SECURITY AND STABILITY IN AFRICA:

A DEVELOPMENT APPROACH

Clarence J. Bouchat

January 2010

The views expressed in this report are those of the author 

and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of 

the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or 

the U.S. Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute 

(SSI) publications enjoy full academic freedom, provided 

they do not disclose classified information, jeopardize 

operations security, or misrepresent official U.S. policy. 

Such academic freedom empowers them to offer new and 

sometimes controversial perspectives in the interest of 

furthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared for 

public release; distribution is unlimited.

*****

This publication is subject to Title 17, United States Code, 

Sections 101 and 105. It is in the public domain and may not 

be copyrighted.

Visit our website for other free publication 

downloads

http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/

To rate this publication click here.
ii

*****

This manuscript was funded by the U.S. Army War College 

External Research Associates Program. Information on this 

program is available on our website, www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.

army.mil, at the Publishing button.

*****

Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be 

forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War 

College, 122 Forbes Ave, Carlisle, PA 17013-5244. 

*****

All Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) publications are available 

on the SSI homepage for electronic dissemination. Hard copies 

of this report may also be ordered from our homepage. SSI’s 

homepage address is: www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil.

*****

The Strategic Studies Institute publishes a monthly e-mail 

newsletter to update the national security community on the 

research of our analysts, recent and forthcoming publications, and 

upcoming conferences sponsored by the Institute. Each newsletter 

also provides a strategic commentary by one of our research 

analysts. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, please 

subscribe on our homepage at www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.

mil/newsletter/.

ISBN 1-58487-421-X
iii

CONTENTS

Foreword ............................................................... v

About the Author ........................................................ vi

Summary ............................................................vii

Why Examine a Development Approach to Africa? ...1

Africa’s Importance and Problems ....................... 2

The Keys to Stability and Security..........................12

Development and Security.............................................21

Africa’s Human and Economic 

Development..............................................................21

 Measuring Africa’s Economic Development.........23

Measuring Africa’s Human Development............28

Measuring Other Development Indicators

in Africa.......................................................................36

Economic Measures Summmary.............................43

Africa’s Ecomonic Activities..........................................46

Economic Activities and Development..................46

Agriculture..................................................................49

Extractive Resources................................................58

Industry.......................................................................66

Services........................................................................75

Africa’s Economy Summary....................................83

Analysis and Recommendations...................................85

Keep What Works......................................................87

Military Lead...........................................................100

Civilian Lead............................................................114

Summary........................................................................125

Endnotes.........................................................................129

v

FOREWORD

For a topic long overlooked by American policymakers 

and strategists, the security and stability of Africa has 

recently become an important national issue. This 

nascent importance is readily seen in the increased time, 

effort, and resources now devoted to the continent by 

such new organizations as the U.S. Africa Command 

(USAFRICOM). However, to be effective this growing 

interest must be rooted in the desire to overcome centuries 

of ignorance and misunderstanding about the conditions 

and people of Africa.

This paper seeks to overcome this lack of 

understanding of the significance of African security 

and stability by discussing the fundamental issues of 

economic development and political governance through 

which enduring stability and security might be obtained. 

This primer is particularly relevant for government and 

military officials tasked with African responsibilities but 

who may not possess much African experience.

This is not a typical Letort Paper advocating a position 

or a policy. Although it does offer solutions in terms of 

improving African stability and security, its main intent 

is to offer a framework of several key issues which should 

give policymakers the knowledge they need to work in a 

constantly changing and very challenging environment. 

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to publish 

this paper as a contribution toward a more complete 

understanding of Africa and its security and economic 

environments in order to improve the conditions of its 

people.

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute 
vi

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CLARENCE J. BOUCHAT is a retired U.S. Air Force 

lieutenant colonel and is currently a senior researcher 

with the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability 

Operations Institute, and an adjunct professor at the 

Harrisburg Area Community College, and the U.S. 

Army War College (USAWC) Department of Distance 

Education. His last assignment was as a faculty 

member of the USAWC. Immediately after retirement 

he went to Liberia as part of a Security Sector Reform 

team meant to reconstitute a new Ministry of Defense 

after 14 years of devastating and internecine civil war. 

During his military career, Lieutenant Colonel Bouchat 

flew fighter aircraft; was a leader and innovator in 

command and control of airpower before, during, and 

after Operation ENDURING FREEDOM; and he was 

stationed overseas six times. In this paper, he combines 

his extensive knowledge of economics and political 

geography, gained while teaching at the U.S. Air Force 

Academy and at the University of Maryland, with 

strategic analysis as taught at the USAWC to explain 

some of the problems found in Africa, and to propose 

solutions. Lieutenant Colonel Bouchat authored a 

complementary monograph, An Introduction to Theater 

Strategy and Regional Security, previously published 

by the Strategic Studies Institute. Lieutenant Colonel 

Bouchat is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy 

and the University of Southern California.
vii

SUMMARY

Economic activities are the most central of all human 

endeavors. Although rich in human and geographic 

diversity, Africa has fallen behind the rest of the world 

in its economic development, adversely impacting 

African aspirations. This paper explains why economic 

development and good governance need to be the 

basis of security and stability in Africa, and why both 

should be a main focus for U. S. military engagement 

on the continent. 

Written as a primer for military and government 

staff members who may be unfamiliar with Africa but 

are assigned duties that involve participation in African 

affairs, this paper explains the historic and modern 

importance of Africa to American national interests. 

It then lays a foundation as to how and why the U.S. 

government, and especially the military, might become 

involved in improving African economic development 

and political governance in order to attain security and 

stability. To better understand the circumstances in 

Africa, this paper describes and analyzes its economic 

and political conditions in terms of economic, social, 

and demographic measures revealing why, as a 

region, Africa lags the world in economic and human 

development. The reasons for slow development are 

examined through Africa's main economic activities, 

which give insight to its current conditions and ways 

to improve economic development and governance. 

With these insights provided as background, the 

paper then reviews current U.S. military engagement 

with African nations and its effectiveness. It then argues 

that military-led nation assistance and peace building 

operations are not as good an option for improved 

African development as the more appropriate approach 
viii

of military-support to an interagency-led operation 

under a better resourced U.S. Agency for International 

Development, which would more effectively assist 

Africa with achieving stability and security. 
1

SECURITY AND STABILITY IN AFRICA:

A DEVELOPMENT APPROACH

WHY EXAMINE A DEVELOPMENT APPROACH 

TO AFRICA?

For generations, Africa has been known as the Dark 

Continent because of the general Western ignorance 

of its geography, especially before the late 19th

century, and more recently of its people and culture. 

This ignorance has led to centuries of degradation 

through imperialism and decades of misinformed 

policies. However, over the past several years there 

has been a renewed interest by the U.S. Government 

in Africans and their continent, as evidenced by 

increased interaction in diplomacy, defense, and 

development. Many recent programs meant to better 

engage African states and their people attest to this 

interest through billions of dollars spent on disease 

reduction, promoting peace through enhancing African 

peacekeeping abilities, and free trade opportunities 

to encourage growth. Although Africa has grown 

more important to Americans and their interests in 

the past decade, in many ways the U.S. Government 

and military officials are no better informed on Africa 

than were their predecessors. In light of this newfound 

interest in Africa, and new organizations like the U.S. 

Africa Command (USAFRICOM), this paper strives 

to educate those who are unfamiliar with Africa, but 

tasked with participating in its affairs. This paper 

starts with a brief overview of why Africa has grown 

more important than ever before to Westerners—

especially Americans, both North and South—to 

explain this increased interest, and to motivate those 

wishing to understand more. This paper then lays the 
2

foundation for establishing much needed stability and 

security in what has been an unsettled and violent 

region by linking those desired conditions to economic 

development and good governance. The defense and 

diplomacy aspects of security and stability are relatively 

well understood by most military and government 

officials, but the economic development aspects are 

not. For that reason, this survey explains the poor 

economic and governance situation found in Africa 

and examines the economic activity underpinnings 

of it so as to enlighten new practitioners about what 

has occurred and what changes are taking place. This 

review then examines the military’s role in improving 

conditions in Africa by discussing the current forms 

of engagement and proposes more robust methods 

of military involvement. When use of the military is 

required, the U.S. military can best serve stability 

interests in Africa by conducting traditional security 

enforcement, newly relearned stability operations, and 

expanded peace building roles under the firm direction 

of a professional development agency. As interest in 

Africa increases, USAFRICOM will play a growing 

role, but one that must be properly defined to gain the 

best effect.

Africa’s Importance and Problems.

The West’s long-term strategic interests in Africa are 

clear: we must thwart the growth of terrorism and 

transnational crime; we must prevent destabilizing mass 

migrations; and we must maintain secure trade links. In 

order to realize these strategic objectives, as well as to act 

of out of simple human compassion to alleviate suffering 

on a colossal scale, the world must fix the current 

situation in Africa. From a more selfish perspective, a 
3

strong and vigorous Africa will open its markets to the 

rest of the world and at the same time liberate an entire 

continent’s energy, intelligence, and creativity. 

 — USAFRICOM Early Mission Statement1

The continent of Africa and its people have been 

a central part of world events since antiquity when 

northern Africa played a key role in Mediterranean and 

Middle Eastern affairs. A long and close association 

has grown between Arabs states and northern and 

eastern Africa from ensuing centuries of commerce, 

slave trading, migration, and Muslim proselytizing. 

Europeans also share a long history with Africa, 

starting in the modern era with the expeditions sent 

by Portugal’s Prince Henry the Navigator in the 1460s. 

From that time, Europe’s imperial ties have established 

special relationships between those historic colonizers 

and their former dependencies, which are apparent 

today in many African languages, Christian beliefs, 

and economic and political institutions. Conversely, 

Africans have exerted economic and cultural influence 

in Europe as a result of the significant numbers of 

African immigrants living and working throughout the 

European Union (EU). Even for the relatively young 

Americas, Africa has played an important role since 

the notorious 17th century triangular trade,2

 which 

established Africa as a major base of international 

commerce and intercourse. The human connection 

between the Americas and Africa, originating in the 

forced migration of Africans as slaves, is of fundamental 

interest to both North and South Americans since large 

segments of their populations and culture descended 

from Africans. Over 45 percent of Brazilians are at 

least partially of African descent, and the share of pure 

African descendents in countries like Haiti, Grenada, 

and Jamaica exceeds 75 percent.3

 African cultural 
4

has had dramatic influence on the Americas, which 

is evident in language, religion, food, and music (the 

reputed origins of jazz, blues, and rock-and-roll). The 

United States, with 12 percent of its population of 

African origin, has also maintained a semi-colonial 

connection with Africa through the reverse migration 

of freed American slaves to establish the country of 

Liberia in 1847, and the oscillating special relationship 

that resulted. Thus there are long and deep cultural 

ties between Africans and Europeans, Arabs, and 

Americans—establishing the first of many African 

influences throughout the world.

In the 21st century, Africa plays the same worldwide economic role that it has for the previous 4 

centuries—providing natural resources from its 

plentiful supplies, and markets for manufactured 

goods. In earlier times foreign merchants traded for 

gold, salt, ivory, and grain (in addition to human chattel). Today, Africa is a crucial source of energy, 

strategic and ordinary minerals, and precious gems. 

West Africa holds 60 billion barrels of oil reserves 

and large natural gas deposits,4 which are expected to 

comprise a quarter of U.S. petroleum imports by the 

year 2015.5

 Some analysts complain that this energy 

dependency is so important that it dominates U.S. 

policy in Africa at the expense of such other important 

concerns as security and development.6 Likewise, 

North Africa supplies a third of Europe’s oil and 

natural gas, much via undersea pipelines.7 India, with 

its rapidly growing economy, also desires to tap into 

Africa’s oil and significant uranium reserves through 

growing trade and diplomatic ties.8

 China depends 

on African oil for over 30 percent of its imports9 and 

actively pursues fuel and mineral resources throughout 

the continent with large infrastructure investments, 
5

supplying arms, and aid packages.10 African states 

hold significant reserves of strategic minerals, with 

South Africa a world leader in platinum (89 percent), 

chromium (61 percent), vanadium (24 percent), and 

gold (14 percent); Congo a leader in cobalt (49 percent) 

and industrial diamonds (26 percent); and Botswana 

in industrial diamonds (22 percent) and gemstones (23 

percent).11 Africa has also been a traditional overseas 

market destination for manufactured goods starting 

with the triangular trade by importing refined metals, 

cloth, guns, and ammunition. Such trade is indicative 

of Africa’s chronic economic underdevelopment that 

continues unabated. Today Africans buy some high 

end goods from Europe and America, but most of its 

needs are met by less expensive items from newly 

industrializing countries. Trade between China and 

Africa nearly tripled from $10.5 to $29.4 billion between 

2000 and 2004,12 and trade with India is estimated at $25 

billion.13 The bonanza of natural wealth and potentially 

large markets for manufactured goods helps to explain 

the renewed interest and competition in Africa by 

the industrialized states, and why Africa’s relatively 

underdeveloped situation is of increasing importance 

in the global economy. 

Africa’s strategic location also contributes to its 

global importance. Since antiquity, northern Africa 

has been part of the crossroads where three continents 

meet with an incalculable legacy of intellectual and 

economic activity. Africa was the barrier around which 

Europeans probed for the riches of the East and its 

importance remains, as it is flanked by major maritime 

passages at Gibraltar, Suez, the Bab el-Mandab, Cape of 

Good Hope, and the Gulf of Guinea. Its close proximity 

also makes oil, natural gas, and other African resources 

more attractive to European and American importers 

than similar goods from the more distant Middle 
6

East (as well as contributing to the diversification 

and security of sources). During World War II, Africa 

was used by the Allies as a staging ground for troops 

bound for Italy and southern France and for ferrying 

aircraft from Brazil through Liberia to the European 

theater. In the subsequent years following WWII, the 

political neutrality and newly independent status of 

many African countries made the continent a battle 

ground during the Cold War through proxy conflicts 

and political competition for support. African countries 

still remain politically important for the 54 votes they 

cast in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly and 

other international organizations and are wooed for 

their influence as one-quarter of the world’s sovereign 

states. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) gained 

admission to the UN General Assembly in 1971 with a 

large bloc of votes from African states. India hopes to 

use similar leverage in its favor to become a permanent 

member on the UN Security Council.14 Even the 

Nordic countries, with no vital interests in Africa, 

are very engaged in the region for the influence they 

can win “gaining international prestige and building 

reputations in order to achieve influence in a highly 

institutionalized world.”15 Whether as an obstacle, 

target, or transit area, Africa’s combination of strategic 

central location and international role remains an 

enduring part of its global importance.

The African continent’s location, spanning the 

equator, has also given it a rich ecological diversity and 

a key role in global climate and human health. Africa’s 

stunning physical beauty and cultural richness, as well 

as close proximity to Europe and strong historic and 

cultural ties with Europeans, is the foundation of an 

international tourism industry that is an economic 
7

mainstay to many African countries. Ecologically, 

Africa’s bio-diversity is an important source for 

economically valuable medicinal, food, fiber, and 

industrial products. For example, 25 percent of cancer 

medicines used in the United States originated from 

one of 40 rain forest plants from around the world, 

many of them from Africa, with 250 others known to 

have anti-cancer characteristics, and tens of thousands 

of other plants yet unexamined but threatened with 

extinction.16 Protecting such assets should be an 

international concern. Africa’s tropical forests also 

act as a carbon sink that moderates the global climate, 

but the forests are shrinking rapidly, for example 

Cameroon currently has only 40 percent of its original 

forest, the best condition of any African country. This 

loss contributes to the buildup of green house gases, 

soil degradation, and desertification.17 Another related 

world-wide threat is emerging in Africa’s interior. 

Over the past several decades, with the opening of 

previously inaccessible parts of Africa, the world 

has seen the sudden emergence of virulent diseases 

such as Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fevers. 

Slower developing Human Immunodeficiency Virus/

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) 

also originated in Africa18 and serves as a warning that 

local diseases may have world-wide consequences. 

Left alone, Africans would suffer greatly from their 

diminishing ecological heritage and devastating 

diseases, but so would the rest of the world through 

pandemics, global climate change, and loss of economic 

potential. For these reasons, it is easy to understand 

why Africa is important at the international level for a 

host of environmental, health, and well-being related 

issues, and why strengthening international support 

for Africa is necessary by the world of nations.
8

For both charitable and self interests, the 

more developed peoples of the world have often 

demonstrated a humanitarian obligation to those 

in Africa. This tradition dates back to Christian and 

Muslim missionaries who wished to do good and 

advance Africans in what was summarized as the 

“white man’s burden” by Rudyard Kipling. Modern 

Western interest for the plight of Africans might be 

dated to the one million Ethiopians who starved 

to death in 1984, launching an unprecedented 

intervention campaign including the groundbreaking 

Band Aid recordings and Live Aid concerts.19 Since 

then, Africa has been rocked by a series of natural and 

manmade disasters, including civil wars in Rwanda, 

Sudan, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Somalia, and 

desertification in the Sahel to name just a few that have 

garnered international attention and varying levels 

of assistance. Such tragedies have created enormous 

numbers of refugees, accounting for 7.5 of 9.2 million 

world-wide in 2005, and unsettled situations20 that can 

lead to intra-African tensions and foment hotbeds of 

terrorism and other forms of violence. Africa’s rapidly 

growing population of nearly one billion people face 

other humanitarian problems like the contagious 

diseases African typanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), 

cholera, yellow fever, and river blindness that leave 

its population vulnerable. Malaria alone kills one 

million people annually in Sub-Saharan Africa.21

These epidemics have been addressed through 

U.S. Government aid totalling $15 billion as part of 

the United States Leadership against HIV/AIDS, 

Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003, and renewed 

again in 2008. Most of this aid, along with many other 

programs from around the world, is destined for Africa 

to counter the two million infected with AIDS every 
9

year amounting to an estimated 22 million already 

afflicted.22 The cumulative suffering and lack of hope 

have led some 70,000 Africans annually, many the 

most highly educated, to migrate in search of a better 

life,23 with 4.6 million settling in nearby Europe.24

Much of this is through illegal immigration, including 

a dangerous trek by boat people, bringing many of the 

same problems and consequences experienced along 

the U.S. southern border. 

Africa poses important security concerns for 

the world because of its frequent internal conflict, 

corruption, and weak political structures that have 

made African states insecure and unstable. Starting in 

1957, the transition of colonial regimes to indigenous 

rule sometimes resulted in violence, but almost always 

in fragile and parochial governing schemes. Weak, 

inexperienced, and often self-serving governments, 

caught in the height of Cold War rivalries, made 

Africa an arena of international intrigue which rarely 

benefitted most Africans. The fighting in Angola and 

Mozambique are examples of prolonged suffering 

from such internal and external conflicts. To win favor 

and support for their causes, the Eastern and Western 

blocs offered aid that was usually unaccountable and 

misdirected, and thus reinforced a legacy of corruption 

and futility.25 Africa’s natural riches proved to be 

double-edged, as “likely to exacerbate a resource curse 

and benefits [that] accrue to elites thereby undermining 

development and democracy.”26 Sudan is an example 

where a government is not accountable to its people 

because its finances stem from oil sales, and its 

support comes from foreign governments.27 Since their 

independence, Sub-Saharan countries have endured 

over 80 successful and 108 failed coups28 attempts 
10

accounting for 44 percent of the world’s total.29 The 

worst example of violence is the Democratic Republic of 

Congo’s intra- and interstate fighting, which since 1996 

has claimed 5.4 million lives, making it the bloodiest 

conflict since World War II.30 Recent violence in Kenya 

and Zimbabwe shows that unrest can overturn decades 

of economic improvement. Another consequence is 

lack of confidence and investment of Africans in their 

homelands with over $150 billion of their capital kept 

off-shore and not supporting the economy in Africa.31

One U.S. Congressional Research Service Report on 

Africa concludes: “Instability . . . heightens human 

suffering and retards economic development, which 

may threaten U.S. economic interests.”32 Its insecurity 

and instability keep Africa a focus of international 

geopolitics.

Another problem is that Africa’s ill-governed 

spaces have also attracted terrorist groups by providing 

access to transport systems, safe havens, and venues 

for transnational terrorist funding.33 Africa has been 

the location of several deadly terrorist acts committed 

against Western interests such as the U.S. embassies 

in Nairobi and Dar el Salaam in 1998, and against 

Israeli interests in Kenya in 2002. Wars, lawlessness, 

and corruption have also fostered international crime 

on an immense scale. Africa acts as a way station for 

illegal drugs from Latin America and Asia that are 

destined for Europe. Africa is the center of an upsurge 

in piracy in the Gulfs of Aden and Guinea, and Nigeria 

is a notorious source of Internet-based crime. Not 

surprisingly, India has concentrated its diplomatic 

initiatives in east African countries “to fight terrorism 

and ensure maritime security in the Indian Ocean 

region, and to put a leash on the mafia groups that have 

been using some of these countries as a safe haven.”34
11

To confront such conflict and crime, military forces 

from around the world have been involved in African 

affairs from the UN’s first peace enforcement attempt 

in Congo in 1960, to numerous French and British 

interventions in their former dependencies. More 

recent military participation includes: the ill-fated 

U.S. mission in Somalia in 1994, and more successful 

efforts such as the United Nations Mission in Liberia 

(UNMIL), the international Combined Joint Task Force 

Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), and the Kimberly Process 

Scheme to prevent the sale of blood diamonds. The size 

and interlocking nature of problems explains why the 

U.S. National Security Strategy gives Africa renewed 

importance and seeks stability and security in Africa 

through improving governance and development by 

leading the actions of like-minded countries.35

In a world of increasing globalization, Africa is of 

rising importance to the international community for 

the opportunities it presents and the threats it poses. 

Africa’s strong cultural ties, its rich traditions, and 

its essential economic trade have benefitted much of 

the world. Africa’s location and its roles in climate 

moderation, world transportation, and international 

organizations are literally central to global interests. 

Africans’ suffering from disease, underdevelopment, 

and poverty burdens and hobbles Africans and 

their participation in world activities. Finally, weak 

political will and institutions that tolerate rampant 

conflict, crime, and corruption threaten international 

security and stability, as well as African prosperity. 

These problems were increasingly addressed by the 

administrations of Presidents William J. Clinton and 

George W. Bush through greater action and intervention 

in Africa.36 President Barak Obama’s first official visit 

to Africa in 2009 purposefully underscored Africa’s 
12

interconnectedness with the world by making his visit 

to Ghana part of his mission to a G-8 summit in Italy. He 

explained, “Africa is not separate from world affairs,” 

but is a fully integrated part of the global economy.37

As Africa has grown more important to both the United 

States and the rest of the world, we need to better 

understand its debilitating problems and their causes, 

so that we might chart courses of action by which to 

address them.

The Keys to Stability and Security.

Correspondingly, the overall posture and thinking of 

the United States armed forces has shifted—away from 

solely focusing on direct American military action, and 

towards new capabilities to shape the security environment in ways that obviate the need for military intervention in the future.

 — Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates38

Many causes have been suggested for the chronic 

problems Africans face: social, geographic, imperialist, 

ethnic, or religious, to name just a few. Because Africa’s 

problems are complex and diverse nearly any suggested 

cause may be contributory, but not necessarily 

fundamental. For example, in less-nuanced discussions, 

shorthand explanations sometimes attribute Africa’s 

problems to cultural stereotypes with easy labels 

that too often deal only with symptoms.39 However, 

Africa’s cultural diversity may be a strength as well 

as a weakness. Physical geographic characteristics 

also offer both advantages and disadvantages as their 

benefit depends upon how nature’s cards are played. 
13

Certainly some things, like Africa’s propensity for 

disease, are detrimental—but Africa does not face any 

problems graver than those already addressed by other 

more successful developing regions of the world.40

While on his first trip to Africa, President Obama 

directly addressed the reasons for Africa lagging 

by declaring, “For many years we’ve made excuses 

about corruption or poor governance, [insisting] this 

was somehow the consequence of neocolonialism, or 

the West has been oppressive, or racism . . . I’m not a 

believer in excuses.”41 The problems that Africans face 

come down to two fundamental challenges well within 

Africans’ ability to control: establishing good political 

governance and sustainable economic development—

both of which are part of the foundation of the stability 

and security they need.42 Internal and regional 

security and stability enable the formation of proper 

governance and development, but good governance 

and economic improvement also directly contribute to 

stability and security. However, political governance 

and economic development are the structures upon 

which other problems will be solved. For policymakers, 

especially military ones looking to assist Africa, the 

security aspects are relatively well understood, but the 

economic and political sides are less well known, and 

need to be emphasized because they are crucial. For 

that reason, this paper surveys economic and political 

aspects of Africa’s condition and their ties to security 

and stability, so as to better understand and achieve 

U.S. national interests and Africa’s common goals.

Security and stability are recognized as precursors 

to solving other problems in a country because they 

form a needed solid foundation.43 The traditional 

military view of state security is control of borders 

and vital accesses and absence of unwanted foreign 
14

coercion in sovereign affairs. However, security and 

stability also require internal rule of law, order, and 

justice to form a safe, secure, and stable environment 

in which to gain the local populace’s support.44 From 

the 19th century Philippines to modern Afghanistan 

U.S. military operations show that state security and 

internal stability factors must be addressed to establish 

the prerequisites for building viable nations.45 Simply 

stated, instability, violence, and war are major 

constraints to economic development anywhere in the 

world, as is especially demonstrated in Sub-Saharan 

Africa.46 In part, this is because secure and stable 

conditions lay the foundation to sustain the good 

governance and economic development that make 

a state viable.47 The commander of the U.S. Army’s 

Combined Arms Center (CAC) calls such actions in 

places like Sub-Saharan Africa “preemptive stability 

operations,” attaining security and stability before, and 

not after, violence starts.48 The foundational need for 

stability and security is equally recognized by Africans, 

as when leaders of the Economic Community of West 

African States (ECOWAS) realized that a “combination 

of poverty and bad governance is no doubt a great 

part of the causes of the conflicts in West Africa. 

Accordingly, there can be no economic advancement 

without a peaceful, stable and secure environment.”49

Liberia’s Minister of Information is more explicit in 

that he supports the U.S. Government policy “that 

development operations must in some way become 

synergized with defense operations; the former cannot 

occur without the latter.”50 These are basic principles 

on which both Africans and those who wish to assist 

them can agree.

Stability and security contribute to human and 

economic development by establishing the conditions 
15

by which they can flourish, but security and stability 

also depend upon them in a symbiotic way. The entire 

premise behind the U.S. Agency for International 

Development (USAID) philosophy on economic growth 

in post-conflict countries is that “the fundamentals 

of economic growth increase the likelihood of 

successfully preventing a return to conflict.”51 Internal 

conflict may arise when modernization brings rising 

expectations within a society that “are difficult to 

assimilate in the unstable political systems which 

characterize the developing world.”52 For instance, 

lack of economic development undermines stability 

through abject poverty when a population expects 

that conditions should be better.53 This encourages 

risk takers to use violence to change the situation or at 

least gain their share of any meager wealth.54 Growing 

expectations compound insecurity and instability 

when population growth outstrips economic growth, 

as happens in Africa. The Joint Operating Environment

gloomily forecasts that over the next 20 years, it will be 

Africans who mainly constitute the bottom billion of 

poverty world-wide, resulting in violence within and 

between states.55 Likewise dashed expectations due 

to political mal-governance undermine stability and 

security. Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu believes that 

in apartheid South Africa, “Stability and peace came 

when the inalienable rights of all were recognized.”56

Political access and change are necessary to allow 

the readjustment and balance often required to 

avert violence in fragile states.57 Such codependence 

among the essential conditions of stability, security, 

development, and governance makes improving the 

situation in Africa challenging. However, during 

President Bush’s last trip through Africa in 2008, he 
16

specifically visited five countries to showcase their 

progress58 and prove that advances are possible. With 

proper international assistance in these areas, Africa’s 

contributions to the world and to the continent’s own 

well-being will improve.

