[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEMOCRACY, DEVELOPMENT, AND
DEFENSE: REBALANCING U.S.-AFRICA POLICY
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
May 16, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-40
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://
docs.house.gov,
or http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
36-425PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York Member
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida JOE WILSON, South Carolina
KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts TED S. YOHO, Florida
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
DINA TITUS, Nevada ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLPS, Minnesota JOHN CURTIS, Utah
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota KEN BUCK, Colorado
COLIN ALLRED, Texas RON WRIGHT, Texas
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania GREG PENCE, Indiana
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey STEVE WATKINS, Kansas
DAVID TRONE, Maryland MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
JIM COSTA, California
JUAN VARGAS, California
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
Jason Steinbaum, Staff Director
Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Nagy, Ambassador Tibor P., Jr., Assistant Secretary, Bureau of
African Affairs, U.S. Department of State...................... 7
Day, Mr. Ramsey, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau
for Africa, U.S. Agency for International Development.......... 11
Lenihan, Ms. Michelle, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for African Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense........ 21
APPENDIX
Hearing Notice................................................... 66
Hearing Minutes.................................................. 67
Hearing Attendance............................................... 68
ADDITINAL MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
War on the Rocks article submitted for the record by
Representative Omar............................................ 69
RESPOSNSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Responses to questions submitted to Mr. Nagy for the record from
Chairman Engel................................................. 79
Responses to questions submitted to Ms. Lenihan for the record
from Chairman Engel............................................ 92
Responses to questions submitted to Mr. Day for the record from
Chairman Engel................................................. 97
Responses to questions submitted to Mr. Nagy for the record from
Representative McCaul.......................................... 99
Responses to questions submitted to Mr. Day for the record from
Representative McCaul.......................................... 102
DEMOCRACY, DEVELOPMENT, AND DEFENSE: REBALANCING U.S.-AFRICA POLICY
Thursday, May 16, 2019
House of Representatives
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Washington, DC
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:12 a.m., in
room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eliot Engel
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Engel. The committee will come to order.
Without objection, all members will have 5 days to submit
statements, extraneous material, and questions for the record,
subject to the length limitation in the rules.
This morning, the committee will hear from officials from
the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International
Development, and the Defense Department about American efforts
to promote democracy, sustainable development, and regional
stability in Africa and how the Administration is working
across agencies to achieve our goals.
Welcome to our witnesses. I thank you all for your time and
your service, and welcome to members of the public and press as
well. I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
One of our biggest policy challenges in sub-Saharan Africa
is figuring out how to help stabilize fragile States and reduce
violence. Over the past 20 years, we have learned a lot about
what works and what does not. We know that it requires
strategic vision, it takes adequate long-term funding, and it
takes coordination across the U.S. Government.
Mr. McCaul and I recently reintroduced the Global Fragility
Act to promote this approach. Our bill would make sure relevant
agencies are working closely together over the long term to
address State fragility and to prevent violence and extremism
in priority countries and regions around the world. This would
be the top American goal in these countries, not a second or
third tier objective.
My concern is that the Administration is taking an
unbalanced approach favoring security-focused responses instead
of getting to the root causes of instability which would
prevent the need for military involvement down the road. We
have seen a number of cases in where lip service has been paid
to good governance and respect for human rights. But, in
practice, we have shared an approach based on our values and
instead gone after long-term solutions.
Take Uganda for example, one of the country's main security
partners in sub-Saharan Africa, a country where we should have
leverage. Yet, authorities there have ramped up repression and
violence against opposition politicians and civil society.
After three decades in power, Museveni is tightening his grip
as the United States' response is reduced to reiterating
requests to stop arresting and torturing anyone who dares to
oppose the government. And we have yet to see a change in
Uganda's trajectory.
Or the DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo. In January, the
United States endorsed clearly fraudulent election results
simply because the Administration did not believe the
opposition leader, who actually won, could ever take office.
What message does it send when the United States refuses to
stand up for democracy, and the United States refuses to call
out this sort of corruption?
Ironically, making regional security a top priority above
all else ultimately undermines long-term stability on the
continent. It is a failure of leadership, and compounded by the
Administration's attempts to gut diplomacy and development.
We have talked about that here. We cannot conduct good
diplomacy and good development if you are gutting these
programs and gutting money to the State Department, and looking
at it as a second or third tier priority. It sends a message.
It sends a bad message. It sends a message to the agencies best
poised to grapple with these challenges that they are not a
priority. It sends a message to the rest of the world that the
United States is ceding ground to any other power that wants to
put down roots.
And you can bet that message is being heard loudly and
clearly in Moscow and Beijing.
In Sudan and South Africa, Russia is already using the same
playbook they used to attack the United States in 2016 to
spread disinformation. Kremlin-aligned private military
corporations are getting a foothold in the Central African
Republic, Chad, which may be a precursor to similar Russian
military involvement across the continent. China now has a
military base in Djibouti, making it the only country in the
world that hosts both a Chinese and an American military base--
talk about hedging your bets. China also has been actively
exporting surveillance technology to African governments as a
threat to open civic and political spaces already quite fragile
in some countries.
And there are a number of hotspots across sub-Saharan
Africa that deserve our immediate focus. At the top of the list
is Sudan. Since December, Sudanese citizens have peacefully
protested against the government's repression and mismanagement
of the economy. In mid-September, Sudanese security forces
seized power from Omar al-Bashir, ending three blood-soaked
decades in power. But despite calls from the African Union and
other partners, including the United States, the Transitional
Military Council has not been responsible to protesters'
demands for an immediate transition to a civilian government.
Earlier this week at least eight protesters were killed by
government security forces. And the longer the stand-off
between the military and the protesters lasts, the greater the
threat for widespread violence and great destabilization. I
urge the Administration to keep working with other diplomatic
partners to encourage and incentivize an immediate transition
to a civilian-led government in Sudan.
I am also deeply concerned about the Ebola outbreak in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. It has now surpassed 1,600 cases.
The United States has supported the Congolese Government's
response, but poor access, distrust of the government, and
attacks against healthcare workers have hindered efforts to
identify and treat cases.
