Washington, DC — U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will travel to three African countries from August 7 to 12 with visits to South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda. These stops will follow visits to Cambodia and the Philippines beginning August 2. The trip will be his second to Africa since taking office, following a November visit to Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal.
The visit comes days after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavlov toured four African capitals and French President Emmanuel Macron visited three west African states and follows on the announcement by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of a U.S. Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC in mid-December.
According to the State Department announcement, in Pretoria Blinken will take part in the U.S.-South Africa Strategic Dialogue, which was launched in 2010 by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to deepen cooperation on a range of issues including health, education, food security, law enforcement, trade, investment, energy, and nonproliferation.
From Johannesburg, Blinken will travel to Kinshasa where he “will meet with senior DRC government officials and members of civil society to discuss our mutual interest in ensuring free, inclusive, and fair elections in 2023, promoting respect for human rights and protecting fundamental freedoms,” the announcement states. The Secretary’s trip “will also focus on combating corruption, supporting trade and investment, addressing the climate crisis, building agricultural resilience, and support regional African efforts to advance peace in eastern DRC and the broader Great Lakes region”
The final stop will be Kigali where the State Department says “he will meet with senior Rwandan government officials and civil society members to discuss shared priorities, including peacekeeping.” Further elaborating on the two-day stopover agenda, the announcement says: “The Secretary will focus on the role the government of Rwanda can play in reducing tensions and ongoing violence in eastern DRC. He will also raise democracy and human rights concerns, including transnational repression, limiting space for dissent and political opposition, and the wrongful detention of U.S. Lawful Permanent Resident Paul Rusesabagina.”
Other senior administration officials have made recent visits to the continent including USAID Administrator Samantha Power, who was in Kenya and Somalia this month focusing on food security. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman traveled to South Africa, Angola and in May, accompanied by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee and Dana Banks from the National Security Council staff. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet visited Senegal and Mauritania earlier this month.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield has plans to visit Ghana and Uganda next week “to discuss the U.S. and global response to the impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine on global food security, as well as other regional and bilateral priorities.”
“High level visits should signal commitment, not just competition,” according to Michael Gavin, writing in a blog for the Council on Foreign Relations. “That energy and high-level engagement is unequivocally positive,” writes Gavin – a former U.S. ambassador and White House official during the Obama administration. But successful engagement “will take expertise, resources, and sustained commitment to move beyond crisis-management and execute a thoughtful strategy suited to U.S. interests and Africa’s dynamic future.”
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