Hillary Clinton embarks on Africa tour

Tuesday marked the arrival of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Africa. Her visit will take her to South Sudan and on a private visit to now 94-year-old Nelson Mandela, among other stops.
While Clinton's public focus will be on Africa's democratic achievements and economic potential, the trip also underscores US security ties in the face of growing threats – from Islamist militants to narcotics cartels.
"The security threats are becoming much more visible and in some ways dangerous than they were before," said Jennifer Cooke, the head of the Africa programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
"There are big global issues on the table, and the US does not have the kind of finances available to mount splashy new economic initiatives in Africa."
Stops along the way
Clinton's trip – potentially her last as America's top diplomat – will take her to South Sudan on Friday, where she will be the most senior US official to visit since the country declared independence in July 2011.
Further stops include Uganda, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa, where Clinton will stop in Mandela's home village of Qunu on Monday for a private meeting with the revered liberation leader who has quietly faded from public view in his formal retirement.
Clinton will conclude the trip on 10 August at the funeral of Ghana's late President John Atta Mills, whose sudden death on 24 July has been followed by a smooth transition in one of Africa's most stable democracies, US officials said.
US priorities
Throughout the trip, Clinton is expected to highlight US programmes on development, education and HIV/AIDS – long the backbone of US engagement with Africa – as well as US economic interest in a continent whose rich resources and enviable growth rates have drawn rival suitors including China and India.
She will also likely emphasize projects for women and girls, one of her central themes in a job she says she will leave in January even if President Barack Obama is elected to a second term.
But Clinton's visit is also part of a US push to broaden security partnerships with key countries such as Uganda and Kenya – ties that are growing fast despite sometimes serious US concerns over democratic governance.
Obama’s Africa legacy
Obama laid out his policy for Africa in a speech in Ghana in July 2009, saying the United States stood ready to help African nations as they work to improve governance, fight corruption and resolve regional conflicts.[related-articles]
His speech led to widespread hopes on the continent that the first US president with African roots would follow through with new policies to help achieve those goals.
But his administration has not launched major new initiatives such as the Clinton-era trade pact that granted tax breaks to African goods or President George W. Bush's AIDS initiative of 2003, which committed billions of dollars to the fight against HIV/AIDS on the continent.
Africans will always see Obama as one of our own, so we are reluctant to criticize," said Mwangi Kimenyi, a Kenyan academic and director of the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution.
But it turns out our expectations for the president were a bit overrated and unrealistic. He could have been more courageous and done more."
The White House last month released a strategy paper on Africa, repeating its commitment to strengthening democracy and spurring economic growth but lacking a single signature project which could cement Obama's Africa legacy.
African militaries
Instead, attention has focused on AFRICOM, the unified US Africa Command that the Pentagon established in 2007. It is playing an increasingly important role as the United States pumps resources into training African militaries.
Washington has reacted with increasing alarm as militant groups such as Somalia's al-Shabaab, Nigeria's Boko Haram and al-Qaeda's African wing based in the vast Sahel region open new fronts to advance Islamic extremism.
Concern over the Sahel has spiked since March when a coup in Mali opened the door to al-Qaeda-linked Islamists in the north of the country, leading some analysts to say the lawless region could become an "African Afghanistan."
Source: Reuters