President Obama trumpets Africa in new engagement

President Barack Obama is to step up his involvement in Africa in an attempt to better engage with the continent. The move has been welcomed by supporters who felt disenchanted after his election by a seeming reluctance to place a greater emphasis on Africa.

Political analysts say that Obama, whose father was Kenyan, is paying much greater attention to the continent after pressing matters in Afghanistan and Russia were put on more secure footing.

On his only official trip to Africa, an overnight stop in Ghana in 2009, Obama was mobbed by cheering crowds. In a blunt speech before the Ghanaian parliament, Obama said democracy is the key to Africa's long-term development. "That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long," Obama said. "That is the change that can unlock Africa's potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans."

A more high profile trip to Africa is expected this year before Obama has to spend more time on his re-election. Upcoming elections in Nigeria and Zimbabwe are also expected to focus his attention.

The president also recently sought to intervene in the disputed Ivory Coast election. Two telephone calls by Obama to Laurent Gbagbo were ignored, but the president has since written a letter to Gbagbo offering him an international role if he stopped clinging to power and stepped down.

That direct intervention is expected to be replicated in the upcoming independence referendum in Sudan.

Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said that the president has invested significant "diplomatic capital" on Sudan, mentioning the referendum in nearly all of his conversations with the presidents of Russia and China.

When Obama stopped in at a White House meeting last month of his national security advisers and United Nations ambassadors, the first topic he broached was Sudan, not Iran or North Korea. And as US lawmakers neared the December vote on a new nuclear treaty with Russia, Obama called southern Sudan leader Salva Kiir by telephone to offer support for the referendum.

The president’s maneuvers in Africa could also be very beneficial as the United States faces competition for African favour from China which has recently heavily invested in the continent. The U.S. was caught off guard during the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen when several African countries voted with China and not the US.

Dominic Bascombe