I have to mention, when we invest strongly in global health
we are better able to mount a response and help both DRC and
surrounding countries, like South Sudan and Rwanda, build their
capacity to prepare for future outbreaks. That is why it is so
baffling when the Administration sends up budgets requesting
deep cuts to these efforts and uses bad tactics to delay and
deny funding against congressional intent.
So, I would like to hear our witnesses' answers on this
range of issues. I look forward to a frank discussion. I am
going to introduce our witnesses. But first I will yield to our
ranking member, Mr. McCaul of Texas, for any opening remarks he
may have.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The United States has been a long and consistent partner
with many African nations. Successful initiatives such as
PEPFAR, the President's Malaria Initiative, Feed the Future,
and the Millennium Challenge Corporation have already saved
millions of lives, created jobs, and spurred economic growth.
Just last month I traveled to Cote d'Ivoire, Rwanda, Tunisia
with Senator Lindsey Graham where we helped launch the Women's
Global Development and Prosperity Initiative.
This initiative will provide work force development and
skilled training, expand access to capital for entrepreneurs,
and remove barriers to women's participation in the economy
through microfinancing.
Some of the fastest growing economies in the world are in
Africa, and it is the fastest growing population as well, with
a growing number of middle class consumers. This means new
markets for U.S. companies, and new opportunities to partner
with the United States. However, countries must have a clear-
eyed approach on how this growth is being achieved and who they
are partnering with.
Between 2000 and 2017, China loaned African countries $143
billion for infrastructure projects. China has used Africa's
growth as an opportunity for geographic and ideological
expansion through their Belt and Road Initiative, which preys
on developiong nations, leaving them largely in debt traps.
The United States must provide a better alternative to
China's exploitation. I have met with African governments, and
Ambassadors, and business leaders, and they all tell me the
same thing, that the U.S. is their preferred partner but we are
just simply not there. Ambassador Nagy, you and I just
discussed that prior to the hearing.
The United States brings quality, transparency, and
partnership, but we must show up to the game to compete. And
that is why in my bill, the Championing Business Through
Diplomacy Act, American business is so important. I think it
helps ensure that the State better supports American companies
of all sizes looking to invest in Africa and elsewhere,
bringing prosperity and, most importantly, stability.
The chairman and I introduced the Global Fragility Act,
which I think is a very important bill, to help stabilize a
destabilized continent, particularly when you look at the
Sahel, which the Department of Defense, as Ms. Lenihan knows
very well, the Sahel is going to be the next hotspot, I think,
for if we cannot do the prevention piece right, then we have to
send in the military.
And I think the Global Fragility Act is a good playbook for
the Department of Defense to look at how we can prevent
extremism so we do not have to go in and kill.
Now, the BUILD Act that Mr. Yoho introduced is a profound,
significant piece of legislation that will put OPIC on
steroids, and I think economic investment and opportunity from
the private sector.
In line with my legislation, I applaud the Administration
for their work on Prosper Africa to increase two-way trade with
African countries. The United States also plays an important
role supporting good governance and democratic values on the
continent. We must continue working with countries to combat
corruption and respect human rights.
In Ethiopia we have seen an historic transition. And I
commend the bold reforms by Prime Minister Abiy.
In Sudan the people have risked their lives to call for a
civilian-led government, an end to Omar al-Bashir's brutal
regime. The U.S. must stand by the people of Sudan during this
critical moment in their history.
I know very well from my time as chairman of Homeland
Security that ungoverned and unstable places become safe havens
for terrorists to regroup and plan attacks and external
operations. I am deeply disturbed by the number of increasing
attacks targeting innocent civilians, including women and
children.
The United States must continue to stand with our African
partners in the fight against radical Islamist terrorism. And
that is why proactive investments in security and development
now will make the United States far safer in the long run.
I am also concerned that the proposed reduction in U.S.
Special Forces and advisors in the Sahel is premature. My bill,
the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership Act, calls for an
interagency approach to address these threats.
I think these witnesses today have valuable insight into
these challenges facing Africa. It brings together, you know,
State, USAID, and Defense, which is what our Global Fragility
Act bill actually does, in an interagency, whole government
approach to address this challenge that we have.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Chairman Engel. Thank you, Mr. McCaul.
Our witnesses this morning are Tibor P. Nagy, Jr.,
Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Affairs; Ramsey Day,
USAID Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa; and
Michelle Lenihan, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Africa Affairs.
Once again let me welcome you all and convey the thanks of
the committee. I will now recognize you each for 5 minutes to
summarize your testimony. Let's start with Assistant Secretary
Nagy.
STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR TIBOR P. NAGY, JR., ASSISTANT
SECRETARY, BUREAU OF AFRICAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Nagy. Thank you very much.
Good morning, Chairman Engel, Ranking Member McCaul,
members of the committee. I am pleased to be joined here today
by my colleagues from USAID and the Department of Defense. Our
engagement across Africa is truly a team effort. I would also
like to recognize the men, women, and families currently
serving the American people across our missions in Africa and
within our offices in Washington. I am grateful to represent
such a dedicated and talented group of public servants.
When speaking to audiences, be they Americans or Africans,
I often tell them that the best way to view Africa is through
the windshield, not the rearview mirror. It is certainly a time
of challenges and opportunities in Africa, and I look forward
to sharing with you what we at the State Department are doing
to advance U.S.-Africa foreign policy priorities.
I spent the vast majority of my 32-year diplomatic career
in Africa, with posting in seven different countries, and I
fell in love with the continent and its people. Since I assumed
my current role last September, I have visited Africa three
times, with another trip planned next month. During my trips, I
have engaged with government officials, business leaders, civil
society, and average citizens, in order to better understand
each country and subregion through a broad range of people and
perspectives.
As I said before this committee last December, the
potential for increased engagement with Africa economically,
culturally, and diplomatically is truly limitless. I am a firm
believer that with every challenge there is opportunity, and we
must capitalize on our successes.
We have seen significant, positive signs in numerous areas
that are important to recognize. Prime Minster Abiy in Ethiopia
continues to impress and inspire with his leadership, and we
have seen progress in our relationship with Eritrea. President
Lourenco of Angola has demonstrated a commitment to fight
corruption and to foster citizen-responsive governance and
dialog that can, and should be, replicated elsewhere.
