The U.S. and Africa in the 1980s - George P. Shultz's address before the Boston World Affairs Council on February 15, 1984

US Department of State Bulletin, April, 1984

Many Americans have images of Africa that are anachronistic, partial, and often inaccurate. The perception of Africa that most of us grew up with--unknown lands somehow exotic and divorced from the rest of the world--has unfortunately persisted in some quarters despite the last 25 years of Africa's independence and increasing presence on the world stage. It is a misperception that ignores compelling realities. One out of every eight people in the world now lives in Africa, and this proportion is growing. Africa south of the Sahara--which is my principal concern this evening--is taking on increasing importance in several respects.

First, we have a significant geopolitical stake in the security of the continent and the seas surrounding it. Off its shores lie important trade routes, including those carrying most of the energy resources needed by our European allies. We are affected when Soviets, Cubans, and Libyans seek to expand their influence on the continent by force, to the detriment of both African independence and Western interests.

Second, Africa is part of the global economic system. If Africa's economies are in trouble, the reverberations are felt here. Our exports to Africa have dropped by 50% in the last 3 years; American financial institutions have felt the pinch of African inability to repay loans. And Africa is a major source of raw materials crucial to the world economy.

Third, Africa is important to us politically because the nations of Africa are now major players in world diplomacy. They comprise nearly one-third of the membership of the United Nations, where they form the most cohesive voting bloc i the General Assembly.

Finally, Africa is important to us, most of all, in human terms. Eleven percent of America's population traces its roots to Africa; all of us live in a society profoundly influenced by this human and cultural heritage. The revolution of Africa's independence coincided with the civil rights revolution in this country. Perhaps it was not a coincidence. Both were among the great moral events of this century: a rebirth of freedom, summoning all of us to a recognition of our common humanity. Just as the continued progress of civil rights is important to the moral well-being of this country, so too the human drama of Africa--its political and economic future--is important to the kind of world we want our children and grandchildren to inherit. Africa's Economic Crisis

Sub-Saharan Africa includes 45 countries with an estimated population of nearly 400 million occupying over 9 million square miles. It is a continent of enormous diversity. Yet today, virtually all sub-Saharan nations are in an econimic crisis of stark proportions. This is Africa's most urgent problem.

Per capita food production has fallen by 20% in the last 20 years. Rapid inflation has had a devastating effect. Each African over the past 3 years has seen his real income decrease by 20%-3%a year. Prolonged drought has wreaked ecological havoc across the continent, from the western Sahel to Mozambique in the east. Famine threastens tens of thousands, and malnutrition debilitates millions. Refugees number about 2 million, or one-quarter of the wrold's total, with an equal number of people displaced in their own countries by drought, civil streife, or other hardship. It is a vast human tragedy.

World recession has touched every nation, but to African countries it has dealt a body blow. Six pounds of Zambian copper, for example, would buy a barrel of oil in 1970: today it takes 43 pounds of copper per barrel. Chronic balance-of-payments deficits--the result of low prices for African exports coupled with high prices for imports--have caused mounting debt and the virtual bankruptcy of several national treasuries. The skyrocketing price of oil in the last decade distorted the economies of the continent's few oil producers and devastated its many petroleum importers. Meanwhile, the continent's population continues to grow at a rate of 2%-3% a year and can expect almost to double by the year 2000.

Recovery in the United States and other major economies will help Africa, but it will not be enough to change the situation fundamentally or to make Africa less vulnerable to future buffeting by world economic forces. This is because some of the most important causes of Africa's economic stagnation are home grown. A World Bank report states bluntly that:

The immediate and continuing economic crisis in Africa is overwhelmingly a production crisis. It is a crisis which has risen from the widespead adoption of . . . inappropriate production incentives.

Aiming at rapid development, African countries tried to mobilize scarce resources by relying on government controls and state-supported industrialization. But subsidies, price controls, and other regulations have burdened national budgets and skewed the allocation of resources. Agriculture, the backbone of most African economies, suffered from neglect and disincentives to expand or to raise production. The private sector was often subjected to state interventions and, moreover, bore the brunt of taxation to support burgeoning bureaucracies.