For military forces to assist in improvement, 

an understanding of their role is in order. The U.S. 

military, especially the Army and Marine Corps, have 

the ability to not only establish security and stability 

on foreign soil, but to promote better governance and 

economic development while doing so. Today, in Iraq 

and Afghanistan U.S. forces are attempting similar 

goals through stability operations, defined in Joint 

Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, as:

...various military missions, tasks, and activities 

conducted outside the United States in coordination 

with other instruments of national power to maintain 

or reestablish a safe and secure environment, provide 

essential government services, emergency infrastructure 

reconstruction, and humanitarian relief.59

Because of its key role in achieving peace and political 

objectives, the importance of stability operations has 

been elevated by the Department of Defense (DoD) 

to the same level and priority as combat operations.60

Likewise, French doctrine in FT-011 recognizes the 

stabilization phase as “both decisive and fundamental 

to the operation,” although addressing here only the 

post-conflict nature of stabilization.61 Clearly military 

forces are at times expected to establish lasting stability 

and security beyond policing and peace operations. 

Other countries have also found an important role 

for military forces for assisting Africa beyond being 

an intervening armed force. For example, “all Nordic 

states have either formulated strategies on how to 

coordinate efforts in order to address development 
17

and security simultaneously, or pointed to the need 

for such strategies. Most such strategies include use 

of military forces.... [As part of its work for UNMIL 

in Liberia, Sweden] aims to create synergy between 

development and military efforts . . . as a holistic effort 

to address development and security simultaneously.”62 Dr. Thomas Barnett, an expert on global conflict 

forecasting, believes that the U.S. military will intervene 

more in “gap and seam states ” in places like Africa 

to ensure world-wide stability and security, which 

“requires the [U.S.] Army to engage not only military 

and insurgent forces, but to concentrate on economic, 

cultural, and sociopolitical structures and issues.”63

The U.S. military and others in the world are capable 

of assisting in establishing security and stability, along 

with economic and political advances to chaotic, 

devastated, or impoverished places in the world. 

Stability operations usually fall to military forces in 

the aftermath of conflict because the humanitarian need 

is immediate, and their skills and resources are readily 

available. Although stability operations have often 

been an unwanted and unintended mission, U.S. forces 

nonetheless have achieved significant results during 

such operations as in Mexico in 1847, the Philippines, 

Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, 

Germany, and Japan. Such actions are crucial after 

conflict, but do not have to wait until the aftermath 

of fighting to be employed, as Nordic thinking on 

the subject has indicated. Indeed, U.S. doctrine also 

espouses the benefits of pre-conflict military support 

towards stability and security. The Joint Operating 

Environment recognizes that, “Preventing a war will 

prove as important as winning a war,” and that a 

full range of skills and missions are now needed by 

military forces to achieve the stability and security that 
18

both war and peace operations demand.64 U.S. Army 

doctrine, the leading edge of U.S. military thinking, 

specifically states that stability operations may occur 

before hostilities, and thus may prevent hostilities 

and the need for armed intervention by addressing 

the causes of potential conflict.65 The need for early 

non-armed military intervention is not a new concept 

for the U.S. military. During discussions on low 

intensity warfare during the 1980s, the necessity for 

early involvement well before the bullets fly was an 

understood tenet, if not often acted upon.66 Today, the 

U.S. military forces are conducting stability operations 

not just in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, but in East 

and Central Africa as well. As part of CJTF-HOA’s 

counterterrorism mission, its Director of Plans and 

Policy noted, “Our mission is 95 percent at least civil 

affairs . . . the main approach now focuses on defenserelated development of communities and societies.”67

When explaining on-going U.S. bilateral military 

training and operations in the Saharan region, a U.S. 

unified command staff officer observed, “This is phasezero (pre-conflict) warfare . . . so it [Africa] doesn’t turn 

into an Afghan-like scenario.”68 Stability operations 

are an important way for military forces to foster 

stability and security through economic and political 

development. These operations show the utility of 

military forces in such actions and therefore the need 

for military members to understand the underlying 

economic and political problems in which military 

organizations such as USAFRICOM may assist. This 

is the type of thinking that underscores new military 

capabilities that can shape the security environment as 

referred to by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in the 

quote that introduced this section.69
19

Other methods for attaining security and stability 

are peace building, state building, and nation building. 

These are successively more involved and ambitious 

strategies that establish long-term stability in weak or 

failed states. The definition of peace building is similar 

in both U.S. and UN doctrine. The UN states “peace 

building involves a range of measures targeted to 

reduce the risk of lapsing or relapsing into conflict by 

strengthening national capacities at all levels for conflict 

management, and to lay the foundation for sustainable 

peace and development.”70 The objectives of both UN 

peace building and U.S. stability operations are similar 

as well, as offered in Field Manual (FM) 3-07: safe and 

secure environment, established rule of law, social wellbeing, stable governance, and a sustainable economy.71

Despite the parallels between peace building and 

stability operations, differences exist. In U.S. doctrine, 

stability operations are a lead mission for the military, 

while other parts of government, international 

organizations, and nongovernmental organizations 

(NGOs) take more responsibility in peace, state, and 

nation building. The focus and time horizon for both 

differ also, with stability operations specifically using 

near-term phrases like essential, emergency, and relief, 

while UN peace building touts broader goals and 

longer time frames as implied in the phrase “rebuild 

governmental infrastructure and institutions.”72 If 

stability operations are applied to their extreme, they 

can become state or nation building operations.73 State 

building and nation building do not have official U.S. 

or UN definitions, so working concepts are used in this 

paper. In state building, other countries intervene to 

build or rebuild the structures of a weak or failed state 

in order to make these institutions more secure and 

stable for the long term.74 Nation building broadens 
20

the concept of state building through external actors 

who promote long-term economic well-being, social 

equity, and enhancing the citizenry’s allegiance to the 

rebuilt state.75 Military forces may help in constructing 

countries in need, as a lead or support organization, 

through the noncombat security and stabilization roles 

of stability operations and peace building. However, 

the more complex and involved roles of state and 

nation building are often avoided by armed forces, 

which prefer that civilian organizations dedicated to 

such long-term undertakings perform them.

A recognition by military commanders and staffs 

that Africa is important, imperiled, and may benefit 

from military involvement is part of the solution 

for problems in Africa. In this section, examples of 

military involvement were purposely left superficial 

simply to establish that military forces may have a 

significant role in Africa’s security and stability. The 

analysis section of this paper deals with more specific 

ways of how military forces might be used to improve 

the situation in Africa. An understanding of African 

problems and their potential solutions is often lacking 

among military members, and training given to learn 

this knowledge is usually inadequate. One observer 

notes that in the military, “Too often the first question 

is about what should be done rather than the nature 

of the problem.”76 This violates the first step of conflict 

diagnosis, which aims to outline the key context issues 

of the operational environment, such as poverty.77 This 

lack of crucial knowledge about development issues is 

not unique to U.S. forces and has also been noted by the 

UN as one defect hindering the use of military forces 

in socio-economic recovery and development.78 To 

educate members to broaden their horizons to include 

a wider-than-military context as part of their solution, 
21

the next sections explain Africa’s poor economic and 

political situations in both absolute and relative terms. 

This paper should serve as a primer on issues and 

conditions for international participants in African 

stability. A better understanding of the economic and 

political situation and problems in Africa may build 

long-range mutual benefits for all concerned. The 

nature of the problems requires a holistic approach 

for Africa, one in which those who wish to improve its 

stability and security must understand its challenges.

DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY

Africa’s Human and Economic Development.

In 1957, after 136 years under colonial occupation, 

Ghana’s independence marked the beginning of the 

shift from colonial to majority rule in Africa. Ghana 

was chosen as one of the first states because it was best 

prepared for sovereignty, with a relatively efficient 

civil service and education structure, abundant natural 

resources, and a viable economy. That same year, by 

contrast, the Republic of Korea (ROK) was rebuilding 

a country devastated by 45 years of brutal Japanese 

imperialism and a subsequent 3-year conflict that 

killed hundreds of thousands of South Koreans. South 

Korea then labored under a dictatorial regime, was 

bereft of natural resources, and entirely dependent 

upon international aid.79 In 1957, Malaysia also gained 

its independence after 446 years under Portuguese, 

Dutch, and British colonialism, and Japanese 

occupation. Independence was given while the then 

Malayan Federation was still in the midst of an ethnic 

and ideological insurgency, although, like Ghana, 
22

Malaysia inherited a stable British civil structure and 

a larder of natural resources.80 The per capita income 

of these new states was about the same that eventful 

year,81 but Ghana with an economic growth rate of 5 

percent seemed to promise the brightest prospects of 

the three.82 Yet 50 years later, Ghana’s Gross National 

Income (GNI) stood at just U.S. $520 per person and 

ranked 177th globally by the World Bank. Malaysia’s 

GNI was 10 times greater at U.S. $5,490 and 80th in the 

world, and South Korea’s GNI 34 times larger at U.S. 

$17,690 and 49th.83 Why did one of the better regarded 

African states with such early promise have such poor 

economic performance compared to states that were 

initially worse off? The explanation for these differences 

in economic standing between the countries of Africa 

and the rest of the world helps to explain some of the 

causes for the problems endured by Africans today.

Economic activities are the most central of all 

human endeavors. They are what satisfy the basic 

human physical needs of food, shelter, protection, 

and health. Economic activities also enable other 

higher order human endeavors, including cultural 

and political activities. Although rich in human and 

geographic diversity, Africa has lagged the rest of 

the world in its economic development, adversely 

impacting its human development and stability. To 

better understand economic problems in Africa, and to 

offer potential solutions, this section explains African 

development by comparing the few more-developed 

and many lesser-developed traits and characteristics 

of this continent in terms of economic, demographic, 

and social measurements. This review complements 

the next section which explores, on a macro scale, 

some of Africa’s economic activities which describe 

the nature of local African economies and their impact 

on development and stability. Throughout these 
23

discussions, the causes and potential obstacles that 

slow Africa’s economic and political development 

are evaluated in order to recommend ways in which 

the United States and other interested parties can 

better organize themselves to support the African 

states and assist in their development. Economic 

and political development is the foundation upon 

which future African security, stability, population 

growth, environmental protection, and improvement 

in standards of living depend. Africa’s natural and 

human resources are among the last great underused 

assets left on earth, and their proper development 

should be of concern to the world.

Measuring Africa’s Economic Development.

To understand the economic development of Africa, 

it is necessary to resort to statistics describing economic, 

demographic, and social conditions. Such statistics are 

often used freely in the media and academia to prove 

points and explain enigmas, but too often the numbers 

themselves are a mystery. How useful are such data 

and what do they relate to the reader? The opening 

example of this paper, comparing the economic 

standing of Ghana, Malaysia, and South Korea is a 

case in point. Is GNI a fair way to make such economic 

comparisons across continents and half a century? If 

so, what does it mean and can it explain the causes of 

poverty and underdevelopment? Economic size and 

growth is not the same as economic development, 

although each suffers in Africa. Development is used 

in a broad sense as the “progressive improvement of 

the human condition in both material and nonmaterial 

ways.”84 As this section demonstrates, economic growth 

may occur without improving human, political, or 

physical well-being. Economic development is closely 
24

associated with human development and together 

they lay a foundation for an economy to sustainably 

boost itself through more sophisticated value-added 

activities by building social capital in education, 

equality, freedoms, culture, security, stability, and 

good governance; demographic well-being through 

improved health and population distribution; and 

economic capital in terms of better infrastructure, 

investment, diversification, and management. 

Economic development seeks to lessen environmental 

degradation, social and political inequality, and other 

stresses that sometimes accompany unregulated 

economic growth. These concepts put Africa’s regional 

and representative states’ economic, political, and 

social development into perspective. The measures 

examined here include GNI, Gross Domestic Product 

(GDP), Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) adjustments, 

the Human Development Index (HDI) and its health 

and education components, political measures such 

as freedom and equality, and other economic and 

demographic indicators. This analysis should prove 

to be useful to planners and implementers of policy 

who are trying to better understand and improve the 

conditions encountered on the African continent.

By any measure of national income, the economies 

of Africa perform poorly when compared to the rest 

of the world. An economy is defined as “production, 

development, and management of [the] material 

wealth . . . system of a country or region.”85 Based 

upon this definition, it is easy to conclude that the 

best way to measure an economy is to aggregate its 

production, development, and management of wealth 

over a specific time period and for a defined area. If 

such a summation is calculated for the total value of 

goods and services produced over the period of a year 
25

for a designated state or region, that measure is known 

as the Gross National Product (GNP) or GNI.86 This 

measure quantifies all the value-added human activities 

in the private (reported currency exchange), public 

(government spending), and informal (barter and gray 

market) sectors of an economy in goods, services, and 

net return on investments originating from one state.87

Typically such measures are based on a common 

currency like the U.S. dollar, requiring conversion rates 

and estimates, and thereby introducing some degree 

of error. Since large states with large populations are 

expected to produce more goods and services, GNP 

compares economic size and relative contribution of 

countries to the global economy. However, total GNI 

or GNP by itself is not a ready indicator of the wealth 

or development status of a country. To meaningfully 

compare the development status between states using 

GNP, GNP per capita must be used. The numbers used 

in the Ghana comparison at the beginning of this paper 

were adjusted in this manner to enable fair comparisons 

among the three states. GNP per capita compensates 

for increase in population along with growth in the 

economy at any given time so that chronological 

and lateral comparisons can be made. GNP does not 

incorporate non-marketed production as measures of 

economic pursuit such as parenting and maintaining 

one’s own dwelling.88 In terms of national income per 

capita, Sub-Saharan Africa has fared poorly, showing 

virtually no growth between 1960 and 2000, compared 

to the doubling registered by other low income areas 

of the world. Africa’s economy has only grown as fast 

as its population. With only 10 percent of the world’s 

population, Africa has 30 percent of the world’s poor. 

The number of poor people doubled from 1980 to 2000 

to 300 million, making Africa the only region in the 
26

world where the number of poor is rising over the long 

term.89 In summary, GNP is a relatively straightforward 

means to gauge the aggregate value-added economic 

activities of a country over time in order to measure 

economic progress and offer meaningful comparisons. 

This measure reveals Africa’s relative and absolute 

poverty.

Use of GNP to measure development has flaws that 

are corrected through other related measurements. 

GNP, for instance, includes the net return on 

investments made overseas and infers increased wealth 

for the originating state, even if there was no real value 

added. This skews the perception of wealth to the 

investing rather than producing country. To make the 

distinction between value-added production within a 

country rather than by a country, GDP is more often 

used than GNP for comparisons.90 Otherwise, GDP 

measures total market value, as does GNP, and both use 

per capita measurements as an indicator of economic 

development for a country. Among African states, 

use of GDP should bolster the measures of economic 

development since Africans are more likely recipients 

of overseas investment and aid than originators 

(kleptocrats excluded), so return on investments made 

from abroad are credited to the local African economies. 

Even with that edge, it is depressing to learn the per 

capita GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa from 1960 to 2000 

grew at a very low annual rate of 0.1 percent, while 

the rest of the world averaged growth of 5 percent 

annually from 1980 to 2000.91 Such a meager growth 

rate means that the African economies could barely 

outgrow the rate of their population expansion, and 

helps to explain why Africa remains the world’s least 

developed region. Another method used to correct 

flaws in national income measurements is to weight 

GNP or GDP to reduce the fluctuations induced by 
27

currency exchange or price distortions, a process 

known as purchasing power parity (PPP). The PPP 

attempts to measure the domestic purchasing power 

capability in local currencies, giving a more genuine 

evaluation to the measure of economic development 

and a society’s standard of living.92 “It is based on the 

idea that identical baskets of traded goods should cost 

the same,”93 and if they are not the same the difference 

should be used to adjust the national income measures. 

PPP measurements reduce the error that spikes in the 

transitory U.S. dollar exchange rate have in skewing 

the perception of economic development and standard 

of living, and account for the difficulty in obtaining 

common basic requirements for living in a society. 

Using the GDP, PPP usually reduces the perception of 

poverty suffered when compared to unadjusted figures. 

The differences in measuring economic development 

in terms of per capita value of GNI, GDP, and GDPPPP are apparent in Table 1. The GNI and GDP at the 

official rate vary somewhat between them, as expected. 

However, the GDP at the official exchange rate diverges 

significantly from the GDP PPP, in this example by 

factors of 1.7 to 3.2. For the more developed United 

States and United Kingdom, the differences between 

the three measures are less. As is usually the case when 

using GDP-PPP, the citizens of some developing states 

actually have more purchasing power than the GNI 

or GDP values may indicate—often making the PPP 

measure an equalizing indicator. Not surprisingly, 

Sub-Saharan Africa still ranks below the rest of the 

world in average GDP-PPP at U.S. $1,998, significantly 

below even the low-income-state world average of 

$2,531. By any standard of economic measure, many 

states in Africa seriously lag the rest of the world’s 

development standard and rates.
28

Table 1. Comparison of Development Measures 

of Economic Indicators.

Measuring Africa’s Human Development.

Using economic measurements like GNI and 

GDP-PPP to gauge human development may still not 

adequately describe a development situation. Not all 

societies equally seek material wealth, and those that do 

not desire it may seem less developed than they actually 

are.94 For that reason, social and demographic measures 

 Gross National 

Income

 Gross Domestic 

Product

Official Exchange

Gross Domestic 

Product

Purchasing 

Power Parity

Country

Algeria 3,030 3,800 8,100

Botswana 5,900 6,900 14,700

Chad 480 700 1,600

Congo, Rep 950 (2005) 1,800 3,700

Ethiopia 180 200 700

Ghana 520 600 1,400

Kenya 580 800 1,600

Mauritius 5,450 5,600 11,900

Nigeria 640 900 2,200

Sierra Leone 240 250 800

South Africa 5,390 6,200 10,600

UK 40,180 45,500 35,300

USA 44,970 45,800 46,000

Note: all figures in U.S. dollars and per capita data. GNI uses 2006 

data; GDP uses 2007 data.

Sources: GNI: World Bank, “Key Development Data and Statistics.” 

GDP PPI and GDP Official Rate: CIA, The 2008 World Fact Book, 2008.
29

are also used to give a more nuanced understanding of 

development, which should generate better solutions 

to weigh and counter poverty. If material goods are 

not universally held in the same high regard, there 

are other things that most modern societies do cherish 

and are willing to expend scarce resources to attain. 

Education and health care are two such attributes, and 

are crucial to the development of a vibrant economy. 

Both are human indicators of economic development, 

since the amount of resources allocated to these 

indicates the wealth of an economy, and dedicating 

these resources are an investment in future economic 

and human well-being. The health of a nation can be 

measured by markers such as expenditures on medical 

care as a percentage of national wealth, proportion of 

patients to doctors or nurses, or even by calories and 

protein received in an average daily diet. However, 

such social indicators of development are often 

indicated through related demographic statistics. For 

example, a long average life span is an aggregated 

gauge of the strength of a country’s health care, food 

supply, sanitation, and public assistance support. 

The difference in life expectancy between developed 

countries and underdeveloped countries shows men 

and women living significantly longer in wealthier 

societies, which is a reflection of their social resources 

and organization. Regionally, Sub-Saharan Africa’s life 

expectancy is only 49.6 years, while that of high income 

countries average 79.2 and low income countries 60.0. 

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 

data in Table 2 indicates that even otherwise promising 

states, such as Botswana and South Africa, show a less 

developed level of life expectancy, reflecting the grave 

toll that AIDS and other diseases have wreaked on 

those societies. Infant mortality rate (IMR), the number 
30

of babies that survive their first year per 1,000 live 

births, and child mortality rates (CMR), the number of 

children who live to their 5th year are other common 

measures of health and welfare systems. Childhood 

survival, however, is based more upon basic medical 

care like immunizations, parental knowledge, and 

ability to combat common forms of death from illness, 

malnutrition, and diarrhea, so this measure is somewhat 

less dependent on wealth and more on community 

organization. Sub-Saharan Africa’s regional CMR is 172 

deaths per 1,000, while that of high income countries is 

only 7.95 An IMR of 60 deaths per 1,000 births is a mark 

of lesser developed countries,96 and many Sub-Saharan 

African countries exceed that. Table 2 indicates that 

most African countries are way in excess of the U.S. and 

UK IMR rate by 10 to 20 times. Thabo Mbeki, former 

President of South Africa, stated that “the world’s 

biggest killer and the greatest cause of ill health and 

suffering across the globe . . . is extreme poverty,” a 

sentiment shared by many researchers and medical 

professionals.97 In most basic demographic indicators, 

the people of Africa fare worst in the world.

A healthy work force is not sufficient, however, to 

develop an economy; the work force must also be skilled 

and literate to be productive. Two important measures 

of the level of social development are the quantity 

and quality of education. Quantity may be measured 

by how long a student attends school, because, even 

in mediocre schools, the longer a student attends, the 

more likely he or she is to learn. To measure quantity 

of education the UN uses the Gross Enrollment Ratio 

(GER), which is the ratio of all students in primary, 

secondary, and tertiary (college) levels of schooling 

compared to the official population of school age 

students for those three levels as established by the 
31

Table 2. Comparison of Development Using 

Demographic and Social Indicators.

measured country and expressed as a percentage.98 This 

statistic helps to show how many eligible students may 

actually be attending school and can be a predictor of 

future literacy. Table 2 shows that the highest African 

rates of GER are found in northern Africa, South Africa, 

and Mauritius at around 75 percent enrollment—below 

a developed country’s rate of 93-98 percent. However, 

these countries are not representative of most of Africa 

which falls far short with only 58 percent of African 

Country

Life 

Expectancy

(years)

Infant Mortality

Mortality Rate

(per 1,000)

 Adult 

Literacy

Total 

Population

(percent)

 Gross 

Enrollment

 Ratio 

(percent)

Algeria 71.7 34 69.9 73.7

Botswana 48.1 87 81.2 69.5

Chad 50.4 124 25.7 37.5

Congo, Rep 54.0 81 84.7 51.4

Ethiopia 51.8 109 35.9 42.1

Ghana 59.1 68 57.9 50.7

Kenya 52.1 79 73.6 60.6

Mauritius 72.4 13 84.3 75.3

Nigeria 46.5 100 69.1 56.2

Sierra Leone 41.8 165 34.8 44.6

South Africa 50.8 55 82.4 77.0

UK 79.0 5 99.0 93.0

USA 77.9 6 99.0 93.3

Source: UNDP, Human Development Reports, 2007/8, 2005 data. U.S. and 

UK literacy rates from CIA The 2008 World Factbook, 2008.
32

children enrolled in primary education and far fewer at 

higher levels.99 Quality of education can be measured 

by the student-teacher ratio or by the literacy rate, the 

percentage of a country’s adults who can read and 

write in their own language.100 High income societies 

usually provide 12 years of schooling to their students, 

and offer relatively easy access to higher education. 

This results in a typical literacy rate of above 98 percent 

for adult men and women. Sub-Saharan Africa’s 

literacy is only 59.3 percent101 which explains why its 

economic development is low, since high education 

and literacy levels are needed to engage in more 

lucrative high-value economic activities. The lower 

GER rates in the youngest generation also forecasts 

illiteracy, and a shortage of needed skills for future 

higher order economic activities, trapping Africans in 

another cycle of poverty. Together, literacy rates and 

GER constitute what the UN refers to as the Education 

Index and are important indicators of a population’s 

current ability to participate in advanced economic 

activities and its potential to improve future human 

and economic conditions. So important are health and 

education to an underdeveloped population that the 

UN Millennium Development Goals, which aim to 

half absolute poverty worldwide by 2015, specifically 

target universal primary education, greater gender 

balance in schools, and reduction in the CMR as key 

development goals.102

Measurements of development that combine both 

social and demographic characteristics are urbanization 

and Total Fertility Rate (TFR). Both reflect population 

growth or distribution, but are highly influenced by 

cultural norms and organization. Urbanization is the 

total population of a country or region living within 

a city or its immediate surroundings (the definition 
33

of which varies by country). Economically cities 

represent a dense pool of laborers needed by industry, 

and allow economic specialization of services like 

banking, insurance, and a stock exchange that are the 

hallmark of advanced economies. In wealthy countries, 

urbanization usually exceeds 75 percent of its total 

population. Some countries in Africa just reach 60 

percent urbanization (see Table 3), but none have yet 

built world class manufacturing in those urban regions. 

At 244 million people or 30 percent of the population, 

Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest urban population 

among the world’s regions, but the highest city 

growth rate.103 Another social and demographic trait 

is TFR (or Population Replacement Ratio), which is the 

number of children the average woman in a country 

or region will bear during her lifetime. A rate of 2.1 

children is considered a long-term zero-population 

growth rate while a rate greater than 2.1 is considered 

to be indicative of a growing population and another 

indicator of a less developed country (see Table 3). 

Sub-Saharan Africa’s TFR average is 5.5, significantly 

higher than that of middle income states (2.1) and even 

low income states (3.8).104 That so many babies are 

born is an indicator that agriculture is the mainstay of 

an economy, low standard of health care since many 

children do not survive, low level of government 

support so that children act as old age insurance, and 

cultural preference for large families. The negative 

aspects of large families are that they disperse the 

concentration of available funds, delaying a surplus 

of massed capital needed for development. High 

urbanization reinforces a low TFR, since city dwellers 

rarely have the room or economic motivation to have 

large families. Social and demographic indicators such 

as urbanization and TFR, are just a few among a host 
34

of other economic, social, and demographic measures 

used to better understand a specific area’s development 

through a broader perspective. Social and demographic 

traits often are the foundation upon which a modern 

economy is built, and are therefore excellent indicators 

to supplement economic measures of development. 

Since health, education, and urbanization require 

community resources and organization, they are also 

signs of how much wealth and ability a community 

has to fulfill these aspirations.

Since 1990 the UN has published the HDI as 

a shorthand single aggregate measure of human 

development to facilitate chronological and lateral 

comparisons. The HDI includes the economic measure 

of GDP-PPP to determine standard of living; a social 

measure using the Educational Index including both 

GER and literacy rates; and a demographic dimension 

for health in the form of life expectancy. Combined, 

these provide a broader index ranging from a value 

of 1 (best score) to 0 (dismal) to show human and 

economic development levels (Table 3). Sub-Saharan 

Africa ranks lowest among the world’s regions with 

an HDI of 0.493, due to having the world’s lowest 

standard of living and worst health and education 

levels. The region of North Africa, including Egypt, 

rates significantly higher with an HDI of 0.740.105 In 

comparison, the regions of Anglo-America, Japan, and 

Western Europe each place around 0.93-0.94 in HDI106

and among middle and low income countries at 0.776 

and 0.579, respectively. Although often cited for its 

broadness, even the HDI has limitations since it includes 

just a few important measures of the many available, 

and thus still gives a less than comprehensive picture. 
35

Table 3. Comparison of Development Using 

Urbanization, TFR, and HDI Indicators.

The UNDP’s 2007 Human Development Report judges 

its own HDI measure. “It does not, for example, 

include important indicators such as gender or income 

inequality and more difficult to measure indicators 

like respect for human rights and political freedoms. 

What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing 

Country

Urbanization

(percent

population)

 Total 

Fertility 

Rate

(births per 

woman)

 Human 

Development

 Index 

(ranking in world)

Algeria 40.3 2.5 0.733 (104)

Botswana 57.4 3.2 0.654 (124)

Chad 25.3 6.5 0.388 (170)

Congo, Rep 60.2 4.8 0.548 (139)

Ethiopia 16.0 5.8 0.406 (169)

Ghana 47.8 4.4 0.553 (135)

Kenya 20.7 5.0 0.521 (148)

Mauritius 42.4 1.9 0.804 ( 65)

Nigeria 48.2 5.8 0.470 (158)

Sierra Leone 40.7 6.5 0.366 (177, 

bottom)

South Africa 59.3 2.8 0.674 (121)

Sudan 40.8 4.8 0.526 (147)

UK 98.7 1.7 0.946 ( 16)

USA 80.8 2.0 0.949 ( 12)

Note: HDI and urbanization is 2005 data, TFR is 2000-05 data. 

Urbanization data is based on national definitions of an urban area and 

vary by country.

Source: UNDP, Human Development Reports, 2007-08.
36

human progress and the complex relationship between 

income and well-being.”107 Because it accounts for at 

least one significant economic, social, and demographic 

measure, the HDI is a better balanced, although still 

limited, single indication of economic and human 

development levels. Even when this measure is used, 

Sub-Saharan Africa is still perceived to be the least 

developed region in the world.

