The views expressed here emanated from a panel discussion on “Trendlines and Transformations in African Democratic Governance: Lessons for US-Africa Relations,” held at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington DC., on November 13, 2024.
Introduction
The world is undergoing momentous geopolitical transitions as the major powers, along with a growing number of medium-range powers, flex their muscles over strategic economic and geopolitical interests globally, and in Africa. This think-piece raises some critical questions as to the quality and continued relevance of United States (read: Western) policy towards democracy promotion in Africa. It is set against the backdrop of major shifts in U.S foreign policy and geostrategic interests worldwide within a short time, particularly towards Africa, since the inauguration of President Donald Trump as the 47th President. A key question emanating from this major shift relates to the place and current status of Africa in the context of the current geopolitical calculations in Washington D.C. How should the US engage Africa, and vice versa, and what are the implications of the ongoing transitions within Africa?
Africa in Transition: When not to generalise experiences and outcomes
Great care needs to be exercised in not generalising about African experiences, particularly the impulses and outcomes of democratic processes happening currently on the continent. In a survey conducted in 39 African countries on the democratic aspirations of African citizens during the past 25 years, for instance, Afrobarometer noted that more African citizens are showing a preference for democratic governance, even though much of what they are currently experiencing is marred by threats and challenges capable of undermining their resilience and further exposing their vulnerability.1
An array of factors is shaping the trajectory, content and quality of democracy on the African continent. Most of these, paradoxically, are directly linked to—and exemplified by—the dwindling capacity of the state to deliver the dividends of democracy to the majority of citizens. Others include the intolerance of ruling parties towards the opposition, the shrinking of the civic space and, despite strong demand for democracy, the yawning gap between the value of democracy and what it eventually delivers to citizens.
In the last decade alone, a small number of countries in Africa, like Mauritius, Cape Verde, Senegal, and Botswana, have emerged as the bright spots of democracy. But the majority of other African countries appear to either be at a standstill or lagging behind in terms of their democratic governance scorecards.2 There are several reasons for this turn of events. Firstly, is that the material base necessary to nurture and sustain democracy to maturity is declining in the face of limited access to subsidised socio-economic opportunities. For a growing number of citizens, then, the best form that God can appear on earth is in the form of food. Secondly, the African continent is today experiencing a widening inequality gap; between the small crop of state-connected elite that are stupendously wealthy, and the vast majority of citizens that live in misery and abject poverty.
Thirdly, there is also growing evidence of a steep decline—and maybe an eventual disappearance—of the middle class in Africa. Historically, the middle class is the engine of growth and development in any countries. Depending on its capacity to innovate and how well it positions itself, the middle class can also contribute significantly to shaping the democratic trajectories of any country. In many parts of Africa, however, the middle class has literally shrunk and lost its vibrancy. After decades of socially harsh economic policies from a succession of military and one-party authoritarian regimes, the middle class has been left desolate and bereft of the capacity to contribute towards meaningful change. Years of depreciating currencies, inflation, and economic decline has badly battered the middle class. Despite the remarkable resilience that middle-class dominated civil society space has demonstrated in the face of the growing authoritarian excesses of the state, the space for civic participation in governance processes is shrinking and under siege.
No wonder the continent’s 55 independent states represent a spectrum of the good, the bad, and the outright ugly. According to the 2023 Fragility States Index report that assesses the vulnerability of conflict-afflicted states based on 12 indicators,3 the 10 most stable African countries are Mauritius, Seychelles, Botswana, Cape Verde, Namibia, Ghana, Gabon, Tunisia, Morocco, Sao Tome, and Principe. After six decades of the ruling party maintaining a firm grip on power in Botswana, it unexpectedly lost—and woefully—to the opposition during the October 2024 general election.4 A similar trend happened in Mauritius, where the opposition, Alliance for Change (ADC), secured 60 of 62 seats in the National Parliament. In Senegal, the March 2024 elections saw the victory of a ‘rookie’ politician, Diomaye Faye, who defeated the incumbent President Macky Sall. At the other end of the political spectrum, the countries with the high levels of instability include Sudan, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Niger, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Mali, and Rwanda.
Finally, as citizens become increasingly frustrated and disillusioned with the current status quo, many Africans are asking tough questions, such as whether or not democracy is a distraction and waste of time. It is no wonder that African citizens are vigorously demanding more accountability from their governments. There seems to be more discussion of the rhetoric of democracy, rather than democracy’s substance or capacity to tackle existential challenges facing people on the continent.
