Can the West Woo Africa?
In recent years, the West’s lack of engagement with Africa left behind a vacuum that China and Russia eagerly filled. The US and Europe can still repair relations – and, for the first time in a long time, seem determined to try – but only by playing to their strengths.
WASHINTON, DC – The United States is finally paying attention to Africa. But recent attempts at engagement – the US-Africa Leaders Summit in December and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s ten-day tour of the continent last month – have offered no indication that the US has anything close to a meaningful strategy for engagement with the continent. And the European Union is no better.