Measuring Other Development Indicators in Africa.

To add a deeper understanding of the economic 

and human development of a state, additional indexes 

may be used to compensate for the acknowledged 

weaknesses in the HDI. The Gender Development 

Index (GDI, see Table 4), which compares the level of 

human development between women and men, is one 

such method using the same criteria found in the HDI. 

The greater the disparity between men and women 

in these measures, the lower the GDI. For example, 

even though both relatively prosperous, Botswana 

and Mauritius have about the same overall literacy 

rate (from Table 2), the GDI indicator for Mauritius is 

reduced since its literacy figures are skewed (Table 4) 

with 88.2 percent of males literate compared to 80.5 

percent of females, while Botswana’s is more balanced 

at 80.4 percent males and 81.8 percent females although 

both are notably high for African societies).108 In parts 

of Africa where overall literacy runs at half or less of 

the population, for example in Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, 

or Chad, female literacy is only half to a quarter that 

of males. The Gross Enrollment Ratio confirms this 

current trend and bodes slow future improvement 

for African women overall with only 25 to 75 percent 

of age-eligible females enrolled in school, lower than 
37

that of males. This means that the female half of the 

population of these countries have less opportunity 

to reach the levels needed to contribute to economic 

development than males have, which retards growth 

potential since not all available human resources 

are used. Such differences may result from a fiscal 

allocation system where limited available resources are 

expended mainly on males, or may have a cultural bias 

where fiscal resources are spent elsewhere rather than 

advancing the education of females. In many African 

economies, lower education directly results in lower 

earned income for females (Table 4) by a difference 

of two to three times. When they can work outside 

the home, less education often means women remain 

in menial or entry level jobs and cannot progress to 

higher level technical or management positions. Lack 

of education also reduces the opportunity for women 

to hold elected or appointed positions in government. 

Among the development measures, African females 

fare better than their male counterparts only in life 

expectancy. But this is also true everywhere in the 

world where rudimentary modern medical care 

and public health are practiced. Not surprisingly, of 

all of the regions in the world, Sub-Saharan Africa 

ranks lowest in GDI,109 and of all the countries, Niger 

is lowest at 0.278.110 Such a low GDI indicates that 

African women have less influence in the affairs of 

their communities, which in turn hinders economic 

and human development.

Other inequalities found in the HDI are also 

balanced by examining factors addressing income 

distribution and human freedom—each is a factor 

influencing economic and human development as 

well as stability. With income inequality, a state may 

have a relatively high GDP per capita, but the rich elite 

may be the primary beneficiary, while the rest of the 
38

population is significantly below the national average 

and suffer inadequate education and health care. The 

poverty line is an absolute way of measuring such 

disparity, based on the definition of being poor in each 

country. A relatively easy way to measure the degree 

of income inequality, to allow comparisons across 

borders, is a Gini Index used by the UNDP as a ratio of 

values of 0 to 100, with 100 meaning perfect inequality 

(one person earns everything, and the rest nothing). 

Table 4. Comparison of Development Measures 

Using Gender Development Index Measures.

Country

Earned Income

(Estimated 

US$)

Male / Female

 Life 

Expectancy

 (in Years)

 Male / 

Female

 Adult 

Literacy

( Percent 

Total Pop)

 Male / 

Female

Gender

Development

 Index (rank)

Algeria 10,515 / 3,546 70.4 / 73.0 79.6 / 60.1 0.720 ( 94)

Botswana 19,094 / 5,913 47.6 / 48.4 80.4 / 81.8 0.639 (108)

Chad 1,735 / 1,126 49.0 / 51.8 40.8 / 12.8 0.370 (151)

Congo, Rep 1,691 / 841 52.8 / 55.2 90.5 / 79.0 0.540 (119)

Ethiopia 1,316 / 796 50.5 / 53.1 50.0 / 22.8 0.393 (148)

Ghana 2,893 / 2,056 58.7 / 59.5 66.4 / 49.8 0.549 (116)

Kenya 1,354 / 1,126 51.1 / 53.1 77.0 / 70.2 0.521 (126)

Mauritius 18,098 / 7,407 69.1 / 75.8 88.2 / 80.5 0.804 ( 65)

Nigeria 1,592 / 652 46.6 / 47.1 78.2 / 60.1 0.456 (138)

Sierra Leone 1,114 / 507 40.2 / 43.4 46.7 / 24.2 0.320 (156)

South Africa 15,446 / 6,927 49.5 / 52.0 84.1 / 80.9 0.667 (106)

UK 40,000 /26,242 76.7 / 81.2 99.0 / 99.0 0.944 ( 10)

USA 40,000 /25,005 75.2 / 80.4 99.0 / 99.0 0.937 ( 16)

Note: all figures based on 2005 data. U.S. and UK male Earned Income shows 

most allowed.

Sources: UNDP, Human Development Reports, 2007-08. U.S. and UK literacy 

rates from CIA The 2008 World Factbook, 2007 data.
39

The World Bank ranked Namibia as having the 

world’s most unequal distribution of wealth in 2006 

with a Gini index of 74.3, a result of its white minority 

owning most of the country’s land and commercial 

farms.111 Botswana and South Africa also have unequal 

income distribution for similar reasons, explaining 

why Africa, with Latin America, has the world’s most 

unbalanced income distribution.112 Anecdotal evidence 

from oil rich Nigeria shows that despite suffering a net 

decline in GNI per capita over past decades, six of the 

world’s 100 richest people are Nigerian, and each one 

is politically powerful.113 Economic inequality often is 

associated with political inequality in Africa, leaving 

the poor not only destitute but powerless to change 

their situation. 

Attempts to better balance the HDI using more 

subjective factors such as political freedom have 

created measures like the UNDP’s Human Freedom 

Index (HFI). First tabulated in 1991 to address the 

lack of human rights when measuring development 

through the HDI, the UNDP concluded there was a 

high correlation between human development and 

human freedom.114 Some political freedoms, such as 

property rights, may directly contribute to economic 

development.115 Political freedom bolsters human 

development, and human development reinforces 

political freedom. However, the UNDP HFI is no 

longer tabulated, probably because it proved to be too 

politically contentious. For the past 35 years the NGO 

Freedom House has offered a similar index on a 1 to 

7 scale to measure political rights and civil liberties 

(where 1 is free and 7 is not free, see Table 5). In its 2006 

analysis, 46 countries were rated in the 6 or 7 category 

for political rights, and 19 of those were found on the 

African continent. That means Africa is host to nearly 

half of the world’s repressive regimes but represents 
40

only a little over a quarter of the world’s states. Some 

blame the cause for such abuses on a lack of economic 

resources resulting in a “human rights rationing.”116

Indeed, among Africa’s three wealthiest states in terms 

of GDP-PPP and HDI, Mauritius, Botswana, and South 

Africa, are also found the freest societies in Africa—but 

there are exceptions. For example, Algeria is ranked 

second in HDI and fourth in per capita wealth which 

are two indicators of economic development. Yet 

Algeria is still is categorized by Freedom House as not 

free. In part, lack of emphasis on freedom may be due 

to African aspirations that value democracy more for 

its potential to deliver necessities like water, shelter, 

and education than for its freedoms.117 Although 

not entirely correlated to economic development, 

some factors such as income distribution and human 

freedom do offer a fuller understanding of a country’s 

development situation. 

The economic, social, and demographic characteristics introduced so far are just a few of many possible ways of measuring development so as to gain a 

more holistic view of economic conditions. The more 

characteristics that are evaluated, including some of 

the material gains examined in this paragraph, the 

better is the resulting analysis of a country’s economic 

state of affairs. One such economic factor to consider 

is productivity, defined as the value of a particular 

product or service compared to the amount of labor 

needed to produce it. Workers in developed countries 

have access to tools and capabilities through capital 

that make their work more productive and generate 

more wealth than that of workers in underdeveloped 

countries who rely on less efficient human and animal 

power.118 One characteristic of productivity tracked
41

Table 5. Comparison of Development Using Income 

Inequality and Freedom Measurements.

by the UNDP is Electricity Consumption Per Capita, 

which tells how much power is used to run tools and 

equipment at work and home. Africa’s most industrialized and wealthiest societies, here represented 

by Mauritius, South Africa, and Algeria, are also the 

ones that consume the most electricity. Electricity 

consumption, along with Internet and cell phone 

Country Income Inequality

 (0=equality)

Political Rights/Civil 

Liberties/

 Freedom Index

Algeria 35.3 6 / 5 / Not Free

Botswana 60.5 2 / 2 / Free

Chad n/a 6 / 5 / Not Free

Congo, Rep n/a 6 / 6 / Not Free

Ethiopia 30.0 5 / 5 / Part Free

Ghana 40.8 1 / 2 / Free

Kenya 42.5 3 / 3 / Part Free

Mauritius n/a 1 / 1 / Free

Nigeria 43.7 4 / 4 / Part Free

Sudan n/a 7 / 7 / Not Free

Sierra Leone 62.9 4 / 3 / Part Free

South Africa 57.8 1 / 2 / Free

UK 36.0 1 / 1 / Free

USA 40.8 1 / 1 / Free

Note: Income Inequality data is from 2005, and Political Rights data 

from 2006.

Sources: Income Inequality data from UNDP, Human Development 

Reports, 2007-0/8. Political Rights/Civil Liberties from Freedom in 

World Country Ratings, Washington, DC: Freedom House, 2006.
42

usage (see Table 6), portend a large investment in 

physical infrastructure suggesting national wealth 

and confidence to invest due to a perception of 

future stability. Consumer goods such as appliances, 

transportation, computers, and phones are also 

essential to a modern economy since they allow access 

to jobs, services, and information.

Consumption of such goods is a result of high 

economic development, but they in turn promote even 

higher levels of development through their increased 

efficiency and availability of more workers. Such 

gadgets also indicate a societal proclivity for embracing 

change, which is another prerequisite for economic 

advancement along Western norms. Countries with 

more than 500 telephones, 400 motor vehicles, and 300 

Internet users per 1,000 people are more developed, 

while those with less than 100 of each per 1,000 are 

considered underdeveloped.119 Such consumer goods, 

like those in Table 6, reinforce earlier conclusions that 

categorize all of Africa as underdeveloped, but do 

differentiate Mauritius, South Africa, and Algeria as 

the more developed within Africa. One bright spot for 

Sub-Saharan Africa is that its regional cellular phone 

use average of 130 per 1,000 people is almost twice 

that of other low income countries, which may suggest 

a willingness to embrace technology, although the 

number of Internet users at 26 per thousand is half that 

of the other low income countries, which averages 45.120

Such differences in communication may be explained 

by the fact that a cellular network is cheaper to join 

and requires less infrastructure and skill than Internet 

usage. Indicators such as productivity through energy 

and goods consumption are just a few among a host 

of other economic, social, and demographic measures 

used to better understand Africa’s low economic 

development level. 
43

Table 6. Comparison of Development Using 

Consumption Indicators.

Economic Measures Summary.

Development encompasses more than just economic 

improvement; it is also composed of social and 

demographic advances, political freedoms, economic 

opportunity, and even perhaps a sense of collective 

contentment. Development therefore requires both 

Country

Electricity 

Consumption

Per Capita 

(kilowatt-hrs)

Internet Users

(per 1,000)

Cell Phone 

Subscribers

 (per 1,000)

Algeria 899 58 416

Botswana n/a 34 466

Chad 11 4 22

Congo, Rep 229 13 123

Ethiopia 36 2 6

Ghana 289 18 129

Kenya 169 32 135

Mauritius 1,775 146 574

Nigeria 157 38 141

Sierra Leone 24 2 22

South Africa 4,818 109 724

Sudan 116 77 50

UK 6,756 473 1,088

USA 14,240 630 680

Notes: Figures based on 2005 data, except Electricity Consumption, 

which are 2004 data.

Sources: UNDP, Human Development Reports, 2007-08.
44

material wealth and nonmaterial enhancement because 

they reinforce one another in bettering society. When 

gauging improvement, development measures have 

their limitations in that each only partly describes this 

complex phenomenon. For the best understanding 

of development, different perspectives are needed, 

including economic measures such as a country’s GNP 

per capita, GDP-PPP, income equality, and consumption 

of goods; social measures including GER, literacy, 

urbanization, gender equality, and political rights; 

and the demographic characteristics of life expectancy, 

CMR, IMR, and TFR among others. For ease of use, 

these measures can be grouped into a single indicator, 

such as the HDI or GDI, but even those do not explain 

fully the situation unless considered with other trends. 

Africa’s development may also not completely follow 

Western norms, which emphasized production of 

goods and services using the 20th century model that 

burdened future generations and the environment.121

Despite reliance on quantifiable measurements and a 

Western-centric view of what development is, Africa 

still presents a picture of low economic and human 

development in both absolute terms and relative to 

other regions of the world. Sub-Saharan Africa’s HDI 

of 0.491 lags behind the HDI average of the world’s low 

income states at 0.570,122 making it the poorest of the 

poor. Even worse, the trend is towards more economic 

poverty. The number of people living in extreme 

poverty (earning less than U.S. $1 a day) has increased 

in most of Sub-Saharan Africa since 2000 when 189 

countries pledged to promote development, freedom, 

and peace through the Millennium Development Goals. 

In fact, none of the eight major human development 

goals for Africa are on track to be reached by the target 

date of 2015.123 Such gaps may seriously undermine the 
45

ability of African states to attain stability and security 

or to improve their governance, which is an ominous 

sign for the United States and the rest of the world.

In Africa, economic growth is not necessarily 

about gaining more or better material possessions, 

desirable as this may be in reducing poverty. Economic 

growth is just as concerned with the intelligent 

sustainable growth that also ensures demographic and 

societal development with it. A World Bank report 

emphasizes:

Development is about improving the quality of people’s 

lives, expanding their ability to shape their own futures. 

This generally calls for higher per capita income, but it 

involves much more. It involves more equitable education and job opportunities. Greater gender equality. 

Better health and nutrition. A cleaner, more sustainable 

natural environment. A more impartial judicial and legal system. Broader civil and political freedoms. A richer 

cultured life.124

As late as the 1960s, the Republic of Korea was also 

afflicted with many of the same problems faced by 

most African states today. However, by 2007 South 

Korea’s GNI of U.S. $410 million was larger than all 

of the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa combined 

at $310 million.125 South Korea “is now a model of 

development as one of the world’s most prosperous 

Newly Industrialized Countries. . . .”126 The African 

states are the last to start this climb, but the models and 

assistance needed for economic, social, and demographic 

development are available if the countries of Africa can 

put their own fundamentals in order. To further explain 

why such poverty persists despite native advantages 

including substantial natural resources and a relatively 

low population density, and to explain how the United 

States and other non-African nations can help Africa 
46

develop, the next section analyzes some of the causes 

responsible for hobbling the African people in their 

human progress and possible solutions to improve the 

situation.

AFRICA’S ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

Economic Activities and Development.

Although a society’s security, welfare, and 

development are more than an agglomeration of 

its economic activities, it is the economy that is the 

foundation for social, demographic, political, and 

material gains. A country’s economy provides the 

funding for new wells, clinics, schools, ballots, and 

the income to buy life enhancing goods and services. 

Africa lags the rest of the world in development in 

large part because its economies are the smallest and 

least productive in the world. This comparative global 

disadvantage has grown rapidly since the great age of 

European discovery began in the 1450s. At that time, the 

difference between Europe and Africa was small, with 

Europeans impressed by the African empires’ wealth, 

organization, and strength so that Europeans traded 

with Africans as equals and the Portuguese entered 

into alliances with African states.127 Today, despite the 

often negative indicators of Africa’s situation, there are 

some success stories on the continent and a general, 

although not universal, trend toward economic growth 

averaging over 5 percent annually between 2000 and 

2007.128 It is necessary to determine the important factors 

that are the basis of this success in order to continue this 

progress. Since its inclusion into the world economy 

by Arab traders in the 11th century and European 

merchants in the 15th century,129 Africa’s economy 
47

has been grounded primarily on agriculture and has 

been a key source of the world’s raw materials. Early 

European names for parts of the continent—the Grain 

Coast, Gold Coast, and Ivory Coast—attest to these 

enduring relationships. These resources were a main 

cause for European imperialism and why some leaders 

today accuse outside powers of continuing their control 

in Africa through a form of neo-colonialism. Unlike 

Europe, however, Africa’s main economic activities 

have over the centuries remained the same primary 

ones. It is the continued reliance on such economic 

pursuits that may explain why Africa is economically 

underdeveloped. In Africa, farming remains the most 

important economic activity, and mineral and energy 

resources its biggest exports. Such activities are the most 

basic form of human production to meet fundamental 

needs, but tend to advance economic development 

very slowly. Elsewhere in the world, economic, social, 

political, and demographic improvement has been 

fueled by engaging in higher order economic activities 

such as manufacturing, building, and production 

(secondary economic activities), or services to and 

from individuals, businesses, and government (tertiary 

economic activities) to include communications, 

transportation, education, research, and personal 

services. This section examines Africa’s primary, 

secondary, and tertiary economic activities, to show 

how the reliance on the primary activities has put it 

at a disadvantage, but how better administration and 

governance, diversification into higher order economic 

activities, and foreign assistance can leverage human 

and natural resources to further develop Africa and 

enhance its security and stability.

There are several components that contribute to 

development, especially economic development: the 

natural environment, people, and culture. The natural 
48

environment is particularly important to the success 

of primary economic activities,130 which include 

agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting and gathering, 

grazing, mining, and drilling. These primary activities 

limit economic development through the vagaries of 

physical distribution, which expose such activities to 

risk and shortages. Primary economic activities also 

earn less from human input and capital for the overall 

cost of the commodity than higher order activities. 

Less added-value derives less profit from primary 

commodities than from manufactured goods or services. 

Often, the economic value of these commodities 

depends on the rise and fall of international demand, 

since domestic and regional demand in Africa for its 

own commercial primary products is small. Economic 

policies of industrialized countries are made in their 

own favor, which makes participation in the global 

economy by poorer countries less advantageous. 

Even occasional high world-wide primary commodity 

prices, as occurred in the 1970s and in the 2000s, 

may not contribute enough to economic and human 

development over time since inevitable drops make 

investment in such activities risky, and their rollercoaster economic returns are too unreliable for modern 

development schemes that depend upon stability. 

Thus, throughout history and around the world there 

has been a strong correlation between a predominant 

engagement in primary economic activities and 

relatively low economic and human development of a 

region or country. Although the most basic of human 

pursuits, the inconsistent returns, less-predictable 

supply, lower added-value, and dependence on outside 

demand for primary commodities like food, fibers, 

timber, hydrocarbons, and mineral resources, make 

primary economic activities a weaker and less reliable 

means by which to advance economic development.
49

Agriculture.

Workers who engage in agriculture for the primary 

purpose of feeding their families are considered 

subsistence farmers and are at the lowest end of 

development. They typically employ small or desolate 

plots of land using little machinery, capital, or fertilizer. 

Subsistence agriculture may include intensive farming 

such as rice growing, slash and burn methods in the 

jungle, and pastoralism. Subsistence farmers engage 

sporadically in the national economy and do not 

contribute in an appreciable way to a state’s tax base 

or economic development. A country is considered 

developed if it employs less than 10 percent of its labor 

in agriculture, and is underdeveloped if more than 

half are farmers.131 “A high percentage of agricultural 

workers in a country indicates that most of its people 

must spend their days producing food for their own 

survival . . . not in more wealth creating enterprises 

like manufacturing and services.”132 On average, 

African agriculture employs about two-thirds of 

all workers, but accounted for less than a quarter of 

GDP in 1999 according to the World Bank.133 Table 

7 shows 80 percent of the work force in Ethiopia, 

Chad, and Sudan is engaged in agriculture, with 75 

percent for Kenya and 70 percent for Nigeria. The 

relatively low contribution of agriculture to the GDP 

for so much human involvement demonstrates the 

relative inefficiency of subsistence farming in the state 

economy. Drought, disease, and pests make all types 

of farming risky, but especially subsistence farming, 

which has fewer resources and depth with which to 

mitigate such disasters. The poverty of subsistence 

farming is compounded by a growing population 
50

that often accompanies traditional farming, so less 

food is available per capita. Subsistence farmers 

must therefore adopt more intense or more modern 

farming methods, or face possible dire consequences 

such as famine,134 which has plagued Sub-Saharan 

Africa for several decades. The need to adapt “is all 

the greater because the AIDS pandemic is cutting 

down the number of agricultural workers in Africa, 

reducing Africa’s ability not only to feed itself but 

also to cope with periodic natural calamities.”135 An 

extreme consequence of subsistence agriculture overburdened by population growth is evident in Rwanda, 

Africa’s very agriculture-dependent and most densely 

populated state.136 Paul Magnarella, former President 

of the Association of Third World Studies, concludes 

that the cause of the “Rwandan genocide was the 

increasing imbalance in land, food, and people that led 

to malnutrition, hunger, periodic famine, and fierce 

competition for farming land. Rwanda’s leaders chose 

to respond to these conditions by eliminating the Tutsi 

portion of the population as well as their Hutu political 

rivals.”137 It is difficult for primary economic activities 

to significantly advance economic development 

because of the risk and low economic return from such 

commodities. Subsistence agriculture remains the 

predominant form of economic activity in Africa, but 

contributes the least to an economy and tax base. This 

condition plays a large part in underdevelopment in 

Sub-Saharan Africa, and in its instability. 

For this mainstay of Africa’s economy to overcome 

hunger and contribute to society’s development, a 

surplus in food production is a requirement. A surplus 

will not only feed Sub-Saharan Africa’s population, 

but generate revenue by selling the surplus, and allow 

unneeded labor to engage in higher order economic 
51

activities.138 Elsewhere in the world similar cultures were 

converted from subsistence farming into the modest 

base upon which more developed economies were built. 

Since the 1940s, the engine for such transformation has 

been the Green Revolution, originally a U.S.-Mexican 

project to attain food security by developing highyield, disease-resistant grain varieties.139 Through 

scientific research and the technological application 

of “mechanized equipment, chemical fertilizers, 

insecticides, herbicides, and hybrid seeds . . . yield[s 

of] two to four times more than traditional crops” 

were realized.140 Despite its success in Asia and Latin 

America, the Green Revolution has not promoted a 

dramatic increase in food in Africa.141 One reason is that 

African tuber staples, cassava, yams, and cocoyams, 

are not part of the diet of other underdeveloped parts 

of the world and were not addressed. The industrial 

nature of the Green Revolution crops grown in parts of 

Africa, such as rice, requires heavy capital investment 

for machinery, chemical enhancements, specialized 

seeds, and access to larger plots of land.142 Consequently, 

these Green Revolution crops are not as suitable for 

poverty-stricken Africans. The need for basic literacy 

to read manuals and understand more complicated 

methods is also helpful, as is a willingness to embrace 

change. However, the prerequisites for capital, land, 

and education are often out of reach of most Africans, 

creating a dilemma that prevents them from advancing. 

To gain the resources needed to participate in the Green 

Revolution, farmers may depend on government or 

international assistance, or incrementally transform 

into commercial agriculture by growing food for 

international trade.143 Whichever way, “increasing 

agricultural productivity is the engine of economic 

development in agricultural economies. Agricultural 
52

productivity improvement and rural development are 

also the most effective ways to improve conditions for 

poor people.”144 The Green Revolution is a proven way 

of moving towards higher development, but initiating 

that change requires assistance.

Unlike subsistence agriculture, commercial crops 

are grown primarily for sale and depend on capital 

driven inputs like machinery, chemical enhancements, 

and large plots of land—all of which increases crop 

production while reducing the percentage of laborers 

involved.145 Such produce may include grains, fruits 

and vegetables, nuts, fibers, meat and dairy, timber, 

fish, or more of nature’s bounty that grows on land or 

sea and whose harvest exceeds local needs. Malawi 

offers a classic example of commercial agriculture 

through tobacco, which accounts for 70 percent of all of 

its export revenues. However, Malawi is also a caution 

against using mono-agriculture to fuel economic 

development, since so much needed revenue depends 

on the survival of a single crop and the vagaries of 

global competition.146 Perhaps for this reason Malawi 

places low in the HDI (at 0.437 ranking 164 of 177 

countries), and last world-wide in GDP-PPP, earning 

only U.S. $667 per capita annually.147 Ethiopia’s coffee 

crop is also a major part of its foreign revenue, which 

has stunted Ethiopia’s economic growth because of 

recent droughts, exacerbated by a simmering war 

with Eritrea, and depressed international demand.148

Uganda’s exports depend upon primary commodities 

too, accounting for 83 percent, but it “diversified its 

agricultural sector to include nontraditional exports, 

such as fruits, vegetables, tobacco, and flowers . . . .” 

—a safer strategy.149 In Table 7, the Primary Exports 

category is an indicator of the amount of commercial 

agriculture (but also mineral and energy resources and 
53

logging, depending on which state is examined) sold 

abroad. For Ethiopia, 60 percent of its exports are from 

commercial crops like coffee; but that excludes the vast 

number of subsistence farmers who grow few cash 

crops.150 Another typical example is Ghana’s 35 percent 

of export revenue from agriculture, mainly cocoa, in 

which few of Ghana’s 55 percent of agricultural workers 

participate.151 Commercial agriculture is currently only 

a boon to an elite portion of Africa’s population.

Commercial and subsistence agriculture often exist 

side by side in a dual economic system, which explains 

why some countries have both a high percentage of 

workers engaged in agriculture and yet depend very 

much on exports from agricultural goods. As noted 

earlier, such commercial enterprises may be the engine 

for gaining resources needed to transform subsistence 

agriculture through a new Green Revolution, 

whereby “foreign innovations are first adapted on 

large scale farms . . . before descending to the level 

of small holder.”152 The dark side to a dual structure 

is that the wealthy elite who gain the resources to be 

commercial farmers or ranchers also have the power 

to control poor subsistence farmers or drive them to 

marginal land that is quickly overworked153 before a 

transition occurs. On the other hand, during the 2000s, 

Zimbabwe demonstrated the negative impact on food 

security and exports of unwisely breaking up large 

commercial farms. Within families, such dualism 

also exists, which is a legacy of colonial policies and 

reinforces gender inequality today.154 For example, 

women are often relegated to traditional subsistence 

farming to feed the family, growing up to 80 percent of 

Africa’s total food supply, while men work for wages 

or grow commercial crops as part of the transition 

from subsistence farming.155 Creating surplus food in 
54

agriculture-dependent Africa is the key to economic 

development. Participating in a new Green Revolution 

is one way to transition to more lucrative commercial 

agriculture and assure access to food, but for success 

a balanced transition from subsistence to commercial 

agriculture must occur. 

Since agriculture is crucial to the well-being of 

Africans, its proper management is the key place 

from which to develop the continent’s economies and 

societies. Africa’s agricultural underperformance is a 

function of the region’s corruption of the dual economic 

system, climate and bad weather, and institutional 

factors such as low levels of investment, instability, 

inefficient use of resources, and mal-governance.156 The 

antidote to these problems is better national governance 

and administration and international assistance to prod 

Africa’s stagnant development trend. Maintaining 

basic internal stability, external peace, transparency, 

and representative government are necessary first steps 

in gaining local and foreign investment in agriculture, 

but one that many African governments seem unable 

to achieve. To encourage change towards these goals, 

the United States started the Millennium Challenge 

Account (MCA), which offers “a 50 percent increase 

in development assistance for those countries meeting 

its qualifications . . . [which] stress good governance, 

peace, security, the rule of law, human rights. . . .”157 In 

Africa, Benin, Ghana, Mali, and Senegal have gained 

eligibility in MCA for their improvement efforts. With 

basic good governance in place, external assistance 

could help to ensure that commercial agriculture 

becomes a boost to development and not just another 

form of supporting the elite. For instance, professional 

agricultural planning that respects or restores the 

environment is crucial to increase production and 
55

Country

Employment

In 

Agriculture

(% total 

employ) 

 Primary 

 Exports

(% exports)

GDP from

Agriculture

 (% of 

total)

Primary Economic

Activity Exports

Algeria 14 98 8 Petroleum, natural 

gas

Botswana n/a 13 2 Diamonds, copper, 

nickel, soda, ash

Chad 80 n/a 22 Oil, cattle, cotton, 

gum arabic

Congo, Rep n/a n/a 6 Petroleum, lumber, 

sugar, cocoa

Ethiopia 80 89 49 Coffee, qat, gold, 

livestock, oilseed

Ghana 56 88 37 Gold, cocoa, timber, 

tuna, manganese

Kenya 75 79 24 Tea, horticultural 

products coffee, 

fish

Mauritius 9 29 5 Sugar, cut flowers, 

fish

Nigeria 70 98 18 Petroleum, cocoa, 

rubber

Sierra Leone n/a 93 49 Diamonds, rutile, 

cocoa, fish

South Africa 9 43 2 Gold, diamonds, 

platinum, metals

Sudan 80 99 31 Petroleum, cotton, 

sesame, livestock

UK 1 18 1

USA 1 15 1

Notes: Data based on most recent years from 2000-07. Botswana, Congo, and 

Sierra Leone’s agriculture employment data are not available, but each at least 

exceeds half of the work force.

