January, 2009

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  • A Smarter U.S. Approach to Africa
    Jan 28, 2009

    By Jennifer Cooke and J. Stephen Morrison

    **The following is the opening, pre-publication draft, chapter in the forthcoming CSIS Africa Program publication, "Beyond the Bush Administration’s Africa Policy: Critical Choices for the Obama Administration." Pre-publication drafts of the other chapters are available on the CSIS Africa Program website or by clicking here. Final print publication will occur in mid–March.

    The Bush Era: a Powerful Legacy

    During President George W. Bush’s eight-year tenure, U.S. policy towards Africa underwent a dramatic enlargement, marked by an expansion of U.S. interests, a high-level diplomatic push on Sudan, unprecedented resource flows, and the establishment of several historic initiatives. This unfolded in an era in which security, energy, and health emerged as new, near-strategic U.S. interests in Africa, and in which U.S. Africa policy ascended to a position far closer to mainstream foreign policy than ever before. The U.S. constituency for an activist Africa policy broadened considerably to include public health institutions, powerful new foundations, vocal religious groups, and a more active corporate sector. U.S. Africa policy attracted consistently strong bipartisan support. But it was also criticized for approaches that were imbalanced, unsustained, underpowered, and inconsistent.

  • Supporting a Comprehensive Peace in Sudan
    Jan 27, 2009

    By Eddie Thomas

    Sudan’s center is in the Nile Valley around the capital Khartoum—a middle-income enclave surrounded by some of the poorest societies on earth. The powerful, rich central government has a weak grip on its vast territory, but it may be losing its grip. It is fighting a war in Darfur; the neighboring region of Kordofan is being drawn in; and there is a huge military build-up on the oil-rich internal border between Northern Sudan and the newly autonomous South, which has recently emerged from decades of war. A rebellion in Eastern Sudan has come to an uneasy end; and in the far north, people are being thrown off riverain lands to make way for dams.