Hard bargains, no lectures: What Africa needs at Biden’s summit

Starting on Tuesday, United States President Joe Biden is hosting African presidents, prime ministers and monarchs for a US-Africa Leaders’ Summit. In the past, such glittering meetings have often devolved into neo-colonial lectures, with African leaders passively listening to the US president hypocritically say out vague notions of spreading “liberal democracy” values.

But times have changed. For all its challenges, Africa’s global stature is at its most attractive in modern history – and our leaders must drive a hard financial bargain with the US, extracting maximum value for the continent through their negotiations and discussions with Washington.

They must not let the summit ebb into waffling lectures from the US on “values” it does not itself practice at home or abroad. Instead, African leaders must grab the microphone – and, if needed, be uncompromising about the continent’s economic interests.

For decades the US did not prioritise Africa – Washington adopted an “anchor states” model to Africa, working primarily via a handful of powerful, regional actors to leverage influence. It could afford to do that, in good measure, because its supremacy on the continent, as in other parts of the world, was largely unchallenged – especially since the end of the Cold War.