Just 6 months ago, discussions about the Democratic
Republic of Congo revolved around how to promote the will of
the Congolese people in the face of a government trying to
cling to power through unconstitutional means. By contrast,
when Secretary Pompeo recently met with President Tshisekedi of
the DRC following the historic transfer of power, the new
president's priorities were fighting corruption, strengthening
governance, advancing human rights, and combating trafficking
in persons. And we continue to watch the dramatic events unfold
in Sudan where, for the first time in 30 years, a transition
led by civilians representing the diversity of Sudanese society
seems possible.
To underscore the U.S. commitment to Africa, the
Administration announced a new Africa Strategy in December 2018
to re-calibrate our engagement with the continent. This
strategy seeks to promote trade and commercial ties to increase
prosperity in the United States and in African countries,
counter radical Islamic terrorism and violent conflict,
strengthen efforts to advance peace and security by
prioritizing resources and promoting effective and efficient
peacekeeping operations; and by supporting stability,
democracy, good governance, and self-reliance. Ultimately, the
success of this strategy would build on our strong
relationships with individual countries, effective regional
organizations and, most importantly, the people of Africa.
One enduring issue that I believe will be most significant
in setting the course for a more prosperous and secure Africa
is harnessing the potential of Africa's potential youth bulge
as a force for economic ingenuity and prosperity. Their
education, training, and successful integration into the
economic futures of their countries will create viable
alternatives to the poverty that leads to violent extremism and
despair.
Looking ahead, the population of Africa is expected to
double in just a few short decades to 2.2 billion people, of
which over 60 percent will be under 25 years. The enormous
potential of these young people creates a wealth of economic
opportunities that will determine the continent's future.
We are not the only international actor that is interested
in Africa. And we are justifiably concerned about certain
countries that seek to exploit the resources of African nations
and subvert Africans' desire for democracy for their own
economic or geopolitical advantage.
As you will hear today, no other nation matches the breadth
and depth of the United States' engagement on the continent, or
our earnest promotion of partnerships, sustainability, and
self-sufficiency. We go beyond simply investing in Africa to
investing in Africans. Africa is the dynamic continent of the
future, and the direction it takes will have a major impact--
for good or ill--not only in the Africa but the rest of the
world.
As the subject of today's hearing suggests, this is not a
role for the State Department alone. We must constantly
evaluate our approach and ensure a proper balance between the
three D's. Properly aligning our diplomatic, development, and
defense tools and resources is critical. Successful engagement
and true partnership with the people and governments of Africa
comes from this coordinated and fully integrated approach.
I would like to thank the committee for you bipartisan
support and engagement on issues in Africa. I look forward to
your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nagy follows:]
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Chairman Engel. Thank you.
Mr. Day.
STATEMENT OF MR. RAMSEY DAY, SENIOR DEPUTY ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR AFRICA, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Day. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Chairman
Engel, Ranking Member McCaul, members of the committee. Thank
you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I
appreciate the commitment this committee has demonstrated to
the continent of Africa.
As USAID Administrator Mark Green always says, the purpose
of foreign assistance should be to end the need for its
existence.
USAID supports the President's Africa Strategy, and is
modernizing the way we do business. Our foreign assistance will
help our friends on the continent achieve sustained economic
growth and self-reliance to combat transnational threats. Given
time limitations, I cannot touch upon all of our work in every
country, so I will focus on some of the themes and situations
at the forefront of our attention.
On March 4th, 2019, Cyclone Idai brought devastation to
Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. Torrential rains covered
nearly 900 square miles in water, an area roughly the size of
New York City and Houston combined. More than 1,000 people lost
their lives, and 3.5 million people are in desperate need of
assistance.
USAID quickly deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team,
or DART Team, which includes experts in health, food security,
shelter, water, sanitation, and hygiene. To reach communities
cutoff by the storm, we requested the unique capabilities of
the Department of Defense. The U.S. African Command, or
AFRICOM, provided airlift and logistics support with 73
flights, and transported more than 782 metric tons of relief
supplies.
Just 5 weeks later, Cyclone Kenneth struck Mozambique. And
USAID deployed a team to determine additional needs.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, declared an Ebola
outbreak in August 2018. Health officials have recorded at
least 1,700 cases, including over 1,100 deaths. The U.S.
Government deployed a DART team which is coordinating with the
DRC Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, and key
actors to support a unified response to the outbreaks. The
Ebola response remains a very high priority of the U.S.
Government.
We also see threats to democracy. Rarely these days do
authoritarian leaders oppose elections outright. Instead, they
use sophisticated tools to bend elections to maintain their
grip on power. We know that good governance, peace, and
security can help unlock the vast potential of Africa. And
across the continent, 34 countries have improved their
governance performance over the last 10 years, and elections in
Nigeria and Senegal earlier this year were largely free of
violence.
There are, however, threats to these positive trends. Some
governments have worked to close space for independent civil
society, media, and opposition parties. The last few years in
Uganda and Tanzania have been marked by a closing of political
space, which is likely to continue as both nations head toward
elections.
At the same time, there has been an unprecedented wave of
social and political protests across Africa. In places like
Sudan, citizens are standing up and voicing their demands.
Learning from our experience in countries such as the DRC,
Nigeria, and Kenya, we know that when it comes to democracy,
development, and security, the approach must be holistic and
balanced. This is why our resources focus on areas critical to
advancing countries on their journey to self-reliance. And we
will continue to support electoral processes and peaceful
political transitions.
We also work with major political parties on issue-based
campaigns, the inclusion of women and youth, and provide
training for media on election coverage. Through the Trump
administration's Women's Global Development and Prosperity
Initiative, WGDP, landed in February, USAID is working to
promote women's economic empowerment in Africa. We know that
supporting women, from improving their land tenure rights to
unlocking access to credit and employment, can unleash their
full economic potential.
USAID is also embracing partnerships with the private
sector like never before, reducing barriers to trade and
investment, and fostering linkages between American and African
firms. The U.S. Government's Prosper Africa initiative will
enhance our efforts in these areas. Prosper Africa mobilizes
the full U.S. Government toolkit of approaches, capabilities,
and influence across 15 government agencies to double trade and
investment between the U.S. and Africa.
