Blinken to Visit South Africa, DR Congo and Rwanda

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.

A centerpiece of the trip will be a major policy speech enunciating the administration’s Africa strategy. A new policy framework has been under discussion for many months, coordinated by Judd Devermont, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who joined the National Security Council as special advisor for Africa strategy last October. On July 1, Devermont was tapped as the NSC senior director for Africa, replacing Dana Banks.

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.

The policy speech he will deliver while there “will be an amplification of our conviction that partnership with Africa is really critical to meeting shared challenges,” Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee told reporters on Friday. He will build on his November policy address in Nigeria and provide an overview of “what we’ve been doing since the administration came into office.”

Along with Phee, the Secretary will be accompanied by Enoh T. Ebong, who directs the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and Dr. John Nkengasong, the former head of the African CDC who is the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator leading the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Dr. Reuben Brigety II, President Biden’s choice to be ambassador to South Africa who was confirmed by the Senate on July 21, is expected to be at his new post to welcome the Secretary to the country.

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” Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jose Fernandez will join the delegation in Kinshasa, Phee said.

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. Recent outbreaks of fighting in eastern Congo have escalated tensions between the geovernments in Kinshasa and Kigali, with DR Congo accusing Rwanda of backing the M23 militia in the North Kivu region.

Blinken “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,” the State Department statement said. Asked about the recent letter from Senator Robert Menendez, who chairs the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, raising concerns about Rwanda’s human rights record and calling for called for a review of U.S. policy toward, Phee told reporters the Secretary had spoken with Menendez and said “he intended to raise the issues outlined in the letter” in his talks with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs / East African
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya.
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. Scott Nathan, CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation visited Nigerian and Sierra Leone this week “where DFC financing is supporting construction of the country’s first major utility-scale power plant,” according to an agency release. 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.”

Senior administration officials have also met with a number of visiting top-level African officials in Washington. This week, the foreign minister of Niger Massaoudou Hassoumi met with Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman at the State Department and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the White House to discuss conflict in the Sahel and U.S.support for food security, democracy and econmoic development.

“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.”

The administration’s delegation to the U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Marrakesh earlier this month was led by Alice Albright, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation and “senior representatives from 10 departments and agencies contributing to Prosper Africa, the U.S. government’s signature initiative to increase trade and investment between African nations and the United States,” according to MCC. These included the UTDA director Ebong, Travis Adkins, President and CEO, U.S. African Development Foundation; Leslie Marbury, Acting COO, Prosper Africa; senior officials from the Export Import Bank; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Akunna Cook; Leslie Marbury, Prosper Africa Chief Operating Officer; Andrew Herscowitz, Chief Development Officer of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation; and Dana Banks and Deniece Laurent-Mantey from the NSC.

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke by video to the opening session, where she disclosed the mid-December timing for the U.S. African Leaders Summit that she and President Biden will host in Washington, DC. Banks has moved from her post as NSC senior director for Africa to spearhead planning as the President’s senior advisor for the December gathering.

“The continent is an important business market and African states are possible allies that no world power can afford to ignore for long,” Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Africa Program said this month in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittees on Africa, Global Health, and Global Human Rights & Europe, Energy, the Environment and Cyber. But U.S. engagement doesn’t match Africa’s potential.”We ask why?”