Sources: Primary Exports: UNDP, Human Development Reports, 2007-08. 

Employment, GDP from Agriculture, and Exports: CIA’s World Factbook, 2008.

Table 7. Comparison of Primary Economic 

Employment and Production Indicators.
56

ensure that any gains made can be sustained for future 

generations. State governments should be proactive 

through reforestation, re-vegetation, soil conservation, 

and through their organizational responses to 

problems, rather than a reactive posture as has usually 

been the case.158 Such steps will mitigate the effects of 

adverse weather and somewhat prepare for changes in 

the environment. Since farmers and state governments 

often lack the resources and capital to spur a Green 

Revolution and more efficient commercial agriculture, 

foreign aid may prove very useful at the start. One 

example of such assistance is the U.S. Government’s 

Africa Seeds of Hope Act which aims to increase 

agricultural productivity and rural development 

through food security for subsistence agriculture and 

higher income for commercial endeavors. Through this 

act, USAID consults with the rural poor to establish 

micro credit with private entities and NGOs, extends 

the benefits of the Green Revolution to African crops, 

enables increased flexibility in food aid, and ensures 

accountability towards progress.159 Other international, 

foreign government, and nongovernmental organizations are also active in similar initiatives, and 

all efforts should be cooperatively optimized. A 

partnership of African governments willing to improve 

governance and international assistance is one way to 

help continue Africa’s development.

A second way to promote development and to 

establish food security for Africans while creating a 

surplus of commercial crops for international trade 

is by enhancing the demand-side of agriculture. 

International demand for African agricultural products 

may better ensure that development is sustainable in 

the long run and does not simply continue ineffective 

aid and grants. The United States and EU could play 
57

a much larger, if more controversial, role by opening 

up their domestic markets to African agricultural 

goods, similar to the access that African manufactured 

products have. This would eliminate a World Bank 

estimated U.S. $270 billion of trade-distorting price 

supports, and spur African economies.160 However, 

every change made to the precarious balance of Africa’s 

economies needs to be carefully considered. In such a 

case, African farmers 

would require substantial financial, human, and physical 

investment in developing land for growing agricultural 

products, and agro-industrial development for processing, packaging, meeting health and sanitary standards, 

and marketing to the supermarkets of the world. It 

would require human capital and expertise in farming, 

food processing, and food product marketing of precisely the kind that Africa has been carelessly exporting.161

Uganda’s past policy and Zimbabwe’s present policy 

of land reapportionment have driven away much 

of the human capital needed to achieve such a goal, 

whereas Kenya’s and Namibia’s policies have better 

retained the needed expertise, although perpetuating 

other problems. Developing agriculture is the key to 

advancing Africa’s economic and human development. 

To achieve these goals, African governments must 

govern better, and ensure an efficient and equitable 

transition to food security and commercial agriculture. 

International assistance can spur the transformation 

by offering aid to initiate the process and opening 

markets to African products. This may be the key piece 

in a complex puzzle of helping Africa develop security 

and stability.
58

Extractive Resources.

Just as important as agriculture in underpinning 

Africa’s economies is its vast mineral and energy 

wealth. These are primary commodities that may 

be the foundation upon which to develop a society 

or economy if properly managed, but often they are 

not. Because Africa is relatively land and resource 

abundant but underachieving in human efforts, 

natural resources play a larger role in its fortunes 

than in any other region except the Middle East.162

Between 1965 and 2000 “most of the growth that has 

taken place in export trade has come primarily from 

extractive processes and agriculture” with primary 

commodities accounting for more than 90 percent of 

foreign revenues in many African countries.163 These 

resources are “naturally occurring, exploitable material 

that society perceives as useful to its economic and 

material well-being.”164 Some resources are renewable, 

like solar, wind, and geo-thermal energy. Africa has 

much potential to harness these for its benefit, using 

its mighty rivers like the Congo or Niger to generate 

electricity, but also through numerous small rivers 

such as Liberia’s St. Paul River, which once supplied 

half of that country’s electricity. Although Africans 

desperately need cheap clean energy from these 

renewable sources, their establishment has been 

slow and underfunded compared to nonrenewable 

resources, which are exportable and of greater interest 

to overseas companies and governments that invest 

in Africa’s infrastructure. Nonrenewable resources 

include metallic and nonmetallic minerals and fossil 

fuels. To be useful, natural resources must be accessible, 

exploitable, and economically needed. Accessible 

refers to the distribution and occurrence of a resource. 
59

Many African states have little or less-than-adequate 

natural resources and cannot depend on this avenue 

for development revenue. Exploitability requires 

technology to recover and fashion these resources in 

an economically viable way. Although some resources 

are relatively easy to obtain, such as the alluvial 

diamonds of Sierra Leone and Liberia (a characteristic 

that fueled the civil wars in both countries), most need 

capital, technology, and expertise, usually requiring 

the intervention of foreign interests. Economic need 

is based on the recognition that a resource has value 

and fills a niche within an economy, generating trade 

or industry. Natural resources can be more influential 

in speeding development than agriculture because 

the payoff is greater, but with increased risks. The 

geographical distribution of natural resources give 

them a value that rises and falls with international 

demand, so thereby they may be unreliable sources 

of funding for development plans. The requirement 

for foreign demand and assistance to recover and use 

these resources also means that a state government 

often has less control over its fate than is true of more 

localized agriculture. Because of the advanced level 

of technology and expertise involved in extraction 

activities, their potential return to spur development is 

higher because of the capital cost and value added, but 

usually rewards only an elite fraction of the population 

unless government intervenes to spread the wealth. 

Raw materials and agriculture alone can be used for 

development, as coal and iron ore were used in the UK 

to start the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. 

Other European countries, the United States, and Japan 

followed suit with an increasing need for raw materials 

to continue their development. This appetite, however, 

resulted in imperialism in Africa and other parts of 
60

the world, thereby inhibiting further development 

in the newly colonized regions.165 Natural resources 

offer more potential to enhance development than 

agriculture, if properly governed, but to a lesser extent 

than industry or services. Below are examples of how 

natural resources are contributing to development 

of African nations and the pitfalls they pose to the 

development process.

Natural resources in some countries have remained 

the primary source for funding economic and human 

development, resulting in both notable successes and 

negative effects.166 From 2000 to 2007, oil exporting 

countries led Africa’s economies with an impressive 

7 percent growth rate.167 Gabon is a typical country 

benefiting from this trend. Well into the 1970s, 

Gabon was an exporter of timber, gold, iron ore, and 

manganese, but the discovery of oil catapulted Gabon’s 

growth. Oil, the commodity that accounts for 50 percent 

of GDP and 80 percent of export revenues, caused the 

GDP-PPP to rise to an impressive U.S. $13,800 in 2007. 

Gabon’s national income per capita based on oil is near 

the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa and is four times 

that of most other African states.168 On the negative 

side, Gabon’s rapid growth has also produced a high 

income inequality level, which keeps power in a small 

group and most of its population poor and uneducated. 

Oil also dominates Nigeria’s economy at 25 percent of 

GDP and 95 percent of exports. Although oil revenues 

produced respectable growth from 1965 to 1982, the GNI 

per capita since then has dropped from U.S. $1,110 to 

$300 in 2000. This demonstrates the inherent transitory 

nature of riches from natural commodities. The drop 

in GNI was further exacerbated by the government’s 

mismanagement of its economy, high population 

growth (TFR of 5.41 in 2007), and ethnic divisions—
61

typical of development problems confronted by other 

African states.169

Not only has Nigeria’s oil production failed to 

increase the general welfare of its people, but in some 

cases it had a direct negative impact by harming 

agriculture through polluting the land, and diverting 

funds from agricultural development.170 In the oil 

producing Niger River delta, the deprivations from 

inequality and environmental degradation have ignited 

an insurgency, which in turn disrupts oil production 

and limits overall economic growth.171 Natural resource 

wealth has stoked instability and violence in other 

places, too. Impoverished Chad is currently hoping 

for oil reserves to provide an economic boost through 

foreign investment. However, internal ethnic unrest 

and cross border incursions produced a negative 1.3 

percent growth rate in 2007172 due in part to violent 

disruption of oil production and mal-governance.173

Even where a government genuinely tries to develop 

its population through its resources, it may not succeed. 

Algeria earns 60 percent of its budget revenue and 

95 percent of its export earnings from hydrocarbons 

as the world’s 4th largest natural gas exporter and 

14th in oil. Yet the government’s attempt to diversify 

the economy so as to reduce high unemployment 

and raise living standards has yet to be successful, 

with reforms slowed by corruption and bureaucratic 

inertia.174 The perceived blessings of oil may backfire 

in other ways, too. Since the 1980s in the Republic of 

Congo rising oil revenues have been the main source 

to finance large-scale development resulting in a 

substantial GDP growth averaging 5 percent annually. 

To do so, however, the “government has mortgaged 

a substantial portion of its oil earnings through oilbacked loans that have contributed to a growing debt 
62

burden and chronic revenue shortfalls.”175 Congo’s 

success is also threatened by the cyclical nature of oil 

prices, internal instability, and incomplete government 

and economic reform.176 The potential of African 

natural resources have only been partially realized in 

helping to advance the world’s least developed region. 

Throughout Africa, the benefits of natural resources 

are diminished because of many of the same recurring 

problems found in agriculture: the cyclical nature of 

the demand for natural resources, poor government 

management in using the earnings from raw materials, 

internal instability that actually may be caused by the 

presence of such wealth, and population growth that 

simply outstrips the economic growth rate. Despite 

these hindrances, resource rich states are envied, 

since many other African states are bereft of natural 

resources and the potential of those resources to spur 

development.

Natural resources can be both a help and hindrance 

to development, so analyzing Africa’s sources of natural 

wealth beyond hydrocarbons is instructive. Oil and 

natural gas-poor African countries can sometimes rely 

on other resources to generate foreign revenue. Guinea, 

for example, is a major producer of bauxite and gem 

stones that, along with other primary products, make 

up 75 percent of its exports, but do not advance a low 

HDI of 0.456, ranking 160th in the world.177 Zambia is 

an important world supplier of cobalt and copper, a 

major portion of its 91 percent of primary exports, but 

has an even lower HDI of 0.434 and ranks 165th in the 

world.178 The Democratic Republic of Congo is blessed 

with 80 percent of the world’s cobalt reserves, 10 percent 

of its copper, 30 percent of its diamonds, and other 

diverse mining resources that contribute to 25 percent 

of GDP output and 75 percent of total exports, along 
63

with rich renewable energy and agricultural sources. 

Yet Congo has not realized its development potential 

for many of the same reasons cited for other African 

states: “government corruption, mismanagement, and 

profligacy. . . . War only furthered the collapse.”179

South Africa is the continent’s largest and most diverse 

source for important metallic and nonmetallic minerals. 

These raw materials account for nearly all of South 

Africa’s primary exports, which at only 48 percent of 

all exports indicates a diversification of the economy 

that few other countries in Africa share. South Africa 

is a rare case where resources do not seem to hold 

back economic and human development because of 

the country’s relatively better governance, economic 

management, greater stability, and diversification 

into higher order economic activities. Morocco, on 

the other hand, is not as well endowed with physical 

resources, although it is the world’s leading exporter 

of phosphates used in fertilizer, which make up 92 

percent of its mining earnings.180 Together with some 

food products, primary commodities only make up 35 

percent of Morocco’s exports, but this contributes to a 

higher HDI of 0.646, ranking 126th—very close to South 

Africa’s level.181 Why is it that despite the abundant 

natural resources found in Africa, only 3 of Africa’s 54 

states (Seychelles, Mauritius, and Tunisia) rank in the 

top 100 of the HDI,182 and none maintain this ranking 

through agriculture or raw resources? 

Despite its potential benefits, a case can be made 

that reliance on Africa’s huge endowment of natural 

resources is actually a detriment to development 

because Africa’s wealth is so mismanaged as to retard 

real growth elsewhere. Thomas Friedman, a noted 

modern economics author, calls this the “curse of oil,” 

but the curse could be extended to reliance on any 
64

natural resource sold as a state’s primary means of 

revenue. Friedman explains: 

As long as the monarchs and dictators who run these oil 

states can get rich by drilling their natural resources—

as opposed to drilling the natural talents and energy of 

their people—they can stay in office forever. They can 

use oil money to monopolize all the instruments of power—army, police, and intelligence—and never have to 

introduce real transparency or power sharing. . . . Countries focused on tapping their people have to focus on 

developing real institutions, property rights, rule of law, 

independent courts, modern education, foreign trade, 

foreign investments, freedom of thought, and scientific 

enquiry to get the most out of their men and women.183

Freidman’s comments describe a plutocracy that is 

common in Africa, a self-serving elite whose grip on 

power and wealth is simplified by the concentrated, 

in-place, self-contained nature of mineral extraction 

between a single foreign or local entity with capital 

and expertise and a willing government that advances 

the elites’ financial interests, and keeps the country 

in a dependent relationship with international 

institutions.184 An example is tolerating “piracy and 

bunkering, or the theft of oil out of pipelines, [which] 

are estimated to drain $1 billion to $4 billion annually 

from West African oil production. An estimated 

25 percent of Cameroon’s is stolen.”185 Worse is the 

kleptocracy, where elites steal outright national wealth. 

The books of Angola’s state oil company, Sonangol, 

are treated as virtual state secrets. In 1998 more than 

a billion dollars was secured for exploration permits 

but “much of it disappeared off of the books.”186

Natural resource wealth has also literally fueled 

violent conflict that so readily plagues the continent. 
65

The most notorious were blood diamonds smuggled out 

by warring factions and sold on the world market to 

finance war and insurgency. Africa’s bloodiest civil 

war in the Democratic Republic of Congo was funded 

through diamonds and its other resources.187 The 

source of the natural wealth does not matter as much 

as how that wealth is applied to achieve development, 

or misapplied to prevent it. Unfortunately most 

resources are squandered through lack of judicious 

administration, meaning such natural wealth may be a 

detriment under the wrong circumstances.

For all of their promise, the limitations of natural 

resources in advancing development are widespread 

and multifaceted. Some limits are due to the inherent 

traits of natural resources, which concentrate their 

wealth in only a few fortunate economies, and whose 

price, and therefore aid to development, fluctuates 

with an international market. The outside assistance 

needed to generate supply and demand has opened 

resource extraction to past colonial and alleged neocolonial relationships. Internal and external conflict 

may be exacerbated by fighting over control of natural 

resources, and ethnic divisions have also been factors in 

diminishing the returns. However, the most significant 

factor, and one over which Africans themselves hold 

the most control, is that of mal-governance and poor 

administration, which diverts the benefit of natural 

resource revenue from developing economic and 

human resources to ineffective schemes or outright 

corruption. The proper administration of Africa’s 

natural resources for the betterment of society is often 

an unrealized dream. However, good administration 

can promote economic and human prosperity as 

states from Norway to Australia have demonstrated, 

and of which Botswana is the best African example. 
66

The key to such success is the same as in successful 

resource-poor countries such as Japan, Switzerland, 

South Korea, Finland, and Taiwan—good governance 

that invests in its people and a stable and secure 

foundation to build upon. That is why gauging 

social and economic measures is so important to 

understanding development. Good economic planning 

and the development of human capital are some of the 

best ways to invest in the future, by harnessing natural 

resources and talent and diversifying the economy into 

higher order activities.

Industry.

If Africans wish to attain the same levels of 

economic, social, and demographic development as 

did Europe, North America, and Japan, they could 

follow a similar path to advancement from primary 

to secondary economic activities. These countries 

showed that the most important component of the 

economic development process is its people in terms 

of numbers, literacy, health, and productivity. The 

demographic characteristics of a country are a second 

major component of the economic development 

process, and one that is particularly suitable for aiding 

development and building secondary economic 

activities by some African countries. Secondary 

economic activities are manufacturing, construction, 

power production, and other activities “that process, 

transform, and assemble raw materials into useful 

products [or] take manufactured goods and fabricate 

them into finished consumer products.”188 Industry 

depends on the productivity of people, which is the 

labor value-added to a product beyond the cost of 

raw material and energy inputs.189 The productivity 
67

of people depends on their literacy, skills, and health 

as enhanced by processes and capital inputs like tools, 

transportation, and communications. The dividends 

from value-added human intellect and fabrication using 

capital and technology have been earlier demonstrated 

in the higher returns from commercial agriculture 

over subsistence. People are key components of both 

farming and industry. However, with farming the 

population is relatively dispersed while in industry 

workers are usually concentrated in cities or their 

surroundings, which results in an economy of scale 

in production, concentration of support facilities like 

transportation and communication nodes, and more 

efficient consumption of products produced. Although 

the mining and drilling of resources are considered 

primary economic activities, extraction shares many 

characteristics with industry so they are sometimes 

analyzed together, as with the data used in Table 8. 

The similarities between extraction and manufacturing 

are that both operate from point locations, involve 

higher level worker skills and technology, require 

expensive capital infrastructure investments and access 

to power, and offer higher economic returns. Because 

of the economic advantages that secondary activities 

provide, “one of the markers of underdevelopment 

today is the relative absence of modern manufacturing 

capability.”190 In Sub-Saharan Africa, industry has 

fared poorly, declining in relative world share since 

1975 from 4.8 percent to 2.4 percent in 1990.191 In 2006, 

according to Director General Kandeh Yumkella of 

the UN Industrial Development Organization, SubSaharan Africa’s share of world industrial output stands 

at 1 percent, and half of that comes from South Africa. 

In contrast, South Korea alone produces 3.4 percent 

of the world’s industrial output.192 Clearly, industry 
68

has played a much smaller role in Africa’s economies 

than agriculture or resource extraction. Industry has 

remained stagnant in absolute terms and declined in 

relative terms over the past decades. If African societies 

wish to develop further, then industrialization is one 

path to follow, as has already occurred in developed 

states.

All African states have some light manufacturing 

tailored to domestic markets, which may range from a 

village blacksmith to a small local bottling plant. It is at 

the intraregional and international levels that African 

manufacturing remains paltry and uncompetitive. 

However, Africans do possess some comparative 

advantages for their own development through 

industries in which native components are significant. 

Most major industrial areas in Africa are centered in 

urban areas near natural resources such as West Africa’s 

petroleum fields, Southwest Africa’s ring of diamonds, 

South Africa’s mineral rich Witwatersrand, copper in 

Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 

the agricultural regions of Lake Victoria and central 

Ethiopia.193 Dependence on primary goods is common 

in the early stages of industrialization because it 

builds upon existing economic specialization. For 

example, Ethiopia’s small industrial sector depends 

upon agriculture to produce textiles from its cotton 

crop, and leather goods from its cattle herds.194 Such 

agriculturally-based manufacturing accounts for 66 

percent of Ethiopia’s manufacturing base, 73 percent 

in Uganda, and 90 percent in Burundi.195 These efforts 

are only a small first step, however. Botswana, on the 

other hand, has been remarkably successful in using 

its main natural resource, diamonds, to attain one of 

the world’s highest sustained economic growth rates. 

Stability, security, and good governance are major 
69

contributors to this success, but they have also benefited 

from higher level activities, going beyond being the 

world’s largest producer of crude diamonds.196 To 

gain the economic benefits of value-added human 

fabrication, the government insisted that its partner, 

the giant diamond company DeBeers, move its sorting 

operations from London and its cutting, polishing, and 

marketing operations from India to Botswana.197 This 

lucrative arrangement has maintained one of Africa’s 

highest GDPs per capita—shared by a small population 

composed mostly of subsistence farmers. 

South Africa, the continent’s economic powerhouse, 

has an industrial base founded on natural resources 

and local requirements. However, a well-developed 

infrastructure in communications, transportation and 

energy, a strong business services sector, and relative 

stability have allowed diverse industries producing 

automobiles, metalwork, machinery, textiles, iron 

and steel, and chemicals to develop within South 

Africa.198 Yet despite these advantages, South Africa’s 

manufacturing remains as stagnant as that of the 

rest of Africa.199 Mauritius’ industry also started 

with a basic commodity, sugar, but the government 

aggressively diversified it to achieve a middle income 

economy. In the 1960s, raw sugar accounted for 86 

percent of export earnings because it is the island’s 

only viable commercial crop. Since then, Mauritius has 

expanded to processing molasses, and more recently 

to producing bio-fuel from sugar waste to generate 

60 percent of the country’s electricity. Mauritius has 

purposely grown beyond its natural resources to enter 

into the labor intensive textile industry as a way to 

continue to advance its economy further. At its peak 

in 2004, such light manufacturing accounted for 21.4 

percent of GDP, almost all for export.200 To become 
70

internationally competitive, the government of 

Mauritius heavily invested in its human potential and 

physical infrastructure, and is showing the benefits in 

its favorable development measurements, including 

an equitable income distribution.201 Industry based on 

using native natural resources is a basic stepping stone 

towards development, but because Mauritius is resource poor, it has purposefully enabled and harnessed its 

human resources. Nearly all countries in Africa have 

started down the industrialization path, except for 

South Africa and Mauritius, few have gone far. The 

fundamentals of stability, good government planning, 

and proper investment once again demonstrate their 

value for economic and social development. However, 

even with the achievement of some successes, Africa’s 

most advanced countries face problems in sustaining 

their development and maintaining their relatively 

high standards of living. 

Despite the previous examples, Africa cannot be 

construed as an industrialized region. Even with a few 

bright examples, African economies must surmount 

daunting intrastate and interstate obstacles to grow 

their industrial bases so as to become competitive. 

Continuing to examine Mauritius’ manufacturing 

illustrates some of the problems that African states face. 

The industrial gains made by Mauritius through the 

harnessing of its one agricultural asset, sugar, and the 

textile skills of its people were challenged by changes 

to international trade policy. In 2005, the EU started 

to remove preferential trade agreements in sugar 

given to former colonial states (Mauritius was a British 

possession until 1968). This has severely strained sugar 

farming and its attendant industries, the island’s most 

important employer and revenue source. To remain 

competitive, seven of eleven sugar processing plants 
71

Table 8. Comparison of Industry and Services 

Employment and Production Indicators.

Country Employment

In industry

(% employ)

GDP from

Industry

(% of 

total)

Industrial

Exports

 Employment

in Services

(% employ)

GDP 

from

Services

(% of 

total)

 Intrnat’l

Tourists

 (000s)

Algeria 23 61 Petroleum 

products 63 30 866

Botswana n/a 51 Textiles n/a 47 843 

Chad 8 

(approx) 47 None 12 (approx) 31 44

Congo, 

Rep n/a 57 Plywood n/a 37 26

Ethiopia 8 13 Leather 

products 12 38 125

Ghana 15 25 Aluminum 29 38 373

Kenya 10 

(approx) 17 Petroleum products

 15 

(approx) 59 990

Mauritius 30 25 Clothing, 

molasses 61 70 n/a

Nigeria 10 53 Petroleum 

products 20 29 813

Sierra 

Leone 

n/a

31 None n/a 20 

10

South 

Africa 26 27 Machinery 65 71 6,026

Sudan 7 36 Petroleum 

products 13 33 39

UK 18 24 81 75 4900

USA 23 21 76 78 52,690

Notes: Data from 2007. Tourism data from 2000, except Botswana and South Africa from 1999. 

Employment in Industry and GDP from Industry percentage includes mining and drilling. 

Sources: CIA’s 2008 World Factbook, 2007 data. Tourism: Tom Nevin, “African Tourism Review,”

African Business, February 2003, except U.S. and UK from World Tourism Organization Release 

“Millennium Tourism Boom in 2000.”
72

closed, farming practices were modernized, and alternate derivative products were developed. These were 

strong government responses to adverse circumstances. A second blow also ended favorable U.S. 

and European textile import quotas, which had 

successfully stimulated industry in the world’s 

poorest countries. These changes closed hundreds 

of factories in Mauritius, which at the time was the 

world’s second largest exporter of woolen knits.202

Lesotho’s burgeoning textile industry suffered the 

same fate in 2005. Under the U.S. African Growth and 

Opportunity Act (AGOA), passed in 2000, African 

development was promoted through increased 

trade and investment.203 East Asian manufacturers 

took advantage of cheap African labor and reduced 

U.S. duties to invest U.S. $100 million in Lesotho, 

employing 50,000 people and producing 10.5 percent 

of its GDP. The end of preferential imports brought 

the near overnight collapse of this industry in Lesotho 

and other African countries.204 There are international 

trade obstacles preventing development other than 

trade barriers. For example, Africa’s young industries 

lack the fundamentals to gain entry into developed 

markets; the same quality, safety, marketing, and other 

problems that African agricultural produce also faces. 

International standards are higher and more ubiquitous 

than in decades past, and integrating into multilateral 

trading systems like the World Trade Organization 

(WTO) is more difficult.205 Thus African industry needs 

to improve its production capacity, but its efforts are 

undercut by an inability to attract foreign capital and 

expertise, and by international trade regulations.

In many cases Africans and their governments have 

also undermined their own industrial development. 

Zimbabwe once boasted one of Africa’s more diverse 
73

economies and modern industrial sectors. It successfully 

exported textiles, footwear, and agricultural machinery 

to regional markets. However, inept management, 

corruption, and a draconian one-party state polarized 

society and eviscerated an industrial success story.206

Violence and instability are perhaps the biggest causes 

of underdevelopment in Africa because it frightens 

away capital investment and investors who seek 

stability to reap a return. Even after investments are 

made, stability is needed to operate, as the Democratic 

Republic of Congo illustrates with its long-running 

internal conflict contributing to an industrial capacity 

producing at just 25 percent and unemployment at 85 

percent in 2005.207 Lack of infrastructure investment is 

another chronic problem for industrialization. A U.S. 

$1.2 billion mega aluminum smelter was located in 

Mozambique to take advantage of cheap hydro-electric 

potential from the Zambezi River. However, the 

finished plant will consume four times Mozambique’s 

average electricity production and requires major 

investment in additional dams and in Mozambique’s 

fledgling natural gas industry for more energy. The 

project is stalled after its first phase until more power 

is generated. However, needed investment is arriving 

from foreign investors impressed with the government’s 

open economic regime and capitalist development, 

which has made Mozambique one of the most dynamic 

economies in Africa.208 Mozambique is benefiting from 

its government’s policies, but many states do not, and 

poor governance and administration may be the second 

biggest cause for lack of development. A disappointing 

example is Ethiopia where private land ownership is 

illegal, hampering investment in industry such that 

only a small portion of Ethiopia’s economic production 

is manufactured.209 Governments such as the ones in 
74

Nigeria or Cameroon also misallocate public funds, 

undercutting important sectors like agriculture by 

investing in the more glamorous extraction industry.210

Sometimes these misallocations “stimulated ruralurban migration, yet there were insufficient jobs 

to absorb those who left the countryside,” and the 

misallocation was also a cause for food shortages on the 

continent.211 Government imposed import substitution 

strategies strive to build young native industries by 

protecting them in their local market from foreign 

competition. Inevitably, though, such policies produce 

inefficient low quality companies, whose products are 

globally uncompetitive and too expensive for local 

consumers. African government efforts are better 

spent making their industries competitive through 

establishing “institutions for industrial standards, 

testing, expert support, quality assurance, training, 

technology information, research, and technical 

extension and assistance for investors, suppliers, 

subcontractors, and local African entrepreneurs.”212

Neo-liberal trade policies, such as the “Washington 

Consensus,” advocate an export-led development 

strategy that would open up African economies to 

world trade starting with African agricultural and 

extractive products. This might reverse Africa’s 

declining share of world trade, which now stands at 

only 1.5 percent.213 In 2001, Afrobarometer cited several 

African countries for their positive market reforms and 

democratization including Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, 

Malawi, Mali, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, 

Uganda, and Zambia.214 If their efforts continue, these 

are the countries that have positioned themselves 

for success through their internal efforts, adapting to 

international markets and using international support 

to lead African economies past old negative tendencies 

and toward sustainable development.
75

Services.