And USAID deeply values the leadership of Chairman Engel
and Ranking Member McCaul for their sponsorship of House
Resolution 1704, the Championing American Business through
Diplomacy Act of 2019. This resolution, which aims to promote
American business abroad, is in direct support of the goals of
Prosper Africa.
Countering violent extremism is also a critical part of
USAID's work in Africa. We engage government and the civil
society partners in their efforts to reduce radicalization,
recruitment, and support to violent extremist organizations.
For more than a decade the U.S. Government has pursued a
coordinated 3D approach to the evolving terrorism threat on the
continent. Regular coordination with the Departments of State
and Defense, including AFRICOM, creates a space where we can
determine how to use the U.S. Government's diplomatic, defense,
and development tools to their greatest effect.
As we reflect on the challenges facing individual
countries, it is important not to lose sight of the long-term
positive shifts across Africa. The overall trends point toward
democratization, economic growth, and development. And USAID
remains deeply committed to the role we play with the
Departments of State and Defense in advancing U.S. policy and
national security objectives.
Thank you for you continued support of USAID's work in
Africa. And I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Day follows:]
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Chairman Engel. Thank you.
Ms. Lenihan.
STATEMENT OF MS. MICHELLE LENIHAN, ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR AFRICAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE
Ms. Lenihan. Good morning, Chairman Engel, Ranking Member
McCaul, and esteemed members of the committee. Thank you for
inviting me to speak with you today on ``Democracy,
Development, and Defense: Rebalancing U.S. Foreign Policy with
Africa'' alongside my colleagues from State and USAID.
I would also like to thank the women and men of the U.S.
Department of Defense whose talent, commitment, and sacrifice
enable us to execute our policies and achieve our objectives in
Africa and elsewhere. It is an honor to represent them.
Africa is important to our national interests and will
become increasingly so in the future. It is a complex security
environment marked by great-power competition advancements, and
threats from terrorist groups, violent extremist organizations,
illicit traffickers, and transnational criminal organizations.
Major trends, to include population explosion, have the
possibility of compounding these issues.
Today's forum provides a key opportunity for us to
highlight the U.S. Government approach to advancing our foreign
policy goals and addressing threats, which we do together.
DoD activities often seize the spotlight, but we are part
of an integrated effort with State, USAID, and others
contributing mightily with depth and breadth to effect
objectives laid out in the 2018 U.S. Strategy for Africa.
One, promoting prosperity;
Two, strengthening security;
And, three, striving for stability.
Guided also by the National Security Strategy and the
National Defense Strategy, DoD strives to advance U.S.
interests in Africa and deny others the ability to harm the
United States and our partners. We do so primarily through
partnership. First and foremost, that includes other U.S.
departments and agencies, as a primary mission of ours is to
provide military support to diplomacy and development.
The U.S. response to Cyclone Idai, as Mr. Day noted
devastated Mozambique and heavily impacted Malawi and Zimbabwe,
it is a powerful example of DoD providing unique capability,
via airlift and logistics support, to enable the delivery of
critical aid in support of USAID's broader efforts.
We also contribute DoD medical expertise. In East Africa
and Nigeria, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
supports the PEPFAR initiative through advancement of HIV/AIDS
research and treatment of 340,000 patients. DoD is also poised
to provide critical support to U.S. Government personnel
stationed across the continent to ensure their safety in times
of crisis. And we apply pressure on terrorist networks to
create time and space for development and diplomacy efforts to
take hold.
Additionally, we focus on our African partners and help
build their capacity with the goal of developing professional
forces who respect human rights, adhere to the rule of law, and
more effectively contribute to stability in Africa. Through
engagement we have a greater chance of affecting behavior and
ensuring forces are accountable.
Further, we work through international partners and
organizations, such as the African Union and United Nations,
and we support African-led initiatives, such as the G5 Sahel or
the Multinational Joint Task Force, to maximize our impact and
collectively address our shared threats. We employ a variety of
tools to achieve our security objectives, from Defense
Institution building to force professionalism, training,
equipping, assisting, advising and more. Our efforts cover a
broad spectrum.
The Department also champions the advancement and inclusion
of women in security by changing the gender dynamics at the
table, in the field, and within communities, we can help break
the cycle of violence and raise societies through the elevation
of women.
DoD is committed to implementing the 2017 Women, Peace, and
Security Act, and helping prevent, mitigate, and resolve
conflict by increasing women's participation. For example,
since 2017, our Special Operations Exercise Flintlock in the
Sahel has included a Women, Peace, and Security seminar to
highlight the importance of women's leadership and women's
civil society organizations encountering violent extremist
organizations.
DoD maintains a dynamic episodic engagement with an
enduring impact and light footprint. And we contribute to a
whole-of-government effort to advance prosperity, security, and
stability in Africa in support of our national security
interests.
Chairman Engel, Ranking Member McCaul, and honorable
members, thank you again for this opportunity to discuss U.S.-
Africa foreign policy and our integrated U.S. Government
approach.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lenihan follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Engel. Thank you all very much. I will now
recognize members for 5 minutes each. All time yielded is for
the purposes of questioning our witnesses. And I will start by
recognizing myself.
I want to ask a question about Sudan. The Administration's
endorsement of fraudulent election results in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo in January sent a strong message that in
Africa the United States values regional stability over
adherence to democratic processes and principles. Looking at
recent events in Sudan, it is clear that the Transitional
Military Council, which seized power in mid-April, is trying to
determine how much power the international community will let
them retain. This is arguably why negotiations between the
military and the protestors have stalled.
Let me ask Ambassador Nagy, can you tell me why civil
society actors across the continent should believe the United
States' commitment to the consolidation of democracy after what
happened in the DRC?
And can you promise this committee and the people of Sudan
that the Administration will not undermine a true democratic
transition in order to cut a deal with the very institutions
that are responsible for Sudan's current political and economic
malaise?
Ambassador.
Mr. Nagy. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, the events in Sudan are extremely dynamic. As
a matter of fact, they are going almost moment by moment as our
charge just a little while ago was convoked to the foreign
ministry along with others by the TMC, probably to hear about
the state of negotiations between the TMC and the umbrella
group of the opposition. There has been considerable progress
in the last couple of days. We are very encouraged.
