US Vice President to visit Tanzania
US Vice President, Kamala Harris , starts this weekend a week-long trip to Africa in what is being seen as the latest attempt at counterbalancing China's influence.
Vice President Harris is expected to visit Ghana , Tanzania and Zambia as she focuses on economic development, climate change, food security and a rising youth population.
Harris plans to visit a recording studio and meet with women entrepreneurs in Accra , and then stop by a tech incubator in Dar es Salaam .
In Lusaka , Zambia’s capital, Harris is expected to meet with business and philanthropic leaders to talk about expanding access to digital and financial systems.
"She's going to give a major speech in the capital of Ghana and also engage with a lot of young people in the country. She's focused a lot on the rising youth generation in Africa . The median age in the continent is only 19 years old and roughly half of the world's population growth is going to happen in Africa over the next several decades, which is just an enormous potential for the region. When she gets to Tanzania, she’ll be meeting with the country’s first woman president. And that's a place where the country's trying to solidify its democracy and try to institute some governing reforms. So we should expect her to highlight some of that as well. And then on to Zambia , where there will be more talk about entrepreneurship, food security, other issues that kind of have dominated conversations in Africa ", explained Chris Megerian a AP White House Reporter.
For the American administration, the objective is to deepen and reframe U.S. relationships in Africa focussing on the continent as a place of growth and investment destination, not just aid packages.
" Harris is going to be facing sort of a delicate balancing act on this trip. A lot of US outreach to Africa is rooted in this US-China rivalry. China has a lot of influence in the continent through lending countries money, through building major infrastructure projects like roads and railroads. But at the same time, US officials don't want African leaders to feel like they're being caught in the middle of this geopolitical chess match between the US and China . They want to make African leaders feel like they're dealing with them on their own terms. And that's something that the vice president will need to balance while she's there to try to form partnerships that help the US and its geopolitical goals, but also create its own relationships with African countries as well", concluded the Associated Press White House Reporter .
Harris's visit will be closely watched as she is the first person of colour and first woman to serve as vice president.
It comes eight years after Barack Obama, the first US Black president, made his trip to the region in office.
US administration officials previewing the trip said it is a “future-oriented” expedition to deepen the relationship and portray Africa as a place for investment -- not just aid packages, a theme Harris emphasized in December during a US-Africa summit in Washington, the only one since 2014, which was hosted by Obama.
Senior administration officials said Harris will build off remarks made at the summit where she touted US commitments to invest in innovation and creativity across the continent and announced President Joe Biden would sign an executive order to establish the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement aimed at providing advice and recommendations about how to strengthen the relationships between Africa and the US.
“I’m going to Africa mainly to talk with African leaders about what we, as the United States, are prepared to do to have our role in investing in the future of that continent,” Harris said in a radio interview Friday.
“The vice president is visiting three countries where the government is investing in democracies, specifically at a time where we know there is a global democratic recession,” said a senior administration official.