A third part of an economy is its tertiary economic 

activities, its services. These complement and enhance 

the primary and secondary activities and add vigor 

to an economy through diversity and greater depth. 

Services are any activity that fulfills a human want or 

need and returns money to those who provide it. There 

are three types of services with numerous subtypes that 

include consumer services such as retail and wholesale, 

education, health, leisure and hospitality; business 

services such as financial, professional, transportation, 

and communications; and public services like security 

and social services.215

As with primary and secondary economic activities, 

tertiary activities rely on the economic development 

components of people, the natural environment, 

and societal culture. Whereas the success of primary 

activities was particularly sensitive to the natural 

environment, and secondary activities to the quality 

of a population, tertiary activities are especially 

dependent on culture. Culture is the way that a society 

“organizes itself in terms of beliefs, values, customs 

and lifestyles [which] greatly influences both the 

direction and degree of development.”216 When service 

activities are used to generate international revenue, 

the manner in which a culture embraces change and 

globalization is a key to success. Like industry, the 

added-value of people’s involvement and investment 

required for many tertiary activities give these higher 

order economic endeavors greater returns. 

The human-to-human aspect of services that provide 

international revenue puts a premium on the culture 

component of development in order to sufficiently 
76

interact with other societies and embrace the constant 

fast-paced changes that globalization requires. Some 

examples of cultural characteristics are typical personalsocietal obligation traits that could impact the success 

of international services through the concept of time 

(Western economies are monochronic, being more 

schedule driven than polychronic societies, as typically 

found in Africa), attitude towards uncertainty (Western 

economies are more accepting of uncertainty and risk 

than uncertainty avoidance cultures), and acceptance 

of authority (participation in Western economies is 

more flat and distributed than in high power distance 

cultures).217

The service sector of most African economies is 

composed primarily of internal personal services 

ranging from retail vendors to primary schools to cell 

phone providers. At some level, services have existed 

throughout Africa’s history alongside agriculture 

and basic industries. African tertiary activities can 

include high technology and support other parts of 

the economy at the same time. One prime example is 

the research conducted by African universities to find 

better adapted crops and techniques to spur subsistence 

and commercial agriculture. Other examples of service 

support to African activities include banking and 

insurance to cover factories and mines and public 

transportation and security to help bring crops to 

market. Although all African countries have some 

services, the strongest and largest economies have 

broadened themselves to offer international services. 

Among several such African activities, tourism and 

intraregional business services are two of the more 

important that will be presented here as examples. 

Even though they constitute only a small part of the 

overall economy, expanding global tertiary activities 
77

should be a goal for Africans, since these activities tend 

to use higher order human skills, are more lucrative, 

and are a catalyst to higher economic and human 

development. They have also been the best method of 

development for countries like Singapore, which are 

resource poor but invest heavily in the skills and wellbeing of their people.

One natural resource for which Africa is renowned 

but is not mined or drilled is its inspiring landscape and 

abundant wildlife, from the tropical rain forests to the 

vast grass savannas. In 2001 28.4 million international 

tourists visited these sights, generating U.S. $11.7 

billion in much needed foreign income for Africa. Many 

countries see tourism as vital in generating revenue 

for economic development. Tourism can be a boon to 

job creation, attract foreign expertise to develop local 

skills, balance intrastate development, and diversify 

an economy. Since Africa is the destination of choice 

for only 4.1 percent of international tourists worldwide, there is much growth potential in this sector.218

One Zambian businessman summed up the promise 

and challenges of tourism when he said, “Virtually 

Africa-wide, the tourism industry has been identified 

as the sector most likely to build national economies. 

The painful question is how to stimulate the political 

will, persuade governments and private sectors to 

fund tourism infrastructure . . . and, probably most 

importantly, for governments to inspire the confidence 

of foreign investors.”219 Some African countries have 

answered these questions and succeeded in attracting 

tourists, especially Kenya in the east; Mauritius and the 

Seychelles on the Indian Ocean; Morocco, Tunisia, and 

Egypt in the north; Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal in the 

west; and South Africa. Some of this success is a result 

of scenic natural resources and climate—advantageous 
78

but not equitably distributed elements of tourism. 

Another geographic advantage is close proximity 

to Europe, which helped North Africa attract over a 

third of Africa’s tourists (10.6 million) and receipts 

(U.S. $4.2 billion) in 2001.220 A third important factor 

is stability and security. Quite simply, tourists are 

attracted to safe and secure areas for vacation, and 

investors look for macroeconomic stability to realize 

a return in infrastructure investments like lodging, 

transportation, and attractions. Zimbabwe is a case in 

point. It slipped from 1.2 million visitors in 1999 to a few 

thousand in 2002 because of the political and economic 

problems that threaten violence in that country. 

The expectation of stability in the rest of southern 

Africa plays an important part in the World Tourism 

Organization predictions that this region will become 

Africa’s top tourist destination by 2020 with 36 million 

visitors, nearly quadruple the number it had in 2000.221

Tourism also tends to succeed in countries where other 

foreign enterprises already exist with functioning 

investment ties, open channels of communication, 

and good understanding of foreign cultures222—

meaning established integration into the international 

community, or continuing dependence through neocolonialism, depending on one’s perspective. Kenya 

is an example of these conditions where “pioneer 

facilities development was in place because Kenya 

had a vigorous expatriate community which sought 

to advance foreign commercial interests, including 

tourism.” Not coincidentally, East Africa was the third 

most visited African region with 5.9 million visitors in 

2001, and expected to grow proportionately through 

2020.223 By establishing good economic fundamentals of 

a stable environment and global connections, Africa’s 

tourism can greatly boost the continent’s development 

aspirations.
79

As with other endeavors, good governance and 

political will are also required to attain the stability 

and globalization needed to thrive in international 

tourism, but also to support human development in 

terms of health and education, legal rights for private 

enterprise and political freedoms, and the construction 

and maintenance of a basic physical infrastructure. 

Such good governance also enhances other economic 

endeavors but is particularly important to activities like 

tourism that have a strong international component. 

The Seychelles is a model for applying these criteria 

towards tourism, having hosted 140,000 elite tourists 

in 2006 accounting for 70 percent of its foreign 

earnings and an impressive GDP per capita. Most 

African countries have been unable to establish such 

criteria and, as a consequence, have not built higher 

end activities like tourism. Establishing tourism in an 

environmentally sustainable way is another form of 

good governance and critically important to maintain 

the assets that tourists seek.224 Sustainability is also 

attained through building native human resources to 

develop quality services and to encourage skills that 

could improve other economic sectors as well.225 Even 

if all of these conditions are properly set, unexpected 

events such as terrorism may undercut any efforts, 

which is why diversity of activities in an economy is 

important. For example, Morocco registered decreases 

in its important tourism businesses after the attacks of 

September 2001, and even more after the U.S. invasion 

of Iraq in 2003.226 In Tanzania, tourism has dropped 

significantly following the al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. 

embassy in 1998 and with the subsequent rise in Islamist 

moralism.227 Although often seen as a main engine for 

development in Africa, the broad requirements for 

natural or cultural attractions—human development 
80

skills, cultural sensibilities and globalization, stability, 

and good governance—have set a high bar for entry 

into tourist services. Much like mineral extraction 

and manufacturing, tourism can also disturb fragile 

balances in local societies, infrastructure, and the 

environment. However, those countries that succeed 

in tourism experience a synergistic effect that improves 

other economic sectors. For these reasons, rather than 

being the engine of African-wide development, tourism 

may reinforce the gulf between developing and poor 

countries228 and for most countries may simply be a 

mark of development rather than a way to reach it.

Often, countries that are sophisticated enough to 

establish a tertiary sector like international tourism 

also possess the skills and resources to diversify into 

other higher service activities as well. Higher level 

services include the banking, insurance, brokering, 

and other services commonly grouped under the 

financial sector of business services. A strong financial 

services sector is particularly prized in an economy 

because it is not only a lucrative sector in its own 

right, but one that can financially support and boost 

other economic activities from agriculture to services. 

In the weak financial markets often found in Africa, 

a strong indigenous financial sector can fill a void to 

become a regional hub gaining foreign revenue and 

attracting international expertise for local companies 

and their workers. However, doing so usually requires 

liberalizing the local economy and removing barriers. 

Although it is considered risky to open an economy to 

global competition, the advantages are a larger potential market and the effort of compelling native 

businesses to sharpen their skills, broaden services 

and products, and lower costs to other businesses. 

Becoming a competitive regional financial hub also 
81

requires sophisticated communications, transportation, 

research, and managerial skills and infrastructure 

bolstering those and other sectors as well.229 Mauritius 

has deliberately expanded its economy beyond 

sugar, textiles, and tourism to embrace banking, 

communications, and information technology by 

creating cyber cities, and tapping into the fiber-optic 

cable that runs from Europe to India’s “high-tech” 

corridor.230 In so doing, it has become a regional 

financial hub, luring over 32,000 off-shore entities 

worth U.S. $1 billion to transact business in India, 

China, and Africa.231 Mauritius also benefits from its 

predominately Indian culture to serve as go-between 

for businesses in India and the rest of the world. 

To bridge the shortage in needed skilled workers, 

Mauritius has invested heavily in education, extended 

the school day, and added technological subjects to its 

curriculum, but a lack of qualified people remains its 

biggest impediment to growth.232 South Africa has built 

a well-regulated and sophisticated financial sector that 

attracts many foreign financial businesses to the region 

because its technology, infrastructure, and supervision 

meet competitive world standards.233 Because of these 

standards, South Africa’s stock exchange has grown to 

become the 17th largest in the world and now includes 

many foreign brokerages that control up to 40 percent 

of the market; yet the bourse’s overall size grew so 

much that few of the local traders lost revenue.234 South 

Africa is the continent’s leader in commercial loans, 

financial advisory services, foreign exchange, securities 

trading, and insurance; all of which make South 

Africa an important launching point into Africa for 

international business.235 In 2003, South Africa also had 

38,000 people working in call centers, taking advantage 

of its communications infrastructure and human skills. 
82

Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Morocco, and Madagascar 

have also started international call center operations, 

but have only 16,000 jobs among them.236 Striving to 

become a services’ hub requires liberalizing economic 

policies and investing in requisite infrastructure and 

people skills in order to take advantage of regional 

financial services.

Not all international financial dealings are by large 

transnational corporations. Because of Africa’s maldistribution of resources, wealth, and opportunities, 

many workers are migrant, sending remittances to 

their families at home. Lesotho, for instance, has few 

resources, so many of its 50 percent unemployed go 

to South Africa to work. Although declining, in 1996 

remittances still accounted for a third of the entire 

GDP of Lesotho.237 Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, 

and overseas countries like Spain, Great Britain, and 

France host many African workers who need to send 

money home. Kenya is the regional hub in East Africa 

for financial services, dealing in both large commercial 

and small micro-fund transfers.238 Kenya’s claim as 

the regional hub comes from its relative strength in 

regulation and better coverage in terms of numbers 

of banks and population served—even though its 

financial services do not reach global standards.239 The 

small and informal nature of such exchanges makes 

tracking them difficult, but they remain major sources 

of income and part of Kenya’s strength as a financial 

hub. As desirable as financial and other services may 

be as part of an economy, the high cost of capital to 

develop the infrastructure and human skills needed to 

participate has severely limited or barred most African 

states from benefiting.240 An ironic twist for African 

states is that international banking is mature enough to 

be used in a reverse transfer of wealth because African 
83

states must repay huge debts they incurred—U.S. 

$15 billion for interest alone in 2003.241 International 

debt relief as pioneered by the British government at 

the G8 Gleneagles conference in 2005 has started a 

welcome trend of debt reduction for 38 countries, most 

of them African, based on demonstrated improved 

governance.242 These actions should help right financial 

systems, lower balance of payments, and divert debt 

payments into a states’ physical and human capital. 

Debt relief and the reward of good governance are 

welcome steps in reinforcing basic requirements for 

development: stability, government transparency, 

liberalizing economies, and investment in human and 

physical capital. In banking, as in most of the other 

international services, Africans are woefully deficient—

both a cause and an indicator of their underdeveloped 

status.

Africa’s Economy Summary.

Although often described and perceived as a single 

entity, Africa’s people and economies are no monolith. 

Africa presents a complex environment with many 

factors affecting its diverse parts. Africa boasts some 

success stories, along with the world’s most destitute 

people and conditions. Almost half of Sub-Saharan 

African states averaged an economic growth rate of 5 

percent or more in 2003, and over a third in 2006, with 

16 countries sustaining growth of over 4 percent for a 

decade. Although Sub-Saharan economies have grown 

by over 4.5 percent from 2000 to 2007, the growth rate 

did not keep pace with the higher average of other 

underdeveloped countries, but did beat the world 

average and, most important for real gains, exceeded 

the population growth rate.243 Despite recent relative 
84

success, Africa’s 54 states still occupy 26 of the world’s 

bottom 32 rankings in GDP-PPP per capita (with 

Malawi at the bottom), 28 of the lowest 36 in literacy 

rates (with Burkina Faso the lowest), 35 of the lowest 

37 states in life expectancy (Zambia being the worst), 

and 34 of the last 40 counties in the HDI (with Sierra 

Leone bringing up the rear, but Liberia and Somalia 

did not report and may be in worse shape).244 What 

caused these differences? The problems bringing about 

such poverty are many, as discussed in the preceding 

sections. Economic reasons include low human 

labor value added in most African activities, low or 

fluctuating commodity prices, lack of investment 

in physical infrastructure and human capital, overreliance on one primary economic product for foreign 

revenue, difficulty in meeting world standards in 

products and globalization requirements, dependence 

on one or a few international markets in which to sell 

goods, state domination of the economy, poor corporate 

administration and oversight, and import price shocks. 

Political problems include lack of stability or violence 

through frequent coups, civil wars and cross-border 

fighting, dominance of self-serving elites, inadequate 

citizen representation, and poor or counterproductive 

government policies. These factors undermine the 

security and stability that African states require if they 

are to continue to develop economically and mature 

politically. These are the goals for which Africans, and 

those external bodies like USAFRICOM that intend 

to meaningfully help Africans, must strive to achieve 

if real and enduring progress is to be made towards 

peace, security, and stability in Africa.
85

ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The situation in Africa is bleak and has been for 

decades. Other developing regions have far surpassed 

it in social, economic, and political measurements of 

development and governance, which remain stubbornly stalled in Africa. Africans, as well as the rest of 

the world community, need peace and prosperity on the 

continent to benefit its people, attain mutual security 

and humanitarian aspirations, and incorporate Africa 

into the world’s economy. Foreign assistance, including 

military support like that represented by USAFRICOM, 

can be of great help toward the achievement of these 

goals. Such support can assist with much needed 

security and stability by performing an external 

security role, and to a lesser extent, in establishing 

and maintaining internal law, order, and justice. These 

are traditional missions of military peace operations 

that are well understood and are internationally 

sanctioned. The military’s role in the equally important 

requirements for economic development and better 

governance has precedents from humanitarian relief to 

security assistance and stability operations. However, 

the involvement of a military force in these endeavors 

may be more controversial, misunderstood, or 

misapplied. The previous discussion of how Africa’s 

importance warrants international assistance, the 

precedent for military involvement in establishing 

security and stability, and the need to address 

economic development and political governance were 

presented as background information in order to 

better examine possible foreign government actions 

to improve the conditions in Africa. This next section 

elaborates on a continuum of actions to better organize 

and administer assistance in order to illuminate what 
86

has been accomplished in terms of the status quo and 

what improvement can be made to current models. 

The upcoming section also discusses what could be 

done with greater direct military involvement and 

leadership, or with military support given under the 

close direction of other government agencies. This 

discussion will enable the reader to decide how foreign 

government assistance can be used to help Africans 

achieve peace and prosperity.

The past use of aid has proven that external help 

alone will not solve Africa’s problems. Africans need 

to fix their own problems. However, these problems 

are of such magnitude that leaving them strictly for 

Africans to solve will take a very long time to succeed. 

Outside help is still needed, but not of the type given 

in the past. Since independence, African states have 

absorbed a net total of $600 billion in foreign aid with 

disappointing results—confirming that the current 

efforts by Africans and the international community 

to improve the situation are insufficient.245 During the 

Cold War, foreign aid was often misdirected simply 

to win political support.246 Such engagement was the 

antithesis of good governance or proper economic 

development and as a result, many Africans “lost 

faith in the various projects of modernization and 

development that promised Africans a better life,” 

with ramifications still echoing today.247 Corruption, 

instability, and underdeveloped infrastructure and 

human resources have discouraged most international 

business investment, leaving 70 percent of gross capital 

formation in Africa stemming from donor country 

hand-outs and less than 15 percent from foreign 

investment. The little foreign business investment 

available is usually cordoned in enclaves of natural 

resources that are buffered from local economies to 
87

limit exposure to crime and conflict.248 Africans have 

grown reliant on outside aid rather than solving their 

own problems, and may now be trapped in the paradox 

of needing aid to grow more self-reliant. However it 

is delivered, aid to Africans should be given so as to 

build African economic and governing capacity while 

reducing their need for such aid, the dependency on 

which has historically slowed African progress.

Keep What Works.

Security trumps everything. It does little good to build a 

school if parents are afraid to send their children to that 

school because they may not come home. 

James Stephenson 

in Losing the Golden Hour249

Security and stability are prerequisites for any 

improvements in Africa, so attaining them should 

be the first step for indigenous and international 

policymakers and planners. This is also certainly the 

desire of the local populace for whom relative safety 

in conducting daily affairs is of great concern.250 The 

creation of a benign environment also benefits the 

population through the safe introduction of the services 

of crucial civilian government agencies and intergovernment and nongovernment organizations, and 

the more effective use of available military support.251

Such was the case by 1952 in occupied Japan where 

“without a secure environment in which to operate, 

the likelihood of SCAP [Supreme Commander of the 

Allied Powers] successfully guiding the Japanese 

Government to political and economic reform was slim 

at best.”252 Where conditions have deteriorated beyond 

the ability of local government, law enforcement, 
88

and military forces to provide a stable and secure 

environment, foreign military forces could employ 

their inherent capabilities to restore these necessary 

conditions.253 The type of military actions needed to 

do so depends on the nature of the threats faced and 

how advanced the stability and security efforts are. 

Sometimes coercive military actions are needed to 

counter political and criminal threats and violence, 

as international forces tried to do in Somalia in the 

1990s. Under other circumstances, a military force 

may act simply as a deterrent and require no direct 

intervention at all.254 Between these two, FM 3-07 

suggests that military forces can transform conflict, 

“the process of reducing the means and motivations 

for violent conflict while developing more viable, 

peaceful alternatives for the competitive pursuit of 

political and socioeconomic aspirations,” and address 

the causes of strife.255 Although a less traditional 

form of military intervention, conflict transformation 

could convert disruptive actions into economic and 

political improvements. Thomas Barnett also believes 

that economic and political progress depend upon 

the elimination of conflict and that military forces 

are an important way to achieve peace. In this vein, 

he asserts that security is the “most influential [U.S.] 

public-sector export.”256 On a national interest level, a 

U.S. security umbrella over Africa also protects U.S. 

investments and resources and opens Africa to benefit 

from international investment, expertise, and trade.257

According to FM 3-07, attaining security and stability 

are part of the primary stability tasks assigned to U.S. 

military forces when, under some circumstances, 

military forces must be part of the solution overseas.

Conflict resolution through hard power may be 

what most military forces train for and do best, but 
89

they may also deliver security and stability through 

less lethal soft power methods, such as the U.S. 

Department of Defense (DoD) concept of peacetime 

military engagement. Such engagement comes from 

USAFRICOM and other U.S. combatant command 

theater security cooperation programs, “which share 

many of the same broad goals as stability operations 

. . . to build partner capacity, strengthen legitimate 

governance, maintain rule of law, [and] foster economic 

growth. . . .”258 Security engagement recognizes that 

security and stability are vital to both U.S. and host 

country interests, but should be attained through 

cooperative improvement to local conditions with U.S. 

forces rather than more drastic direct intervention. 

This is what USAFRICOM’s commander calls “active 

security—defined as a persistent and sustained level 

of effort focused on security assistance programs 

that prevent conflict in order to foster dialogue and 

development.”259 Here the AFRICOM Commander 

refers to security assistance: the best known of many 

types of security cooperation, which supplies defenserelated articles, training, and services to another 

country.260 However, security assistance is only one of 

many defense programs supplied by the U.S. military 

through U.S. ambassadors to shore up similar values and 

interests between the United States and host countries 

while achieving common goals.261 FM 3-07 also notes 

that “the most effective measure for conflict prevention 

and resolution is the promotion of democracy and 

economic development . . . [and] Stability tasks executed 

as part of a theater security cooperation plan under the 

operational theme of peacetime military engagement 

generally fall in this category.”262 Peacetime military 

engagement consists of many programs to deliver these 

results. The following paragraphs give three examples 
90

of such assistance to put into context how they are used 

in Africa: professionalization activities like combined 

education, training, and exercises; humanitarian 

assistance; and broader nation assistance activities. 

Security engagement is an important contribution to 

the security and stability of far more countries than 

that of direct hard power, and will remain a part of 

any potential solutions that military forces are called 

upon to support. 

Since combined education, training, and exercises 

are highly visible and well established within the U.S. 

military, they should constitute part of any solution 

involving government-to-government assistance. 

An example in education is USAFRICOM’s African 

Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) which offers 

informative seminars to senior military and civilian 

African leaders to provide institutional and individual 

understanding about military forces operating under 

democratic institutions. The British, French, and other 

governments run similar educational partnerships to 

build a military capability for professional, competent 

African leaders.263 At lower leadership levels, from 

2002 to 2005 U.S. military programs provided training 

to approximately 2,000 Africans annually in a variety 

of undertakings covering 47 African countries at a cost 

of U.S. $250.6 million.264 Examples of bilateral activities 

include U.S. marines training Algerians on patrolling 

techniques;265 U.S. airmen in Botswana teaching 

airlift, security, and logistics;266 and $500 million for 

internal security training through the Trans-Sahara 

Counterterrorism Initiative to increase border security 

and counterterrorism capability.267 Because of their 

bilateral worth, other developed countries also offer 

such programs, such as the British Military Advisory 

and Training Teams (BMATT) and French Renforcement 
91

des Capacités Africaines de Maintien la Paix (RECAMP), 

each also emphasizing the “train-the-trainer” concept 

and sustained engagement.268 Such professionalization 

of national forces in Africa counters the coup d’etat and 

factional fighting by armed forces that have been major 

sources of instability in African states. 

One particularly successful U.S. training program 

that instills discipline and basic military skills in African forces, while also directly contributing to continentwide peace and stability, is the Africa Contingency 

Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA). Initially 

conceived as the African Crisis Response Initiative 

(ACRI) after the Somalia and Rwanda debacles, 

ACOTA seeks to strengthen African peacekeeping and humanitarian response capabilities while resolving Africa’s problems internally.269 This arrangement has reduced direct U.S. participation in African 

peacekeeping operations (PKO) by replacing it with 

improved African peacekeeping forces. Since ACRI’s 

inception in 1997, the program has trained 45,000 

African troops and 3,200 trainers from 21 participating 

countries at a rate of 21 battalions a year,270 with 

four of the 10 top UN contributing countries in 2006 

coming from Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, and 

Kenya).271 This leaves the U.S. military to directly 

support African PKO with specialized services in short 

supply, like logistics, airlift, communications, and fire 

support.272 For example, in 2009 USAFRICOM began 

large scale support to peace operations for African 

troops in Darfur by airlifting Rwandan troops and 

equipment.273 The immediate benefit of ACOTA is to 

apply an African solution to African problems. Of more 

long-term importance is that peacekeeping missions 

“provide the lion’s share of operational experience for 

a growing proportion of African professional military 
92

leaders at every level . . . shifting their operational 

context from post-colonial regime maintenance, traditional war fighting, and the struggle for black 

majority rule, to peace operations.”274 ACOTA offers 

an example of building military capacity in African 

states; partnership with outside powers to meet 

mutual needs and to attain international standards in 

operations; and perseverance to institutionalize this 

program and its values—which are also hallmarks of 

other U.S. and foreign education, training, and exercise 

plans. Such programs develop African military forces 

to contribute more to internal security and stability 

on the continent and instill a sense of transparent 

responsibility and respect for civil authorities, rule 

of law, and international human rights— “part of 

broader trends toward more representative and 

more accountable governance in Africa.”275 Roles in 

soft power represented by education, training, and 

exercises are traditional military missions supporting 

other forces, and directly strengthen the stability and 

security for which military forces should exist.

Education, training, and exercises, however, do 

not adequately confront the underlying problems 

of economic development and good governance, 

although both stability operations and theater 

security engagement give U.S. military forces a role 

in addressing both. Other forms of military activities 

are closer to the mark of addressing humanitarian 

problems including Humanitarian and Civic Assistance 

(HCA). This assistance benefits the local populace as 

secondary activities of planned military operations or 

exercises. HCA serves to address basic human needs 

like medical, dental, or veterinary care; drilling wells 

or constructing sanitation facilities; and constructing 

or repairing roads and public facilities like schools and 
93

clinics276 for the society within which U.S. forces are 

operating. During a training exercise in Ghana and 

Togo for example, U.S. sailors treated thousands of local 

people with critically needed medical care. Another 

U.S. Navy example involved a construction battalion 

(Seabees) deployed to Liberia in 2008 that renovated two 

medical clinics and a large high school with electricity, 

running water, and structural improvements.277 Such 

actions benefit the population with services they 

otherwise would not have received, improve the 

operational readiness of the military participants, 

and the U.S. Government members garner improved 

contacts, cultural understanding, and good will.278 A 

similar program run by UN forces also strives to have 

a good effect while supporting other operational goals. 

A Quick Impact Project (QIP) is meant to assist a local 

population in a number of ways during a peacekeeping 

mission to include infrastructure improvement and 

income generating activities.279 International programs 

like HCA and QIP help the impoverished with basic 

medical care, infrastructure improvement, and 

economic support in which Africa is woefully deficient, 

but they do not significantly contribute to systemic 

economic development on the level that African states 

need. Although such humanitarian programs are 

usually conducted in partnership with Africans, their 

immediate nature usually means that they are done for 

Africans by outsiders and therefore do not build crucial 

capacity whereby Africans learn to help themselves. 

These programs also lack persistence, often meeting 

an urgent need, but in a piecemeal way. For this 

reason, the UN warns that QIPs “are not a substitute 

for humanitarian and/or development assistance,” 

since their real purpose is to build respect for the UN 

mission and confidence in the peace process.280 For 
94

the United States, HCA benefits are acknowledged 

as residual, with their primary purpose being to 

influence and gain access for U.S. personnel. Only two 

of five HCA program objectives directly support local 

interests.281 USAFRICOM’s budget for HCA activity 

is very small and constrained, severely limiting its 

impact on development.282 The tie between HCA and 

development problems in Africa is obvious, and HCA 

is one way to improve distressing situations. However, 

such programs’ transitory and by-product nature lack 

perseverance and in-depth capacity building and are 

akin to previous less-effective methods that do not 

systemically address the root cause of problems in 

Africa. Although accomplishing some good locally 

while meeting foreign interests, such programs fall 

short in terms of the economic development and good 

governance that Africans need.