Contending with the State: When Citizens Question the Legitimacy of the State and all that it represents
If African citizens on the streets are asked to explain what democracy means to them, the answers they give now would be qualitatively different from 20-30 years ago. This trend is connected to one of the pitfalls of democracy in Africa: the widening gap between the values and promises that democracy projects and what it actually delivers in concrete terms to citizens, which underpins the widespread disillusionment. There is no question today that the material base for democracy, and its consolidation, is shrinking as life becomes more unbearable for citizens. With inflation and skyrocketing prices of goods and services making basic essentials unaffordable and scarce, inequality gaps keep widening. In some instances, reaching a breaking point result in violent protest and crime.
Paradoxically, citizens are not only questioning the legitimacy of the state but also the legitimate institutions of the state; including intergovernmental organisations such as the African Union (AU) and Regional Economic Communities (RECs), like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Once celebrated as the most progressive and an exemplar among other RECs, ECOWAS is today facing the worst headwinds in its 50 years of existence. As far back as 2001, ECOWAS adopted the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, which stipulated zero tolerance for unconstitutional change of government (UCG). Today, the goodwill and solidarity that led to the creation of ECOWAS in 1975, and that has sustained it until recent times, has dissipated. There is genuine risk that the regional body could unravel— a conclusion signposted by the joint announcement on 28th January 2024 of the withdrawal from ECOWAS of three founding members of the Community—Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, to form the Alliance of Sahelian States.5
ECOWAS and other regional organisations in Africa must therefore reinvent and reposition themselves to meet the yearnings and aspirations of citizens from member-states, in order to remain relevant in the eye of citizens. After all, most member-states of regional institutions know fully well that most of the problems they are facing cannot be tackled individually but through multilateral efforts. With adverse climate change, transhumance, smuggling, trafficking, and other problems unrelenting and escalating, regional actors must come to terms that they need collective effort to tackle them. More than any other time, there is still a place for multilateralism today than in the past, especially if it recognises the primacy of citizens in peace, security and development.
ECOWAS has moved far away from the ideals that spurred its formation in 1975, and also underscored its resilience during the past five decades. Even though the Community has expressed the aspiration to move away from being merely the ECOWAS of governments to becoming the ECOWAS of the people, very little of that aspiration has come to fruition.
What needs to change in US foreign policy regarding support for democratic governance in Africa?
There is a lot of concern within Africa that the presence of state and non-state external actors on the continent is driven more by the quest to advance geostrategic interests and exercise influence than any quest to support a country establishing and deepening democracy. It is not a surprise that major Powers, especially the United States, care little if the value of democracy remains at the aspirational level or is only perfunctory at best. As long as Washington DC, in particular, continues to frame its engagements with Africa purely on the basis of its enlightened national and strategic interests, the continent would be seen more as a pawn on the global chessboard to checkmate competitors like China and Russia. If the case had been different, and such relationship is based on genuinely supporting democracy, geopolitical competition with other competitors will not be as important.
The US must therefore approach Africa with more sensitivity, to forge and pursue genuine partnership rather than narrow enlightened national interest. It is precisely for this reason that many on the continent are asking the US to focus on how best to support pro-democracy and pro-development citizens movements, rather than support states that are alienated from majority of their citizens. The US must therefore think and act more in support of civil society organisations and other citizen-driven activisms on the ground. This is to ensure that the current authoritarian onslaught by some states is called out, and nipped in the bud. It is true that the civic space in many African countries is populated by the good, the bad, and the ugly, but there are still a handful of very credible ones that can serve as interlocutors on behalf of citizens vis-à-vis engagement with the state.
US policies should also support the media, as a corollary to maintaining the sanctity and well-being of the civic space. The media space on the African continent, as part of the civic space, is under great assault. The US can weigh in to make African governments that treat the media with contempt to be less obnoxious in doing so. The judiciary in Africa also faces a similar threat of excessive manipulation by the executive arm, especially at a time when elections are being won in the courts rather than through the ballot box. In both instances, support to the media and the justice sector could just be the body language Washington required to curtail the excesses of some African governments.
