China has invested heavily in Africa in recent decades, including in infrastructure and resource development, while Russian influence has also grown, including through the deployment of troops from the private military contractor Wagner Group in several countries.
“On this trip, I intend to do work that is focused on increasing investments here on the continent and facilitating economic growth and opportunity,” Harris said on Sunday shortly after touching down in Ghana, the first destination in a trip that will include visits to Tanzania and Zambia.
“We are looking forward to this trip as a further statement of the long and enduring very important relationship and friendship between the people of the United States and those who live on this continent,” Harris said.
The administration of President Joe Biden has sought to strengthen ties with Africa, in part to offer an alternative to rival powers, amid global competition over the continent’s future.
African nations are aware that there are ulterior motives for this push for a closer alliance, observers say.
“African nations are not naive … The US has a long history of meddling in African affairs, supporting dictators versus liberation movements, pushing hard for US multinationals’ access to African markets and resources, while leaving countries with nothing,” said Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi, reporting from Washington, DC.
“So the US is saying, ‘That’s all in the past now, we are partners, we can all be successful’, whereas what we’re hearing from Africa is, ‘We don’t want to choose between China, Russia and the US, but we will do what we feel is in our best interest.'”
In December, ahead of the US-Africa Leaders Summit, Washington committed $55bn to the continent over the next three years.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $150m in new humanitarian aid for Africa’s Sahel region during a visit to Niger this month, which came less than a year after he visited South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Morocco, Algeria and Rwanda.
This flurry of diplomacy is “about the geopolitical struggles that are going on, and the fear in Washington that it’s losing ground, specifically now in Africa where there is a scramble for resources, where there are rarer minerals to power the Green Revolution, and so on”, Rattansi said.
Harris will meet Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo this week and will visit a castle from which people were forcibly sent to the US during the slave trade era.
Harris will be in Ghana from March 26-29, then in Tanzania from March 29-31. Her final stop is Zambia, on March 31 and April 1. She will meet with the three countries’ presidents and plans to announce public- and private-sector investments.
This weekend, Vice President Kamala Harris begins a three-country tour of Africa as the United States seeks to pitch itself as a better partner than China, which has invested heavily in the continent over several decades.
Harris will be in Ghana from March 26 to 29, and then in Tanzania from March 29 to 31. Her final stop is Zambia, where she will be from March 31 to April 1. She will meet the three countries’ presidents and plans to announce public and private sector investments.
Harris will discuss China’s engagement in technology and economic issues in Africa that concern the US, as well as China’s involvement in debt restructuring, senior US officials said.
Zambia, the first African country to default on its sovereign debt during the COVID-19 pandemic, is working with its creditors, including China, to reach an agreement.
“We’re not asking our partners in Africa to choose,” an official told Reuters news agency, describing the competition with China, although he added that the US has “real concerns about some of China’s behaviour in Africa” and its “opaque” business dealings.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said Harris would discuss the best ways for the international community to address debt challenges faced by Ghana and Zambia.
The White House hosted an Africa Leaders Summit in December, and President Joe Biden is expected to travel to the continent later this year.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Ethiopia and Niger this March, less than a year after visiting South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Morocco, Algeria and Rwanda.
The slew of recent engagements is a deviation from Washington’s stance under Biden’s predecessor, Republican President Donald Trump, who largely ignored the continent, and it comes as Russia deepens military engagements across Francophone Africa.
Harris, who visited her maternal grandfather as a little girl while he worked there, is “looking forward to returning to Lusaka, which is a part of her family’s story and a source of pride”, one of the officials said.