Although each part of theater security engagement 

may contribute in part or indirectly to economic 

development or good governance, nation assistance 

operations can allow military forces to address economic development and governance issues more 

broadly. In peacetime through war, nation assistance 

supports another country with “sustainable development and growth . . . to promote long term regional 

stability” under the direction of the Department of 

State. Nation assistance is an over arching category 

of U.S. theater security engagement that includes 

subcategories like HCA and security assistance,283 but 

puts emphasis on long-term development, which is 

not an explicit characteristic of other activities.284 In its 

widest application, nation assistance covers projects 

that its individual subcategories may not. Nation 

assistance operations may be conducted independent 

of other operations or exercises, or in conjunction 
95

with other U.S. Government agencies, international 

government organizations (IGOs), NGOs, and host 

nation authorities.285 These activities carry more 

gravity and significance in economic development and 

governance and may be akin to the stability operations 

projects conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite 

the very beneficial nature of nation assistance in 

facilitating long-term security and stability, the U.S. 

military has often shied away from such missions, 

except when absolutely necessary. Reluctance to 

accept this mission stems from its potential to drain 

resources from combat duties, its long-term nature, 

and the reduction in military readiness caused by 

concentrating on secondary skills to the detriment 

of primary skills training. To date, U.S.-led nation 

assistance is rare in Africa, but a hypothetical mission 

using USAF Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy 

Operational Repair Squadron Engineers (REDHORSE) 

illustrates the concept: 

In remote areas of the world, particularly Africa, air 

transport may be the only means of contact to the outside world. . . . [REDHORSE] could be airlifted into these 

locations and begin providing support by rebuilding or 

constructing airfields to permit an open air supply route 

to that particular location. These airstrips, in turn, would 

act as conduits for supplying the region with food and 

healthcare. Construction units could also serve dual purposes in meeting economic and health interests by using 

their capability to drill water wells and erect needed facilities. . . . Additionally, these units could repair existing facilities to allow electricity, water, and other needed 

life support systems to become functional or construct 

earthen dams or the like to protect against natural disaster and meet environmental security needs.286

Through its use elsewhere in the world, the U.S. military 

has honed over time a nation assistance tradition that 

could serve African security and stability well. 
96

On the political side of nation assistance, military 

forces may do more than help educate and train 

a professional military, they can actually build an 

improved organization. Security sector reform (SSR) 

can improve detrimental organizations by “organizing 

new institutions and units from the ministerial level 

to the smallest maneuver unit. Building infrastructure 

capability—such as personnel, logistics, and 

intelligence—is necessary for sustaining the new 

host-nation capacity.”287 An example of this approach 

is how the United States, France, and the United 

Kingdom have coordinated to reestablish professional 

and accountable ministries of defense and armed 

forces respectively in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte 

d’Ivoire following devastating and interlocking civil 

wars in western Africa. The U.S. Government’s nation 

assistance to Liberia included funding and running a 

disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) 

program for former military and militia members, 

recruiting and vetting new recruits and civil staff, and 

training and equipping a right-sized force inculcated 

with professional skills, proper understanding of civilmilitary relations, and respect for law and rights. The 

new Liberian Ministry of National Defense (MND) 

civilians completed this process, too. Its staff learned 

topics from coordination skills to ethics, military 

justice, protocol, logistics, finance, planning, and public 

affairs to help them forge an effective bureaucracy. 

With proper education, pay, equipment, facilities, and 

procedures, all instituted through mutual consultation 

between the United States and Liberian governments, 

the new MND became a model for other Liberian 

ministries. Nation assistance in its grandest scale 

approaches the types and levels of economic and 

governance assistance needed for security and stability 
97

in African countries and is the closest that U.S. military 

forces may come under current practices to realize 

African needs. However, current practices are such 

that significant nation assistance projects rarely occur 

except as a byproduct of combat with U.S. forces.

Even though military theater engagement has 

proven to be useful as a stand-alone program or 

as part of larger interagency efforts it does have 

room for improvement, and there are definite 

limits to what it can accomplish. Assuming that 

improved security and stability in Africa are 

priorities for theater engagement projects, one low 

cost improvement effort can be achieved by better 

cooperation among North American, European, and 

other donors to reduce administration and overhead 

costs.288 Additionally, the program’s impact could be

enhanced by broadening the capacity of African 

nationals through larger coordinated programs and 

by increasing the duration of these programs enabling 

longer lasting effects. The SSR example given for Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire is an example of this 

approach that simultaneously leverages U.S., French, 

and British efforts to stop the violence that occurred 

among these countries. The Scandinavian countries 

combine efforts that share resources and programs to 

the point that individual country efforts are sometimes 

indistinguishable from the larger “Norden” group 

identity.289 Working together with other countries 

may also reduce the crosscutting competition between 

donors that was frequent during the Cold War and that 

can undermine common goals.290 This multinational 

approach takes more effort and reduces the recognition 

received by the donor, but its heightened impact on 

improving degraded conditions in Africa makes it 

worth the effort. Another improvement to theater 
98

engagement, especially from the receivers’ perspective, 

is to support regional cooperation initiatives, such 

as the African Standby Force, the African Union’s 

standing force for Africans to respond to African crises 

and catastrophes.291 In ACOTA, this approach is used 

with sub-regional organizations such as ECOWAS 

and the Southern African Development Community 

(SADC) to consult and participate in peacekeeping, 

thereby reinforcing the inherent multinational nature 

of these operations.292 Another example is the subregional MEDFLAG operations, which provide 

medical and humanitarian aid from the U.S., European, 

and Asian participants to multiple African countries.293

For small African countries, dealing with major 

international donors through a regional organization 

is less overwhelming, and for regional powers such as 

Nigeria, South Africa, Libya, or Ethiopia it allows them 

to maintain their influence and feel less threatened by 

activities from foreigners.294 Regional initiatives also 

better harness foreign-local collaboration because 

more expertise and resources remain on the African 

side, which builds more capacity and persistence since 

neighboring countries can reinforce and aid each other 

better after donor support is gone. Within internal donor 

country politics, regional initiatives also reduce the 

undue influence of country advocates with particular 

clout, which should make programs more efficient 

and persistent.295 Even with improvements in donor 

cooperation and acting with regional organizations to 

enhance the effects of military engagement, inherent 

limits remain in how security cooperation programs 

can support underlying African security factors. 

The many varieties of military engagement in Africa 

usually meet the foreign sponsors’ interests through 

acquainting military leaders with potential partners, 
99

providing familiarization with a region, establishing 

access to areas, and serving as “good insurance that 

the United States will have militarily competent, 

dependable regional allies in crisis,”296 which is why 

these programs continue even through lean donor 

government budgets. In professionalizing local 

armed forces and making them better contributors to 

stability, theater engagement activities are generally 

useful to host nations through the education, 

training, and exercising of armed forces; in assisting 

them with operational missions like peacekeeping; 

and through other security assistance and related 

programs. However, these security assistance 

programs only tangentially address some of the root 

causes of economic and political problems. Although 

better at addressing these core issues, HCA and the 

wider nation assistance programs are still limited in 

aiding development because they focus mainly on 

military related applications, since these programs 

are military missions, and lower priority ones at that. 

Current AFRICOM military-security programs lack 

the depth, breadth, and persistence needed to solve 

Africa’s real security and stability problems.297 Current 

foreign military engagement is also often limited in 

its effects because of general concerns that military 

involvement in economic and governing affairs sets 

the wrong example, and employing local forces in 

these ways gives them too much power, conflicts 

with civil organizations, and diverts them from their 

core military mission.298 Thus despite the fact that the 

U.S. Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) Program has 

a charter to support security and stability in foreign 

countries, in part through improving their economic 

and governing base, it falls short of its mark, even when 

used in conjunction with other elements of power. The 
100

U.S. TSC Program as now conducted is useful but of 

minor assistance in combating the real problems of 

Africa that undermine its peace and prosperity.299 In 

any strategy used to support stability and security in 

Africa, this program will be a necessary part, but it is 

insufficient to achieve a significant lasting impact on 

its own. There are better ways to use foreign military 

forces in Africa than are currently employed.

Military Lead.

No process is sacrosanct—DJS [Director, Joint Staff] 

shall break and redesign as needed—outcomes are what 

counts.

ADM Michael G. Mullen,

CJCS Guidance for 2008-2009300

If much of Africa is in dire need of assistance in 

establishing security and stability within its countries 

and across its borders, would it make more sense to 

change the current insufficient approaches for ones 

that hold more promise? For the past 65 years, the U.S. 

military has been deeply involved in reestablishing 

security and stability directly in foreign countries and 

in improving their long-term economic well-being 

and political governance. U.S. military forces have 

done this from Germany and Japan after World War 

II to the in-progress efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

By doctrine, stability operations and nation assistance 

may occur before, during, or after conflict,301 so a more 

active peacetime military role in Africa is possible. Such 

a military option could adopt as its “long term goal 

. . . to help develop indigenous capacity for security, 

essential services, a viable market economy, rule of 

law, [and] democratic institutions . . . in its extreme, 

stability operations means nation-building.”302 With 
101

planning skills, manpower, resources, and appropriate 

expertise coordinating reserve component personnel 

and the whole of the U.S. Government, military forces 

could be the lead of a concerted effort to significantly 

improve peace within Africa and set it on a much 

delayed course to prosperity. This concept of the 

military leading other government agencies in attaining 

security and stability through economic and governing 

initiatives is explored in this section by examining why 

and how this might be accomplished, and the problems 

and negative consequences that detract from this as 

an approach. This is a reasonable option if the reader 

accepts that what military forces need to accomplish 

to prevent violence and instability is changing, and 

thus the military’s role in security missions is also 

changing.303

A military lead for the U.S. Government’s efforts 

to improve Africa’s security and its economic and 

political well-being is not farfetched. A military lead 

approach has practical advantages, strong advocates, 

and to some degree is already occurring through the 

establishment and actions of USAFRICOM. Following 

World War II, the U.S. military had a leading role in 

countering the greatest threat to stabilizing Europe 

and Asia: the economic and political challenge of 

communism. Later, during the Vietnam War, the U.S. 

military had an increasingly important role in the 

U.S. Government’s peace and prosperity programs 

through a civil-military single-manager concept over 

“sociopolitical reforms, economic stimuli, and military 

assistance.”304 Giving the U.S. military a similar role 

in Africa against today’s leading threat, the economic 

and political ills that spawn instability and terrorism, 

would follow these precedents. When USAFRICOM 

was proposed, its initial stated purpose was to bring 
102

“peace and security to Africa by promoting health, 

education, democracy, and economic growth”—

seemingly a nation-building program.305 Critics of the 

military leading a whole of government effort fear 

that “the Pentagon’s plans to take economic assistance 

programs begun in Iraq and Afghanistan and make 

them permanent and world-wide, with more than 

$1 billion allocated to them annually,”306 and it is 

assumed that these programs would be provided 

to Africa. Supporters of an expanding military role 

believe “that defeat of internal threats to basic public 

order and restoration and maintenance of minimum 

essential political, security, and economic conditions 

within victim states combined might constitute the 

new ‘major combat operation’ for U.S. land forces.”307

As noted earlier, Thomas Barnett believes that the 

U.S. Army needs to promote and sustain regional 

security to promote U.S. and international interests by 

engaging not just “military and insurgent forces, but 

to concentrate on economic, cultural, and sociopolitical 

structures and issues.”308 The conservative Heritage 

Foundation and others favor “Pentagon centered 

involvement . . . to include a broader combination of 

diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and poverty eradication,” 

in support of U.S. Government interests.309 Despite 

reluctance for this mission, even DoD officials like the 

former Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness 

have concluded that to prevent future wars, the U.S. 

military must engage in nation building.310 Although 

controversial, a strong case can be made that a U.S. 

military lead for the U.S. Government when interacting 

with African states and organizations to help Africans 

improve their unstable situation is a possibility that 

has merits.

The military has often led this kind of effort because 

there were no other viable options. Since the U.S. 
103

military has been effective in this role, a reinforcing 

expectation persists that military forces should be 

the lead in state building for practical or expedient 

reasons. The problem of low intensity conflict, crime, 

and instability that simmers across Africa “defies 

purely military solutions, it requires a cross-discipline 

approach which recognizes the interplay of social, 

economic, political, and military factors.”311 Since 

development and defense issues are so closely related, 

they should be addressed in tandem under one strategy 

and unified leadership,312 a role in which U.S. military 

forces have experience. In past and current operations, 

the U.S. military has taken the lead in stabilization and 

reconstruction operations because civilian agencies 

lacked adequate resources, the mandate, or the 

capability to do so. This happened in Bosnia where 

the military Stabilization Force (SFOR) had to expand 

its mission to assist international organizations in 

typically civilian endeavors, recognizing that SFOR was 

“moving into the area of nation building but saw no 

alternative if SFOR was ever going to withdraw. . . .”313

Similarly in Haiti in 1996 when American troops left the 

country, conditions deteriorated to pre-intervention 

levels of the early 1990s because the “civilian agencies 

that replaced military forces did not have the same 

resources available, and the Haitian economy, judicial 

system, and political leaders obstructed reforms.”314

The U.S. DoD has been able to gather the resources and 

authorities needed for soft power problems and has the 

leadership and processes to tackle complex operations. 

The military could lead when civilian organizations lack 

the necessary means to succeed, as happened in Bosnia 

and Haiti. The military lead is especially needed when 

security is so bad that civilian organizations cannot 

function under the conditions, yet to meet national 
104

goals economic development and governance must 

improve or military and political failures will ensue.315

Preparing the military to assume the lead position 

in such circumstances allows it to be better prepared 

when it must assume this role, or when deemed best 

for national interests to do so.316 Because of its practical 

merits and existing operations, military lead of U.S. 

Government efforts could promote security, economic 

development, and improved governance in Africa. 

It is important to note that a military lead of U.S. 

Government efforts in Africa should not be a “goes it 

alone” effort. Military lead needs the support of the 

whole U.S. Government, IGO, and NGO expertise, 

as much as civilian organizations sometimes need 

the capabilities of the military to enforce security and 

stability.317 The pantheon of participants in a military 

lead effort would remain the same as a civilian effort, but 

their relationships would change to allow the military 

personnel to organize, plan, and execute the effort. 

U.S. military units, both civil affairs and combat units, 

have shown they are able to execute primarily civilian 

responsibilities, with limited or full assistance from 

host governments and U.S. or international agencies.318

The learning curve for such activities is steep, though, 

even when using reserve component forces with 

consummate civilian skills. The lag in learning how to 

apply these skills can be costly, as well, as demonstrated 

by the initially erratic civil-military efforts shortly after 

the commencement of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. 

However, the U.S. military is mastering these economic 

and governance functions, and is better able to integrate 

the expertise of other agencies to achieve common 

peace and prosperity goals.319 Under a military lead, 

there may be needed organizations that resent the 

military taking the lead role, or who may be unable to 
105

cooperate with the military in this manner. NGOs may 

be the most difficult case because they are independent, 

governed by international impartiality principles, and 

often prefer to work at the operational and policy 

levels away from the taint of parochial organizations, 

especially military ones.320 Their aid, however, is 

essential in humanitarian assistance, economic 

development, and political governance, and they tend 

to be focused, faster in response, more experienced in 

their fields, and remain longer to ensure continuity 

than similar foreign military efforts. To overcome 

these barriers between the two sides, common goals 

can improve cooperation between the actions of NGOs 

and reluctant government agencies and those of U.S. 

forces by allowing indirect coordination through UN 

or U.S. civilian agencies. A common direction fosters 

unified action: the synchronization of government and 

nongovernment activities with military operations.321

This proposal would broaden the unified action 

concept to allow civilian cooperation under military 

leadership, especially if such leadership maintained 

a discreet coordinating role much as SCAP had when 

working with Japanese government organizations 

after World War II.322 This same integrated approach 

towards a common goal could allow for the 

coordination of various agencies under a military 

lead donor government effort with host governments, 

international organizations, NGOs, agencies of other 

countries and private entities—the definition of the 

comprehensive approach. Such unified action creates a 

community of purpose based upon accommodating the 

concerns of all participants, a common understanding 

of a situation, shared purposes, and an agreed level 

of cooperation.323 In this way, common goals could 

guide the endeavors of others with military lead for 
106

U.S. Government efforts in order to get the best from 

all participants assisting Africa.

Unified action in assisting a region’s economic 

development or improving governance is a broad 

but relatively weak link between U.S. Government 

participation and the agencies of other countries, NGOs, 

and the private sector due to the sometimes diverging 

national and organizational interests involved. Within 

the U.S. Government, however, agencies should strive 

to achieve the more demanding level of coordination 

called unity of effort, given shared national security 

goals and executive leadership, but this is not often 

fully realized through the interagency process. Unity 

of effort is one of the key dimensions for stability and 

peace operations, and requires multilevel support 

from participants to succeed, whether under military 

or civilian lead.324 This is the whole of government 

approach, the collaborative efforts of departments and 

agencies of the U.S. Government toward a single goal.325

Because of its importance to successful operations, 

every presidential administration since President 

John F. Kennedy has tried to further institutionalize 

unity of effort within the executive branch. In 2005 the 

Bush administration focused interagency cooperation 

on stability operations through National Security 

Presidential Directive (NSPD)-44. This document built 

upon the Clinton administration’s Presidential Decision 

Document (PDD) 56 for Managing Complex Contingency Operations to allow for better coordination efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan under the State Department, but could be reapplied to also allow a DoD lead 

option in Africa. NSPD-44 also requires other agencies 

to build their capabilities to participate in stability 

operations and, as an extension, state building. These 

improved capabilities would make coordination 
107

under DoD (or another agency) more effective under 

the whole of government approach.326 To enhance 

cooperation and understanding under military 

leadership (or likewise military subordination under 

civilian lead) all participants should together train, 

conduct planning, share procedures and terminology, 

and perform other preparatory activities needed to 

succeed. With this type of cooperation as a goal, FM 

3-07 was written with input from many nonmilitary 

sources in order for it to serve as a common reference 

for all.327 Such exercising and training are second 

nature to military forces, which is another advantage 

to a military lead scheme—better preparation of the 

participants under practiced military tutelage before 

they are needed. Planning and integration are required 

to improve the whole of government approach to assist 

in solving problems in places like Africa and, because 

of its strong tradition in these processes, the military is 

an excellent candidate to lead other organizations.

Actual coordination and execution of a plan in the 

field is just as important as the preparation phase among 

organizations, and could occur through existing centers 

that transform themselves into whole of government 

headquarters. One such case is a military civil affairs 

unit’s Civil-Military Operations Center, which could 

not only “serve as the primary coordination interface 

for the U.S. armed forces, humanitarian organizations, 

IGOs, NGOs, multinational military forces, and other 

civilian agencies of the U.S. Government” (its intended 

purpose),328 but with proper representation and 

authorities from the organizations involved could also 

serve as a command center directing efforts in security, 

economic development, and governance in an efficient 

and effective manner. The expertise and resources of a 

military lead could also be inserted into other existing 
108

coordinating bodies like the State Department’s 

deployable Integrated Planning Cell “to synchronize 

and coordinate USG[overnment] planning,” or in an 

embassy’s country team. These State Department 

organizations are flexible in their size and composition, 

and can be adjusted to meet such circumstances.329

An advantage of inserting a military planning 

and execution authority into either of these State 

Department organizations is the organizational skills 

and resources that military planning and execution of 

operations brings while still under the overall purview 

of the State Department or an ambassador—a more 

acceptable approach for some critics. Such hybrid 

military-civilian organizations blend their parochial 

identities, which is the point of whole of government 

operations. Blurring the stovepipes of organizations in 

order to mix capabilities is the goal—although doing 

so means that whoever is in charge (and someone 

must be) may not matter as much as whether the goals 

are being achieved. With the proper motivation and 

resources, the U.S. military “is the world’s greatest 

nation building institution . . . [and] the United States 

has rarely accomplished long-term policy goals after 

any conflict without an extended American military 

presence to ensure proper results from the peace.”330

Thus planning and execution, before or after conflict, 

through military processes and personnel employing 

the experience of other government agencies may be a 

viable way to assist Africa.

To make a military lead and civilian hybrid operation 

work will require changes in the U.S. Government. The 

military, for instance, should develop and dedicate 

nation assistance specialists with broad backgrounds 

in the methods and roles of related government and 

nongovernmental organizations, and judiciously 
109

assign such officers to appropriate government staffs.331

Select military units may need to specialize as well to 

perform specific functions to support and interact with 

other government organizations or NGOs. Reserve 

component units, with their diverse civilian expertise, 

or civil-military units may be best suited for these 

lead or support roles. U.S. military efforts involving 

such units during nation assistance operations 

in the Balkans have been commended by civilian 

administrators.332 Modern operations, however, have 

shown that stability operations and nation assistance 

should not be confined to specialists, although 

specialists are needed. Many operations may be of too 

great a magnitude, and their concurrent nature with 

traditional military operations so entangled, that any 

unit may need to employ these skills and knowledge at 

some point. Training for all units should include skills 

and considerations that support immediate or followon tasks to achieve stability, but also with an eye to 

economic development and enhancing governance—a 

different mindset than decisive combat operations.333 If 

the military will lead such operations in the field, units 

must better understand and execute this mission, which 

is a challenging requirement given the other tasks that 

a combat unit must master. Such enhanced integration 

of the DoD and other government agencies under one 

command would require statutory changes, especially 

because such changes already seem necessary for the 

much less ambitious unity of effort integration and 

participation in nontraditional missions now attempted 

for USAFRICOM.334

Changes in other parts of the government must also 

be made for this option to work. If a standing cadre of 

security, economic, and governance professionals is 

needed, and such an organization would be beneficial 

to jumpstart any contingency, then U.S. Government 
110

agencies with smaller manning authorizations than 

DoD will need to expand to allow regular training 

and contingency preparation to be effective. Such 

an expansion would counter the manning problem 

now experienced in the more modest experiment of 

integrating interagency personnel into USAFRICOM,335

which will initially field only one non-DoD civilian 

for every 100 DoD members on the AFRICOM staff. 

Too few personnel are assigned to State Department, 

USAID, and other government agencies for their 

own missions as well as these enhanced integrated 

missions due to chronic under resourcing.336 This 

imbalance can be seen as another reason that supports 

a military lead solution, which could fully leverage 

and efficiently organize the strapped assets of other 

departments to sustain Africa’s drive for peace and 

prosperity. However, such “continued growth in 

military capability in these areas is self-reinforcing, 

accelerating the downward spiral of civilian capacity 

in favor of more expedient military solutions,”337

enmeshing the military even further in these affairs. A 

U.S. military lead of other U.S. Government resources, 

and, indirectly, non-American or nongovernment 

assets, should only be a temporary measure until the 

State Department and others build expertise to truly 

lead under NSPD-44, or during conditions where 

nonmilitary organizations cannot or will not operate.338

It is worth stressing that this solution should always 

work in tandem with functioning host nation agencies 

or competent citizens whenever possible to ensure 

the capacity building and continuity such assistance 

should bring.339 There are some situations, including 

cases of extreme instability, in which a U.S. military 

lead role for stability and security operations may be 

beneficial to assist Africans resolve their economic and 

governance problems. But the many changes needed to 
111

modify military, other government, and host country 

institutions suggests that this may be a difficult and 

even undesirable option. 

Just because professional military forces could 

lead efforts in Africa does not mean that they should. 

Despite the merits of a military lead in terms of unity 

of effort or a comprehensive approach, current western 

democratic values and experience do not easily tolerate 

a military organization like USAFRICOM directing 

economic development and governance aid to support 

local governments and regional organizations. 

Although circumstances in Africa may be the worst 

in the world, the situation is not drastic enough for 

Western politicians or the public to call for radical 

measures like military oversight of traditionally civilian 

functions. Not only are Western countries probably not 

willing to overthrow centuries of successful military 

subordination for the uncertain prospects of speeding 

improvements in Africa, there are no national interests 

at stake with any donor country to warrant such 

dramatic departures, as could be argued occurred at the 

time of the Marshall Plan. The improvements needed 

to make a military lead option viable would simply 

reinforce stronger military attributes, often at the 

expense of other departments. Some State Department 

and USAID officials already believe that USAFRICOM 

may become the lead for U.S. efforts in Africa.340 As 

evidence, critics note that DoD control of official U.S. 

aid money has grown from 3 percent to 22 percent in the 

past decade, while USAID’s share has dropped from 

65 to 40 percent.341 Regardless of what organization 

is leading, the imbalance of resources and personnel 

available for nonmilitary government organizations 

to properly assist African nations must be obtained 

to ensure smoother cooperation towards national 

goals.342 Overemphasizing military capabilities also 
112

runs the danger of making the military an attractive 

tool of choice for situations in which its use is not 

appropriate, or of overestimating military capabilities 

where they may be of only lesser value.343 Legally, 

there are also problems with a leading economic 

and governance role performed by the military. U.S. 

laws governing roles and missions of government 

organizations would need to be revised, and funding 

to specifically allow the military to act on economic and 

governance issues would have to be expanded.344 Even 

if these actions are taken, international law remains 

an obstacle since it limits how military forces may 

act in economic development to provide security and 

order, unless such action is directed by an authority 

like the UN Security Council.345 Domestic factors and 

traditional expectations, then, make a military lead of 

U.S. Government economic development efforts an 

awkward option.

Another reason why USAFRICOM should not be 

the lead in U.S. Government African affairs is that 

military forces are not widely trusted. USAFRICOM 

has had a poor initial reception in Africa following 

decades of U.S. Government neglect or misdirection 

in the name of security. Inadequate consultation with 

African leaders during the formation of USAFRICOM, 

and the prospect of neo-colonialism that has haunted 

Africans from since the days of Cold War engagement 

to today’s perception that renewed interest in Africa is 

just a front for gaining resources and fighting terrorism 

are barriers to effective development.346 Africans are 

not the only ones who are not convinced of the efficacy 

of USAFRICOM’s more focused mission. The difficulty 

that other U.S. departments have in filling current 

USAFRICOM personnel assignments may be due as 

much to a skepticism or hostility towards the role of 

the military in Africa as to resource shortages.347 An 
113

assistant director for program development and policy 

at the Africa Faith and Justice Network remarked that 

“the blending of military and civilian agencies and the 

overreach of the Department of Defense . . . [is] putting 

a velvet glove of humanitarian aid over the fist of the 

military.”348 Some U.S. Government aid officials also do 

not want to be stigmatized by being directly associated 

with the military, regardless of other advantages such 

an association offers.349 Such concerns are not new, and 

were also expressed during the early Vietnam War 

years when the fear was that the militarization of policy 

would give military men influence in areas that had 

previously been the exclusive domain of civilians.350

On top of all these problems, some skeptics doubt that 

the military alone, or as a lead, has been very effective 

in these roles. One study found that in 51 cases where 

U.S. or British forces intervened, they were successful 

only 25 percent of the time, and some of those situations 

could probably have been stabilized and reconstruction 

carried out without military intervention.351 A military 

lead effort for economic development and governance 

improvement would fail without the support of crucial 

African, international, and U.S. Government elements. 

So far, this support has not been gained and will not be 

obtained under current circumstances. 

Although the U.S. military has a long history of 

involvement in stability operations before and after 

conflict and with peace building, its results have 

been mixed. Military forces do have the capability 

to organize, lead, and assist in complex foreign 

development and governance issues to further stability 

and security in places like Africa. They could assume 

a lead role through various existing structures and by 

overseeing the sharing of resources, processes, and 

training needed to make cooperation more effective. 

To streamline its role, the military should groom more 
114

specialists and specialty units, and generally orient 

other units toward development and governance 

missions. Other government agencies will also need 

more robust resources and training to better synchronize 

their efforts. Even with these improvements, the deep 

resources, established processes, and can-do military 

attitude could overwhelm cross-discipline efforts when 

the military is in the lead. Critics of this approach fear 

that continued overreliance on the military eviscerates 

the civilian, international, and nongovernmental 

organizations that specialize in these roles and sets a 

poor example of civil-military relations for the people 

that these efforts are meant to help. Furthermore, U.S. 

public expectation will not allow the military to lead 

civilian organizations in most cases. Given the realities 

of the situation, meritorious though a military lead 

might seem, perhaps a better solution is to reverse the 

positions and adequately resource civilian institutions 

to lead along with appropriate support from military 

forces, such as USAFRICOM. 

Civilian Lead.

However, we cannot meet the challenges of today and 

those of tomorrow with military power alone. We must 

guard against further militarization of our foreign 

policy . . . it is vital that we not only develop our military 

capabilities, but also strengthen capacity of other 

government agencies and that of our foreign partners.