With the second coming of President Donald Trump, however, the early signals from Washington suggests that US-Africa relations would no longer be business-as-usual. Instead, it is likely to be determined and shaped by a different playbook; one that focuses, first and foremost, on transactional relations driven by economic interests. Still, this may offer an opportunity to rethink and amplify the role of the private sector on both sides in promoting US-Africa relations, in general, and also in promoting corporate governance in Africa. Before now, the presence and activities of corporate America in Africa have been mostly apolitical; maintaining a safe distance from the political space, even when it is in a position to make meaningful contributions to its survival and vibrancy. Beyond nudging its own private sector to do more in Africa, perhaps this is also an auspicious time for indigenous philanthropy and corporate bodies to invest in democracy promotion.
Conclusion
Africa is by no means the only part of the world experiencing difficult and momentous challenges. Similar transitions—some dangerous, some positive—are manifesting in several other parts, including in the so-called advanced and well-established democracies. In Europe, for instance, the past decade has witnessed the ascendancy and spread of right-wing political parties and extremist ideologies, violent xenophobia against foreigners, antisemitism and other forms of anti-establishment discourses. One of the likely outcomes of these developments is that countries that once held themselves up as bastions of democracy are now having to look inward to sort out their own legion of internal contradictions and challenges. As things stand today, neither the U.S. nor its European allies may any longer be in a position to play the role of pro-democracy sheriffs across the Global South, including Africa.
The recent release of a list of countries, including 10 in Africa, banned or restricted from entering the U.S., is not unrelated to perception of insecurity and violence in the affected countries. The ban brings to the fore the importance of security-economic-democracy nexus in U.S.-Africa relations, implying that African countries must prioritise dealing with insecurity in their jurisdictions. Since insecurity can be used as an excuse to undermine democracy and erode the investment attractiveness of African countries, improvements on security can be a basis for renegotiating a renewed engagement with the Trump administration. A well-oiled and image-making diplomacy can also change the perception of Washington towards the affected countries.
In the final analysis, Africa’s current destiny—and also its future—may not lie in Washington DC or in any other major world capital, but with the continent, looking inwards to solving its own myriad problems. If the first Trump Administration (and several European countries that have swung towards far-right politics) is used as a benchmark to predict what may likely happen to Africa, moving forward, it is doubtful that the continent would hold much geostrategic value for the new sheriff in town.
Given the changing global geopolitics, African countries will need to redesign their foreign policies to align with domestic challenges and shifts in an evolving global order, where multilateralism is facing its most serious challenges since the end of the second world war. African states should commit to forging greater solidarity and renewing cooperation between and among themselves vis-à-vis the U.S. under the new Trump Administration. Given that there is no guarantee that the new U.S. Administration would treat African issues and challenges with any urgency, African governments have no choice than to acknowledge and usher themselves into a new era of DIY (Do It Yourself) within the framework of “African Solutions to African Problems.”
African leaders should learn to identify and cultivate new strategic relationships with other countries and parts of the world; not just in horizontal terms with countries in the Global North, but also vertically within the context of South-South cooperation. African multilateral institutions, like the African Development Bank (AfDB), can be an important interlocutor and negotiator to facilitate the opening up of Africa through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and other international trade opportunities, which could benefit US investors and inspire more active citizenship engagement in nurturing democracy in Africa. African countries need to recalibrate their diplomatic and foreign policy toolboxes given how the supposedly transactional nature of US policy is likely to favour bilateral—rather than multilateral—engagements.
Endnotes
- Afrobarometer. “African Insights 2024: Democracy at Risk—The People’s Perspective.” Last modified 2024. https://www.afrobarometer.org/feature/flagship-report/.
- Mo Ibrahim Foundation. 2024 Ibrahim Index of African Governance—Index Report. October 2024.
- Michael, Chisom. “Top 10 Most Stable African Countries.” Business Day, November 25, 2024.
- Mpanya, Mike. “Historic Elections in Botswana Ends Ruling Party’s Almost 60 Years in Power.” Guest Blog: NGN Expert Perspectives on Africa’s 2024 Election Year, December 18, 2024. https://mo.ibrahim.foundation/news/2024/guest-blog-ngn-expert-perspectives-africas-2024-election-year.
- International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). “The Withdrawal of Three West African States from ECOWAS.” Last modified June 2024. https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/2024/06/the-withdrawal-of-three-west-african-states-from-ecowas/.
