THE U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, has said America will work with West Africa to curb military coups.
She spoke in an interview in New York on Wednesday.
African leaders, she said, have made it clear that security is an issue to take seriously.
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said: “We’re seeing a lot of backsliding, particularly in West Africa, on democracy. And we want to work with regional organisations, like ECOWAS, to address the root causes, and provide support for countries to build the capacity for their democracies to deliver to their people.
“Because if democracy is going to work, it has to be able to deliver to people. People have to have confidence in their governments; that their governments will provide for them and provide for their families and provide a future for their children. And I think the summit is going to be a huge effort on our part to start the process of, again, recalibrating, but also to really strengthen what is already a solid relationship that we have on the continent.”
She added that Africans were so resilient.
“You see resiliency, you see strength, and you see fortitude among the people I met. I had the opportunity, in Uganda, to meet with NGOs, with refugee organizations, civil society groups, young businesspeople. And despite everything that’s going on in the world, they still are hopeful.
“I saw it in Ghana. I went to the north of Ghana, to Tamale, met with farmers, women farmers, with a young woman who had participated in our Young African Leaders Initiative, who had started a program supporting young women who needed to learn a skill. And again, I saw resilience. And I think that in spite of everything that’s going on, the resilience and the hope is still there.
According to her, three African leaders told her they were feeling the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“They’re feeling it in energy prices, they’re feeling it in food prices. I visited a granary, or grain mill in Uganda that gets 40 percent of its wheat from Ukraine. I heard them facing shortages and high prices. When I was in Uganda, sitting with farmers, they expressed concerns about the high price of fertilizer – the price had more than tripled for these farmers. One farmer told me that he would normally have planted 10 acres; he was only planting four because of fertilizer shortage. Another woman who was a farmer told me that she normally would have planted five acres and she was only planting one acre.”
She went on: “And as I talked to the leaders, they were very conscious of the impact that this was having on ordinary citizens. And they wanted to hear from me, from the United States, and others, how we were going to assist them in addressing some of these issues of food shortages, food insecurity, security broadly, and addressing some of the economic impact that they are facing.
She said during her trip to Africa she heard concerns that Africa was left on the sidelines on COVID.
“We have, however, over the course of the past two years, given nearly a billion doses of COVID vaccines. We’re very supportive of the effort to develop capacity on the continent of Africa, to develop vaccines so that Africans are not left out when vaccines are being delivered. So, we heard the concerns. We heard the complaints. And we are absolutely committed to working with African partners to address them,” she said.