ADM Michael Mullen

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff352

So far, many topics have been covered by this paper 

with the intent to impart the importance of Africa to U.S. 

affairs; the links between problems that Africa faces 

in economic development, governance, security, and 
115

stability; and two ways that USAFRICOM can address 

some of these problems through improving the current 

method of theater engagement, or leading a unified U.S. 

Government or international comprehensive approach. 

Both approaches offer advantages, but also significant 

disadvantages. Thus a third option of subordinating 

U.S. military efforts squarely under the capable 

leadership of robust diplomatic and development 

organizations is tentatively being pursued by the U.S. 

Government. Most of the elements by which the U.S. 

and other governments can assist Africans towards 

peace and prosperity already exist; they just need to 

be properly structured and resourced. The U.S. and 

other militaries are important government elements 

needed under a civilian lead because of the military’s 

contacts with influential organizations in African 

societies; effective resources; specialized development 

and security expertise; and experience in organizing, 

directing, and executing complex operations. These 

are the same strengths that support arguments for a 

military lead, but here they would be employed under 

civilian organizations such as USAID or the State 

Department. If these institutions were adequately 

resourced and properly directed, a civilian-lead U.S. 

Government team would be readily accepted by the 

international and African communities. Not only 

could this combination better help Africans attain the 

security and stability they need through economic 

development and improved governance, but may better 

serve U.S. national security and military interests in the 

process. The methods used in regional development 

and improvement are widely known and debated, 

and thus beyond the scope of this already lengthy 

tome. Therefore, this section focuses on the continuing 

improvements being made toward strengthening 
116

civilian while incorporating military capabilities, 

and offers some additional recommendations to 

ensure the future success of this arrangement. If the 

U.S. Government and the international community 

are serious about assisting Africans to follow a path 

to prosperity, proper governance, and security, the 

following proposals outline how these objectives may 

be achieved.

Because USAFRICOM is perceived by some as 

becoming the proconsul of U.S. Government affairs in 

Africa—interfering outside of its own proper role—a 

more appropriate U.S. Government civilian institution 

like USAID should reassume this role through 

adequate resourcing and support. Many Africans, 

suspicious of any increased military role wonder why 

the U.S. Government lead for assistance is not given 

to an existing institution that specializes in promoting 

development and is more locally and internationally 

acceptable.353 USAID is active throughout Africa and it 

has assisted there for decades and is respected for its 

work. Civilian whole of government leadership under 

USAID offers the advantages of organic expertise in 

economic and development issues and its inherent 

focus on long-term solutions; neither of which are 

integral to military efforts since they are viewed as 

secondary missions. The existing nebulous division of 

labor between civilian and military is also perceived as a 

competition for funds, which undercuts the professional 

developers.354 The current U.S. political system brings 

both military and civilian efforts together under the 

same leadership only at the chief executive level. Since 

long-term African affairs, like development, rarely rise 

to sufficient national interest levels that would demand 

coordination by the U.S. President, competition over 

goals and resources occurs at lower levels to the current 
117

detriment of civilian efforts. The National Security 

Council (NSC) is supposed to coordinate and lead U.S. 

Government departments through coordinated foreign 

policy advice for the President but, to do so, the NSC 

leadership would have to recognize that economic 

and governance problems in Africa are security issues 

and that Africa’s importance warrants long-term 

oversight and coordination of whole of government 

efforts towards stated U.S. goals. Such recognition 

has not yet occurred at this level. The process to attain 

national security goals in Africa should be civilian, 

with military capabilities synchronized toward “soft 

power to promote participation in government, spur 

economic development, and address the root causes 

of conflict . . .,” which is the comprehensive approach 

to stability operations and peace building advocated 

by FM 3-07.355 Assuming that a civilian organization 

like USAID is better suited than a military force to 

lead whole of government efforts in Africa, some of 

the ways this approach is being adopted will now be 

discussed. 

Since traditional means to coordinate U.S. policy 

and efforts have been unable to fulfill stability and 

stabilization requirements, another method has 

evolved within the U.S. Government. The 2005 NSPD44 requires the State Department “to coordinate 

and lead U.S. Government efforts to prepare, plan 

for, and conduct reconstruction and stabilization 

activities . . . to include balancing civilian and military 

activities.”356 This mission includes improving the 

U.S. Government’s institutional capacity to intervene 

successfully before, during, and after security problems 

arise.357 Given the will to assist, the NSPD-44 mandate 

is broad enough to incorporate improving conditions 

in Africa to achieve stabilization and security through 
118

economic development and better governance. A 

decade ago, such an effort in Haiti under USAID’s 

lead synchronized civilian and military stabilization 

and reconstruction activities, but achieved mixed 

results.358 The Haiti mission demonstrated that such an 

arrangement could work, but that USAID needed more 

resources, robust planning and executing abilities, and 

access to wider expertise. These lessons were learned 

again in Iraq and Afghanistan, so that by 2007 the State 

Department formed the Office of the Coordinator for 

Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), to “promote 

the security of the United States through improved 

coordination, planning, and implementation of 

reconstruction and stabilization activities,”359 fulfilling 

NSPD-44 and DoDD 3000.05 expectations. To solve 

those earlier shortcomings, S/CRS instituted several 

means to enable its peace building mission. First was 

the Interagency Management System, consisting of an 

interagency stabilization and reconstruction decisionmaking policy committee, a civilian team of strategic 

planners, and deployable advance teams to balance 

its capabilities with those found in military units. For 

more depth in running its operations, S/CRS also has a 

whole of government planning framework for conflict 

prevention planning in both crisis and long-term 

situations and the Civilian Response Corps, a three 

tiered system to muster personnel and expertise akin 

to the military’s active duty and reserve forces.360 To 

build upon these gains, USAID is also developing the 

concept of Smart Power and Development to explore 

how to “strengthen our development principles while 

building civilian-military cooperation . . . [recognizing] 

a growing consensus that a smart power strategy 

should comprise both military and non-military tools 

to address instability. . . .”361 Its intent is to make 
119

diplomacy and development by the U.S. Government 

“more agile, responsive, and complimentary [sic].”362

Although still being implemented, these are all salutary 

steps in the right direction to improve the ability of the 

civilian component to plan, execute, and lead stability 

efforts through economic development and good 

governance.

Since civilian organizations are already struggling 

to complete their rebuilding responsibilities in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, more resources and people are needed to 

enable an expanded and extensive mission in Africa 

as proposed in this paper. Because of its mission and 

expertise, the responsibility for U.S. Government 

foreign capacity building and development belongs 

to USAID,363 which one member of Congress called a 

checkwriting agency because it cannot fulfill its core 

missions without contractor support. From its height 

in 1968 while providing support for the Vietnam and 

other Cold War efforts, USAID has decreased in size 

from 17,500 employees to 2,400 in 2005. That small 

staff currently provides support in Iraq, Afghanistan, 

and other parts of the world. More people are needed 

by USAID, and the Obama administration is adding 

281 new officers. These will not be enough, and it will 

take years to fully integrate even these few.364 To obtain 

more resources and people and to better use what it has, 

the State Department proposes to follow the example 

of DoD’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) with a 

Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR). 

The QDDR will identify the State Department as the 

lead for the coordination effort of all agencies involved 

in diplomacy and development, to match resources 

and funds to strategic priorities, and to influence 

long-term policy, funding, and resourcing decisions 

within a common overarching vision.365 The QDDR 
120

could succeed in giving diplomatic and development 

efforts the credibility needed by Congress to gain real 

backing and bridge the culture, capability, and resource 

disparities among USAID, the State Department, and 

DoD. A congressional advocate may also be needed 

to rebalance some defense funds dedicated for future 

training, planning, and execution of stability operations 

to diplomacy and development funds to correct the 17 

to 1 spending ratio now in place.366 However, putting 

DoD and the State Department in direct competition for 

funds in a tight budget process undermines the unity of 

effort championed by this paper.367 Some inherent civilmilitary stability operations capability must remain 

within the military for combat and its aftermath, and 

for conditions where civilian agencies cannot or have 

not yet started to operate.368 However, transferring 

longer-term responsibilities and capabilities to civilian 

professionals, and ultimately to indigenous personnel, 

allows military forces to better focus on their core 

missions, strengthens the ability of civilian agencies 

and host governments to accomplish their roles, and 

removes the specter of a militarized foreign policy that 

concerns so many.369 Not only would development 

professionals be enabled, but ultimately more 

security would be obtained because in unsettled third 

world regions like Africa, development and stability 

assistance investments have far greater influence on 

security than the same money put directly into U.S. 

armed forces.370 Putting more resources into civilian 

organizations balances the ability to stabilize and 

develop areas whose security is weak—making it an 

investment against having to send in foreign troops.

Although more resources and manning may be 

required by the civilian agencies of the U.S. Government 

who are tasked with foreign capacity building, better 
121

understanding and coordination of roles, resources, 

and policy is important too—and less expensive 

to implement. Rather than allocating entirely new 

resources during fiscally constrained times, what may 

be needed is an approach to: 

share resources among U.S. Government agencies and 

organizations while working toward a common goal. 

These resources—financial, military, intelligence, law 

enforcement, diplomatic, developmental, and strategic 

communications— are often limited in availability. . . . 

To achieve the broad success envisioned in a whole of 

government engagement, all must be integral to unified 

action.”371

Unified action is also attained through shared 

understanding, as found in FM 3-07 written with, 

by, and for representatives from many nondefense 

organizations involved in stabilization and peace 

building. It is a reference for “other government agencies, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), agencies 

of other governments, international organizations, 

nongovernment organizations, and private sector 

entities” covering how military and civilian efforts 

complement each other.372 Published a year later in 

2009, Principles of the USG Planning Framework for 

Reconstruction, Stabilization and Conflict Transformation, 

a parallel whole of government document, was written 

to bind reconstruction efforts closer together for the 

numerous parts of the U.S. Government.373 Towards 

comprehensive action, the United States Institute of 

Peace (USIP) Guide for Participants in Peace, Stability, 

and Relief Operations strives to facilitate actions among 

international organizations, NGOs, U.S. Government 

civilian agencies, and the military.374 These recent 

coordination documents are complemented by 
122

other organizational efforts to improve interaction 

of government efforts under a civilian lead. Among 

coordinating bodies, the USIP launched the Working 

Group on Civil-Military Relations in Non-Permissive 

Environments. It is composed of NGOs, DoD, the State 

Department, and USAID, and meets to discuss issues 

of relationships, doctrine, and other matters of mutual 

concern.375 Another unified effort by these players is 

the Center for Complex Operations covering irregular 

warfare, peace operations, and stability operations to 

build a community of practice of civilian and military 

operators to prepare for complex operations.376

The process to expand resources for diplomatic 

and development efforts and to better understand, 

coordinate, and execute interagency and international 

efforts is developing in the right direction. USAFRICOM 

and DoD should wholeheartedly support these efforts, 

as they are in the best interests of the United States and 

the U.S. military.

These changes designed to strength the role of 

development and governance to achieve stability and 

security indicate their importance in foreign policy. 

Enlarging and reinforcing civilian lead and participation 

is the right alternative. There are many more things that 

could be done based upon the analysis in this paper, 

but two points need to be emphasized to complete 

this primer. First, U.S. national security and stability 

interests are best served when DoD squarely supports 

an effective civilian lead agency like USAID that has 

the expertise, resources, and international acceptance 

to accomplish the tasks that will result in long-term 

peace and prosperity. Although many processes are 

in place to improve the capabilities to accomplish 

this, one remains to be answered: who is in charge of 

regional efforts? Who is the equivalent of a regional 
123

combatant commander to guide regional development 

actions, as does the commander of USAFRICOM in 

military affairs, to balance, or monitor, the combatant 

commander’s very potent influence? One way is 

to appoint an equivalent diplomatic proconsul, “a 

regional super ambassador with clear authority to 

integrate all U.S. Government activities in a region.” 

[Another way to enhance unity of effort is to create 

a] “Standing Regional Security Council composed of 

senior representatives from all of the national security 

departments and agencies,”377 perhaps as subdivisions 

of the NSC or within the State Department’s regional 

bureaus. These options support security through 

long-term economic development and governance, as 

advocated throughout this paper, to enable agencies 

like USAID to play a leading part. Either option offers 

a clear leader for attaining U.S. Government interests 

and ensures effective use of efforts and resources in 

making departments and agencies equal partners in 

the interagency process.378

Just as proper roles and resourcing of each U.S. 

Government organization under strong civilian 

leadership is important for unity of effort in assisting 

Africans, so too is that this is accomplished under a 

comprehensive international effort that brings together 

the many worldwide participants in a unified action to 

supplement (and perhaps occasionally to resuscitate) 

local African organizations. Each country offers 

particular skills and expertise needed to improve 

Africa’s condition, and all are limited by funding, 

personnel, and resources in what can be accomplished. 

Better international coordination of these efforts, 

government and otherwise, would greatly help local 

governments navigate through literally thousands of 

well-intentioned piecemeal projects. Donors could 
124

share lead responsibilities by sub-region or expertise 

to best benefit recipients and, in so doing, work more 

efficiently towards improving the economic and 

governing conditions that lead to security.379 Such 

coordination complicates assistance work for donors, 

but magnifies its potential good, which is the intent 

of NSPD-44.380 Donors should sublimate recognition 

for their largesse, often an important motivation for 

countries currying favor with a recipient, toward the 

greater good of establishing peace and prosperity in 

Africa. When support is provided by African partners 

with the greater good in mind, local capacity is improved 

while fostering long-term gains and promoting African 

self-sufficiency. When done together with regional 

organizations, like ECOWAS rather than individual 

countries, coordinated donor efforts simplify the 

process for Africans, who share more responsibility, 

too. This leverages the ability of African states to sustain 

success and may also reduce instability recidivism, 

since any problems that do arise are African problems 

to solve through a regional organization instead of 

becoming international problems that may be ignored 

or that may serve as excuses for foreign intervention.381

Coordinating efforts between international participants 

can ensure that limited development funds go farther 

in support of African security and stability operations.

U.S. Government and international civilian 

organizations have the mandate and experience 

needed to help Africans improve their situation. The 

U.S. and other militaries should play their accepted 

role in enforcing security and stability directly and 

indirectly through economic development and good 

governance, but firmly under overarching civilian 

oversight. The perception that a robust USAFRICOM 

may overstep this accepted order requires that the 
125

existing system of procedures and proposals between 

civilian and military organizations be reinforced and 

improvements hastened. NSPD-44 clearly designates 

the State Department as the overall lead in stability and 

peace operations, but both State and USAID need more 

resources and backing to fulfill this charge. In support 

of the lead mission, changes are being made to fully 

use assets that are available to the State Department 

and USAID, and more are proposed, including starting 

a QDDR to better allocate the necessary funding and 

manning to carry out these requirements. Coordinating 

assets and procedures among the whole of the U.S. 

Government is also part of this streamlining effort. 

Finally, designating a directional body or person for 

regional affairs could better balance resources and 

efforts within the U.S. Government, and facilitate 

coordination of actions with other governments, 

NGOs, and IGOs. For practical reasons and to honor 

longstanding democratic traditions, the best way 

to attain U. S. national interests in Africa and other 

regions of the world would be to consolidate economic 

development and good governance as security and 

stability issues under USAID.

SUMMARY

There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can 

go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.

President Ronald W. Reagan382

This paper has traced the need for change in the U.S. 

Government’s Africa policy and processes, described 

how change is happening, and suggested what still 

could be done. Rather than advocating radically new 

policies, this paper concludes that the U.S. Government 
126

and the international community are starting down 

a promising track with Africans to confront their 

problems of political and economic malaise. This paper 

has provided a survey of the current situation in Africa 

in order to assist newly assigned personnel improve 

their understanding of U.S. military and government 

policy and doctrine that supports these efforts. Africa 

is important to U.S. national interests because of its 

cultural and economic ties, strategic central location, 

environmental influence, humanitarian suffering, and 

potential to spur violence and spread disease throughout 

the world. Consequently, Africa is worthy of the greater 

consideration that it has recently received. Africa’s 

situation is economically and politically the worst in 

the world, which adversely affects its population’s 

health and education, its freedoms, and its chances for 

stability and security—putting Africa further behind 

and unable to participate in an ever more tightly 

linked global economy. Its current economic growth 

potential through its primary, secondary, and tertiary 

economic activities is meager and requires external 

assistance to realize the economic and political gains 

needed for true stability and security. Such precarious 

security and stability creates internal turmoil instead of 

focusing positive energy toward problem resolution. 

Since long-term security and stability rest on economic 

development and proper governance, these latter two 

elements must be addressed to meet the African and 

international goals of peace and relative prosperity 

for Africa. Otherwise African strife might disrupt 

international security by causing African nations to 

become sanctuaries for terrorists, or they might require 

international military intervention to stop suffering. 

Both governance and development must be tackled 

together, and military forces can play an important 
127

part through coordinated stability operations and 

peace building. 

The U.S. military has a role to play in establishing 

these benign conditions in Africa, and the founding of 

USAFRICOM focuses and coordinates military efforts 

to better do so. The traditional and current method 

for military forces to promote stability and security is 

through such direct intervention as peace operations 

or, preferably by enabling host forces to play their role 

in security as enhanced by U.S. theater engagement 

activities like security cooperation, education, ACOTA, 

HCA, and nation assistance. Although important, 

these activities have a limited influence on the root 

causes of instability, and therefore the roles of military 

forces could be expanded. One way is to broaden 

USAFRICOM’s role as leader and coordinator of U.S. 

Government interagency efforts to improve economic 

development and good governance. Although the U.S. 

military has performed such a role throughout history, 

this usually occurred after conflict in which the U.S. 

military was involved and obligated to stabilize the 

situation and to rebuild. Directly involving the military 

in sustained development efforts or as the lead of a larger 

effort to rebuild shattered or faltering states where the 

United States had no previous role is a departure from 

the norm. This departure may be difficult for Africans, 

the U.S. public, and the international community to 

tolerate. It is also counter to the dictates of NSPD44 and would require many changes to implement 

at the scale envisioned here. The possible gain in 

support of national interests from a more peaceful and 

prosperous Africa does not justify the precedent and 

organizational disruption that such a military lead 

entails. Therefore the good that the military offers in 

terms of countering violence and establishing order and 
128

enabling the more efficient and acceptable delivery of 

economic and political development, should be firmly 

directed by civilian control—be it unity of effort of U.S. 

Government organizations or unified action with the 

international community. To reinforce the civilian lead 

in these efforts, the U.S. Government needs to continue 

to emphasize civilian leadership through improved 

manning, resources, processes, and greater integration 

of military-civilian efforts. To stretch limited resources 

and expertise, coordinating the efforts of individual 

state donors could greatly amplify the good achieved 

by each. Africa needs outside assistance to better its 

situation. The United States and others will benefit by 

offering this help.

Although this paper recommends subordinating the 

military role to a civilian lead, the military’s mission to 

attain security and stability remain important whenever 

needed. Military forces should first focus on security 

enforcement for which they are the specialists within 

the U.S. Government and then address the necessary 

tasks of stabilization and peace building, putting into 

place the structure for proper governance and a viable 

economy required by a functioning state. These steps 

are required to lay the foundation for the efforts of 

development agencies and local officials to carry out 

their tasks of peace, state, and nation building. All of 

these efforts, though, should be in support of local 

initiatives and organizations when possible. Within 

the U.S. Government, the military should complete 

appropriate security and stability enforcement tasks 

and judiciously support development and governance 

tasks under the strong leadership of properly outfitted 

professional civilian agencies during and after 

crises, but especially before a crisis when such U.S. 

Government support has the greatest impact. The 
129

military lacks the depth of knowledge in the crucial 

disciplines that bring long-term security and stability 

to a state or region. For this reason, the military should 

defer to civilian professionals, and support them where 

its suits U.S. interests and the needs of Africans. The 

depressed state in Africa offers many opportunities to 

help. This paper serves as a primer for those outside 

the continent who wish to improve its long-term 

security and stability through economic development 

and better governance. It is time for Africans to interact 

with the global community as equals, and the present 

course puts them on that much delayed path.

ENDNOTES

1. Michael J. Goodspeed, “Stealing Thunder: African Security Sector Reform, The Military’s New Challenge,” Carlisle Barracks, PA: 2009, pp. 2.

2. The term “triangular trade” refers to trade among three 

geographical regions. With regard to Africa, the triangular trade 

involved slaves exported from West Africa to the Caribbean, 

where they were sold to work on plantations to produce raw 

materials to be sent to Europe or the North American east coast, 

where the raw materials were turned into trade goods to be sent 

to West Africa to trade for slaves.

3. Central Intelligence Agency, The 2008 World Factbook, 2008, 

pp. Brazil, Haiti, Grenada, and Jamaica, available from https://

www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html.

4. “US/AFRICA: US basing prioritises [sic] peace-keeping,”

Oxford, UK, OxResearch, June 30, 2005, p. 1, available from https://

www.oxan.com/display.aspx?StoryDate=20050630&ProductCode=O

ADB&StoryType=DB&StoryNumber=4.

5. Jason Motlagh, “U.S. Eyes Sahara Desert in Global Terror 

War,” Washington Times, November 17, 2005, available from www.

hartford-hwp.com/archives/27e/727.html. 
130

6. Sandra T. Barnes, “Global Flows: Terror, Oil, and Strategic 

Philanthropy,” Asian Studies Review, Vol. 48, Issue 1, April 2005, p. 

3.

7. Friedmann Muller, “Europe Must Diversify Its Energy 

Sources,” IP Global, 2/2003, p. 35, available from www.ip-global.

org/archiv/volumes/2003/summer2003/europe-must-diversify-itsenergy-sources.html.

8. Saurabh Shukla, “Africa on India’s Oil Radar, After 

Decades of Neglect,” India Today, April 14, 2008, available from 

proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1470191891&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId

=20167&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

9. Shai Oster, “China Strengthens Its Ties to Africa,” Wall Street 

Journal, October 30, 2006, p. 2, available from chinadigitaltimes.

net/2006/10/china-strengthens-its-ties-to-africa-shai-oster/.

10. Giles Mohan and Marcus Power, “New African Choices? 

The Politics of Chinese Engagement,” Review of African Political 

Economy, No. 115, 2008, pp. 23-42.

11. U.S. Geologic Survey (USGS), Mineral Commodity Summaries 2006, Washington DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, 2006, 

pp. 127, 49, 185, 75, 53, 59, 71.

12. Wenping He, “Partners in Development,” Beijing Review, 

November 2, 2006, p. 15.

13. Saurabh Shukla, “Africa on India’s Oil Radar, After 

Decades of Neglect,” India Today, April 14, 2008, available from 

proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1470191891&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId

=20167&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

14. Ibid.

15. Stale Ulriksen, “Deployments for Development? Nordic 

Peacekeeping Efforts in Africa,” International Peacekeeping, Vol. 14, 

Issue 4, August 2007, p. 656.
131

16. Curt Suplee, “1 in 8 Plants in Global Study Threatened; 

20-Year Project Warns of Major Diversity Loss,” Washington Post,

April 8, 1998, p. A01.

17. Robert K. Dixon, Jerry A. Perry, Elizabeth L Vanderklein, 

and François Hiol, “Vulnerability of Forest Resources to Global 

Climate Change: Case Study of Cameroon and Ghana,” Climate 

Research, Vol. 6, February 1996, p. 130, available from www.int-res.

com/articles/cr/6/c006p127.pdf.

18. Elizabeth Bailes et al, “Hybrid Origin of SIV in 

Chimpanzees,” Science, Vol. 300, No. 5626, 2003, p. 1713.

19. Kate Milner, “Flashback 1984: Portrait of a Famine,” BBC 

News World Edition, April 6, 2000, available from news.bbc.co.uk/2/

hi/africa/703958.stm.

20. “UNHCR says Number of Refugees at 25-Year Low 

but New Challenges Loom,” New York: United Nations 

High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), April 19, 2006, 

available from www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/news/opendoc.

htm?tbl=NEWS&id=44463fed4.

21. Rachel Bonham Carter, “‘Unite Against Malaria’—Africa 

Malaria Day 2005,” New York: United Nations International 

Children’s Emergency Fund, April 25, 2005, available from www.

unicef.org/health/index_26163.html.

22. “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR,” 

United Kingdom: Avert, July 3, 2009, available from www.avert.

org/about.htm.

23. Stephen Ellis, “The Roots of African Corruption,” Current 

History, Vol. 105, Issue 691, May 2006, p. 208.

24. “Key Facts: Africa to Europe Migration,” BBC News, July 

2, 2007available from news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6228236.stm.

25. Barnes, p. 7. 

26. Mohan, pp. 34-35.
132

27. Ibid.

28. Barnes, p. 7.

29. Human Security Report Project, Human Security Brief 2007, 

Vancouver, Canada: Simon Fraser University, May 2008, pp. 38-

39, available from www.humansecuritybrief.info/hsb07_paper3.pdf.

30. Johann Hari, “How We Fuel Africa’s Bloodiest War,” The 

Independent, October 30, 2008, available from www.independent.

co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-we-fuelafricas-bloodiest-war-978461.html. 

31. Ellis, p. 208.

32. Lauren Ploch, Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests 

and the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa, Washington, DC: 

Congressional Research Service, December 7, 2007, p. 2.

33. “U.S./Africa,” p. 1.

34. Shukla.

35. Headquarters, Department of the Army, Field Manual

3-07, Stability Operations, Washington DC: U.S. Government 

Printing Office, October 6, 2008, p. 1-11.

36. Eric Schwartz, “We’re Generous Today, But Will We 

Keep It Up?” Washington Post, January 2, 2005, p. B-04.

37. Mark Smith, “Obama: Africa Not Separate from World 

Affairs,” Associated Press, July 11, 2009, available from apnews.

myway.com/article/20090711/D99C7ODG0.html.

38. Robert M. Gates, “Transcript: US Defense Secretary Gates 

Warns Against ‘Militarization of Foreign Policy.’” Stuttgart, GE: 

US AFRICOM Public Affairs, 17 July 2008, available from africom.

mil/printStory.asp?art=1916.

39. Barnes, p. 10. 
133

40. Percy S. Mistry, “Commentary: Reasons for Sub-Saharan 

Africa’s Development Deficit that the Commission for Africa did 

not Consider,” African Affairs, Vol. 104, No. 417, October 2005, p. 

667.

41. Mark Smith.

42. FM 3-07, pp. 1-11 - 1-12.

43. United Nations Peacekeeping Operations Principles and 

Guidelines (UNPKOPG), Capstone Doctrine, United Nations 

Secretariat New York: Department of Peacekeeping Operations, 

January 18, 2008, pp. 29-30, available from pbpu.unlb.org/pbps/

Library/Capstone_Doctrine_ENG.pdf.

44. FM 3-07, pp 2-6 - 2-10.

45. Beth Cole, “An Open Door,” PKSOI Bulletin Vol. 1, Issue 

1, October 2008, p. 5.

46. Juliet Elu, “Human Development in Sub-Sahara Africa: 

Analysis and Prospects for the Future,” Journal of Third World 

Studies, Fall 2000, available from findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_

qa3821/is_200010/ai_n8927632/pg_2.

47. FM 3-07, p. 3-1. 

48. John Harlow, “Army Unveils New Stability Operations 

Manual,” Washington DC: Training and Doctrine Command 

News Service, October 6, 2008, available from www.army.

mil/-newsreleases/2008/10/06/13091-army-unveils-new-stabilityoperations-manual.

49. West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, WANEP, “An 

Assessment of the ECOWAS Mechanism for Conflict Prevention 

and Good Governance,” Accra, Ghana: WANEP, Undated, 

available from www.wanep.org/programs/image/ecowas_assessment_

report.pdf.

50. James Butty, “Liberia Lobbies for AFRICOM HQ,” Voice 

of America, July 6, 2007, available from www.voanews.com/english/

archive/2007-07/2007-07-06-voa3.cfm?CFID=280030356&CFTOKE

N=76087710&jsessionid=8430db2c608aad8c0c105774751366793071.
134

51. Mary C. Ott, A Guide to Economic Growth in Post-Conflict 

Countries, Washington, DC: Economic Growth Office, Bureau 

for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade, U.S. Agency for 

International Development, USAID, 2009, p. 1, available from pdf.

usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADO408.pdf.

