Biden Needs to Do More Than Talk About Democracy in Africa

(today.in-24)

The coup this week in Burkina Faso has been met with the usual bromides of reproach from the international community. In Washington, the designated hand-wringer was State Department spokesman Ned Price, who didn’t care even to turn an original phrase in a statement claiming the U.S. was “deeply concerned by events.”

Such apathy should shame any U.S. administration, never mind one that has made the promotion of democracy its shibboleth. President Joe Biden, who only last month hosted a Summit for Democracy, may not bear responsibility for the acceleration of democratic retrenchment around the world during his first year in office, but he must demonstrate more determination to reverse the trend.

There can hardly be a more propitious place to start than sub-Saharan Africa, where Burkina Faso has become the fifth country to experience a military takeover in the past year — after Mali, Chad, Guinea and Sudan. (It might have been the sixth but for an abortive attempt to topple the government of Niger.) All these countries are in the Sahel belt, which stretches across the width of the continent just south of the great desert.

Quite apart from democratic principles and promises to promote them, Biden should make the Sahel a priority for national security and foreign policy reasons. It is in this stretch of territory where Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, Boko Haram and other Islamic terrorist groups are putting down roots. Left unchecked, they will undoubtedly use the Sahel as a staging ground for attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

For the best part of a decade, the task of helping Sahelian states to root out the terrorists has fallen to international forces led by France — which ruled much of the region during the colonial era — with the U.S. very much a junior partner. But the French effort is flagging. President Emmanuel Macron, facing a tough re-election campaign, is keen to bring his troops home. Biden knows where he’s coming from, having withdrawn the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

Macron has rationalized his decision by claiming, disingenuously, that French efforts in the Sahel have been successful and implying that the governments in the region are capable of finishing the job with assistance from afar. Whether those governments are run by military strongmen or elected civilians matters not very much to Paris. After a period of finger-wagging, Macron tends to come to an accommodation with coup leaders.

But if we have learned anything from the fight against terrorism elsewhere, it’s that military governments often end up exacerbating the conditions that jihadists then exploit: misrule, corruption, poverty. Most analysts expect the conflict in the Sahel to get worse this year after the coups of 2021.

Biden’s challenge is twofold: First, to press coup leaders for a restoration of power to elected civilians, and then to press civilians to deliver better government.

Persuading the military to return to the barracks will be hard enough: Biden will need to stiffen Macron’s resolve for a joint diplomatic effort that combines French soft talk with the big stick of American sanctions. Strengthening democracy will require longer, deeper engagement with political parties and civic society.

There is plenty of evidence that Africans, and especially young Africans, want elected, inclusive governments: They aren’t fooled by the assurances of security proffered by military strongmen nor taken in by the promise of prosperity held out by advocates of Chinese-style autocracy. But they won’t settle for Biden’s platitudes, either. The promotion of democracy requires repeated demonstration of its virtues.

That effort should focus on countries that haven’t been blighted by coups but where men in uniform might be inspired by events in Mali, Burkina Faso and elsewhere. In Cameroon, Togo and the Ivory Coast, longstanding rulers will need to be coaxed into transferring power to a new generation of leaders.

The Biden administration should also draw attention to African countries that have recently made successful democratic transitions — notably, Niger in the Sahel and Zambia further south — and reward them with substantial financial, diplomatic and military assistance. In Senegal, President Macky Sall should be encouraged to keep his promise to respect the outcome of the vote in local elections on Sunday, when his party lost key cities.

Finally, the U.S. should pay close heed to the general election this summer in Angola, the continent’s second-biggest oil producer. President Joao Lourenco, whose party has maintained a lock on power for nearly five decades, looks vulnerable as anti-government protests have mounted. Lourenco has promised the election will be free and fair; he must be held to his word.

That’s how Biden can keep his.

More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion:

The U.S. Can Help End Ethiopia’s Civil War: James Stavridis

Emmanuel Macron Is Dancing With Dictators: Bobby Ghosh

Guinea Can’t Shake the Resource Curse: Clara Ferreira Marques and David Fickling

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Bobby Ghosh is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and Africa.