Tomorrow afternoon we are hosting right here at the State
Department a Friends of Sudan Conference with delegates coming
from around the world, including the Africa Union, Ethiopians
as their chairmanship of IGAD, to make sure that the
international community keeps pressing for forward momentum on
this.
We are very encouraged with the events there. Our charge is
extremely engaged. The deputy secretary had a phone call with
the leader of the TMC, General Burhan, a few days ago.
A few weeks ago, right after the events really unfolded I
sent our deputy assistant secretary to the region to have
discussions.
So, actually, as of right now things are looking up.
Horrible of the deaths. There appears to be a split within the
armed forces. So, we are fully engaged. We are engaging with
our allies and friends. We are also holding discussions,
obviously, with our Gulf friends to make sure that there is a
commonality of purpose in moving forward in Sudan.
Thank you, sir.
Chairman Engel. Let me ask a question and, Mr. Day, I think
I will ask it to you about Russia and Africa. There is a
growing risk that Russia could seize upon the successes of
disinformation campaigns in the West and redeploy them to other
parts of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, in
recent months news has leaked that Russia or Russian-aligned
entities have attempted to assist the governments of certain
African countries, mainly Sudan and South Africa, to try to
spread disinformation or discredit political opposition
parties.
So, Mr. Day, let me ask you this. How is Russia's
increasing use of disinformation a threat to U.S. interests on
the continent met? Across the U.S. Government what is being
done to push back against a growing trend of Russian
aggression, actually, in sub-Saharan Africa?
Mr. Day. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is certainly an element and a trend that we are seeing
across the continent, both Russia and China. We are watching it
very closely.
Now, Russia's engagement on the African continent I think
pales in comparison to China. So, a lot of our thinking has
focused on ensuring that our African partners are aware of the
risks of engagement with China, given the debt structure and
the deals that had been done. But we are certainly concerned
with disinformation, whether it be in South Africa, or Sudan,
or anywhere. And so we continue with our African partners to
ensure that there is a certain level of awareness of the risks
of those engagements.
Chairman Engel. Anyone else care to comment? Ambassador.
Mr. Nagy. Yes, Mr. Chairman. We are weaponizing our
embassies to confront the Russians. I mean, we all know that
for the Russians this is nothing new. This is the same type of
disinformation the Soviet Union conducted back in the 1960's,
1970's, 1980's. We have to confront them at their source. We
have to engage with our local interlocutors. Our embassy public
diplomacy sections have to be aggressive. And we are using the
Young African Leaders Initiative network, which is several
hundred thousand bright young Africans, to help us fight this
disinformation, sir.
Chairman Engel. Thank you. Let me call on Mr. McCaul. But
let me also say that next week the House is going to vote on
the Global Fragility Act, which both Mr. McCaul and I are
sponsoring, establishing an overreaching policy framework for
long-term interagency planning.
And I hope that in your answering some of the other
questions you can sort of work that in. Thank you.
Mr. McCaul.
Mr. McCaul. No. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great
segue.
I was going to ask you just that question. And I, you know,
when I talk to, when I get the threat briefings, whether it be
DoD or State, intelligence community, the Sahel seems to be the
new, to be the new hotspot. In Iraq and Syria we have, I think
we have tamped down the threat there. It is still alive but it
has certainly been crushed to a large extent. And it seems that
the Sahel is the hotspot.
That is why the Global Fragility Act I think is so
important. And I just wanted--and I know the national
strategies you have mentioned, Ms. Lenihan, sort of outlines
what our bill authorizes. The Relief and Recovery Fund will
authorize $1 billion over 5 years.
So, with the three of you here, you are really the three
principals of the Global Fragility Act, how, how would this
actually work in action? And I will start with you, Ambassador.
Mr. Nagy. Yes, sir, Ranking Member.
I have to say that from our point of view we are absolutely
delighted with the cooperation that we have between the three
of us. We work very closely together. We meet constantly
discussing policies. Of course, at times we see things
differently, but overall we always have the same goal.
There are some examples of this. The Trans-Sahara
Counterterrorism Partnership where we are having meetings next
week amongst all agencies involved is an ideal. And that is
exactly how we need to work in situations like the Sahel
because it is, it is multi-threat, it is historical, it is
cultural, there are so many players involved, including
Europeans and the United Nations, so the United States of
America has to have a single force.
And as has been evident, situation after situation in
Africa we can fight hard, eradicate terrorism, but if there is
nothing to fill that space, all you end up with then is after a
few years even a worse group of terrorists.
Mr. McCaul. Uh-huh.
Mr. Nagy. Another partnership which is absolutely essential
in that situation are the countries involved. And that is where
also our diplomacy really matters, because out of the five,
six, seven countries you can have six countries very strongly
together. All it takes is one, which is not heavily involved
and responsible, to keep spreading what I call a cancer.
So, from our point of view, bravo and thank you, sir.
Mr. McCaul. Right. And the Chairman and I introduced the
Trans-Sahara Partnership Act. It will be on the floor next
week, I believe. So that is very good.
Mr. Day?
Mr. Day. I could not agree more with the assistant
secretary. You know, from USAID's perspective we need space to
operate. And when we can gain access to certain areas it has
been proven that our programs can be effective, whether it is
food security or education, some of our resilience programming
in health, good governance, all of those are incredibly
important to building kind of a holistic approach to this. But
if we do not have access to it then it makes it a lot more
difficult. Means our programs are going to be a lot more
limited.
We can do a tremendous amount with our Office of Transition
Initiatives, which we are working in northen Burkina Faso and
Mali, and some areas in Niger, in Tillaberi area. But it is
incredibly important that we have great coordination amongst
the various agencies because that gives us the space to
operate. Because these programs will work, but we just need to
have the space to operate. Similar in Somalia and several other
places as well.
Mr. McCaul. Ms. Lenihan.
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you, Ranking Member.