52. Donald Morelli and Michael M Ferguson, “Low Intensity 

Conflict: An Operational Perspective,” Fort Monroe, VA: U.S. 

Army Training and Doctrine Command, Office of the Deputy 

Chief of Staff for Doctrine, April 4, 1984, pp. 7-8.

53. J. N. Mattis, The Joint Operating Environment 2008, Suffolk, 

VA: United States Joint Forces Command, 2008, p. 14.

54. Independent Task Force, ITF, More Than Humanitarianism: 

A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa, Report No. 56, New York: 

Council of Foreign Relations, 2005, p. 3.

55. Mattis, pp. 12-19.

56. Desmond Tutu, “Peace and Human Rights: Lessons in 

Security and Stability,” Harvard International Review, Vol. 30, Issue 

1, Spring 2008, p. 77.

57. FM 3-07, Foreword.

58. Gregory L. Garland, “U.S.-Africa Policy and Florida,” 

Washington, DC: Department of State, March 18, 2008, available 

from merln.ndu.edu/archivepdf/AF/State/103538.pdf.

59. FM 3-07, p. vi.

60. U.S. Department of Defense, Military Support for Stability, 

Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations, DoD 

Directive 3000.05. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 

November 28, 2005, p. 2, available from www.dtic.mil/whs/

directives/corres/pdf/300005p.pdf.

61. Luc Du Perron De Revel, “Winning the Battle Building 

Peace: Land Forces in Present and Future Conflicts—A Summary 

of the FT-011 Booklet,” Doctrine, General Military Review, French 

Armed Forces, No. 13, December 2007, p. 7.
135

62. Ulriksen, p. 559.

63. Michael B. Siegl, “Clarity and Culture in Stability 

Operations,” Military Review, Vol. 87, Issue 6, November/

December 2007, p. 99.

64. Mattis, p. 42.

65. FM 3-07, pp. 1-3 - 1-5.

66. George H. Olmstead, “Basic Tenets of the U.S. Strategy to 

Counter LIC,” Unpublished, July 21, 1986, p. 2.

67. Nicklas D. Kristof, “AIDS Workers with Guns,” New York 

Times, March 4, 2007, p. A13.

68. John Laskar, “Africa: Troop Activities Signal U.S. 

Thirst for African Oil,” New York: Global Press Service/Global 

Information Network, February 16, 2006, p. 2. 

69. FM 3-07, p. 2-1.

70. UNPKOPG, p. 18.

71. FM 3-07, p. 1-16. 

72. Department of Defense, Peace Operations, Joint Publication 

3-07.3, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2007, p. 

GL-5, available from www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp3_07_3.

pdf .

73. Siegl, p. 101.

74. United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, 

and Change, “A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility,” 

A/59/565, New York: United Nations General Assembly, 

December 2, 2004, p. 51, available from www.un.org/secureworld/

report.pdf. 

75. Ronald Bruce St John, “Nation-building vs. State-building 

in Iraq,” Global Beat Syndicate, August 4, 2003, available from 

www.bu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/stjohn-2-080403.html; and Jayne 
136

Carson, “Nation-Building, the American Way,” Carlisle Barracks, 

PA: U.S. Army War College, 2003, p. 2, available from www.fas.

org/man/eprint/carson.pdf .

76. Siegl, p. 102.

77. FM 3-07, pp. D-4 - D-5.

78. UNPKOPG, pp. 29-30.

79. Frank Agyekum, “South Korea: A Success Story Worth 

Emulating,” Ghana Home Page, October 16, 2005, available from 

www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=92213.

80. M. Saraswathi, “Malaysia Has Made the Best of What It 

has, Says Kofi Annan,” Bernama.com, July 12, 2007, available from 

www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/printable.php?id=272943. 

81. John Mukum Mbaku, Institutions and Development in Africa, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004, p. 97; Agyekum; 

and Saraswathi.

82. David L. Clawson, Douglas L Johnson, Viola Haarman, 

Merrill L. Johnson, World Regional Geography, Upper Saddle River, 

NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2007, p. 635.

83. World Bank, “GNI per Capita 2006: World Development 

Indicators Database,” September 14, 2007, pp. 1-3, available from 

siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GNIPC.

pdf.

84. Clawson et al, p. 20.

85. William Morris, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of 

the English Language, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976, 

p. 413. 

86. Arthur Getis, Judith Getis, and Jerome D. Fellmann, 

Introduction to Geography, New York: McGraw Hill, 2006, p. 509. 

There is a slight difference between GNP and GNI, but for the 

purposes of this paper that difference is insignificant.

87. Ibid., pp 223-224.
137

88. Steven Holloway and Kavita Pandit, “The Disparity 

between the Level of Economic Development and Human 

Welfare,” Professional Geographer, Vol. 44, No. 1, 1992, p. 58.

89. Elisabeth Feleke, and Louis A. Picard, “African Security 

Policy in the Twenty-First Century, an Overview of Issues,” 

Washington DC: National Defense University, Africa Center for 

Strategic Studies, December 31, 2007, p. 4.

90. James M Rubenstein, An Introduction to Human Geography,

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008, p. 294.

91. Paul Collier, “Africa: Geography and Growth,” Oxford 

University, UK: Centre for the Study of African Economics, 

August 2006, p. 1.

92. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 

“Human Development Reports,” 2005 data as reported in 

2007/2008 Ed., available from hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/.

93. Getis et al, p. 225.

94. Clawson et al, p. 20.

95. UNDP.

96. Rubenstein, p. 300.

97. Sean Jacobs and Krista Johnson, “Media, Social Movements 

and the State: Competing Images of HIV/AIDS in South Africa,” 

African Studies Quarterly, Vol. 9, Issue 4, Fall 2007, p. 10, available 

from web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v9/v9i4a8.htm.

98. United Nations Gender Statistics Programmes, “Glossary 

G,” New York: United Nations Economic and Social Commission 

for Western Asia, available from www.escwa.un.org/gsp/glossary/g.

html.

99. UNDP.

100. Rubenstein, pp. 297-298.
138

101. UNDP.

102. ITF, p. 112.

103. Clawson et al, p. 609.

104. UNDP.

105. Ibid.

106. Rubenstein, pp. 302-4.

107. UNDP.

108. Ibid.

109. Rubenstein, p. 309.

110. Clawson et al, p. 613.

111. Charles H. Cutter, Africa 2007, Harpers Ferry, WV: 

Stryker-Post Publications, 2007, p. 154.

112. UNDP.

113. April A. Gordon and Donald L. Gordon, “Trends and 

Prospects,” in April A. Gordon and Donald L. Gordon, eds., 

Understanding Contemporary Africa, Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner 

Publishers, 2007, pp. 399-400. 

114. Paul Lewis, “UN Index on Freedom Enrages Third 

World,” New York Times, June 23, 1991, available from query.

nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE2DA103FF930A15755C

0A967958260.

115. Andrew J. Cowin, “UN Report Backtracks on Link 

between Freedom and Development,” Heritage Foundation 

Issues, May 13, 1992, Backgrounder Report 180, p. 1. 

116. Chris McGreal, “Another Horrific Year Ends Century 

of Blood,” The Observer, UK, October 24, 1999, p. Table of Rights 

Abuses, available from www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/oct/24/hu-
139

manrights.theobserver2.

117. Afrobarometer, “Key Findings About Public Opinion in 

Africa,” Pretoria: Institute for Democracy in South Africa, April 

2002, No 1, p. 1.

118. Rubenstein, p. 294.

119. Ibid., p. 296.

120. UNDP.

121. Clawson et al, p. 20.

122. UNDP.

123. Gordon and Gordon, p. 401. 

124. World Bank, “Key Development Data and Statistics,” 

2006, p. 23, available from web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/

DATASTATISTICS/0,,contentMDK:20535285~menuPK:1192694~p

agePK:64133150~piPK:64133175~theSitePK:239419,00.html. 

125. Clawson et al, p. 310.

126. Gordon and Gordon, p. 399.

127. John A. Garraty and Peter Gay, The Columbia History of 

the World, New York City: Harper and Row Publishers, 1972, p. 

306.

128. “Economic and Trade Overview,” 2007 Comprehensive 

Report on U.S. Trade and Investment Policy toward Sub-Saharan Africa 

and Implementation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, Office 

of the United States Trade Representative, Washington, DC: U.S. 

Department of State, May 2007, p. 21.

129. Garranty and Gay, p. 302.

130. Clawson et al, p. 20.
140

131. Rubenstein, p. 331.

132. Ibid., p. 259.

133. “Africa Seeds of Hope—What Will It Do?” Silver Spring, 

MD: Bread for the World, February 5, 1999, available from www.

africa.upenn.edu/Urgent_Action/apic_2599.html.

134. Rubenstein, pp. 353-355.

135. ITF, p. 121.

136. CIA, p. Rwanda.

137. Paul Magnarella, “Review of When Victims Become 

Killers, by Mahmood Mamdani,” Human Rights and Human 

Welfare, Vol. 2, Issue 1, Winter 2002, p. 34.

138. Clawson et al, p. 22.

139. Ibid., p. 76. 

140. Ibid., p.609.

141. ITF, p. 212.

142. Clawson et al, p. 609.

143. Rubenstein, p. 353. 

144. “Africa Seeds of Hope.”

145. Rubinstein, pp. 330-1.

146. Cutter, p. 144.

147. UNDP.

148. CIA, p. Ethiopia.

149. Clawson et al, p. 612.
141

150. CIA, p. Ethiopia.

151. Ibid., p. Ghana.

152. Clawson et al, p. 609.

153. Ibid., pp. 330, 630.

154. Virginia DeLancey, “The Economies of Africa.” in 

April A. Gordon and Donald L. Gordon, eds., Understanding 

Contemporary Africa, p. 12. 

155. Rubenstein, p. 355; and “Africa Seeds.”

156. Clawson et al, p. 612.

157. Francis V. Crupi, “Why the United States Should 

Robustly Support Pan-African Organizations,” Parameters, Vol. 

XXXV, No. 4, Winter 2005-06, p. 118.

158. Clawson et al, pp. 630-631.

159. “Africa Seeds of Hope.”

160. ITF, p. 114.

161. Mistry, p. 674.

162. Collier, p. 1.

163. Elu, p. 3.

164. Getis et al, p. 135.

165. Rubenstein, p. 295.

166. Elu, p. 3.

167. Economic and Trade Overview, p. 21.
142

168. CIA, p. Gabon; and Clawson et al, p. 637.

169. Elu, p. 1.

170. Ibid., p. 2.

171. Economics and Trade Overview, p. 21.

172. CIA, p. Chad.

173. Economic and Trade Overview, p. 21.

174. CIA, p. Algeria.

175. Ibid., p. Republic of Congo. 

176. Ibid.

177. USGS, pp. 33, 71; and UNDP.

178. USGS, pp. 53 and 57.

179. Cutter, p. 125; and Clawson et al, p. 638.

180. Cutter, pp. 313-314.

181. UNDP.

182. Ibid.

183. Thomas L Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History 

of the Twenty-first Century, Basking Ridge, NJ: Farrar, Straus and 

Giroux, 2005, pp. 460-461.

184. DeLancey, p. 116.

185. International Crisis Group, “Islamist Terrorism in the 

Sahel: Fact or Fiction?” Africa Report No. 92, March 31, 2005, p. 26, 

available from merln.ndu.edu/archive/icg/islamistterrorisminthesahel.

pdf.

186. Cutter, p. 108.
143

187. Gordon, p. 401.

188. Rubenstein, pp. 294-295.

189. Ibid.

190. Clawson et al, p. 24. 

191. Ibid., p. 612.

192. Thalif Deen, “Third World Industrial Output Mushrooms,” Asia Times Online, November 9, 2006, available from 

www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HK09Dj01.html.

193. Clawson et al, p. 616-617.

194. Cutter, p. 224; and CIA, p. Ethiopia.

195. Clawson et al, p. 612.

196. CIA, p. Botswana.

197. Cutter, p. 138.

198. CIA, p. South Africa.

199. Africa Development Bank, ADB, Africa Development 

Report 2001, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 24.

200. Cutter, pp. 206-7.

201. CIA, p. Mauritius.

202. Cutter, pp. 206-7.

203. Raymond W. Copson, “Africa Backgrounder: History, 

U.S. Policy, and Principle Congressional Actions,” Washington 

DC: Library of Congress Congressional Research Service, January 

5, 2001, p. 1.

204. Cutter, p. 141.
144

205. Deen, p. 1.

206. Clawson et al, p. 652.

207. Cutter, p. 125.

208. Ibid. pp. 149-150.

209. CIA, p. Ethiopia.

210. Elu, p. 2.

211. DeLancey, p. 115.

212. Clawson et al, p. 612.

213. Gordon, p. 404.

214. Afrobarometer, p. 1.

215. Rubenstein, pp. 398-400.

216. Clawson et al, p. 20.

217. Peace Corps Information Collection and Exchange, Culture Matters: The Peace Corps Cross-Cultural Workbook, Washington 

DC: Peace Corps, Undated, pp. 71-72, 104-107, 112-113, 118-119.

218. Peter U. C. Dieke, “Tourism in Africa’s Economic Development: Policy Implications,” Management Decision, Vol. 41, Issue 

3, 2003, p. 289-292.

219. Tom Nevin, “African Tourism Review,” African Business, Issue 284, February 2003, p. 56.

220. Dieke, p. 293.

221. Nevin, p. 56.

222. S. G. Britton, “The Political Economy of Tourism in the 

Third World,” Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1998, p. 

340.
145

223. Dieke, p. 293-294; and Nevin, p. 56.

224. Dieke, pp, 292-295.

225. James Hodge, “Examining the Cost of Services Protection in a Developing Country: The Case of South Africa,” University of Cape Town: Development Policy Research Unit, 1999, p. 6, 

available from www.tips.org.za/files/280.pdf.

226. Cutter, p. 314.

227. Ibid., p. 233.

228. Nevin, p. 54.

229. Hodge, p. 13.

230. Cutter, p. 207.

231. CIA, p. Mauritius.

232. Cutter, p. 207.

233. Hodge, p. 11.

234. CIA, p. South Africa; and Hodge, p. 12.

235. Hodge, pp. 11-12.

236. Gordon, p. 411.

237. Cutter, p. 141.

238. Cerstin Sander, “Passing the Buck in East Africa: The 

Money Transfer Practice and Potential for Services in Kenya, 

Tanzania, and Uganda,” Nairobi, Kenya: MicroSave, 2003, p. 1, 

available from www.microfinancegateway.org/files/22081_ST_Money_Transfer_in_East_Africa_Sander.pdf; and CIA, p. Kenya.

239. Sander, p. 4.
146

240. Hodge, p. 13.

241. Gordon, p. 402.

242. Abraham McLaughlin, “What Debt Relief Means for Africa,” Christian Science Monitor, June 13, 2005, available from www.

csmonitor.com/2005/0613/p01s02-woaf.html.

243. ITF, p. 106; Economic and Trade, p. 21.

244. UNDP.

245. Seth Kaplan, “West African Integration: A New 

Development Paradigm?” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 29, Issue 

4, Autumn 2006, p. 83; and Mistry, p. 666.

246. Tony Blair et al., Our Common Interest: The Report of the 

Commission of Africa, Commission for Africa, March 2005, p. 12, 

available from allafrica.com/sustainable/resources/view/00010595.pdf. 

247. Ellis, p. 208.

248. Kaplan, pp. 84-85.

249. “Doctrine for Stability Operations, Bridging the Knowledge Gap to the Future,” PowerPoint presentation on FM 3-07,

Carlisle Barracks, PA: PKSOI. November 2008, slide 17.

250. FM 3-07, p. 1-16.

251. Ibid., pp 2-6 to 2-13.

252. David P. Cavaleri, “Easier Said Than Done: Making the 

Transition Between Combat Operations and Stability Operations,” 

Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper 7, Fort Leavenworth, KS: 

Combat Studies Institute Press, 2005, p. 25, available from wwwcgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/cavaleri.pdf.

253. FM 3-07, p. 1-6.

254. Conrad Crane, “Phase IV Operations: Where Wars are 

Really Won,” Military Review, August 2008, p. 9, available from 
147

usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/Military 

Review_2008CRII0831_art001.pdf.

255. FM 3-07, p. 1-6.

256. Barnes, p. 6.

257. Adam Smith, “At Last Unto the Breach: The Logic of a 

U.S. Military Command in West Africa,” Orbis, Vol. 48, Issue 2, 

Spring 2004, p. 305.

258. FM 3-07, p. vii.

259. Mark Malan, “AFRICOM: Joined-Up Geographic Command or Federal Business Opportunity?” Testimony before the 

Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives, July 23, 2008, p. 1, available from nationalsecurity.oversight.

house.gov/documents/20080723140719.pdf.

260. Department of Defense, Joint Publication (JP) 3-0, Joint 

Operations, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 

September 17, 2006, Incorporating Change 1 February 13, 2008, p. 

vii-6 to vii-7.

261. Chuck Risio, “Security Cooperation MAGTF—Fighting 

the Long War,” Leatherneck, Vol. 91, Issue 5, May 2008, p. 18.

262. FM 3-07, p. 1-11 to 1-12.

263. Thomas A. Dempsey, “The Transformation of African 

Militaries,” Amy Krakowka and Laurel Hummel, eds., Understanding Africa: A Geographic Approach. West Point, NY: United 

States Military Academy, 2009, p. 308, available from www.dean.

usma.edu/departments/geo/Publications/Understanding%20Africa.pdf.

264. Barnes, p. 5.

265. Risio, p. 22.

266. Marcus M. Maier, “U.S. Air Forces Shares Skills with Botswana Defense Forces,” Ramstein Air Base, Germany: 435th Air 
148

Base Wing Public Affairs Press Release, November 18, 2008, available from www.ethiopianreview.com/news/4046.

267. Walter Pincus, “U.S. Africa Command Brings New 

Concerns; Fears of Militarization on Continent Cited,” The 

Washington Post, May 28, 2007, p. A13; and Todd Pittman, “Support 

Missions in Africa Face Suspicion,” Associated Press, November 

14, 2007, available from www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/11/

airforce_africom_071113.

268. Dempsey, p. 388.

269. Raymond W. Copson, “Africa Backgrounder: History, 

U.S. Policy, Principal Congressional Actions,” Washington DC: 

Library of Congress Congressional Research Service, January 5, 

2001, p. 19.

270. U.S. Africa Command, “Fact Sheet: Africa Contingency 

Operations Training and Assistance, ACOTA,” Stuttgart, Germany: U.S. Africa Command, Public Affairs, June 15, 2008, available 

from www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=1886.

271. Dempsey, p. 390.

272. Barnes, p. 7, Dempsey, p. 394.

273. David Rising, “AFRICOM Begins 1st Peacekeeper Supply Operation,” AP News, January 15, 2009, available from www.

encyclopedia.com/doc/1A1-D95NKMMG1.html.

274. Dempsey, pp. 387-391.

275. Ibid., pp. 388-390, 404.

276. JP 3-0, pp. vii-7 to 8.

277. Gillian Brigham, “Navy-Charted Ship Delivers Humanitarian Aid Equipment to Liberia,” Stuttgart, Germany: U.S. 

Africa Command, Sealift Logistics Command Europe, March 25, 

2008, available from www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=1699.
149

278. Mario V. Garcia, “Achieving Security Cooperation Objectives through the USEUCOM Humanitarian and Civic Assistance Program,” Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management 

Journal of International Security Assistance Management, Vol. 25, Issue 1/2, Fall 2002-Winter 2003, pp 105-6.

279. UNPKOPG, p. 30.

280. Ibid. p. 30.

281. Garcia, pp. 105-6.

282. Jeffrey S. Palmer, “Legal Impediments to USAFRICOM 

Operationalization,” Joint Forces Quarterly, Vol. 51, Issue 4, Fall 

2008, www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/jfq_pages/editions/i51/19.pdf.

283. JP 3-0, p. vii-6.

284. Headquarters, Department of the Army, Field Manual 3-05.4, Civil Affairs Operations, Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 15, 2006, p. 15, available 

from www.docstoc.com/docs/5983778/%E2%80%9CCivil-AffairsOperations%E2%80%9D.

285. JP 3-0, p. vii-6.

286. Noah Shachtman, “Air Force General Hits Back Over 

Soft Power,” Wired Blog—Danger Room, January 16, 2009, available 

from blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/air-force-gener.html.

287. FM 3-07, p. 6-14.

288. Ulriksen, p. 560.

289. Ibid., p. 560.

290. Dan Henk, “Uncharted Paths, Uncertain Vision: U.S. 

Military Involvements in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Wake of the 

Cold War,” U.S. Air Force Academy, CO: USAF Institute for National Security Studies, March 1998, p. 44, available from www.

stormingmedia.us/41/4145/A414563.html.
150

291. Lawrence Delevingne, “Controversy Dogs Creation of 

U.S. Military Command,” Global Information Network, June 3, 

2008, p. 3, available from www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-153159087.

html.

292. Russell J. Handy, “African Contingency Operations 

Training Assistance: Developing Training Partnerships for the 

Future of Africa,” Air and Space Power Journal, Vol. 17, Issue 3, Fall 

2003, p. 59.

293. Henk, p. 45.

294. Pittman.

295. Henk, p. 45.

296. Ibid., p. 44.

297. J. Kpanneh Doe and Siahyonkron Nyanseor, “AFRICOM: A Model for ‘Capacity’ Building and Development or 

Not?” The Perspective, November 24, 2007, available from www.

liberiaitech.com/theperspective/2007/1124200702.html.

298. John P. Basilotto, “A Revisionist View of Nation 

Assistance in Africa,” Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College 

Student Research Paper, 1991, p. 7, available from www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA237687&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf.

299. Palmer, p. 84.

300. Michael Mullen, “CJCS Guidance for 2008-2009.” 

Small Wars Journal, available from smallwarsjournal.com/

blog/2008/11/cjcs-guidance-for-20082009/.

301. FM 3-05.4, p. 1-5.

302. Siegl, p. 101.

303. Cole, p. 6.

304. Andrew J Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1942-1976, Washington DC: U.S. Army 

Center of Military History, 2006, p. 238; and FM 3-07 1-2.
151

305. “Bush’s Unfinished Africa Legacy,” The Christian Science 

Monitor, February 14, 2008, p. 8.

306. Pincus, p. A-13.

307. Cole, p. 7.

308. Siegl, pp. 99-100.

309. Barnes, p. 6.

310. Crane, p. 12.

311. Morelli, p. 4.

312. Ulriksen, p. 562.

313. Crane, pp. 6.

314. Crane, pp. 5.

315. DoDD 3000.05, p. 2.

316. Crane, pp. 12-13.

317. FM 3-07, p. vii.

318. Siegl, p. 102.

319. Delevingne, p. 2.

320. FM 3-07, p. E-9.

321. Ibid., pp. 1-3 to 1-4, A-9 to A-10, and GL-10. 

322. Cavaleri, p. 24.

323. FM 3-07, pp 1-4 to 1-6.

324. Cavaleri, p. 14.
152

325. FM 3-07, p. 1-5.

326. Ibid., pp 1-13 to 1-14.

327. Cole, p. 5; and Harlow.

328. FM 3-07, p. 2-5.

329. Ibid., pp. B-2 to B-3, and A-6.

330. Crane, p. 2.

331. Basilotto, p. 28.

332. Crane, p. 11.

333. Ibid., p. 11.

334. Catherine MacRae Hockmuth, “AFRICOM: More 

Questions than Answers,” Aviation Week, December 17, 2007, 

available from www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?

plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogscript&plckElementId=blogD

est&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-

dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a1f368737-985c-4d15-90fc86bdbb54fd2b; and Palmer, p. 84.

335. Pincus, p. A-13.

336. Mark Malan, “U.S. Civil-Military Imbalance for Global Engagement,” Washington, DC: Refugees International, July 

2008, available from www.refugeesinternational.org/sites/default/

files/RI_CivMil_imbalance.pdf.

337. Kathleen H. Hicks, “Africom: Vision and Prospects,” 

Statement before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee 

on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, July 23, 2008, p. 2, available from 

csis.org/testimony/africom-vision-and-prospects.

338. FM 3-07, p. 5-1.

339. Morelli, p. 23.
153

340. Stephanie McCrummen, “Report: U.S. Africa Aid is 

Increasingly Military,” Washington Post, July 18, 2008, available 

from www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/17/

AR2008071702550.html.

341. Refugees International, “Report Challenges Militarization of U.S. Foreign Aid, Calls for U.S. Africa Policy Reforms,” 

July 17, 2008, p. 1, available from www.commondreams.org/

news2008/0717-23.htm.

342. Mattais, p. 47.

343. Pincus, p. A-13.

344. Palmer, pp. 83-84; and FM 3-05, p. 3-12.

345. FM 3-07, pp. 5-6 to 5-7.

346. Handy, p. 58; Pittman; and Delevingne.

347. Hockmuth.

348. Delevingne.

349. Pittman.

350. Birtle, pp. 227-8.

351. James L. Payne, “Deconstructing Nation Building,” The 

American Conservative, October 24, 2005, available from www.amconmag.com/article/2005/oct/24/00013/.

352. Mullen. 

353. Pittman.

354. McCrummen.

355. Harlow; and FM 3-07, Foreword.
154

356. FM 3-07, p. B-1.

357. William Flavin, “New Doctrine for a New Era,” PKSOI 

Bulletin, Vol. 1, Issue 1, October 2008, p. 2.

358. Crane, p. 4.

359.FM 3-07, p I-13.

360. Ibid., pp. B-1 to B-5.

361. U.S. Agency for International Development/General 

Notice, “Smart Power and Development: Civilian-Military 

Cooperation,” USAID e-mail dated July 13, 2009 for a July 15, 

2009 event at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC.

362. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Town Hall Meeting to Announce the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review,” 

Speech at Dean Acheson Auditorium, Washington, DC, July 10, 

2009, available from www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/july/125949.

htm.

363. Malan, U.S. Civil-Military, p. 6.

364. Ken Dilanian, “High Salaries for Aid Group CEOs,” 

USA Today, September 2, 2009, available from www.fundraisingsuccessmag.com/article/review-high-salaries-aid-group-ceos-412075_1.

html.

365. Clinton.

366. Refugees International, p. 1.

367. Michael O’Hanlon, “Obama’s Defense Budget Gap,” 

Washington Post, June 10, 2009, available from www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/09/AR2009060902647.html.

368. Crane, p. 12.

369. Barak Obama, “The Agenda, Defense,” Washington DC: 

The White House, undated, available from www.whitehouse.gov/

agenda/defense/.
155

370. Basilotto, p. 8.

371. FM 3-07, p. 1-5.

372. Ibid., p. v.

373. Ibid., pp. B-3 to B-4.

374. Robert Perito, ed., Guide for Participants in Peace, Stability, and Relief Operations, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2007, Book Review by USIP, available from 

at www.usip.org/resources/guide-participants-peace-stability-and-relief-operations-0.

375. Cole, p. 5. 

376. Center for Complex Operations, CCO, “Center for 

Complex Operations Portal,” 2009, available from ccoportal.org/.

377. Hicks, p. 3.

378. Thom Shanker, “Top Officer Urges Limit on Mission of 

Military,” New York Times, January 12, 2009, available from www.

nytimes.com/2009/01/13/washington/13military.html?ref=world.

379. Independent Task Force, p. 118.

380. U.S. Department of State, Office of the Spokesman, 

“President Issues Directive to Improve the United States’ 

Capacity to Manage Reconstruction and Stabilization Efforts,” 

Washington, DC: Department of State, December 14, 2005. www.

fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-44fs.html. 

381. Kaplan, p. 82.

382. Ronald W. Reagan, available from pithypedia.

com/?similarquotes=...there+is+no+limit+to+what+a+man+can

+do+or+where+he+can+go+if+he%3Cbr%2F%3Edoesn%27t+mi

nd+who+gets+the+credit.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Robert M. Williams

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II

Author

Lieutenant Colonel Clarence J. Bouchat 

(USAF, Retired)

Director of Publications

Dr. James G. Pierce

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil