The United States militarized its policy towards Africa, defended unpopular and undemocratic regimes, and undermined United Nations peacekeeping missions on the continent under the Bush administration, says the Africa-centered think tank Foreign Policy in Focus in its Africa Policy Outlook 2009.

Pinpointing priority areas for President Obama and outlining specific objectives for change, the study argues that reforming the following areas is essential to the development and stability of Africa in the coming years.

• Military policy. The U.S. military implicitly or explicitly supported apartheid South Africa, Mobutu’s Zaire, and Samuel Doe’s Liberia, more recently helping the Ethiopian army overthrow the Somalian government and supporting Rwandan efforts to destabilize the Congo. The study calls AFRICOM, the US military’s unified command for the African continent that was inaugurated in 2008, an “overt militarization of U.S. policy towards Africa” and a “source for grave concern for African civil society, government officials, and advocates.” AFRICOM is currently based in Stuttgart, Germany, because no African country has been willing to host its headquarters.
  
  
• Crisis States. With civilian death tolls and refugee numbers rising in Somalia, the report faults “the U.S. role in orchestrating Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, the CIA’s funding of warlords, the U.S. role in imposing a handpicked government and cruise missile attacks on Somali villages” for the increase in malnutrition, violence and piracy in Somalia.
  
  In Sudan, the United States ought to assist the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force, which is overstretched, under-equipped, and inhibited by the Khartoum regime that wishes to see the mass civilian displacements and killings continue.
  
  In the DRC, the US should contribute to the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, stepping up the force from 20,000 soldiers to 50,000, “to effectively contain rebels, protect civilians and carry out its peacekeeping mandate.” Considering that women are singled out for violent attacks, the US should demand the inclusion of women’s groups in all peace, justice and accountability negotiations, such as the Great Lakes-based Coalition for Women’s Human Rights in Conflict Situations Working Group. The US should halt its support of Rwandan intervention in the DRC conflict, which has supplied General Nkunda with child soldiers, bank accounts and military equipment. Calling Rwanda “a proxy for US interests,” the study cites a report by the UN Security Council Group of Experts to confirm vast Rwandan support for Nkunda’s Congress for the Defense of the People.
  
  In Zimbabwe, the US could fight corruption and profiteering through supporting an act that would hold developed countries accountable for the role they play in the corruption present in developing countries, the UN Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative (StAR). StAR would target the source of bribes and illegal income that firms and individuals provide to governments, as well as stipulating that developing countries invest recovered funds into social and anti-poverty programs.
  
  
• Financial Crisis. FPIF backs the passage of two development finance measures scheduled to be presented to Congress this year, the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation, and the Stop VULTURE Funds Act. The former provides for expanded debt cancellation in developing countries and requires an audit of past loans. The Stop VULTURE Funds Act, “one of the most important that must be passed by the 111th congress” would outlaw profiteering from sovereign debt by placing a limit on the amount of profit a fund can bring in suing poor countries for defaulting on debts.
  
  Development finance reform is of the utmost importance, and must include debt cancellation as well as relaxing restrictions on how loans are spent, since many loans limit social spending and agricultural subsidies: “Imposing inflexible and strict conditions on development-oriented loans has undercut the Millennium Development Goals, causing developing countries to divert critical resources for HIV/AIDS programs, education, and other important needs to pay almost $14 billion annually on debt service to the World Bank and IMF.”
  
  
• Health Care. FPIF applauds US leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS in 2008, particularly a pledge to commit $48 billion in funds over five years to stop HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. However, ideology can still affect how funds are distributed and which programs are denied financing. To ensure the long-term stability of development goals, FPIF recommends creating of a special Department of Global Development, which “would have a mandate for policy consistency on the full range of U.S. policies affecting poor countries, such as health care, education, agriculture, trade, debt and climate change. This new agency could prevent short-term (and short-sighted) political goals from undermining long-term development challenges.”
  
  
• Climate Change. Africa bears the least responsibility for climate change and yet has the most at stake if greenhouse emissions are not soon reduced. FPIF criticizes the US for choosing to finance climate adaptation and mitigation in Africa through the World Bank, instead of through the UNFCCC (which produced the Kyoto Protocol) – “From both an environmental and economic justice perspective, the Bank is the wrong institution to take on the climate crisis in Africa” the report claims. The World Bank allows countries to divert development assistance funds away from health and education into climate change, whereas the UNFCCC requires climate change funding remain separate.