I agree with my colleagues on the panel, fragility is a
serious concern within Africa. From a defense standpoint you
need to get at the underlying issues rather than just address
the security effects. And for that matter, you have to work on
development, you have to work on diplomacy. We take steps in
order to create time and space in order to do that and work in
support of our interagency partners in order to do so.
So, any attempts to address underlying issues and causes
certainly will have spillover effects on improving security and
reducing the need for it.
Mr. McCaul. Thank you. My time is kind of limited but I do
want to address China real quickly.
The chairman mentioned in his opening statement Djibouti.
The idea that they have a military base right next to ours in
Djibouti is just, to me, unacceptable. In this One Belt, One
Road they are literally, they are taking over African nations
without a shot fired, in my judgment, over-leveraging them,
bringing in their workers, extracting natural resources.
I met with the Conservation Group yesterday. The Chinese
are coming in with AK-47s and harvesting, you know, rhinos.
So, it just seems to me we are not com--we are not there
and we are not competing in Africa. And if we are not there and
we are not competing, you know, American businesses are not
competing, we lose.
Ambassador, you seem to want to respond to that.
Mr. Nagy. Up to now maybe not, but oh my gosh, we are
getting ready to fire back at full force. Because we are going
to do this strategically. We, again, I would hate to use the
word ``weaponize'' but we are weaponizing our embassies to
confront the Chinese across a whole range of issues, and most
prominently the commercial one. Because, as you said, sir, the
Africans tell us over and over and over again they would much
rather deal with U.S. businesses than the Chinese. But they
have been dealing with the Chinese because the Americans have
not been at the door.
But we are going to change that. I mean, I could go on
forever on this. But I just promise you that we are seized, the
secretary is seized, and you are going to see a very aggressive
posture in so many different fields. Every time I go to Africa
I get in trouble with the Chinese for my speeches to where the
Chinese Ambassador in Uganda had to do a full page op-ed in
response to the things I said because I, I say the truth about
what we are doing and what they are doing.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. McCaul. Let me say, Mr. Chairman, in closing, it has
been a very slow creep and very deceptive, but I think people
are waking up to what is happening now.
And I yield back.
Chairman Engel. Thank you, Mr. McCaul.
It is now my pleasure to call on the chair of the Africa
Subcommittee of this committee, Ms. Bass.
Ms. Bass. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And I appreciate the ranking member in saying that people
are beginning to wake up because, you know, whenever I hear
about the Chinese or the Russians in Africa, you know, my
thought is ``Where are we?'' And, you know, it is time for us
to step up. And so I appreciate the assistant secretary saying
that you are going to come full force. I would love to hear the
details as to what that means.
And then, of course, what concerns me about it is is that,
and I know you are genuine because I know you, but then, you
know, we have a 66 percent decrease in the budget. So, I do not
know how you go full force and have your budget, you know,
decrease so much. So, perhaps you can clue me in on the secret
as to how you are going to do that.
And I appreciate Ms. Lenihan talking about addressing the
root causes because I am concerned about our imbalance in that
we put a lot more emphasis. Obviously, we put emphasis on
security but we all recognize that if you address the root
causes you are addressing, you know, the security situation as
well.
So, perhaps if you would not mind, maybe Assistant
Secretary, you could give me some top lines as to how it will
be full force.
I also want to ask about Cameroon and Ethiopia. So, I do
not want to run out of time. Go ahead.
Mr. Nagy. Thank you very much, Congresswoman.
Very quickly, I have worked for seven different
administrations, different levels of budgets. I have had some
fat ones and thin ones. All I can promise you that I will do
the absolute best I can with whatever funds are made available.
On China specifically, we are having individual embassy and
country strategies. We are putting deal teams together, from
the largest embassies to the smallest ones, to do both sides of
this: support U.S. businesses, work with the countries to
improve their business environment which will attract U.S.
businesses. Because all my discussions with U.S. business they
say, we want to go to Africa but this is what is stopping us.
So, again, that is a full force press.
And also to make clear to people, you know, every time
China builds a 50,000-seat stadium they get full page coverage,
front page. What is not said, that there would not be people to
be in that stadium if not for U.S. Government's billions of
dollars saving millions of Africans from HIV/AIDS. So, so we
need to make sure that both sides of the story is told on this.
And I will stop there for you.
Ms. Bass. Sure. And I know with my ranking member over
there that we would love for you to come to the subcommittee,
and perhaps we could drill down because we want to figure out
how to be, how to be supportive.
Ms. Lenihan, would you like to respond to what you were
saying in terms of addressing root causes but yet our focus is
on security?
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you, Representative.
I do believe that we need to address root causes. But I
also know from Defense we----
Chairman Engel. Ms. Lenihan, can you pull the microphone
just a little closer to your mouth.
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you. Yes, I do believe that we need to
address root causes in Africa, which my colleagues here from
USAID and State do a heroic job of doing so, along with the
many people out in the field and within the department in order
to do so.
Additionally, at the State Department--I am sorry,
additionally at the Department of Defense we work on
institution building, which I also believe addresses some of
the root causes in order to create those critical foundations
and promote governance across the Sahel. Of note, there is the
Security Governance Initiative which is focused on addressing
cross-cutting security sector improvements to develop
governance and build institutions. Two countries, Mali and
Niger are part of that.
Ms. Bass. Thank you. And I am sorry to cut you off but I
know I am going to run out of time.
So, I wanted to ask in terms of the crisis in the Cameroon
in the Anglophone region, we know it has been worsening over
the last 18 months. And so I wanted to know what we are doing
along with our diplomatic partners to encourage negotiation?
Mr. Nagy. Thank you very much.
Very quickly, Cameroon continues to be one of three
countries that grieves my heart every night. I sat with
President Biya a couple of months----
Ms. Bass. What are the other two?
Mr. Nagy. Somalia and South Sudan.
Ms. Bass. Oh, OK.
Mr. Nagy. I sat with President Biya a couple of months ago
in Cameroon and we told--he told me, you know, yes, we are
interested in dialog. And, but the government has done nothing
to show for it. They have set up some Potemkin Institutions
which have not done anything.
We continue to press forward with our, our allies. We had
an Arrias at the United Nations----
Ms. Bass. I am sorry, I am going to run out. This is just
terrible, 5 minutes. But I have to get to Ethiopia.
