobi, Kenya—far 

from where it could effectively fulfill its mandate. 

MONUC is not the only mission where concerns about sexual exploitation apply. As a March 21, 2010, report by the Wall Street 

Journal points out, allegations of sex-related crimes against peacekeeping personnel in general increased last year by 12 percent to 

a total of 55, and some of those allegations involved minors. Furthermore, countries of accused personnel only responded 14 times 

5

to a total of 82 requests from the U.N. for information about sexually related investigations or their outcomes. 

I will be interested to explore, and I hope our panel can provide 

some insights into this very serious issue. When the people who are 

there to protect become the perpetrators of crimes, who is to protect those innocent individuals? And I know the U.N. has a zero 

tolerance policy. I hope we are still not talking about zero implementation. I don’t think that is the case, but that was the case 

early on after that policy was announced. 

A second issue of grave concern, of course shared by every member of this committee, is the situation in Sudan, which we all recognize is at a critical crossroads. The country may successfully traverse elections next month, and a referendum in January 2011, 

and establish a stable, long-term peace in Darfur along the way, 

or it could backslide into a state of carnage and destruction that 

has plagued the country for two decades. 

The implications are formidable, not only for the Sudanese, but 

for the people in the entire region. And I would note parenthetically my friend, Greg Simpkins, joined me when we met with 

Bashir about 4 years ago. And frankly, the only thing that General 

Bashir wanted to talk about was lifting the sanctions. Greg will remember it well. Nothing about compliance, nothing about living up 

to international norms and human rights. But all he wanted to do 

is talk about lifting the sanctions. Sanctions will be lifted when 

there is peace and when there is respect for human rights. 

And finally, as we discussed in our recent subcommittee hearing, 

Mr. Chairman, our PEPFAR program has had an enormously positive impact in addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic that has ravaged Africa. We must ensure that we continue to work with African 

countries to meet this and other global health challenges. However, 

I must express my grave reservations with respect to certain aspects of the President’s Global Health Initiative. 

When the reauthorization of PEPFAR was being debated in 2008, 

references to integrating and providing explicit funding for authorization for ‘‘reproductive health,’’ which nobody would deny reproductive health in its clearest definition, the most applied definition 

used in Africa, is something we all want, but not when it is hooked 

with and used as code for abortion. The term as we wrote that legislation did not appear in the final legislation. Yet the new GHI 

emphasizes the integration of HIV/AIDS programming with family 

planning, as well as with various health programs. This is being 

undertaken in the context of a family planning program and the action taken by President Obama to rescind Mexico City Policy now 

includes foreign nongovernmental organizations that provide support and lobby for and perform abortion on demand. 

When one considers that this involves over $715 million in funding under the 2011 proposed budget, the ability for abortion groups 

to leverage this funding in relation to U.S. HIV/AIDS funding 

under GHI is deeply disturbing. This integration priority is wrong. 

We are trying to prevent HIV/AIDS, not children. It is time to recognize that abortion is child mortality. Abortion methods dismember, poison, and starve to death a baby, and it wounds their 

mothers. 

6

Safe abortion, Mr. Chairman—and it is used by this administration and by some in the U.N.—is the ultimate oxymoron. Child dismemberment, forced premature expulsion from the safety of the 

womb, chemical poisoning, and deliberate starvation—let us not 

forget that one of the chemicals in RU–486 denies nourishment to 

an unborn child. They literally starve to death, and then the other 

chemical brings upon labor. None of this can ever, ever be construed to be benign, cannot be construed to be compassionate, or 

safe. 

Goal number four of the Millennium Development Goals calls on 

each country to reduce child mortality, while at the same time proabortion activists lobby for an increase in abortion. It is bewildering to me, Mr. Chairman, how anyone can fail to understand 

that abortion is, by definition, infant mortality. Abortion destroys 

children. 

Let me also point out—and I hope this committee, and I hope 

members and the audience, will consider this—that there are at 

least 102 studies that show significant psychological harm, including major depression and elevated risk of suicide, in women who 

abort. It doesn’t happen right after the abortion. It kicks in later, 

leading to intermediate and long-term results. At least 28 studies, 

including three in 2009, show that abortion increases the risk of 

breast cancer by some 30 to 40 percent or more, yet the abortion 

industry has largely succeeded in suppressing those facts. So-called 

safe abortion inflicts other deleterious consequences on women, and 

includes hemorrhage, infection, perforation of the uterus, sterility, 

and death. Just last month, a woman from my own state of New 

Jersey died from a legal abortion, leaving behind four children. 

Finally, at least 113 studies show a significant association between abortion and subsequent premature births. For example, a 

study by researchers Shah and Zoe showed a 36 percent increased 

risk for preterm birth after one abortion and a staggering 93 percent increased risk after two. Similarly, the risk of subsequent children being born with low birth weight increases by 35 percent after 

one abortion, and 72 percent after two or more. 

Another study shows an increased risk of nine times after a 

woman has had three abortions. What does this mean for children, 

especially in Africa? Preterm birth is the leading cause of infant 

mortality in the industrialized countries after congenital anomalies. 

Preterm infants have a greater risk of suffering from chronic lung 

disease, sensory deficits, cerebral palsy, cognitive impairments, and 

behavioral problems. Low birth weight is similarly associated with 

neonatal mortality and morbidity. 

Mr. Chairman, it is about time, I believe, that we as a nation—

as you know, we have heard testimony from Dr. Jane Kagia, an 

OB–GYN in Kenya and others from Africa, that Africa wants its 

children protected, whether unborn, newborn, or 5-year-olds, and 

we ought to adopt a consistent policy of human rights protection 

that says all are welcomed, and we will shred the welcome mat for 

none. I yield back. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Ms. Woolsey. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am going to be 

very, very quick because I want to hear from the witnesses. I just 

have to say to the witnesses of both panels that I have confidence 

7

that you are going to reassure me that you understand that family 

planning is not the same thing as an abortion, and that families 

or a woman’s ability to choose the appropriate timing for that family or that woman for a pregnancy actually prevents abortions, savings lives, bringing stronger, healthier, wanted babies into the 

world. So I am looking forward to your testimonies. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, Ms. Woolsey. Mr. Flake. 

Mr. FLAKE. No comments. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Now let us take our first panel. First we 

have Ambassador Johnnie Carson. Ambassador Carson serves as 

the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs 

at the Department of State. He has an established career in the 

foreign service. He previously served as Ambassador to Kenya, 

Zimbabwe, and Uganda, as well as the principal Deputy Assistant 

Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs from 1997 to 1999. 

In addition to several posts in sub-Saharan Africa, he served as 

desk officer in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research from 1971 

to 1974, and staff officer for the Secretary of State from 1978 to 

1982. Beyond the State Department, Ambassador Carson served as 

the staff director for the House Africa Subcommittee from 1979 to 

1982, and he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania from 1965 

to 1968, a few years after the inception of the Peace Corps. 

During his career, Ambassador Carson received several awards, 

including the Department of State’s Superior Honors Award, and 

the Centers for Disease Control’s Champion of Prevention Award. 

Ambassador Carson holds a bachelor of arts in history and political 

science from Drake University and a masters of art in international 

relations from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the 

University of London. 

Second, we have Mr. Earl Gast, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa at the United States Agency for International 

Development. As the senior assistant administrator, Mr. Gast oversees the bureau’s offices of Sudan programs, East African affairs, 

administrative services, and development programming. Mr. Gast 

has served at USAID for 19 years. He previously served as supervisory program officer for the USAID caucus’ regional mission and 

the USAID regional mission director in Ukraine, Belarus, and 

Moldavia, and as the USAID representative to the United Nations 

agencies in Rome. He also held posts in Iraq and Kosovo. 

Mr. Gast holds a masters degree in political science and Middle 

East studies from George Washington University and graduated 

summa cum laude from the University of Maryland with a bachelors degree in history and criminal law. 

We will begin with Ambassador Carson. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHNNIE CARSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF AFRICAN AFFAIRS, UNITED 

STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ambassador CARSON. Chairman Payne, Congressman Smith, 

members of the committee, I welcome the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss U.S. Government policy toward Africa. As 

you know, this is my first appearance before this committee, and 

I salute your commitment to Africa, as well as your efforts to examVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:29 Aug 25, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\032410\55689 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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ine tough issues. I look forward to working closely with the Congress, and especially with you, Mr. Chairman, and the other members of this committee. 

I have a longer statement for the record, which I would like to 

have submitted. But let me——

Mr. PAYNE. Without objection. 

Ambassador CARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. President 

Obama has a strong interest in Africa and has made Africa one of 

our top foreign policy priorities. This has been evident throughout 

his first year in office. Last year, in July, President Obama traveled to Ghana, where he met with President John Atta Mills and 

spoke before the Ghanian Parliament about his vision for the continent. President Obama has met in the Oval Office with President 

Kikwete of Tanzania, President Ian Khama of Botswana, Prime 

Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe, and in September, at the 

United Nations General Assembly, he met with 21 African heads 

of state. 

All of the President’s senior foreign policy advisors have followed 

his lead. And last August, Secretary Clinton, as you remarked, Mr. 

Chairman, embarked on an 11-day trip to Africa, including stops 

in Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the 

Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, and Cape Verde. 

President Obama has said repeatedly that the United States 

views Africa as our partner, and as a partner of the international 

community. We are committed to substantial increases in foreign 

assistance for Africa, but we know that additional assistance will 

not by itself automatically produce success. Instead, success will be 

defined by how well we work together as partners to build Africa’s 

capacity for long-term change and ultimately the need for less development assistance. 

As Africa’s partner, the United States is ready to contribute to 

Africa’s growth and stabilization, but ultimately African leaders 

and countries must take control of their futures. Having said that, 

we are committed to a very positive and forward-looking Africa policy built on five principles that reflect our interest and define the 

work that we have been doing over the past year. 

First, we will work with African governments, the international 

community, and civil society to strengthen democratic institutions 

and protect the democratic gains made in recent years in many African countries. A key element in Africa’s transformation is sustained commitment to democracy, rule of law, and to constitutional 

norms. Africa has indeed made significant progress in this area. 

Botswana, Ghana, Tanzania, Mauritius, Benin, and South Africa 

are but a few examples of countries that are showing democratic 

commitment. 

But progress in this area must be more widespread, and certainly cannot be taken for granted. Some scholars and political analysts believe that democracy in Africa may have reached a plateau, and that we may be witnessing the beginning of a democratic 

recession. They point to flawed Presidential elections over the last 

5 years in places like Kenya, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe; the attempts by leaders and countries like Niger, Uganda, and Cameroon 

to extend their terms of office; and certainly in more recent months 

and years, the reemergence of military interventionism in countries 

9

like Guinea Conakry, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, and just 11⁄2

months ago, in Niger. 

Moreover, democracy remains fragile in large states like the 

Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan, and arguably in Africa’s most important and most populous country, Nigeria. During 

my recent visit to Nigeria, I was encouraged by the steps Nigeria’s 

elected officials at the national and state level to elevate Vice 

President Goodluck Jonathan to the role of acting President. 

Although political progress has been made in that country, Nigeria still faces significant political challenges and uncertainty in the 

runup to the next Presidential elections, probably in May 2011. It 

is important that Nigeria improve its electoral system, reinvigorate 

its economy, resolve the conflicts in the Niger Delta, and end the 

communal violence that has occurred most recently in Plateau 

State. It is also critically important that all of Nigeria’s leaders act 

responsibly and reaffirm their commitment to good governance, stability, and democracy by choosing constitutional rule. 

Second, Africa’s future success and global importance are dependent upon its continued economic progress and growth. Africa 

has made measurable inroads to increase prosperity. Countries like 

Mauritius, Ghana, Rwanda, Botswana, Tanzania, Uganda, and 

Cape Verde have made significant economic strides over the last 

decade, yet Africa remains the poorest and most vulnerable continent on the globe. 

To help turn this situation around, we must work to revitalize 

Africa’s agricultural sector, which employs more than 70 percent of 

African households directly or indirectly. Now is the time for a 

green revolution in Africa’s agriculture. Through innovative approaches and nontraditional technology, we can improve the lives 

of millions of people across the continent, and the administration’s 

Food Security Initiative is designed to help do this. 

The United States also wants to strengthen its trading relationship with Africa and to explore ways to promote African private 

sector growth and investment, especially for small and mediumsized businesses. We already have strong ties in energy, textiles, 

and transportation equipment, but we can and should do more in 

the economic field. The Obama administration is committed to 

working with our African partners to maximize the opportunities 

created by our trade preference programs like AGOA, and we will 

continue to encourage American investment and greater American 

trade with Africa. 

Third, historically the United States has focused on public health 

and health related issues in Africa. We remain committed, and aim 

to help alleviate the health crisis across the entire continent. We 

believe that African governments, as well as the international community, must invest more in Africa’s public health systems, train 

more medical professionals, and ensure that there are well-paying 

opportunities for African medical professionals in their own countries. 

We must also focus on maternal and infant health care, which 

are closely related to several millennium development goals. The 

Obama administration will continue the PEPFAR program that the 

previous administration launched to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. In total, the Obama administration has pledged 

10

some $63 billion to meet the wide range of public health challenges 

that confront Africa today. 

Fourth, the United States is committed to working with African 

states and the international community to prevent, mitigate, and 

resolve conflicts and disputes across the continent. Conflict destabilizes states and entire regions, stifles economic growth and investment, robs young Africans of the opportunity for an education 

and a better economic future. Although there has been a notable 

reduction in the number of conflicts over the past decade, areas of 

turmoil and political unrest in countries like Guinea, Somalia, 

Sudan, and the Democratic Republic can generate both internal 

and regional instability. 

Furthermore, we must not forget the extreme harm inflicted by 

gender-based violence and the recruitment of child soldiers. The 

Obama administration is working to end conflicts across Africa so 

that peace and economic progress can replace instability and uncertainty. The United States has been and will continue to work 

proactively with African leaders, civil society organizations, and the 

international community to prevent new conflicts. 

Over the past year, we have been diplomatically engaged in Mauritania, in Guinea Conakry, in Nigeria, Niger, Kenya, Somalia, and 

Sudan to help resolve conflicts. We have also had discussions with 

leaders of a number of other countries where the political situations are fragile and unstable. As we pursue these avenues of promoting stability and peace in places like Somalia, we are also 

shouldering the lion’s share of humanitarian assistance in countries like Somalia, Sudan, and also Ethiopia. 

Fifth, Mr. Chairman, we will seek to deepen our cooperation with 

African states to address both old and new transnational challenges. Africa’s poverty puts it at a distinct disadvantage in dealing 

with major global and transnational problems like climate change, 

narco-trafficking, trafficking in people, and the illegal exploitation 

of Africa’s minerals and maritime resources. 

Finally, one of my personal goals as Assistant Secretary is to expand our diplomatic presence in Africa. I am working within the 

State Department and the administration, and also with those in 

Congress to increase resources, both funding for people and programs at our embassies and consulates in Africa. I want, because 

I think we need, more American diplomats working across Africa, 

and increased diplomatic presence is important in making progress 

on all of the five principles that I outlined. 

I think we should be present in Mombasa as well as in Nairobi, 

in Goma as well as in Kinshasa, in Kano as well as Abuja and 

Lagos. Being in these cities will enable us to reach important audiences that we do not reach directly now. We also have to do a better job of using our diplomatic presence on the continent to listen 

to the people of Africa and to learn from them how we can better 

work together to meet the challenges that they face. 

The Obama administration believes in and is committed to Africa’s future and its great promise. I think this is a vision that the 

members of this committee share as well. I appreciate your commitment to this shared vision and your willingness to work with 

me and the Department of State together to strengthen U.S.-African relations and to work collaboratively toward a future that 

11

brings better governance, expanded democracy, greater prosperity, 

and economic growth to all of Africa’s people. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your time, and I look 

forward to answering your questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carson follows:]


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Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much, Ambassador Carson. Mr. 

Gast. 

STATEMENT OF MR. EARL GAST, SENIOR DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR AFRICA, U.S. AGENCY FOR 

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Mr. GAST. Good afternoon, Chairman Payne, and Ranking Member Smith, and other members of the Subcommittee on African Affairs. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on USAID’s work in 

Africa today. 

When I appeared before the subcommittee last April, I discussed 

positive trends on the road ahead for Africa. Unfortunately, some 

troubling political trends continue to have a negative impact on the 

continent’s development: The unsettled political landscape in 

Zimbabwe, increasing restrictions on political space in Ethiopia, 

evidence of democratic backsliding in Senegal. 

In each of these settings, poor governance and political instability directly undermine the prospects for a better future for Africa’s children. By 2025, Africa’s population will exceed 1 billion persons, and the ability of each state to respond to its people’s needs 

will be tested like never before. 

USAID is undertaking major programs to address Africa’s critical 

interlaced challenges of chronic health issues, persistent food insecurity, poverty, climate change, and weak governance. Each of 

these priorities is tightly linked to the others. Failure in one area 

will limit our progress in others. But by addressing these issues in 

an integrated manner, we hope to see an increasing number of 

democratic African countries with lower poverty rates that are on 

a sustainable path of growth and that are less dependent on foreign aid. 

Despite the extraordinary progress we have made in addressing 

critical health threats in Africa, they persist, and at an unacceptable, alarming rate. That is why President Obama has reaffirmed 

our commitment to combat these threats with a $63 billion Global 

Health Initiative. As you and others have mentioned, Mr. Chairman, over the next 6 years, we aim to prevent 12 million new cases 

of HIV around the world, cut the numbers of tuberculosis cases in 

half, and prevent 3 million child deaths. 


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The Feed the Future Initiative is another new groundbreaking 

effort aimed at significantly and sustainably improving lives. Every 

day sees new challenges to meeting the world’s demand for food. 

Feed the Future will help us achieve a permanent solution to food 

insecurity, where every person in a society has access at all times 

to enough food for an active and healthy life. But because of Africa’s heavy dependence on natural resources and agriculture, food 

security is inextricably linked to climate change. By 2020, fluctuations in weather may halve the yield of rain-fed agriculture in some 

of Africa’s countries. 

USAID’s approach to climate change in Africa includes integrating adaptation approaches into our bedrock development programs. We also plan to expand investments in prediction and analysis that identify vulnerabilities early enough in order to mitigate 

threats. We will then use this information to coordinate responses 

with other actors. 

In each of these areas, good governance will be critical to making 

changes sustainable. Consistent with the President’s vision, 

USAID’s efforts at promoting better governance are an integral 

part of our development agenda. With 17 elections scheduled in 

2010, we find ourselves with a uniquely far-reaching opportunity to 

support democratic transformation and sustainable development in 

Africa. 

We know that Africa’s challenges extend beyond a given election 

and that elections are a mere snapshot of democratic trends. They 

are certainly not the whole story. But that is why we work to 

strengthen the rule of law, improve governance, support a dynamic 

civil society, and promote a free and independent media. These elements of democracy are just as important as the ballot box. Voices 

need to be heard, systems need to function, impartial justice needs 

to be dispensed, and human rights need to be protected every day 

and not just on Election Day. And this is the foundation for longterm democratic change. 

In less than a month, the first multiparty election since 1986 will 

be held in Sudan. The process has been halting, and concerns are 

multiplying. But the elections are a requirement of the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement which ended Sudan’s long and bloody 

civil war. If we dismiss the importance of these elections out of a 

fear of an uncomfortable outcome, then we are letting down the 

people of Sudan and risking an ominous downward spiral. 

If elections are not held, the crucial 2011 referenda on the future 

status of southern Sudan and Abyei would almost certainly be derailed as well. And should the referenda be significantly delayed or 

canceled, there is a very real possibility that Sudan would once 

again plunge into a devastating war. Our commitment to helping 

the Sudanese secure a peaceful and stable future for their country 

has never been more critical. 

Amidst all of these events, it is easy to overlook the quite incremental successes also taking place. Consider the democratic transformation underway across southern Africa. During the past 18 

months, Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South 

Africa, and Zambia all experienced peaceful elections. Although 

these elections still face challenges, their steady democratic 

25

progress stands in sharp contrast to the chaos and discord of neighboring Zimbabwe. 

United States support for the process of democracy will be critical to creating and sustaining environments like this where it can 

grow and thrive. In concert with our simultaneous commitments in 

health, food security, and climate change, we are confident that we 

will soon see Africa begin to realize its full development potential. 

Before I conclude, I would look to note that today is World Tuberculosis Day. Administrator Shah introduced our global tuberculosis strategy, which aims to expand treatment and control over 

the next 5 years. TB is curable, and our strategy pledges USAID’s 

continued commitment to ensure that people around the world 

have access to the care and treatment they need. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, and other 

members of the subcommittee for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gast follows:]

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Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. As you can see, we have a 

vote on, but I believe we will be able to do is to—I could perhaps 

start with a question or two, allow the ranking member to ask a 

question or so, and then we can recess. There will be about 15 minutes that we will be in recess because we will leave when there is 

no time left. And so we will be back in ample time. Those who have 

to leave—those who need more time can leave. You are excused. 

Let me just as—and thank you both for this. And let me for a 

moment—I see a number of Ambassadors here. Our diplomatic 

corps of Ambassadors or Charge ́s, would you stand just to—we can 

acknowledge you. 

[Applause] 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Mr. Ambassador, as I have indicated, 

with emerging elections coming in in Ethiopia, could you assess the 

human rights conditions, and what are your estimates of the political prisoners currently in jail now? And I wonder if you are familiar with Mrs. Birtukan’s situation, and where does that stand, and 

also Mr. Mudaskan. 

Ambassador CARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are watching ourselves with great interest the forthcoming elections in Ethiopia, and we are encouraging the Government of Ethiopia, as well 

as the opposition parties, to act responsibly during the election 

campaign and during the election itself. We do not want to see a 

repetition of the violence that followed the flawed elections of 2005, 

in which the opposition felt that it had not been treated fairly, protested after the elections, and a number of opposition leaders were 

killed in the streets of Addis-Ababa. 

We think that it is incumbent upon the government to do everything that it possibly can to ensure that the playing field is level 

in the runup to the elections, that there be an opportunity for the 

opposition parties to participate prior to the elections in their campaigns, and that they be allowed—everyone be allowed to vote freely and fairly on Election Day. We certainly don’t want to see the 

violence that we saw 5 years ago. 

We have had a number of conversations with the Ethiopian Government about various aspects of the election, and we continue to 

encourage the government to ensure that these elections are as free 

and fair as they possibly can be. 

With respect to the human rights situation and the number of 

political prisoners, Ethiopia’s human rights record could indeed be 

far better than it is right now. There are a number of allegations 

that have been made that have been documented in the State Department’s human rights report that indicate shortcomings in the 

government’s treatment of individuals who come under their arrest. 

We encourage an improvement in those human rights situations, 

and we encourage that the government treat everyone in a humane 

fashion. 

With respect to the exact number of political prisoners, I do not 

know. I can probably give you an estimate after I consult with the 

embassy. The issue of Mrs. Birtukan, we ourselves have asked the 

Ethiopian authorities about why she was rearrested after having 

been paroled, and whether in fact we can expect her release any 

time soon. I was in Ethiopia approximately 3 weeks ago. I met with 

Prime Minister Meles for over 11⁄2 hours. Approximately 1 hour of 

32

the discussion was devoted to issues related to democracy and governance and the need to have free and fair elections. I raised the 

case of Mrs. Birtukan, as well as a number of other individuals 

who were being held by the Ethiopian authorities. I encouraged the 

government to act in a responsible fashion in dealing with these 

cases, and noted very clearly that the continued imprisonment of 

people like Mrs. Birtukan undermine the credibility and the image 

of the Ethiopian Government. 

We will continue to talk to the Ethiopian Government about 

issues related to democracy and governance and human rights as 

well. We think that these issues are important in our bilateral relationship. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. I yield to the gentlemen, the 

ranking member. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 

your testimony and for your comprehensive statements, which were 

very, very good. I have half a dozen questions. I guess we are coming back after the vote. But let me just start off with what I left 

off with in my opening statement. 

You know, when the Mexico City Policy, with all due respect to 

the Obama administration, was lifted, many of us said the unborn 

child in Africa is now at the greatest risk ever because the nongovernmental organizations that will be funded see it as their mission to bring abortion on demand to those countries. And while you 

may not want to answer or respond, but, you know, I authored the 

Child Survival Fund amendment back in the early 1980s—I have 

been here 30 years—which provided oral rehydration therapy and 

vaccinations. We put $50 million in that fund because it was all 

about the child survival revolution, enfranchising, protecting, and 

putting our arms around every child, regardless of race, color, sex, 

or condition of dependency. And unborn children, obviously, are dependent, but they are no less human or alive than all of us in this 

room. Birth is an event that happens to each and every one of us. 

And I do believe there are people in the room that disagree, people on the panel who disagree, but I do believe that abortion is violence against children. And the statistics clearly show it imposes 

serious harm upon women. Disability in many parts of Africa, as 

we all know, is a death sentence. I am working with a number of 

groups right now in both Kenya as well as Nigeria that are working on autism because so many of those children, once they manifest autism, are hurt severely. But disability, like I said, is often 

a death sentence for some of these children in the developing 

world. 

We are going to see more disability, and it is absolutely predictable, because these foreign nongovernmental organizations, with a 

50 percent increase in funding over the last 2 years alone, see it 

as their mission to promote abortion on demand in Africa. We 

should hold harmless those children. And I am pleading with you. 

I am asking you. Who we fund does matter. And let me just dispel 

one myth, and I know you know this to be true. Under the Mexico 

City Policy first announced by Ronald Reagan—that is how far 

back it goes—we were the largest donor of family planning funds 

in the world. EU—no one even came close, with the pro-life safeguards. So for those who want family planning, fine. But the line 

33

of demarcation between prevention and the taking of that innocent 

child’s human life is absolutely profound. 

The Mexico City Policy, which has now been shredded by this administration, means that these NGOs that are pushing abortion on 

the continent of Africa have license and have huge U.S. taxpayer 

funding to do it. And I am full of sorrow over that fact. I don’t 

know how to stop it. The administration has the ability to do what 

they did, but frankly, you know, babies will die, women will be 

wounded because of that. And I do hope somewhere, somehow, you 

will take another look at that at some point because those children 

are no less a child before birth than they are 5 years later. They 

are just more mature. So I ask you to consider that and look forward to coming back and asking you some questions. 

Mr. PAYNE. Okay. Thank you. The time has been divided, and so 

all time is expired. We will recess for it would seem to me about 

15 minutes. Thanks. 

[Recess] 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. We will reconvene our hearing. And let 

me ask you, Ambassador Carson, last year, as we know, Eritrea 

has been having some problems. However, as you may know, I 

have had continued dialogue with the leadership, the President of 

Eritrea, and we get the impression that Eritrea is interested in trying to have some dialogue. 

Now last year, I know you proposed to go to Eritrea—maybe in 

an effort to try to resolve some of the issues there—and there are 

some issues that we have raised with the President, some imprisoned persons, et cetera. However, we have always been able to 

have a dialogue and a discussion. I know that the Government of 

Eritrea has offered to send a delegation to Washington on a number of occasions, including a letter that was sent to the President 

last year, and I think you might have gotten a copy of it. And I 

understand that the Eritrean Government issued a visa for your 

deputy last week. 

So I just wonder what kind of prospects do you feel there may 

be for the attempt to get some constructive dialogue with the Government of Eritrea. What is the policy of the Obama administration concerning the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea 

still unresolved? And as you know, there is now a border dispute 

between Eritrea and Djibouti. In my conversation with the President there, he was indicating there seemed to be less interest in 

the Ethiopia-Eritrean problem but a lot of concern about the dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti. And I just wonder, has Eritrea 

been on the radar screen, and what is your assessment of prospects 

of some dialogue? 

Ambassador CARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that question. The United States would like to have good relations with all 

states in Africa, including Eritrea. But I must confess that our relationship with Eritrea is very, very fragile and difficult at this moment. We have in the administration tried to reach out to that government in order to find a way to encourage it to play a much more 

productive role in the Horn of Africa, one of the most volatile regions on the continent. 

Our efforts to do so over the last year have been met with resistance. Indeed, some 9 months ago, I sought to go out to Eritrea and 

34

was never in fact given a visa. Secretary Clinton also attempted to 

reach out to the Eritrean Government at the highest level, and was 

also like myself rebuffed. 

We have three sets of issues of concern with our relationship 

with Eritrea. One is a bilateral relationship that is difficult. We 

have had an Ambassador in Eritrea for now close to 21⁄2 years. 

That Ambassador has not been allowed to present his credentials 

to the Eritrean Government. The Eritrean Government has obstructed the activities of our Ambassador, prevented him from 

making speeches, and participating in embassy related activities, 

and they have done the same thing to our personnel. 

The Government of Eritrea has also interfered with the movement of our pouches through the airport, detaining them for weeks 

on end. And more than that, the Eritrean Government continues 

to detain several Eritrean nationals who worked at our embassy. 

These individuals have not been allowed to communicate with their 

families, with their lawyers, or with anyone else. And we do not 

know even today what their status is. We have insisted on more 

than one occasion that these individuals are innocent, local employees who were working at our embassy. 

So we have bilateral concerns that go from the top to the bottom. 

But that is not the only set of problems we have. The second set 

of problems is Eritrea’s continued meddling inside of Somalia. We 

believe that the Eritrean Government has been one of the sources 

of assistance for El Shabab, which is fighting inside of Somalia 

against the transitional Federal Government. All of the other 

states in the region, including all of the EGAT states support the 

TFG, but it is in fact the Eritrean Government that has been the 

most obvious and clear supporter in the Horn of Africa of what in 

fact is an extremist Islamist group. 

And then thirdly, we think that Eritrea has not played a constructive role in trying to resolve border conflicts, not only the longstanding decade-long conflict with Ethiopia, but also a border conflict that continues to persist with Djibouti. All three of these sets 

of concerns cast Eritrea in a negative light. 

Indeed, you are right, my deputy has just received a visa to Eritrea, and last week the Eritrean desk officer at the State Department received a visa. But we know that one swallow in spring does 

not indicate that the winter is over. I think that the Eritrean Government can do a number of very, very concrete things in one of 

the three areas that I have mentioned that would indicate that 

they are serious about addressing some of the major concerns that 

are out there. The Eritrean Government must perform better, not 

only with respect to its citizens, but also with respect to its near 

neighbors, and also with respect to the global community. 

Eritrea has one of the worst human rights records on the continent of Africa today. And the Government of Eritrea treats many 

of its citizens the way they treat our local employees, who have 

been in jail for more than half a decade without access to lawyers 

or visitation privileges from their families. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. And I couldn’t agree with you 

more that there are certainly a number of grievances. And we visited there, too, and tried to get some breakthroughs. However, one 

of the problems that I do confront is that we do have, it seems like, 

35

are different policies. This is, of course, preceding—you have just 

been there for 6 or 8 months. But the same things will happen in 

Ethiopia, and we have had the closest relationship during the past 

6 or 7 years with a government that puts people in prison, locks 

women up, beats people, has actually murdered a person in front 

of their spouse, and violated the border agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. But, you know, we have just continued to have 

no resolution at the General Assembly to sanction Ethiopia. 

And so we have this balancing act that makes it difficult in some 

instances. You know, wrong is wrong, and all wrong should be 

righted, and we should have a policy against countries and people 

that do the wrong things. But it can’t be selective, and I think it 

just has got to be unilateral. 

I am going to take 10 minutes because I am going to give my colleague 10 minutes. And so I have used seven of it. I went on at 

5:30, so I will take just 3 more minutes to ask you a question 

about. Well, the panel has to leave. That is the problem, and the 

second panel has to come. If it was up to us, we would be here until 

9 o’clock tonight. But they have rights, too. 

[Laughter] 

Mr. PAYNE. They may have more rights than we have, from what 

I have been going through during the last couple of weeks, and 

that is domestic, so we won’t get into that. 

In regard to Djibouti, our friends, there seems to have been a reduction, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, from development 

assistance to Djibouti, and they really have been some of our greatest supporters. And I just wonder if you could bring me up to date 

on that; and secondly, can either one of you, update me on assistance to the TFG. They are struggling. It seems if they could get 

the assistance that they needed, they could handle El Shabab. And 

I just wonder if either one of you might want to handle that. 

But, Mr. Gast, I will ask you about Djibouti and its assistance, 

development assistance. And even there is a question—I might as 

well throw it in—that South Sudan was also cut in an account as 

it deals with development. Now there could have been reshuffling 

or reintegrated funds, but what we saw looked as though there was 

not and increase but there was a reduction in development assistance for South Sudan as they try to prepare for the possibility of 

becoming a new nation. 

Okay. I took 12 minutes. So we will have the responses, and then 

I will yield to my colleague. 

Ambassador CARSON. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for 

those three questions, very good. And I did hear your commentary 

about Ethiopia, and would be willing at some point to talk in more 

detail about that. But let me just talk about Djibouti for a second. 

Djibouti indeed is a very close partner and friend of the United 

States, and we value that partnership and that friendship. 

U.S. development assistance for Djibouti is approximately $11 

million, and it probably represents something of a small decrease 

from where it has been in the past. But looking at the development 

assistance relationship between Djibouti and the United States 

gives a very false impression of the very large amount of assistance 

that the United States gives to Djibouti. As you are aware, we have 

an access agreement with the Government of Djibouti, and that acVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:29 Aug 25, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\032410\55689 HFA PsN: SHIRL
36

cess agreement entitles Djibouti to receive $31 million every year 

from the department of Defense. And most of that money is earmarked for development assistance projects inside of Djibouti and 

also for infrastructure projects. So looking at the $11 million doesn’t tell the entire story. And looking at the $31 million doesn’t tell the entire story as well because every time a U.S. Air Force plane lands at Djibouti, every 

time a U.S. Air Force plane overnights at Djibouti, the Government 

of Djibouti collects a substantial royalty or rental fee for those use 

of airport facilities. So I think it is substantially greater than the $11 million, $11 million plus $31 million plus every time there is a flight in or out 

of there, and every time we have planes overnighting on the 

ground. So it is substantially greater than that. And on a per capita basis, the number really sort of soars, and it is one of the highest recipients of U.S. assistance on a per capita basis if you figure 

both of those in. 

My colleague may have another comment on that, on the 

Djibouti, but I can come back to the other two questions. Do you 

want——

Mr. GAST. So we are trying to divide up the work here. So let 

me just finish on Djibouti. And Ambassador Carson is absolutely 

right. If one were to look at the ratio of foreign assistance per capita, it is one of the highest rates in the world, actually. 

But we have a very good relationship and partnership with the 

government. We are increasing the number of AID officers in 

Djibouti. And actually, if one were to look at the funding levels last 

year and compare it to 2010, there is actually a significant increase 

in funding of about 48 percent. So that demonstrates the strong 

commitment that we have to Djibouti. 

Ambassador CARSON. Mr. Chairman, with respect to the TFG, 

the United States strongly supports the Djibouti process. It supports the TFG, and it supports AMASOM. The United States has 

been over the last 11⁄2 years the largest single contributor to the 

AMASOM presence in Somalia. We have contributed probably in 

excess of $150 million for that AMASOM presence. 

We have also been a very strong supporter of the TFG. We have 

provided assistance, which we have reported both to the Congress 

and to the United Nations Sanctions Committee. We have provided 

assistance that has helped train their troops, provision their troops 

with non-lethal equipment, and to provide them with communications equipment. We do this in support of their effort to fight El 

Shabab extremists who are in Southern Somalia. 

I think that it is wrong to say that if we only gave them just a 

bit more, that they would succeed. I think the ability of the TFG 

to absorb assistance is also a limiting factor. They have to go out 

and recruit troops in order to be trained. They have to be able to 

provide those troops with food, pay, and barracks once they go 

back. I think that we have given assistance up to the ability of the 

TFG to absorb it effectively and utilize it in a way that will help 

them. 

In fact we give them too much, it leads to them perhaps using 

what they get inefficiently, selling of weapons, boots, shoes, and 

other things like that. We are giving them a fair amount. We will 

37

continue to support them, as we have done over the last year. We 

want also to make it clear that what we are doing is in a supporting role, not a leading role. This effort is an African-led effort. 

This is something that has been endorsed by the regional body, 

EGAD, the East African community, endorsed by all of the states 

in the region, with the exception of Eritrea. It is endorsed by the 

AU. It is also endorsed by the Arab League. 

South Sudan is more an economic question. I will let Earl speak 

to that if he wants to. I can as well. But it is more his——

Mr. GAST. Sure, absolutely. And let me just go back to our support to the TFG. The Ambassador mentioned our assistance on the 

security side. We also support them in building their capacity to 

deliver services, which are vitally important to the people, primarily right now in Mogadishu. 

We have actually supported the Djibouti process through a large 

grant through UNDP, and UNDP has also contracted, if you will, 

to provide direct capacity support services to the TFG. What we 

have recognized is that we needed new instruments, additional instruments, to support the TFG. And in the last 6 months, we have 

initiated two new instruments supporting the TFG in carrying out 

services to people in Mogadishu, building capacity at the same time 

that people get services. 

With regard to Southern Sudan, I think you are absolutely right 

in your assessment that it is a numbers game, if you will, because 

our commitment is still very strong to the South and to Sudan. 

There is a temporary, if you will, a 1-year bump-up in funding in 

2009 to support the referenda processes that will soon get underway. But if you look at historical levels, they have actually increased slightly. 

One of our objectives, U.S. Government objectives, working within the interagency, is to multilateralize the support to the South. 

We have been the principal provider of development assistance, 

and we are now trying to get more actors engaged and contribute 

more funding. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, 

for your testimony again. And just let me ask—I am going to ask 

a series of questions, and then please as best you can answer those. 

Given Eritrea’s support for El Shabab, a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization, will the Secretary designate 

Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism? Secondly, I read recently, 

today, a letter that was sent out by CDC to all the ARV implementing partners, and it says in sum that the money, the expected 

funding, in 2011 and 2010, each partner should be expected to have 

a flat lined budget for ARV procurement and should not be exceeded. Then it goes on to talk about how monies will have to be 

gleaned from somewhere else other than the PEPFAR program. 

Given the fact that there is a significant bump-up in the Global 

Health Initiative, ARVs have literally saved the lives of—in Uganda alone, the letter includes 100,000 HIV-infected Ugandans. It 

seems to me that putting a tourniquet on that will mean possible 

death for others who can’t get the ARVs. Is there an attempt to redirect funding to those programs so that these lifesaving chemicals 

and cocktails can be provided to these people? Please answer that. 

38

Next, on Nigeria’s President Umaru Yar’Adua, have we raised 

the issue, especially the health crisis that he is facing? If you could 

answer that, and the jamming of Voice of America. As I said, I was 

late getting here because I am ranking member on the China Executive Committee. When I chaired the Human Rights Committee for 

this Congress for 8 years—as a matter of fact, I say parenthetically 

that Mr. Payne and I used to be the only two going late into the 

evening at those hearings—we had 27 hearings on China. And 

when Africa and Global Human Rights were combined, we had 

three hearings on the issue of what China is doing in terms of bad 

governance, jamming capabilities like VOA, as Ethiopia is doing 

now, sham elections, and the use of secret police to ensure that the 

despotic or authoritarian or dictatorial regime stays in power. 

I think, Ambassador Carson, that you mentioned the democratic 

recession. I think it was you who said that. How much of that slide 

can be attributed to indigenous forces versus how much of that is 

being enabled and inspired by the bad influence of Beijing? We 

know when Chairman Payne held hearings on the genocide Olympics and the fact that Sudan has been so profoundly and negatively 

influenced by Beijing, but other countries too are catching the bad 

infection, if you will. 

I know that when it comes to child limitation, there was an invite 2 years ago, and most of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa 

took the bait and went to the Beijing, and with the state family 

planning and the UNFPA hosting this conference, sold the false 

dogma that if you want economic prosperity you need to limit children, as if children are nothing but a drag rather than an addition 

to an economy. 

I would note parenthetically that last week, the Economist carried—and I have been saying this for 30 years, 30 years, that because of forced abortion in China and the singling out of girls, that 

there would be a huge disparity over time. And there was the 

Economist, hardly a right-wing, conservative magazine—I read it 

every week, it has wonderful stories. It was entitled ‘‘Gendercide: 

The Missing 100 Million Girls.’’

Now that model is being focused on and transported over to Africa. Paul Kagame, in his country, the President of Rwanda, came 

back from that conference and said, we need a three-child per couple policy if we want to imitate the PRC. Well, the PRC has such 

an aging problem now. Economically, they are about—you know, 

you could predict when their economic fall will take place because 

of this huge age disparity, not only missing girls, but also missing 

children. 

Adding to that, they are becoming a Mecca, a magnet for human 

trafficking the likes of which we will never see again if it could 

ever be reversed. But what I am raising is that this bad governance model is being exported to Africa. And, you know, so if you 

could speak to that, you know, guns for oil would—high value minerals and materials, as I said before, sham elections. They are 

learning the bad rather than the good from real democracies like 

ourselves. 

Finally, on the issue of peacekeepers and misdeeds, atrocities 

committed against the people they are there to protect, particularly 

sexual exploitation. I was in Goma in January 2008 and met with 

39

the peacekeepers, and obviously also met with people living there. 

I went to several health facilities, but also met with the OIOS investigators, one of whom took me for a walk away from the facility 

and said, ‘‘If the OIOS investigators’’—and he was the head of it—

‘‘leave here, the exploitation of children will be exacerbated, and 

will increase, because you will not have an independent monitoring 

body there on the ground.’’

And I have raised this with the previous administration, and I 

raise it again with you because it has gone on unabated. The OIOS 

individuals have been redeployed to Nairobi. Only one is in Goma. 

And if I am a 13-year-old child who has just been abused by a 

peacekeeper, to whom do I go. You know, if this independent body 

is not there to help me and to help me bring an action against a 

peacekeeper, who has in this case raped or abused me in some 

other way. I think that is so fatally flawed. And he told me on our 

walk that this will mean impunity will reign. And so I ask you 

what you think of that, whether or not this administration—because I have raised it now half a dozen times—will do anything to 

try to change it. 

Ambassador CARSON. Congressman Smith, you have raised a 

number of questions. I am going to give, if I can, rather quick answers to all of them. I would be glad to provide fuller explanations 

if required. Some of these—there are a couple of these that probably my colleague may want to answer with respect to the 

healthcare questions. 

The first question about El Shabab receiving support from Eritrea and whether Eritrea should in fact be a state sponsor of terrorism, and whether we are contemplating that. There is no doubt 

that El Shabab is a terrorist organization. There is no doubt that 

Eritrea has supported the elements of El Shabab. There is no contemplation or thinking at this moment of labeling Eritrea a state 

sponsor of terrorism. 

Your third question was about the lawyer, Mr. Birtukan. I mentioned earlier that when I was in Ethiopia approximately 3 weeks 

ago, I went with Prime Minister Meles. I raised the issue of Mrs. 

Birtukan. One of my deputies was in Ethiopia last week. The issue 

was raised again. This is something that is clearly on our radar 

screen. As I said, this continuation of this issue gives Ethiopia a 

bad image. We will continue to engage and discuss with Ethiopia 

about issues of democracy and human rights, as we should, as we 

do with many countries across the continent. 

Your fourth question was on the jamming of VOA by the Ethiopian Government. That has two things, and I want to be very clear 

about it. It is deeply unfortunate that the Ethiopian Government 

has chosen to jam VOA signals. As we all know, there are only two 

or three countries in the world that actively announce that they are 

jamming our signals. One of those is North Korea, the other is 

Iran. We accept the fact that the Ethiopian Government has disagreements with the Amharic service of the VOA. Ethiopian officials have mentioned this to me on several occasions, and we have 

discussed this with Voice of America because the last thing we 

want to do is to have a station letting out information which is 

false or inaccurate. So it has been raised, and it is a concern. But 

we still are very distressed about their decision to jam VOA. 

40

But what distresses me even more is the second part of the statement that was made, a comparison of VOA to Radio Mille Collines. 

In deed, Radio Mille Collines was the voice of the AMASASU, the 

hammer of the Rwandan Government back in 1994 that resulted 

in the genocide of nearly 900,000 Rwandans. To compare VOA with 

Radio Mille Collines is extraordinarily distressing, extraordinarily 

distressing. It is something that is not acceptable. This is not a 

comparison that should ever be made. VOA has never done anything similar to Radio Mille Collines. 

So there is a concern that we have. We raise it very clearly. We 

have said it very clear. It is that second part that is really very, 

very troubling to all of those who sell that statement and who read 

it. 

China and good governance in Africa. I am going to say that Africa has indeed made very, very good strides in the field of democratization, especially since the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and 

the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, we have seen tremendous 

strides in democratization across the continent. There is no doubt 

that much work remains to be done in this area. I do not believe 

that the politics, the domestic politics of Africa, are being influenced at this point by China. 

I think that China no doubt is an aggressive economic player on 

the continent. But there were military coups and bad governments 

in Africa prior to the reengagement of China in Africa a decade 

ago. I think that there are enough people in Africa doing both right 

and wrong, and they don’t need outside influences to steer them in 

either direction. 

The last question you raised about U.N. peacekeepers and the 

OIOS investigators. I think that without speaking for them, the 

last two secretary-general special representatives in the Congo 

have been seized with the issue of U.N. peacekeepers sexually violating minors and others. I know that it was a concern for Ambassador Bill Swing when he was the special representative. It is a 

concern of Alan Doss, who is the current special representative out 

there. 

We continue to press the U.N. aggressively to act against any 

U.N. peacekeepers, any U.N. peacekeeping units that are engaged 

in sexual exploitation of children. As the chairman pointed out last 

August, he was with the Secretary, I was with the Secretary when 

we went to Goma. This continues to be an issue of concern to us. 

I think that the numbers are down. I will go back and look and 

see what we have on record, but I think the numbers are down because we have made it an issue with Alan Doss. We have made it 

an issue with General Gaye, who is the force commander out there. 

This is something that is unacceptable by U.N. peacekeepers, 

and should be unacceptable on the behalf of the Congolese military 

as well. 

Mr. SMITH. Ambassador, would you yield on that point very briefly? The problem that I have is that without OIOS people there, we 

may not know if it is down or up or at ebb tide. Why would a young 

person necessarily feel any freedom to go to army personnel—I 

mean, the army is doing terrible things. I mean, there are a lot of 

bad actors here, and certainly the peacekeepers have done more 

than their fair share of these exploitations. 

41

So, you know, by redeploying them out—and again, I got my insight while there, but especially by talking to the OIOS people 

themselves who said, ‘‘Please, don’t let us be redeployed.’’

Ambassador CARSON. If I could, Congressman Smith, say that 

one of the things that we have been doing very, very intensely is 

informing people working with NGOs in the region, Congolese 

NGOs, international NGOs, international organizations that are 

out there, working with Congolese women’s groups, working with 

citizens there, explaining their rights, encouraging them to let authorities know when these attacks are taking place, when these 

sexual assaults are taking place, to report them and to report them 

to a variety of people who can take action. 

It is one of the major campaigns that we have underway, is to 

increase the level of awareness, education, increase the cadre of individuals capable of prosecuting, helping to train more Congolese 

women police officers and soldiers so that women and young kids 

who are sexually exploited will in fact have someone that they 

know they can go to and trust and identify perpetrators of these 

kinds of offenses. 

We recognize the problem. We think it is an enormously serious 

one, and we are trying to take steps to do as much as we can to 

reign it in. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Real brief, ARTs. 

Mr. PAYNE. Oh, yes, ARTs. 

Mr. GAST. ARTs. Congressman Smith, I haven’t seen the letter 

from CDC, so I am not aware if they sent out a directive, if you 

will, to some of their partners asking them to straight line the 

budget for ARV procurement. It could, however. I know it is a 

major push of the new administration to make the procurement of 

ARVs much more efficient, and therefore putting more people on 

ARVs by reducing the cost of treatment. 

Mr. PAYNE. Okay. Thank you very much. Mr. Meeks. 

Mr. SMITH. Get back to us, please. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good to see you, Mr. 

Gast and Mr. Ambassador. I recently have come and visited about 

eight countries in 14 days over the period of 6 months, and one of 

the things in looking at these countries and others that I would 

like to focus on is development of Africa and the various countries. 

It seems as though, as I spoke to a number of heads of states, 

they are concerned about their development, their capacity building 

so their people can have jobs and creating an economy. And, you 

know, I was participating in that along with some of the other 

things that I think that have been talked about, but they often 

have said that when you look at what the United States, and they 

are very thankful, especially in aid that we give with reference to 

HIV and other areas. But they don’t see as much participation or 

the additional participation in regards to the overall economic development, the growth of businesses, the growth of making sure we 

maximize, for example, AGOA and going to AGOA II, so that they 

can feel a difference and they can begin to move forward with their 

folks in a much more progressive way. 

One gave the example, you know, we are a nation of just, you 

know, a couple of—10, 20, 25 years old, and ask where was the 

42

United States when it was 10, 25 years old, and, you know, they 

need some room to grow. Not talking about those countries because 

we did see some, and we tried to make sure we went to some—

those that were good as far as democracies are concerned and some 

that were bad. But I want to focus on those that are trying to make 

those leaps positive. 

In that regard, I want to focus two of my questions around—because I believe a lot in the regional aspects of it, but two things 

that are going on, and ask—one is in South Africa. And as you 

know, South Africa is one of the few countries on the continent of 

Africa to rank as an upper middle income country. And to me, that 

is a remarkable status, given the fact that it was just over 15 years 

ago that the South African majority gained its independence, which 

is what I am talking about, a relatively new democracy, from white 

minority rule under apartheid. And I believe that we should support the Republic of South Africa’s efforts to grow, and in so doing 

continue its role as a regional power and actively promote regional 

peace and stability. But there has been much discussion lately about a potential $3.5 

World Bank loan to ESCOM for the so-called super critical coalfired power plant in South Africa, including also some $750 million 

for wind and solar power investments. I am concerned that in the 

discussion the significant development impacts the impeding energy crisis in South Africa’s role as an economic engine of the entire region has been and/or can be lost. 

It is also worth noting that this would be the first super critical 

coal plant on the continent using far cleaner technology than many 

plants in operation in the United States, and even cleaner than 

some plants currently that are under development in the United 

States. So I was wondering, could you speak to this and whether 

the United States will support this project in South Africa, which 

is critically needed for them as far as energy is concerned, et 

cetera. That is in South Africa. 

The other question then would be dealing with Nigeria. You 

know, and I thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for the time that you 

spent with in discussing the development issues in Nigeria in particular. But given what has currently taken place in Nigeria with 

the risk that key governance reforms could move backwards given 

that there is a transition or seems to be a transition in the government right now, could you tell me your feelings of what is taking 

place in Nigeria? Does it look like it will be a smooth transition? 

I know that recently all the cabinet members were shaken up, and 

so I would like to have that. 

And the last country that I wanted to have a brief discussion 

about is—I think I have some of the answers because I was talking 

to the distinguished chair, who is the most knowledgeable man 

that I know on the continent and about the continent, and that is 

dealing with Senegal. And I know that the President has—you 

know, there has not been, for example, any military coups or anything of that nature in Senegal. And I see there is a lot of investors 

that are still interested in investing there. And then yet you hear 

some concern because I guess the President is going to run for reelection, and he is 83 years old. Could you just give me your feelings on where we are with reference to Senegal? Because I think 

43

they are important also being that they have not had any military 

coups and have been an example of which individuals we are looking at. 

Mr. GAST. You make some very excellent points, Congressman. 

And if you don’t mind, what I would like to do is focus on your 

questions concerning development, economic development, in Africa. The administration is putting as its top priority, one of its top 

priorities, the integrated development, an integrated development 

approach to Africa to reduce imbalances in funding and also imbalances in approach. 

As Ambassador Carson mentioned in his opening statement, approximately 70 percent of families in Africa are dependent on agriculture in one way or another. With the food security initiative and 

also with our general increase in economic development resources, 

we are doubling the amount of resources from 2009 to 2010 in economic development. And that will allow us to do some of the things 

that we had done in the past that proved to be successful. And that 

includes working with governments to create a pro-business environment, the regulatory environment, the policies and laws. 

It is to create demand for reforms among civil society as well as 

private sector organizations. That will go hand in hand with the 

support that we are going to be providing on increasing agricultural markets, both in-country as well as on a regional basis, as 

well as the support that we will be providing in agriculture on increasing production. 

So I think that is something that this administration should be 

very proud of, and I think we will be seeing some very positive results. And I would say that with the exception of last year, there 

has been sustained economic growth of about 51⁄2 to 6 percent on 

the continent, and this is something that we can build on. 

Moving on to South Africa, you mentioned the $3.5 billion coal 

fired plant that the government is proposing. I think it would add 

some 3,400 megawatts to the grid. There is a power shortage there. 

However, at this point, I don’t know what the position is of the 

U.S. Government with regard to voting at the World Bank board. 

Mr. MEEKS. Could you check and maybe get back to us just to 

let us know? 

Mr. GAST. Sure. 

Mr. MEEKS. Just so that you know, I will be sending a letter, and 

I was trying to get several members to sign on and sending it to 

the administration strongly supporting it. 

Ambassador CARSON. Congressman Meeks, let me come in on the 

issue of the coal-fired plant, which has indeed attracted a great 

deal of attention. And as my colleague, Mr. Gast, has pointed out, 

this plant would in fact provide a huge input into the South African grid. The position of the U.S. Government as respect to how 

we are going to vote on that issue has not been determined yet, 

and it is a matter of internal discussion as we sit here. We certainly will talk to our colleagues at State who deal with financial 

issues, business issues, and also with our colleagues at Treasury. 

And once a decision has been made, we will certainly share that 

decision with you and communicate it. 

You also asked two other questions about Nigeria and about Senegal. In short, there has been a great deal of political uncertainty 

44

in Nigeria since the middle of November, when President Yar’Adua 

became ill and had to leave the country for medical attention in 

Saudi Arabia. Approximately 3 weeks ago, President Yar’Adua 

came back to Nigeria. But certainly over the last 120 days, President Yar’Adua has not been seen in public and has not been seen 

by many of the seniors members of his government. Probably his 

wife and only a very small number of people other than his doctors 

and caretakers, caregivers have seen him. 

This produced a great deal of uncertainty about the leadership 

of the country. The Senate and the House of Representatives in Nigeria took steps to elevate the Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan, 

to the position of acting President, where he has attempted over 

the last 30 days to bring a level of stability and leadership to Nigeria that has been missing as a result of the unfortunate of the 

President. 

Last week, he dismissed the cabinet of the country, some 41 individuals. We hear that within the next 24 to 48 hours that a new 

cabinet will be nominated for approval by the Nigerian senate. We 

expect that approximately half of the previous members of the cabinet will be reappointed, some of them to different positions. New 

members will also be added to the cabinet. 

Nigeria will continue to go through a period of uncertainty as 

long as the President of the country remains ill, and probably up 

until some time next year, May 2011, when the next Presidential 

elections are scheduled to be held in that country. We think that 

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan was elevated to his current 

position with unanimous agreement of both the Nigerian lower and 

upper house, as well as the unanimous support of all of the country’s 36 elected governors. 

As I say, the country will continue to experience some political 

uncertainty as a result of the President’s absence and illness, but 

we hope that Nigeria will build on the 10 years of democracy that 

we have seen there. It is important, as I said in my testimony, that 

Nigeria reform and improve its electoral laws in order to be able 

to hold elections that people are confident in. It is important that 

the government continue to move in the fight against corruption in 

that country. It is important that they deal with the sectarian violence that has occurred in Jos, and clearly it is important that they 

continue the program of amnesty and reconciliation in the Niger 

Delta. 

These are all critical issues for a country that is absolutely critical, most of all to its citizens, but to the region and to the global 

community. Nigeria, along with South Africa, are the two most important countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It is an extraordinarily 

important country. We need to give it full attention 24 hours a day. 

Senegal—a quick question. President Wade was here in town on 

Monday and Tuesday. Senegal has been America’s strongest 

francophone-speaking partner in Africa, not just last week or last 

year, but since its independence some 50 years ago. We want and 

encourage Senegal’s leaders, including President Wade, to build on 

the democracy and the democratic institutions that exist in the 

country today. We do not want it to move backwards. It is important that all of those impositions of power in Senegal continue to 

strengthen and build and carry on that democratic legacy. 

45

Too many countries in West Africa are both fragile and weak, 

and have been subject to military interventions or to extra civilian 

usurpation of power. It is important that Senegal continues to 

move forward. So as I say, it is a strong partner. Last year, President Wade was at the State Department with Secretary of State 

Hillary Clinton. The U.S. Government provided some $540 million 

in one of the largest MCC grants that we have given in support of 

that country. 

It is our hope that Senegal will continue to be a beacon of democracy and will continue to move forward on its economic growth. But 

that is dependent upon the continued good leadership which is required for that, that continued good leadership. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. And will now hear from Mr. Royce. But 

I want to also say that I have met with the South African delegation regarding the coal plant, and they assured me it will be the 

latest technology. They also have renewable energy that is a part 

of the loan—and I concur that I believe that it is necessary to move 

forward. You know, we are trying to keep the environment clean, 

but actually Africa has done the least to dirty the environment, 

and they are really hit the hardest, not that we want to see any 

increase. However, I think that should certainly be kept in mind, 

and I have also mentioned it to some of our leadership, that I think 

we should support the U.S. to have a position in support of the 

loan. Mr. Royce. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ambassador, it has been 

good working with you over the years. I have maybe three items 

I would like to bring up and get your input on. One is going to be 

Joseph Kony. The second is going to be some more specifics or concerns that I have about Senegal. And the last is commercial diplomacy. 

But first, let me say, we had a hearing in December with Special 

Envoy Gration for this subcommittee, and I asked him about the 

links between Joseph Kony’s LRA and the Sudanese regime. At 

that time, there were reports of an LRA commander who had surrendered, and he told of the LRA’s efforts to link with Sudanese 

armed forces. General Gration denied that there were links. 

Earlier this month, based on on-the-ground information, a report 

by an NGO, which is John Prendergast’s Enough Project—it is a 

pretty reliable organization. They reported that a contingent of the 

Lord’s Resistance Army had taken refuge in areas of south Darfur 

controlled by the regime in Khartoum. We know from the past that 

Kony had gotten ammunition. He had sent his soldiers north when 

they were wounded to be treated by the Sudanese. And, of course, 

both Kony and Bashir are both wanted war criminals. What is your 

assessment there? 

Ambassador CARSON. Congressman Royce, thank you very much. 

With respect to Joseph Kony, there is no doubt that earlier—and 

I mean much earlier than now—there were very credible reports of 

Sudanese support for the LRA. But over the last 2 years, we have 

not seen, I have not seen, credible reports indicating a linkage between the LRA and the Sudanese Government. 

What we have heard and seen are things that are very, very 

fragmentary and circumstantial. As near as we can tell, the LRA 

over the last 18 months has been significantly degraded as a fightVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:29 Aug 25, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\032410\55689 HFA PsN: SHIRL
46

ing organization. Many of its top commanders have been captured 

or killed, and the larger organization that comprised the LRA has 

been fragmented into very, very small groups. Those groups have 

moved from the Garamba force in the northern part of the Congo 

up into the Central African Republic and have occasionally been inside of South Sudan. And it is my impression that today the fragmentary elements of the LRA are in the Central African Republic. 

We do have reporting from our embassy in Bangui based on credible missionary sources of the most recent LRA attacks, and those 

are in the Central African Republic, and not in the Darfur region. 

Now I will go back and look and take a look very closely. I know 

John Prendergast. I have an enormous amount of respect for him 

as an individual and a professional, and we read the Enough 

Project material. But I cannot substantiate it. As I say, my system 

has him in the CAR and not in the Darfur region. I have to say 

that Kony has been as elusive to the Ugandan military as Osama 

bin Laden has been to allied operations in the Afghan-Pakistan 

area. Very, very difficult terrain that he is operating in, very difficult to go after him. The Ugandans have made a real effort, but 

it has been pretty difficult. 

Mr. ROYCE. Well, John, the concern I have, though, when we go 

into Darfur and Sudan, the guy that is on the ground to show you 

around is John Prendergast. And his organization, the Enough 

Project, really seems to have a handle on a lot of information. I met 

with him this morning on some other issues regarding Kony and 

some of these challenges with Darfur. But I think if they file a report that there is a contingent of the LRA that has taken refuge 

there in an area controlled by the regime, let us make sure that 

Sudan doesn’t give this organization room to breathe, because in 

the past it has. And so this is one thing I really think that sometimes the guy on the ground who lives and breathes this, you 

know, has access to information that we may not have. 

And I would also like to discuss the Millennium Challenge Cor- poration. You mentioned Senegal and the $0.5 billion that it received. It was a lot of money, and there are problems with Senegal, 

as you have pointed out. People don’t talk about it the way they 

once did. It used to be that we would look at this as an impressive 

African model. And I think now we have seen a Presidential payment to an IMF official, North Korean-built statue that the President has a personal financial interest in, and, of course, concerns 

about corruption throughout the government. 

There is also a commercial dispute involving a United States 

telecommunications investment there, I guess. So the MCC acknowledges that there are many red flags, but, you know, as far 

as I can tell, the MCC hasn’t come to you and asked that you weigh 

in on its concerns about Senegal’s drift away from transparency or 

issues like its involvement with the North Korean regime. And I 

wish the MCC would be more proactive on that. But I was going 

to ask you if you could look into some of the issues, Ambassador 

Carson. I know the Secretary chaired an MCC board meeting this 

morning. Given the red flags on Senegal, was that on the agenda? 

Did that come up, and can we do more on that front? 

Ambassador CARSON. Congressman Royce, I am not sure whether 

the Secretary chaired the board meeting or not, or whether in fact 

47

there was a board meeting today. And as far as I am aware, if Senegal was on the agenda, I am not aware of it. But I will find out 

whether the Secretary was there, whether it was on the agenda, 

and what the discussion was, and come back to you on that. 

Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Ambassador Carson. Let me just finish 

with my last question, if I could, and that is on commercial diplomacy. We have had several conversations about this in the past. 

Our posts simply must get more engaged in helping U.S. businesses that get entrapped by local corruption and other government snafus. I mentioned Senegal and there are growing concerns 

about Ghana, which is another MCC country. And the concern I 

have is that a model sort of develops here that, rather than helps 

with the long-term development of Africa, undercuts it. What are 

we doing to give our Ambassadors the tools, and frankly the incentive, to fight for fair treatment, as if those Ambassadors of ours 

had something on the line, had something at stake in this effort 

to try to make progress on this corruption front? 

Ambassador CARSON. Corruption is a problem in many parts of 

the world, and it is a special problem in many parts of Africa. The 

tools that we employ are well-known and universal. If American 

companies are seen to be engaged in corrupt practices overseas, we 

use the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to prosecute them in the 

United States. Equally, when we see that American companies are 

the victims of corrupt practices overseas, our Ambassadors and our 

senior officers, our commercial officers, are requested and required 

to go out and serve as advocates for them to ensure that they get 

a fair hearing and that their cases are dealt with in an equitable 

fashion. 

But we also have another tool at our disposal as well, and we can 

in fact impose visa sanctions on individuals from foreign countries, 

including in Africa, who are engaged in systematic corrupt practices that we are aware of and have sufficient evidence to ensure 

that we are identifying the right individuals. And we have in fact 

prevented individuals who have been engaged in corruption in Africa from receiving U.S. visas, not only the individuals, but their 

spouses and their children as well. So there are instruments. We 

do use them. And we actually use them quite a bit more than is 

seen in the general public. 

Mr. ROYCE. I appreciate that it is not just some officials in Africa. It is China in a big way, too, in Africa, and now with this Senegal example, North Korea has developed a relationship with a financial interest for the President of Senegal. It is a complicated 

problem, but we want to make sure our State Department officials 

on the ground have the resources they need. And again, Ambassador Carson, thank you for your great work for this country, and 

hopefully your continued work to help the developing world. Thank 

you very much. 

Mr. PAYNE. Well, I had to tell—the ranking member wanted to 

have another round. I said we will have to allow the first panel to 

leave. But you can see the tremendous amount of interest that we 

have. There are dozens of more questions I certainly would have 

liked to have asked, as well as the rest of the team. But let me 

thank you for your patience and for the wealth of information that 

you have given us. We look forward to working closely with you. 

48

We can see there is a tremendous amount of interest from the 

turnout that we had here, and people still being here. And so we 

will stay in communication, and if we have some additional questions, we will have 5 days to get them to you. Thank you all very 

much for appearing. 

We will now have our second panel. We will ask that Ambassador Princeton Lyman, Mr. Almami Cyllah, Witney Schneidman, 

and Gregory Simpkins come foward. I am going to start reading 

your bios right now. 

[Pause] 

Mr. PAYNE. We will now have our second panel. Our second 

panel will consist of four persons. I will read their background information. Many of you are no strangers to us. Actually, none of 

you are strangers to us. But we will start with Ambassador Lyman, 

who is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations 

and currently adjunct professor at Georgetown University. During 

his time at the Council on Foreign Relations, he served as the 

Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow and Director of Africa Policy Studies. 

Ambassador Lyman has an extensive career in diplomacy, which 

includes two ambassadorships in Nigeria and South Africa and 

served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and the Director of 

the Department of State’s refugee program. Ambassador Lyman 

has published work in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, 

and in 2002, he released his book, Partner to History: The U.S. 

Role in South Africa’s Transition to Democracy. He holds a doctorate of philosophy and political science from Harvard University, 

and he has been the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria and South Africa, 

as I already mentioned. 

Second, we have Mr. Almami Cyllah. Mr. Cyllah is currently the 

regional director for Africa at the International Foundation for 

Electoral Systems (IFES). Mr. Cyllah has worked with IFES for the 

past 9 years serving as country director for both Haiti from 2001 

to 2005, and Liberia from 2006 to 2009. Before joining IFES, Mr. 

Cyllah served as country director for Haiti and Kenya at the National Democratic Institute, where he directed USAID funded programs with civil and governmental entities, served as African Affairs Director at the American International USA in Washington, 

DC, and has participated in election monitoring specifically as an 

election commission for national electoral commission in Sierra 

Leone. 

In 1980, Mr. Cyllah received his bachelor of arts in international 

affairs and politics from Catholic University of America. He has 

also published several articles in the Africa Report, the Washington 

Post, and Christian Science Monitor. 

Following Mr. Cyllah, we will hear from Dr. Witney Schneidman, 

president of Schneidman and Associates International. Dr. 

Schneidman has worked with previous administrations. Most recently, he served as co-chair of the Africa Experts Group on the foreign policy advisory team, and a member of the Presidential transitional team for President Obama’s 2008 campaign. During the 

Clinton administration, Dr. Schneidman served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, where he managed economic and commercial issues in sub-Saharan Africa. 

49

Dr. Schneidman is the author of Engaging Africa: Washington 

and the Fall of Portugal’s Colonial Empire and A Ten-Year Strategy for Increasing Capital Flows to Africa: A Joint Effort by the 

Corporate Council on Africa, and issued the commission on capital 

flow to Africa. 

Dr. Schneidman holds a doctorate of philosophy and international relations from the University of Southern California, and 

has commented extensively on relevant issues on CBS News, CNN, 

and BBC. 

Finally, we have our own Gregory Simpkins, who is, as you 

know, Vice President in Policy and Program Development at the 

Leon Sullivan Foundation. Mr. Simpkins had been involved in democratization trade and capacity building programs since 1992, 

and he began work on foreign advocacy projects in 1987. He has 

extensive experience in election monitoring and training in sub-Saharan Africa, including the elections process in Kenya, South Africa, and Guinea. Mr. Simpkins has worked with the U.S. House of 

Representatives, serving as a professional staff member for the 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International 

Operations under then Chairman Smith from 2005 to 2006, and in 

1997 and 1998, for the Subcommittee on Africa. He has testified in 

both congressional chambers on trade preference reform and 

human rights in Africa. 

Mr. Simpkins was also instrumental in establishing a number of 

advocacy networks, including the Africa Democracy network and 

the U.S. Civil Society Coalition for African Trade and Investment. 

Mr. Simpkins maintains ‘‘Africa Rising 2010,’’ a blog exploring current African issues. 

Thank you very much, gentlemen, and we will start with Ambassador Lyman. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PRINCETON N. LYMAN, ADJUNCT SENIOR FELLOW FOR AFRICA POLICY STUDIES, 

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS (FORMER UNITED 

STATES AMBASSADOR TO SOUTH AFRICA AND NIGERIA) 

Ambassador LYMAN. Thank you for this hearing and the opportunity to testify. Let me start with just a few remarks on overall 

policy. We have heard a lot of that discussion. But as you can tell 

from the discussion, this administration, the Obama administration, has been very proactive in its policy in Africa. In addition to 

the things that have been mentioned, I would say that was demonstrated by strong and very timely statements on Nigeria during 

this recent crisis by the Secretary and coordinated with our European allies; also the denial of visas to people in Kenya suspected 

of corruption; the appointment of the presidential envoy for Sudan 

and a State Department envoy for the Great Lakes; and the decision by the Secretary to establish binational commissions with Angola, Nigeria, and South Africa. These are all commendable steps. 

And as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gast talked about two 

new initiatives in development, food security and global health. 

President Obama further set the tone of his administration on 

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tinent. Nevertheless, the administration faces several serious obstacles in carrying out these objectives. The civil war in Somalia, 

which you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, which links to worldwide terrorist concerns, drags on, and without any easy solution, and too 

few alternative strategies being developed. 

The peace process in Sudan is fragile, and the slow process of 

staffing in USAID has prevented the administration from moving 

very far or very fast on these two new development initiatives. The 

low level of staffing in the Africa Bureau, which Ambassador Carson is trying to redress, is going to make it too difficult to staff 

those three new binational commissions because they take a lot of 

work and a lot of time, and they are very important. 

And finally, I would mention the increased threat of drug trafficking through Africa and an alarming linkage of drug trafficking, 

terrorist groups, traditional smugglers, and the corruption that 

goes with that, which is a very dangerous phenomena in West Africa, not only for Guinea and Guinea-Bissau, but Ghana, Senegal 

and other countries. 

But perhaps less well understood is that even as U.S. assistance 

to Africa has tripled over the past decade, our leverage from that 

assistance has diminished. By that, I mean that the largest share 

of our assistance to Africa, now 80 percent of it, is in life-saving 

programs, HIV/AIDS, child survival, emergency food. These are 

very commendable programs, and we can be proud of them. But 

these are not the kind of aid that you can turn off or cut back on, 

even when recipient countries flout principles of democracy or 

human rights. And I think we are going to see this dilemma as we 

face those issues in Ethiopia, Uganda, Nigeria, and elsewhere. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would emphasize the need for a more 

comprehensive trade policy in Africa. In brief, despite AGOA, aid 

for trade, and related U.S. support for Africa’s trade capacity, African countries side with China, India, and Brazil in the DOHA 

trade negotiations against the position of the United States. Meanwhile, the European Union undermines the promising development 

of Africa’s regional economic commissions and hurts U.S. trading 

opportunities with its proposed Economic Partnership Agreements 

(EPAs). There has been no effective response from the U.S. We 

could discuss that more. 

Let me comment very briefly on the country situations that you 

asked me to comment on. South Africa. The administration is making very good progress on improving what had been a strained relationship with South Africa under former President Thabo Mbeki. 

President Zuma has reversed the positions that he took and that 

Mbeki took on AIDS, which is a big step forward. 

However, there is concern in South Africa over a drift in economic policy, over the President’s refusal there to abide by requirements for reporting his financial holdings, and holding other officials to similar account, and worries over the erosion of independence of the national prosecutor and the judiciary. 

On the positive side, just last week, President Zuma spent 3 days 

in Zimbabwe, high-level, in intensive negotiations, which have resolved some of the issues in that country’s government of unity. 

On Nigeria, very quickly, you know the crisis, and we have 

talked about it. But let me just say that beyond the crisis, there 

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are underlying problems in Nigeria. And perhaps the biggest danger in Nigeria is the danger of becoming irrelevant in all of the 

areas that we think Nigeria is important. For example, Nigeria is 

well-regarded as a major oil producer, but failing to develop and resolve key policies in oil and gas arrangements could prevent the investment that Nigeria needs to double its output, while at the 

same time, other countries, Ghana, Uganda, Brazil, others are increasing their production. Nigeria could become just another producer, not one of the major ones. 

Perhaps more serious, failure to develop its own infrastructure, 

power supplies, railroads, et cetera, means that factories are closing, people are becoming unemployed. There is a serious problem 

in the elite commitment to the serious problems that Nigeria faces. 

Now the binational commission offers us an opportunity, but I hope 

we go beyond just our laundry list of things we want. Assistant 

Secretary Johnnie Carson has certainly referred to them, e.g., electoral reform. But I hope we go into the commission with some positive proposals on public-private partnerships to help develop the infrastructure and mobilize the capital, using the Food Security Initiative to revive Nigerian agriculture, and that we go on through 

public diplomacy, engage the Nigerian business community and 

civil society in supporting these efforts. 

Ethiopia—you have talked about that. It is a conundrum. Ethiopia is a valuable ally in our counterterrorism program. It is becoming one of Africa’s most populous and influential countries. 

China, India, Saudi Arabia, and other countries are investing 

there. Companies from all over the world searching for oil and minerals are crawling all over the country. But for all of the reasons 

you have discussed, both you and Mr. Smith, we are seeing a regression in democracy and a violation of human rights, et cetera. 

Now here is the problem. What I said earlier about leverage, 

Ethiopia is one of the major recipients of U.S. aid to Africa, but 84 

percent of that aid is HIV/AIDS, child survival, and emergency 

food. There is no room for playing with these programs for political 

purposes, and Prime Minister Meles knows it. 

The U.S. can only hope to persuade Ethiopian leaders that it is 

ultimately in their interest to foster once again democratic government and find ways to address demands in the Ogaden and elsewhere. But as to our leverage, strangely enough, the more we do 

in these very important areas may actually be diminishing. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lyman follows:]

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Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. Mr. Cyllah. 

STATEMENT OF MR. ALMAMI CYLLAH, REGIONAL DIRECTOR 

FOR AFRICA, INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR ELECTORAL SYSTEMS 

Mr. CYLLAH. Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, IFES, I wish to thank you, your colleagues, and your staff for holding this hearing today. It could not 

have come at a more opportune time. Nearly 20 countries in Africa 

are holding elections in 2010. We have included in our region statement to you those elections that are scheduled for this year in Africa. 

As you know, IFES is the premiere organization providing professional support to electoral democracy. Since its founding in 1987, 

IFES has worked in more than 100 countries around the world, 

striving to promote citizen participation, transparency, and accountability in political life and civil society. 

Democracy, Mr. Chairman, and governance work, in my opinion, 

is the foundation on which all other aspects of U.S. foreign policy 

in Africa can be built. If you have a country with a strong democratic institution, I believe that provision of aid will be more effective, violence will be less common, and human rights will be more 

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versal Declaration of Human Rights. If governments are accountable to their own people through elections, everyone will benefit. 

Mr. Chairman, when an election in Africa draws international 

attention, it is very seldom good news. For example, elections in 

Kenya fueled violence that left more than 1,500 people dead and 

about 300 people displaced, while elections in Zimbabwe suffered 

from massive fraud and brutal abuse. In Sierra Leone and Ghana, 

on the other hands, the tense, highly contested elections did not 

generate into violence. These elections have become historical landmarks instead for their credibility and peacefulness. 

Many countries that experience field elections such as Kenya and 

Zimbabwe share a number of similarities. The incumbents in these 

countries exploited their positions of power for material gain and 

ran for re-election. Years of misrule, however, give rise to a popular 

and determined opposition. To prevent themselves from losing 

power to the opposition, the incumbents compromised the independence of the electoral commissions and the sanctity of the electoral process. The extremely close result in Zimbabwe led to a brutal government crackdown, while that in Kenya also led to a widespread violence. 

Mr. Chairman, let me quickly point out that this violence, when 

you talk to the citizens of those countries, the citizens are always 

calling for more transparency of elections and not to abandon electoral democracy. An impartial and professional electoral management body could have prevented this violence or at least reduced 

its likelihood. Sierra Leone and Ghana share many of the opposite 

characteristics leading to successful elections in both countries. The 

Presidents of Sierra Leone and Ghana could not run for another 

term, so the incumbents had no direct stake in the election. 

Moreover, the electoral commissions, who are relatively independent, enjoy the support and engagement of the various stakeholders and demonstrated their capacity to run elections. As a result, the electoral commissions were able to conduct relatively good 

elections resulting in those two cases peaceful transfer of power. 

What are some of the lessons learned from these difficult and 

successful elections? Some of the lessons learned, Mr. Chairman, 

are electoral fraud and interference are less likely when an electoral management body is, one, independent in budget, tenure, and 

opinion; professional and capable of effectively implementing a 

credible electoral process; support by the various stakeholders. 

When attention is focused on the electoral management body and 

effective implementation of the electoral process, it is more likely 

that the process will run its course without significant intervention. 

When an incumbent is running for re-election, and the electoral 

management body lacks independence, the process is more likely to 

be manipulated. Where poverty is widespread, when leaders flaunt 

their ill-gotten wealth, the opposition can mount effective mobilization. Where the population is polarized by antagonistic mobilization 

of support, elections are more likely to be rigged in favor of the incumbent, with a very high probability of electoral violence. Where 

the electoral disputes resolution mechanism is robust, aggrieved 

parties will be less likely to resort to violence. 

Mr. Chairman, IFES has a few recommendations to you as policymakers and to the administration. These recommendations, Mr. 

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Chairman, are very simple: Provide assistance throughout the electoral process because elections do not begin and end on Election 

Day. Elections, just like democracy, are a process, but not an event. 

If any state of the electoral cycle is ignored or manipulated, the entire process could fall apart. Thinking in long-term and providing 

strategical systems contributes to much more successful and peaceful elections. 

Some of the other recommendations, Mr. Chairman, include, 

first, special attention should be paid to how electoral management 

bodies are appointed in Africa. Second, during the registration 

process, assistance should be given to the electoral management 

body to clearly and fairly define procedures. Third, during the campaign period, assistance should be given to the electoral management body to establish binding campaign codes of conduct along 

with the legal power to enforce them. Fourth, throughout the process, the electoral management body must be helped to develop and 

carry out effective civic and voter education. Fifth, electoral management bodies must be assisted and accredited in domestic and 

international observers. Sixth, assistance must be given to the electoral management body to establish an impartial and effective dispute resolution system prior to the elections. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, countries should not be stripped of the 

electoral assistance after conducting a series of successful elections. 

This is particularly true as elections have become closer and more 

contentious in recent years. While this represents a welcome 

spread of multiparty democracy, it also represents an increasing 

risk of conflict. Kenya has made this painfully clear. Even countries such as Ghana and South Africa, however, which are viewed 

as bastions of democracy in Africa, should not be written off in 

terms of assistance. Assistance could help these countries further 

consolidate their democratic gains and assume a greater leadership 

role in the continent. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for holding this hearing, 

and I look forward to questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cyllah follows:]

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Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Dr. Schneidman. 

STATEMENT OF WITNEY W. SCHNEIDMAN, PH.D., PRESIDENT, 

SCHNEIDMAN & ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL 

Mr. SCHNEIDMAN. Chairman Payne and Ranking Member Smith, 

thank you for inviting me to testify at this important hearing and 

timely hearing on U.S. policy toward Africa. 

One of the most important issues on the African continent is the 

relative poverty of the nearly 1 billion people who live there. It is 

critical to realize that while conditions in many of the 53 nations 

are simply unacceptable, vital progress is being made. One of the 

most important trends is the slowing rate at which people are falling into absolute poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. 

From 1980 until 2000, an average of 10 million people annually 

fell below the poverty line. Between 2000 and the onset of the global economic recession in 2008, there was a virtual plateau in the 

number of people entering poverty in Africa. In fact, there were 1.2 

million fewer people living in poverty in 2005 than there were in 

2002, which suggests that Africa is poised to enter a new era of 

growth, productivity, and opportunity. 

Mr. Chairman, it is against this background that I would like to 

respond to the issues that you asked me to address, and to make 

several suggestions on how the administration, Congress, U.S. companies, and civil society might build on these important trends. The 

African Growth and Opportunity Act continues to be the essential 

framework for U.S.-African economic and commercial relations. 

Nevertheless, in the 10 years since it was passed into law, its 

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turing and job creation remains to be fulfilled. My recommendation 

therefore is to have Congress provide an exemption from U.S. taxation for bona fide foreign direct investment income earned by U.S. 

companies outside of the extractive sectors doing manufacturing or 

service business in any AGOA-eligible country. 

This would be a great stimulus for American investment in Africa and would contribute to growth domestically by encouraging 

companies to repatriate capital to the U.S. It is also estimated that 

for every dollar deferred under this arrangement, there would be 

an additional $5 of African income produced. The administration is 

to be congratulated for its effort to create binational commissions 

with Nigeria, South Africa, and Angola. If structured correctly, 

these commissions can make a genuine contribution to the deepening of relations and enhancing specific objectives. 

In each commission, however, I would urge that there be a finance working group to consist of representatives from Ex-IM, 

OPIC, TDA, and the U.S. private sector and appropriate individuals from the partner nations. Not only would this increase the impact of the commissions, but it would provide invaluable support to 

American companies seeking to enter or expand in Africa’s most 

significant markets. 

Regional economic integration is at the forefront of Africa’s development agenda, and it should have more priority on our own agenda for the region. To help achieve this, I would recommend that the 

assistant secretaries at State for Africa and Business and Economics, the assistant administrator for Africa at USAID, and the assistant trade representative for Africa meet as a group on a regular 

basis with the heads of the regional economic commissions in Africa, along with the Economic Commission for Africa at the African 

Union and the African Development Bank. Such a mechanism 

would be low-cost, and it would contribute more focus for U.S. support for regional economic integration and market development. 

Candidate Barack Obama was right to say that his administration would make the millennium development goals America’s development goals. The reality for sub-Saharan Africa, however, is 

that a number of countries will fall short in a number of areas in 

meeting the 2015 deadline set by the international community. For 

one, there is a financing gap of an estimated $20 billion a year on 

aid to Africa. The immediate question for the Obama administration, therefore, is how will it respond to those countries who do not 

meet the MDGs. 

Of course, we cannot wait until 2015 for the answer. We need to 

begin planning for the inevitable now. It is vital that the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review and 

the Strategic Development Review being drafted in the White 

House provide clear direction to this most important question. 

On the issue of education, school enrollment in Africa is among 

the lowest in the world. African governments and Africa’s partners 

need to invest more resources in education at all levels on the continent. The President’s African Education Initiative, which allocates $600 million to benefit 80 million children through scholarships, textbooks, and teacher training programs, is an important 

beginning. But we have to do more, and do it with urgency. And 

this is why I support the African Higher Education Expansion and 

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Improvement Act of 2009 that will provide Africa with long-term 

assistance to improve the capacity of its institutions of higher education through partnerships with institutions of higher education 

in the United States. Hopefully, this bill will pass in this session 

of Congress. 

Let me close by underscoring the need for a concerted effort by 

the public and private sectors to work together to enhance mutual 

interests. Over the last several years, I have been involved with 

the Africa, China, U.S. trilateral dialogue established to explore 

ways in which the United States and China can work in common 

effort in support of African’s development objectives. This unique 

initiative is the collaboration of the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation, 

the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brenthurst Foundation in 

South Africa, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. 

Last month in Liberia, we had the fourth meeting of the trilateral dialogue, and it focused on corporate social responsibility 

and economic development. Participants included President Sirleaf 

of Liberia, former President John Kufuor of Ghana, the U.S. Ambassadors to Liberia the United States and China, and representatives from Chevron, Coca-Cola, Marathon Oil, DeBeers, Fina Bank, 

the China-Africa Development Fund, the China Export-Import 

Bank, and the China-Henan International Group, which has infrastructure projects in eight African countries. 

All participants agree that corporate social responsibility targets 

must be a clearly stated part of all contracts that governments negotiate. Moreover, it was apparent that companies contributing to 

health, education, and job creation need to be part of the national 

dialogue on development goals, and that it is up to government to 

monitor compliance. We feel that the trilateral dialogue has a great 

deal of potential to enhance U.S.-Chinese cooperation in Africa, and 

would encourage the Obama administration and the Chinese Government, in conjunction with the African Union, to establish a 

similar mechanism. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you once again for holding this very important hearing and asking me to be part of it. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schneidman follows:]

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Mr. PAYNE. Well, thank you very much for your contribution. 

Thank you. Mr. Simpkins. 

STATEMENT OF MR. GREGORY B. SIMPKINS, VICE PRESIDENT, 

POLICY & PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, THE LEON H. SULLIVAN FOUNDATION 

Mr. SIMPKINS. I would like to thank subcommittee Chairman 

Payne and Ranking Member Smith for allowing me to testify today, 

and I appreciated my time working with you both and look forward 

to supporting your initiatives for Africa’s development. 

The Leon H. Sullivan Foundation has had a longstanding interest in U.S. policy toward Africa. We led a civil society coalition in 

2008 that issued a questionnaire on Africa policy to the Presidential candidates. I am happy to say that our current President 

and Vice President were the first to answer that questionnaire. 

And we presented a white paper on our Government’s Africa policy 

shortly after the election of President Obama in 2008, and we are 

about to launch a survey on the views of our stakeholders on American Africa policy that will be shared this September at our Africa 

Policy Forum at the Sullivan Global Reunion in Atlanta. 

I also am policy committee chair of the African-American Unity 

Caucus, a coalition of dozens of organizations that focus on the various aspects of our policy toward Africa. Every September, during 

the Ronald H. Brown African Affairs series, our members present 

forums on important Africa issues facing our Government. 

Certainly, we expect President Obama to continue the growing 

engagement with Africa that his immediate predecessors championed and take America’s relationship to Africa to a new level. 

Unfortunately, this administration faces crises that distract from 

longer-term planning and implementation of development policy for 

Africa. There are countries in Africa with active violence, such as 

Somalia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, or others 

with simmering tensions, including Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, 

Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. 

Meanwhile, there are long-term issues that also must figure into 

American policy. Good governance, enhancing agricultural production, food security, stemming the tide of disease, raising the level 

of education, stemming the impact of the brain drain, and many 

other issues pose a challenge in executing an effective Africa policy. 

In selecting policy options, the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation has 

developed recommendations for the administration and congressional actions that include, one, effective diplomacy in conjunction 

with regional African organizations to address warfare, lack of governance, and piracy involving Somalia, Guinea, and other troubled 

countries; two, multilevel strategies to identify and implement a 

lasting solution to the complex problems in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo and their longstanding warfare and violence, and in some cases genocide; three, American security assistance and U.S. Government and private sector support for more effective programs in communities in Nigeria, Angola, and other oilproducing African countries; four, diplomatic and programmatic attention to simmering crises in Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, and 

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sions overflow; five, consensus among African and African Diaspora 

leaders on dealing forthrightly with the regime in Zimbabwe. 

And I would like to at this point acknowledge the chairman’s 

intervention in Zimbabwe to support respect for democratic governance. It is much appreciated. 

Sixth, U.S. Government assistance and American private sector 

investment in all forms of infrastructure in Africa in order to make 

AGOA more practically effective; seven, encouragement of businessto-business linkages between African and American small and medium enterprises for AGOA to be more broadly implemented; eight, 

effective rules for how to proceed in the fight against corruption in 

Africa, as well as a stepped-up U.S. effort to facilitate the return 

of stolen funds to repay debts and address unmet social needs; 

nine, elevation of the importance of U.S.-Africa agricultural trade, 

capacity building assistance for African producers, and encouragement for investment by Americans in African agriculture; ten, enhanced support for distance learning and student and teacher exchanges, as well as encouragement of the involvement of members 

of the African Diaspora in America in diminishing the impact of Africa’s brain drain, especially in the health sector; eleven, stronger 

endorsement for effective corporate social responsibility practices as 

embodied in the Global Sullivan Principles for Corporate Social Responsibility, which is part of the trilateral dialogue that Mr. 

Schneidman talked about; and finally, continued empowerment of 

women and youth through African civil society organizations and 

the enhancement of the capacity of civil society organizations themselves. 

Thank you again for this opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Simpkins follows:]

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Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. And let me thank you all of 

you for your testimony. Let me begin with you, Ambassador 

Lyman. Since you were an Ambassador both to South Africa and 

Nigeria—of course, South Africa elections are over, but with Nigeria’s coming up—in your opinion, how do you rate the democracy 

and civic involvement in both Nigeria and South Africa today as 

opposed to when you were Ambassador in those countries? In other 

words, do you feel that there has been progress overall when you 

look back, or would you say there has been a decline in those two 

very important, most important, countries on the continent? 

Ambassador LYMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me start 

with Nigeria. I think the sad thing about Nigeria after the return 

to civilian rule in 1999, which gave everybody, especially the Nigerians, a great deal of hope—the elections got steadily worse. In 

1999, it was no great shakes; in 2003, it was worse, and in 2007 

worse than that. It is because the focus was more on amassing winning votes and less on improving the process. There is a fundamental problem in Nigeria that Nigerians identify, and that is loyalty is up, not down. That is, you get your job by the party picking 

you, and then you do whatever it takes to get elected. And then you 

don’t have to collect taxes because your largesse comes from the 

center through the oil revenues, which are distributed, which you 

then use for patronage. 

It is not a good system for solving these underlying problems of 

Nigeria, which I mentioned. I think that the remedies are very 

clear. They have had studies on what to do about electoral reform. 

They have had studies on how to develop the delta. I think everybody in Nigeria knows that the ethnic violence we have seen is also 

competition for land and resources, and it is also manipulated by 

political leaders. 

Everybody, I think, knows where the solutions are. The question 

is how do you get the elite to act with much more foresight and 

long-term commitment to Nigeria? I think that is going to be a difficult thing to do. I think we can encourage it. Civil society, ironically, in Nigeria is very active, more active than when I was there 

for sure, and there are lots of institutions operating, but they 

haven’t really had an impact. And the business community, ironically, doesn’t—it presses for better economic policy, but it stays out 

of politics. It doesn’t press for greater governance and democracy. 

And that, I think, is something we ought to engage the community 

on. 

There is a lot of dynamism in Nigeria, as you well know, Mr. 

Chairman. But I think they are at a very critical stage, that as I 

suggested in my testimony, Nigeria could slip ever downward if 

they don’t grasp these fundamental problems. They are going to 

have to start with electoral reform, and they don’t have much time 

before the next election, and then they have got to move from there 

in many ways. 

In South Africa, I think there has been a lot of progress in the 

sense that the institutions of democracy and the constitution have 

held up fairly well. The courts have been strong, particularly the 

constitutional court. Elections have been carried out reasonably 

well. There is freedom of the press, et cetera. What is disappointing 

is that because it is almost a one-party state, because the ANC is 

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so dominant, that the dynamism, the new ideas, and the ethics 

have to come from the ANC. And I think they have slipped on all 

three. 

There is a good deal of corruption, and much of it is covered up. 

There is not cohesion on economic policy. There is not efficiency in 

the administration. These are worrisome trends. I don’t think it is 

in crisis mode, but I do think there is going to have to be some revitalization of commitment. Perhaps there is some serious, serious 

thinking within the ANC and outside of it as to how they get back 

to some of those exciting principles that we all felt in the 1990s. 

Here again the United States can be very encouraging. We have 

a very dynamic team now in South Africa. But we have to engage 

a lot of people. We have to encourage a lot of discussion on these 

areas. Again, there is an active civil society. There is an outspoken 

opposition in the Parliament. But until the ANC starts to reform 

itself, there are going to be some serious problems. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. Well, since you hit the big 

two, maybe you can just make a comment about Ethiopia and their 

upcoming election. 

Ambassador LYMAN. Well, as I stated, it is a real conundrum. 

Here is a very important country, very important to our strategy 

in East Africa, very important in security matters, increasingly influential, other countries investing in the country, a very shrewd 

and smart leader. And on the other hand, as we heard already 

today, increasingly more oppression, more arresting of people, control of the press, nastiness toward American institutions like the 

VOA. Very disturbing. And the question is, what do we do in that 

kind of a situation? And as I suggested, the aid program doesn’t 

give you that kind of leverage. 

This aid is lifesaving. It is wonderful. But 84 percent of it is 

keeping people alive. You can’t say, well, you are not having clean 

elections, we are going to cut back on ARV treatments for 

HIV/AIDS victims. You can’t do that. So we have to find another 

way to bring our influence to bear. But I think we have to recognize that we have limited influence under these circumstances. And 

I think it is a serious problem in our relations with Ethiopia. 

I do think that voices have to come even from outside the administration because the administration is caught in this conundrum—

they have got all these security and other issues—voices in Congress, voices from the press, et cetera, to say, as Ambassador Carson himself said, these things question Ethiopia’s reputation and 

its position in the world. I think those are the kinds of things that 

may help. But I suggest this is a serious, serious dilemma. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Let us see. Mr. Cyllah, we have seen that 

50 years ago, there were a number of elections that were held—I 

don’t know, maybe 10 or 12, that will be celebrating 50 years this 

year. Absent the three that we have heard and mentioned, could 

you give me an assessment on the, say, two or three other elections 

that would be coming up this year, and how do you think their previous elections were, and how do you anticipate the upcoming 2010 

elections. 

Mr. CYLLAH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the things we 

have noticed is that, of course, we don’t have the 90 percent, 98 

percent win anymore where the one party moves. So there is quite 

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an improvement in Africa. But a country like Burundi is an interesting one to look at this year, which in the past also having been 

a military, one-party dictatorial government is moving toward the 

democratic reign. Difficulties, yes, but do we stop support? I would 

say no because I think every little bitty step that they do take toward democracy is important. We have seen Burundi evolve, a lot 

of women in the process, which changes a whole lot of things in 

that part of the world, so as in Rwanda. 

But at the same time, we have to continue to hold these leaders 

accountable and ready to answer questions. As I would say, listen 

to them, but also verify as to what they are telling you because 

they want you to hear what they think you want to hear. Basically, 

that is how they will bring it to you. 

Elections—of course, this has been mentioned quite a bit. Sudan 

is going to be having elections. So these are some of those elections 

that we need to pay close attention to. Once again, the important 

thing for us is that one of the difficulties we have had over the 

years, Mr. Chairman, is that support to elections have come right 

close to the elections. Support to election process is more so the 

event that we see, and failing to look at the whole process. 

There is an electoral cycle. Pre-election processes are just as important as Election Day. Post-election processes are just as important. I think it was one American leader who had said that preparations for the next elections begin the day after you announce 

the results of the last elections. We have not seen that happen in 

Africa in a consistent way. And I think that is what my recommendation had been, for us to look at elections as an election 

cycle rather than looking at elections as the event. 

So a long-term process in those elections support I think will 

help. And again, there are so many other countries that we have 

on this list. It is maybe a little too late to provide that electoral 

cycle support, but for other elections upcoming, I would recommend 

that you as policymakers and the U.S. administration look at that 

very important. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Just one other quick question. There is 

a new phenomenon going on now, at least that started in several 

countries. I think Togo, Gabon, and the Democratic Republic of the 

Congo are three countries that the children of the previous ruler 

have come in, although some are just recent, certainly Gabon. But 

do you see any potential for better governance with the second generation coming in? I know it is a U.S. phenomenon where families 

tend to get into politics, and the Middle East also, I guess, Morocco 

and some other. Egypt it seems like is in waiting. Syria has sons 

replacing their parents. 

Have you seen any kind of improvement, or do you have optimism that the second generation may have learned from the previous generation? Is that a good trend? Of course, we have had the 

Roosevelts and the Kennedys and the Bushes in the U.S. So you 

can’t say you can’t have it. I just wonder what your opinion might 

be. 

Mr. CYLLAH. Well, Mr. Chairman, that is a very good question. 

And the point for me and the point for our organization is whether 

the process went well and whether the people who are going to be 

ruled by these people accept those results. We see in Togo, for an 

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example, that there is not an acceptance, and following as indeed 

the son I think is going to be a little better than his father, from 

all the brutalities that his father committed. We see the opposition 

really critical of what those results have been, and there are still 

demonstrations, and that we have not seen the massive arrests 

that his father used to do when he saw an opposition. 

Congo—it is a wait and see also. But the President, I think, is 

not going to be able to follow in his father’s footsteps because I 

think there is a lot of opposition. And people are pretty much talking to each other, and they see the results of those bad governments and what it has done to their citizens. 

You did not mention one other country that is quite interest to 

us, and that is Senegal. There is also the talk that——

Mr. PAYNE. That is true. 

Mr. CYLLAH [continuing]. That the President is also grooming his 

son to become President. Once again, the important thing is we follow the real process of having electoral democracy. If that is the 

case, and if the results show that, yes, they are winning, then, yes, 

I think we will accept that. But if they have the military and they 

are going around abusing people, I think it is a wrong step that 

they will be taking. And I doubt if they will be successful for a long 

time. It is never sustainable, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassador LYMAN. I had a point on that, Congressman. I attended a conference up in Cambridge recently sponsored by the Africa Business Club of the Harvard Business School. I went up there 

thinking there would be about 50 or 60 young people to talk to. 

There were 900 people at that conference. I would say 70 to 80 percent were Diaspora Africans, mostly from Nigeria, but from everywhere. And these were young people studying in business schools, 

law schools, colleges all over, bright and sharp as anybody you 

have ever met, asking tough questions of business leaders, et 

cetera. It was very inspiring and moving. And the question is, are 

they going to have an opportunity to do the things they were talking about this conference, whether it was investment or changes, 

et cetera, in their home countries? 

They wanted to do it. So that was the whole purpose of the conference. And if there is hope for change and positive change, it 

comes from that generation. It was a very, very impressive experience. 

Mr. PAYNE. That is very interesting, and I did think in terms of 

Senegal, too. I guess for some of the countries, it may be a little 

easier than the others for the son to do better, you know. I will 

leave it at that. 

Let me ask my final question, and then I will turn it over. Dr. 

Schneidman, what is your assessment of the administration’s Global Food Security Initiative? Do you feel that the impact for agricultural development in Africa is key? Or if a failure happens, what 

would the position be for famine or lack of adequate food security? 

Could you touch on that whole area of this initiative of the Obama 

administration? 

Mr. SCHNEIDMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that question, 

which is really quite a critical question. You know, this thing in 

talking with Ambassador Carson and others, one gets the impression that the Obama administration is looking at the Food Security 

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Initiative much like the Bush administration looked at PEPFAR, 

much like the Clinton administration looked at AGOA. We haven’t 

seen it—I haven’t seen it happen yet, and I am concerned about 

this. I am concerned, number one, that the leadership is in the Department of Agriculture. No aspersions against the Department of 

Agriculture whatsoever, but I think one knows that the way you 

drive policy is really from the White House, certainly the State Department, and I haven’t seen that interagency team emerge yet to 

give this initiative the definition that it requires. 

Secondly, addressing the issue of food security is a multifaceted 

proposition. Not only are we talking about seeds and irrigation, but 

we are talking about trade. We are talking about farm to market. 

We are talking about roads, infrastructures. So I am concerned 

here in the early days that the initiative has not been defined well 

enough, and the leadership is not yet clear enough. 

Mr. PAYNE. Yes, Mr. Simpkins. 

Mr. SIMPKINS. The coalitions that I work with are focusing on the 

administration’s food security policy. As my colleague just said, it 

is very complex. As you recall, when the Secretary announced it, 

she talked about seven distinct parts. They are not all integrated 

with one another. We want to work with the administration to 

make this work because we know how important it is. It is just 

going to be very difficult, and we haven’t yet seen a real action 

plan for how to live this out. 

And we are hoping that the Congress, particularly the House, 

will help with that because I think—no offense to my colleagues 

from the State Department—a lot of the policy comes from the Congress. And in this case, I think that the bills have been introduced—I think Ms. McCollum has a bill. In the Senate, they have 

bill. I think working with those, we have at least some starting 

point to make this happen. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 

thank our panel for your testimony and leadership, and to the long 

stayers in the audience who have been very patient as we have 

voted and asked our questions. 

Just let me begin. Ambassador Lyman, you, like Ambassador 

Johnnie Carson, who talked about many believing that some African countries have reached a plateau—and he used the term a 

‘‘democratic recession.’’ You talked about stalled and in some cases 

regressing democracy. And I am wondering if our other panelists 

first and foremost think that too is an apt description of, you know, 

the macro view of sub-Saharan Africa. 

Secondly, on the issue of trafficking, back in 1998, I introduced 

the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. It took 2 years to get it 

passed. There was an enormous amount of indifference, not overt 

and outright opposition, but indifference to enacting the bill. When 

I would talk about trafficking, even domestically, I would talk to 

U.S. attorneys, and they would say, ‘‘Oh, you mean drug trafficking.’’ I mean, that was the immediate go-to concept that they 

had. They didn’t seem to understand that there was this explosion 

of human trafficking, sex and labor trafficking. 

It took 2 years to get the bill passed. And then about a year or 

so for the Bush administration—and, Mr. Chairman, you might reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:29 Aug 25, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00113 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\032410\55689 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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call—because when it comes to human rights, there can’t be any 

partisanship—I chaired a hearing in this room in which we held 

the Bush administration to account for its very slow and tardy designation of the TIP office and the naming of the countries. The 

Trafficking in Persons report, which is now, as it ought to be, an 

annual event, and even more frequently if there are countries that 

go on or off the Tier list. But there was this sense of indifference 

that greatly appalled me. 

Well, we had some initial success among countries. There was a 

robust acceptance by some that, yeah, they needed to do something. 

I am happy to say that in this 2009 report, Nigeria is a Tier 1 

country, as well as Mauritius. Nigeria more than doubled the number of trafficking offenders convicted and improved assistance to 

victims. Their NAPTIP office runs seven shelters. Two other shelters are run. I have visited some of those shelters in Abuja as well 

as in Lagos. They do a wonderful job on a shoestring budget. They 

are Tier 1. 

The sad story is the number of countries that have slipped over 

these last several years. There are now seven African countries—

and we will get a new report, as we all know, in June—seven African countries on Tier 3, a dozen and a half on what we call the 

Watch List. That is the bubble. They can easily slip into Tier 3. A 

particular situation occurred this year. When we had the Haitian 

earthquake, Niger, which has some 8,800 to 43,000 Nigerians living under conditions of judicial and hereditary slavery, according to 

the TIP report, has all kinds of problems with child prostitution. 

There are children being sold into sexual bondage. Money was 

taken out of the TIP work, Trafficking in Persons work, for Niger 

and put into the Haitian effort. And that was one of my questions 

that I meant to ask and will ask of the administration. When is 

it going back? 

But it seems to me it is quickly deprioritized when it comes to 

African countries. Again, if you look at the list, look at the map, 

there is an awful lot of red, you know, the designation of Tier 3, 

egregious violators. I am worried that this is slipping. 

I held hearings in this room on Mauritania. Mauritania still is 

a Tier 3 country due to slavery. Sudan is a slave country as well. 

I hope that all of you might speak to this festering sore of trafficking. Even when I was in Nigeria, a Tier 1 country, I learned 

to my shock and dismay that the Juju men put the fear of—and 

it is not God—into these women and young girls prior to their 

being trafficked into Europe, whether it be into Rome or anywhere 

else, for modern day slavery. 

So if you can speak to the issue, I don’t think we are doing 

enough. And I think as the transfer of funds of Niger clearly underscores, there are other spigots of money that could have been 

tapped, in my opinion, in order to help the Haitian catastrophe. 

Secondly, or thirdly—and if you could answer these, I would really appreciate it—microcredit. Are we doing enough with regards to 

microcredit for Africa? Mr. Simpkins, I know you made a trip. It 

was on behalf of the committee. I couldn’t join you because of votes 

in Zimbabwe. You spoke about Zimbabwe in your testimony. I remember you coming back with a devastating report about the 

scorched earth policy that Mugabe was following. And you also 

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spoke in your testimony in terms of action, stronger endorsement 

for effective corporate social responsibility practices as embodied in 

the Global Sullivan Principles. Could you give us an update where 

all of that is? I mean, are the Sullivan principles being taken seriously? 

And finally—two finals—Paul Kagame, in the upcoming August 

elections—Mr. Cyllah, you might want to speak to this. Do you 

think the U.S. Government, especially with the deteriorating 

human rights situation there, is doing enough to make sure that 

that election truly is free and fair? 

And finally, I asked our previous panel about this ART implementing partners letter from CDC, which I find very disturbing, 

that were freezing the antiretroviral drugs that will be provided to 

those who are HIV positive. The letter says since 2003—this is the 

one that went to Uganda, and we are trying to track down the ones 

that went to the other partners:

‘‘Since 2003, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief 

has successfully provided chronic lifesaving treatment to more 

than 100,000 HIV-infected Ugandans. The U.S. Government 

recognizes that in the coming years, the number of patients in 

need of antiretroviral treatment will increase dramatically. 

While the U.S. Government is committed to continuing treatment for those already enrolled, funding for HIV programs is 

not expected to increase in the near future.’’

In the next paragraph, they talk about, ‘‘Each partner should expect to have a flat line budget for ARV.’’ That to me will be a death 

sentence to huge numbers of people who will need this lifesaving 

drug. Your thoughts on that, because I think we need to push back 

on that one. 

Ambassador LYMAN. Well, let me speak to a couple of the issues 

you raised, Congressman, very serious ones indeed. The trafficking 

in people is a terrible issue, and you can say it is part of poverty, 

et cetera, but it is really part of criminality. And some countries, 

as you point out, have made progress, when it is publicized, when 

people react to it and realize what is happening. Other governments are weak or don’t care enough. I think you in the Congress 

have put a spotlight on this, which makes a difference because it 

really is terrible exploitation. 

My guess is, although I am no expert, that you are getting links 

between the various criminality groups, the groups that traffic people, the groups that traffic drugs contraband, et cetera. Building up 

capacity in Africa to deal with this I think is extremely important. 

I would also point to one other thing that has not been emphasized strongly enough, and that is the role of the Africa Union in 

this regard and the sub-regional groups because these are crossborder problems. And you need to develop cooperation across borders among these groups. And I think that may need a lot more 

attention in order to get at this problem and to strengthen the cooperation amongst security services. 

Mr. SMITH. If you could yield on that briefly. Also, on the protection side, the cooperation of faith-based organizations. 

Ambassador LYMAN. Yes. 

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Mr. SMITH. Which, if mobilized, can be a prevention tool and 

a——

Ambassador LYMAN. Absolutely. I don’t know about these letters 

on that freezing, but it touches on a big issue that has to be faced, 

not only the United States but the world. We have made tremendous progress under PEPFAR in going from—what is it—100,000 

people to 4 million people now worldwide on these drugs. The future, as you know, is that there are 40 million people in the world 

who are infected. Eventually, all of them will need treatment at 

some point. And therefore, that rising curve is something that we 

in the G8 and others have to think about. How do we do this? How 

do we carry this? Who will be responsible, as you say, for people’s 

lives every day? And I am not sure what is behind the letter, but 

I do think that we have to start to think about how we plan ahead, 

how we finance this, how it doesn’t eat up all of the other financing 

of things we need, but doesn’t run into the problems you mentioned. 

I haven’t heard about that letter, and I will certainly want to 

look into it myself. But I think we are going to face this question 

more and more. As we get more successful, and then we say, well, 

now we have got to go to 6 million, 8 million, 10 million, et cetera—

I think it is an issue worth watching very closely. 

Mr. SCHNEIDMAN. Congressman Smith, let me respond quickly to 

three of the issues that you raised. The first is the notion of a 

democratic recession in Africa. My first reaction to hearing my colleague, Mr. Cyllah, talk about 20 countries who are going to have 

elections this year in Africa doesn’t strike me as much of a recession. But I think more fundamentally, I think we have to be very 

careful about talking about Africa in broad brush strokes. With as 

many nations as there are on the continent, 53, some countries are 

doing better than others. Some countries do better at this election 

than they did the last one, or they will do better in the future. And 

I think the challenge to those of us who are partners with the continent, be it through civil society or government, is how to maximize the better outcome. 

I think Ambassador Lyman has described quite graphically and 

accurately the decline in the quality of elections in Nigeria. Having 

said that, maybe in Zimbabwe, you know, elections there, which 

have not been strong elections at all, actually can play a role in alleviating this crisis in the coming months and years, if we can get 

those elections right. So I think we have to guard against broadbrush generalizations and really talk about specific countries and 

what are the natures of the democratic challenges. 

Let me talk about trafficking in persons. I have had some experience. First, to applaud your initiative and your energy in bringing 

this to the forefront. In my work, I deal with American companies 

to help give them strategic advice in their investments in Africa. 

And I have dealt with some oil companies in Nigeria, Angola, and 

Equatorial Guinea, and in each one this has been a very important 

issue. And the companies take this very seriously. And the dynamic 

that happens is when the report comes or is about to come, the dialogue with the State Department increases quite dramatically, and 

with the embassy, and with the host governments. And it really 

helps to elevate the whole dialogue as it concerns the creation of 

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shelters, as it concerns radio advertising, as it concerns posters. 

And it is not perfect by any stretch, but it certainly has the attention, I think, of critical stakeholders. And I can only encourage you 

to sort of continue your efforts because it is taken seriously by 

some of the companies that I work with. And I think it does have 

an impact on the ground, certainly in the dialogue between our embassies and the host governments. 

As for microcredit, I think a lot is going on there, and I think 

we have learned a lot, starting with the Gramene experience in 

Bangladesh and organizations like BRAC and others. And I think 

there is a consciousness about how to be effective with microcredit 

in Africa. We are seeing it not only in USAID, but a number of 

philanthropic initiatives as well. 

My concern, where there is a lack, is in small and medium enterprise sector. I developed the Liberia Enterprise Development Fund 

with Mr. Bob Johnson, who put up $3 million. We were able to leverage $23 million from OPIC. And that fund is now giving out 

loans in the area of $30,000 and $40,000 and $50,000 and 

$100,000, and this helps to create companies that can employ 10 

and 15, 20, 50 people and that have real growth potential. 

My concern with the microcredit, as important as it is, it is really 

sustaining you for today. It is not really building for tomorrow. And 

I think we have to give better thought how the microcredit can link 

and grow into the SME level and how we address that SME level 

in a more systematic way across the continent because the appetite 

is so strong, and the environment is increasingly there for what I 

look at as enterprise-led development, where people want to start 

companies. They want to join companies, and they understand that 

the government is not an answer to their job search. 

Mr. CYLLAH. Congressman, it is quite interesting the way you 

talk about the democracy plateau in Africa because I will say that 

looking at the organization I represent, we don’t see a democracy 

plateau. We see a plateau in the support to the democratic process 

in the various African countries. And so I go to Dr. Schneidman. 

I think we have to take these countries one at a time and look at—

if you look at Ghana for an example, before 1997, I mean, there 

was a leader who took all supreme court justices and shot them at 

the beach. But pressure mounted where he didn’t change out of the 

goodness of his heart, but out of pressure. 

And so I think he later on developed a process where he felt he 

really did hand over power to a civilian government, and we are 

beginning to see a process in Ghana moving toward real democracy. But I think again, as I said, elections are not just the event, 

and the habit from the West has been we look at these elections 

a few months before the elections; we send observers. After the 

elections, they say, oh, these elections are really good. I can give 

you a good example—and this is again Ghana. I went on a pre-election assessment to Ghana, where after the assessment, we had a 

press conference where we were asked as to what we saw. We all 

said, yes, we saw a peaceful transfer; we saw a peaceful process 

going on. And one of the reporters asked me directly, where are 

you from, and I told him. And he said, many are from Sierra 

Leone; how can you come and tell us that this place is peaceful. Do 

114

you know the body language we use? Do you understand the language that we speak. 

So exactly, we don’t. And I think we were just looking at the initial stages as we saw rather than looking at the process. If we had 

had the opportunity to be there long-term, we probably would have 

seen some of the violence or some of the undercurrents by the elections that maybe are upcoming. I think that is where we talk about 

having an election process being supported and an election cycle 

being supported rather than the election event. 

Elections in Zimbabwe—well, we saw what happened after the 

elections were stolen. So again, that confirms to us that the people 

themselves who are going to be ruled were not accepting of those 

results. They went to the streets. And as I said earlier, if we had 

given support to Zimbabwe from the onset, we probably would not 

have seen this happen. 

That brings me to the other question again as to are these leaders ready to change. My answer is no. So do you give them that 

kind of a support? My answer is not to be friends of people, but 

to be friends of the country and those people, not the leaders. You 

know, I have a good example when I wore a human rights hat 

some years back. I was invited to be part of a panel with one of 

your former colleagues, Congressman Bill Green, in Pennsylvania 

at one of the universities. And we were criticizing the policies of 

South Africa and Zaire then and now Congo. And we were talking 

even about Ethiopia again at that point. 

One of the participants came directly at Congressman Green and 

said, why are you always criticizing friends of America or the U.S. 

Why don’t you look at the Soviet friends as well? Well, the congressman was talking about Ethiopia, criticizing Ethiopia. But then 

what it said to me was that we were supporting the leaders who 

were supporting friends, and we are not supporting the process and 

the people in those countries. I think that is what we need to look 

at, and those are the recommendations that we will make to you, 

to look at the electoral process in each of those countries, and think 

in long term, just like you think democracy in a long-term process. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPKINS. Well, in terms of the regression in democracy, I 

think there has been a sliding back because, as my colleague says, 

we look at the event of Election Day, and not the whole process. 

I do agree we come in too late. You can’t parachute into an election 

situation and really do a good job. I have seen the chairman on the 

campaign trail in a number of places, and you know that there are 

things that happen long before Election Day that determine whether you are going to win or not. 

Back in 1992, I was part of the team that observed the 1992 elections in Kenya, and that election was manipulated months and 

months before when the electoral districts were apportioned. There 

were these huge districts for the opposition and these little tiny 

districts for the ruling party. So quite naturally, they have an advantage from the start. 

The other thing is that on election commissions, we need to have 

permanent election commissions. You can’t do this on an ad hoc 

basis, which is what we are doing too often. 

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Thirdly, I think that we seem to be allergic to working with political parties. And when we look at countries like South Africa and 

Namibia and Equatorial Guinea even, part of the reason why you 

have these states dominated by one party, even Botswana, which 

is a democratic situation, is that the opposition is too weak to really compete. I observed the election in Equatorial Guinea just several months ago. And honestly, it is very difficult to say that that 

is a good election when you win by 97 percent of the vote. But the 

opposition is so terrible that even if the President didn’t campaign, 

he probably still would win, though not by 97 percent. 

We need to put more effort and resources into working with 

these political parties so they are able to genuinely compete. Even 

in some cases where there is competition, it is competition between 

one person and another person. Both their parties are cults of personality and not real parties. That is why we have a problem with 

this whole succession of sons because if you had a real party, there 

would be people within that party who would be in line to be the 

next President. 

Now in terms of trafficking, Mr. Smith, you know, you and I 

have traveled to countries in looking at that, and one of the things 

we saw was a lack of effective law enforcement, for one. You have 

situations in which families don’t do due diligence on people who 

come by and say, well, look, I can take your daughter to the city; 

she will make money; she will send money back home. They have 

no idea if that is real or not, and often it isn’t real. 

When we first started talking about this—I talked to some of my 

African friends, and they said, oh, you don’t understand us. We 

have cultural differences. People, cousins, come from the city, and 

they come to town, and they don’t get paid, and they work in the 

house because at some point they are going to get an education. 

Well, that is not what we are talking about. We were in Sudan in 

Khartoum and talked that group CEAWAC. We were talking about 

slavery. They were talking about bride stealing. There is a big difference. But they didn’t seem to grasp the difference in that. 

So the other thing is a lot of these young women are sent to the 

West, to Italy—a lot of Nigerians are sent to Italy. A lot of them 

go throughout Europe, and a lot of them end up here. And it is 

very difficult for us to tell people how terribly they do in enforcing 

trafficking laws when we have raids here where for a long term 

there have been whole, you know, cabals of traffickers. 

Now Zimbabwe, you are right, I went with—in fact, Dr. Pearl 

Alice Marsh, to take a look at the situation there. You know, I 

don’t think I have ever seen in 30 years in looking at Africa a country devolve so much. There was a CODEL that Mr. Royce led back 

in 1997, and Zimbabwe was one of the countries we visited. And 

it was an oasis after being in Angola and Democratic Republic of 

Congo. You end up in Zimbabwe that had a really successful stock 

exchange and gas stations with what looked like 7-Elevens. Everything was good. The economy was going well. And then all of a sudden, the government took it into its mind to find this money, this 

foreign money, that was in the system, and the inflation rate went 

up so high that even the banks were going on the black market to 

get money. 

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But they told the businesses, the shopkeepers, you have to use 

the official rate that we have. So as a result, they went out of business because they were losing money with every transaction. Then 

they went after the commercial farmers. Now the commercial farmers admitted that they got this land as a result of it being taken 

from Africans. So it should have been transferred. That is not a 

question. The question is how it was done. 

The black farmworkers were not given the land. Cronies were 

given the land, and they did not know how to deal with it. When 

their production went down, the manufacturing in Zimbabwe, 

which was dependent on commercial farming, also went down. 

Then they had the situation that we saw, which was they went 

after the traders looking for this foreign money in the system. They 

put all of them out of business, even ones who had licenses. Now 

you have the whole economy, formal and informal, that is out of 

business. 

So it is ironic, though, that when we disallowed Zimbabwe from 

being in AGOA, they were still in the generalized system of preferences, and they still happened for a long time to be one of our 

leading trading partners. So that is an anomaly in the system that 

we need to look at. 

Now you asked me about the Global Sullivan Principles. We have 

several hundred endorses from around the world in America and 

Europe, in Africa, in Asia, including I think a Chinese company or 

two, and in Latin America. And we think that it governs the way 

businesses deal with their employees, but also their communities. 

And we are looking at using it for a water program in Liberia, 

where we want to work with the companies that use water so that 

they clean the water and provide it to their employees so they don’t 

have to go looking for water for their families, and also to their 

communities. 

Lastly, on the PEPFAR issues, theoretically, I would agree with 

the President’s view that at some point we need to transfer responsibility for paying for these treatments to African governments. My 

only concern, and my main concern, is that too many of these governments don’t have a working healthcare system. So if you do it 

too quickly, what you are doing is just ending the reality of treatment. 

Mr. PAYNE. Well, let me thank you all very much. That was a 

very healthy exchange, and I really appreciate all as we could certainly go on. And I, first of all, appreciate your staying over the 

time. I am sure that you intended to stay, but this has been a very 

important hearing. We have been attempting to get the Assistant 

Secretary here for some time. And so you made history because you 

are here with him at this hearing before our subcommittee. And 

your information was great. 

I just want to thank you, Dr. Schneidman, for mentioning the bill 

that I introduced, the Higher Education and Expansion Improvement Act. As you know, we have been pushing education for the 

girl child, elementary and secondary. And I would certainly like to 

once again request my great friend, the ranking member, to take 

a look at the bill again. We are trying to get a great co-sponsor to 

it. So we will confer the next day or two to see whether we can 

move that forward in a bipartisan way. 

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Let me also ask for unanimous consent to enter into the record 

a statement by the African Rights Monitor about human rights and 

humanitarian conditions in the Ogaden, and I will enter that without exception, without objection. 

And finally, once again, thank you all for your attendance, and 

those of you who stayed to listen, it has been very instructive, and 

we will certainly glean a lot of important information as we move 

forward in our policies here in the United States Congress. 

At this time I ask unanimous consent for members to have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks. And therefore, at 

this time, the hearing stands adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 8 o’clock p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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