Mr. Nagy. OK.
Ms. Bass. So, you know, give me----
Mr. Nagy. One best news on Ethiopia, yesterday if you had
been at the State Department for our Partnership Forum on
Ethiopia and seen the hundreds and hundreds of peoples there
from the diaspora, from U.S. business,----
Ms. Bass. Oh.
Mr. Nagy [continuing]. And from the Ethiopian Government,
your heart would have melted.
I kicked it off and I was just delighted because I knew we
would get to this point. Going forward we are finding ways to
support Ethiopia. But what they need now is jobs, jobs, jobs.
And that will be brought by the business investment. So, we
will do our best to promote that.
Thank you very much.
Ms. Bass. Good. Thank you.
Are you going to let me continue on, Mr. Chair?
Chairman Engel. Thank you.
Ms. Bass. Oh, never mind.
Chairman Engel. Ms. Bass, yes, I will give you one extra
minute. See that, I offered it and she did not take it. So I
have got the, I have the best of both worlds.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to
our distinguished panelists. Thank you for your work.
You know, I have been here since 1981. Every single
Presidential budget that has come up here is dead on arrival.
President Obama cut tuberculosis by 20 percent; we put it back.
He cut, neglected tropical diseases by 20 percent; we put
it back, and then some.
So, when I see a budget come up that has draconian cuts, it
is in a way not worth the paper it is printed on. But I am not
sure why OMB insists on doing that each and every year. But
every president has done that. Thankfully, Congress is a check
and we do, I think, get it right most of the time.
Let me just say a couple of things. I think that we are
balanced in many ways. Of course, there is always room for
improvement. Much of what started with President Bush, PEPFAR
for example, I was the prime author of the reauthorization for
5 years. That was signed by President Trump.
We are talking about $30 billion approximately over 5 years
for tuberculosis, for HIV/AIDS, and look at the progress that
has been made through successive administrations. Beginning
with Bush, his idea, one of his greatest legacies ever, 17
million Africans saved because of it. Mother to child
transmission saved about 2 million or so, and maybe more.
And then you have the situation of about, what is it, 13
high-HIV burden countries who are on pace to control their HIV/
AIDS pandemic by 2020 according to Ambassador Deborah Birx.
So, there is real progress being made. And as you said, Mr.
Ambassador, they may build the stadium--they being the
Chinese--which is high gloss and highly visible, but we are
saving lives, and you are walking point saving those lives. And
I do not think that should be in any way trivialized or in any
way denigrated. It is fantastic what you are doing.
So, there has been continuity from administration to
administration, and it continues. I cannot think of a better
person to be running our USAID than Mark Green. I got along
great, worked great with Dr. Shah, who I thought was a great
USAID administrator, and the two that followed, including the
interim. And now that baton has been given to a very--so I do
hope that, you know, the press and others when they walk away,
so much is happening on the ground.
Ebola if you would elaborate quickly on what is happening
in D.R. Congo on Ebola, as the situation is very, very
discouraging. But you can fill us in on that.
Karen Bass and I visited Ethiopia last year and met with
President Abiy. And we are very encouraged by his release of
political prisoners. You might want to elaborate very quickly
on that.
And then Turkey. You know, we talk about China. I chaired
several hearings on China's influence on what is happening in
Africa, their fleecing of their minerals, their wood, their
other, oil, and their debt now, which is a huge problem. You
may want to speak to that quickly.
Trafficking, we are doing wonderful work, I think, at the
trafficking office and in our embassies on combating that
hideous scourge of modern day slavery. Thank you for that. I do
not think that gets enough focus or coverage.
And I would respectfully ask that this committee mark up a
bill that I have been trying to get passed for some time, the
End Neglected Tropical Disease Act, which Karen Bass and I co-
authored, and Gregory Meeks, bipartisan bill. A billion people
plus walking around with worms and parasites. Very low cost
interventions. We are spending $100 million to combat that. We
need to get a mentality like PEPFAR to fight that as never
before. Because co-infections and opportunistic infections
obviously thrive on the weakness when somebody is walking
around with worms in their intestines, over a billion people.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask that we could bring that up as
soon as possible, respectfully.
Mr. Day. Perhaps I will just speak very quickly on, on
Ebola. We are deeply concerned. We should all be concerned
about the Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC. It is not contained
and it is not under control. This is no longer a public health
crisis, it is a political challenge as well as a development
challenge.
There are layers of complexity that are occurring
simultaneously. We have extremist organizations that are
working within the areas, there are community militias, there
is deep community distrust. A whole range of complexities in
terms of the operating balance.
So, our priorities are to, first, contain the outbreak,
control the outbreak and, ultimately, end the outbreak. Now, we
are working in kind of four primary areas of approach:
One is to ensure we have the most effective vaccine
strategy possible;
Two is to address the community distrust issues via
community engagement programs, but then also making sure that
we are coordinated with the DRC political structure, including
President Tshisekedi;
Working with the international organizations, including the
W--the World Health Organization including, as well as the U.S.
Government coordination, which is our primary partner is the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC.
And then, of course, we have got to work on preparedness of
the ring countries, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and Uganda.
So, we need a reset on this, and we are working on a reset
plan because we have seen a real increase in the number of
cases over the last month. So, it is a concerning issue.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Nagy?
Mr. Nagy. In Ethiopia, sir, yes, Prime Minister Abiy
continues to make dramatic, dramatic reforms, very focused on
the elections, working with the opposition to make sure that
the election timetable is right.
There are fissures, as we all know, in Ethiopia which have
been under the surface for decades which are going to be coming
out. And it is a troubling situation for him. So far everything
is well under control.
And, of course, there are serious opposition to his reforms
within certain segments of the Ethiopian Government. He needs
support because he is doing one of the most dramatic things
possible is converting Ethiopia into a country that will be
based on institutions, which I think is very, very dramatic.
And we are doing our best to help him with that. We are sending
technocrats at the institutional level. But more than anything,
as I mentioned, he really needs jobs, jobs, jobs for his young
people, sir.
Mr. Smith. You do talk about China a lot. I know my time is
up, but if you could, for the record especially, speak to what
Turkey is doing vis-a-vis the Horn of Africa, because it is a
very serious problem?
Mr. Nagy. Yes, sir.
Chairman Engel. If I could ask you to keep the answer short
because we have to call on other people. Thank you.
Mr. Nagy. Very quickly. Yes, the Turks are very involved.
For business purposes they are also involved in the airport on
Mogadishu, and in doing some, some training of the Somali
National Army. And we would like to see what the effectiveness
is. And we would like to cooperate and coordinate closer.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Engel. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Smith.
Mr. Keating.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We have touched on a lot of important issues: the
empowerment of women; effects from China, Russia. But I want to
touch on another one. We did talk about the Sahel. We talked
about the complex challenges that are there. But there is a
threat multiplier that concerns me, and that is the effect of
climate change as a threat multiplier.
They really intensify a lot of those problems, the
instability that is there, the effect of land degradation,
food, food insecurity, and resource distribution. They are a
source of--they are incubators, it is an incubator of conflict
as well from a stability and security standpoint. So, I want to
know what we have been doing on that to try and deal with
adaptation to the climate change, what resources have, how we
would prioritize this important issue.
Mr. Day. Thank you, Congressman.
I agree it is absolutely a critical issue. USAID's approach
primarily is to focus on the consequences of a changing climate
and extreme weather events. So, if we can build more resistant
local communities, then they are going to be much more capable
of addressing many of those challenge. So, that is everything
from food security to resilience programming, which we have
done all across, all across the continent, particularly on the
Horn of Africa and Sahel.
So, a lot of our programming is engaging the local
community to ensure that there is local governance engagement
but also working with everything from local farmers to
educational institutions to ensure that food security and their
ability to be resilient in new types of environments is
increased and maintained.
Mr. Keating. Ms. Lenihan, could you comment more on the
security and military side of that from your perspective, too?
Because climate change really impacts that as well.
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you, Representative.
There are certainly some environmental effects occurring in
the Sahel with the increased tension between, say, farmers and
herders over absences of water and just concern for resources.
But I would also like to highlight that our AFRICOM is
doing primarily in the logistics shop, in the J4, in order to
work with partners to improve their abilities. For instance, in
Burkina Faso there is a program in order to work on water
sanitation and hygiene to make the most of what they are doing.
Also, through some of their efforts they are helping bring the
military and that military expertise into a larger whole
government effort in order to address some of those climate
issues.
Mr. Keating. Yes. I was struck recently, I was in part of
the Munich Security Conference hearings and I was struck by how
much discussion was going on about EU's partnership in Africa.
Can you comment on that?
And one of my beliefs is we could multiply our efforts,
too, by working closer with those European efforts since we
share so many of the same values and concerns. Can't we do a
better job of working together? Can you comment on what they
are doing, how we can work with them in a concerted way to
really be more effective, particularly when we are dealing with
the Chinese and the Russians trying to deal with that area?
Mr. Nagy. I will be happy to talk on the political side
because we have very close coordination with the G7 which is
Europeans plus Japan. We meet on a regular basis to compare,
coordinate our policies across Africa.
At the country level, most of our Ambassadors belong to
what are called local donor groups where they sit locally,
again, mostly with EU and other major donors, to make sure that
there is as least as possible duplication of effort on their
programs. Having sat in donor groups myself, it is astounding
what you can find out at the local level because the capitals
often do not talk to each other. So, you can really use your
resources in a much wiser way.
Mr. Keating. Yes, yes. But also, you know, avoiding
duplication.
What about policy of consolidating those efforts and
concentrating those efforts more? Is there discussions on that?
I just think there is a tremendous opportunity for us.
Mr. Nagy. There, I do know there is in certain
circumstances. For example, with the dramatic changes in
Ethiopia that is one of the things that our like-minded
missions did was to get together to see how quickly each could
respond to the various needs of the Ethiopian Government.
One big example is one thing they needed was direct budget
support. The United States of America does not write checks in
most instances and just gives them to, to governments. The
Europeans were able to do that to a certain extent.
Mr. Keating. Is part of this, though, also inoculating some
of the countries, you mentioned Ethiopia, about what China is
doing with these type of loans, these, you know----
Mr. Nagy. At the last G7 meeting, sir, I can assure that
China was a very hot topic of discussion.
Mr. Keating. All right.
Ms. Lenihan. And, Representative, I would add from the
security standpoint that we work quite closely with our
European counterparts and colleagues. One, the European Union
has training missions in multiple areas of Africa which
complement our efforts.
Additionally, we provide support to the French for CT
operations in the Sahel under the authorities granted by
Congress which has a force multiplying effect.
Further, in Somalia one of DoD's primary roles in actually
as a coordination facilitator. So, we have something called a
Mogadishu Coordination Cell headed by a one-star which serves
to actually coordinate all of the international defense
capabilities in order to reduce duplication and ensure greater
effectiveness.
Chairman Engel. The gentleman----
Mr. Keating. Thank you very much. I think we could do the
same type of thing in the economics here that we are in the
security and defense field in that respect, you know, working
together as a multiplier.
I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Engel. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Keating.
Mr. Yoho.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for
being here.
I do not know where to start, there is so much going on.
But I hear the same thing we have heard over for the last 3
years. And I am glad China has come to the forefront of what
they are doing around the world and that people are paying
attention to that. And you know what, China is going to
continue to do what they have been doing. You know why? Because
they can. They have the cash to do what they are doing.
We have a space program in the 1960's when we had a
mandatory spending was about 30 percent, discretionary was 70.
We could do a space program. We could do inter-State programs
because we had the cash. China can do that.
And this is a call-out to this body, not just the Foreign
Affairs Committee but to Congress in general, the House and the
Senate. If we do not get our fiscal house in order this is
going to continue and China is going to eat our lunch about it.
And the other thing that China does is China provides no
string financing, unlike western countries, with no conditions
on fine points such as human rights, clean governance, the
things that we believe in as we try to promote democracies.
I have not been a big fan of promoting democracies. I think
our focus should be on stable governments. If you have stable
governments you have better governance, and then you can start
bringing an economy this way. And I think we just really need
to have an honest conversation in here about our fiscal
irresponsibility as a body. And it is tragic that we are not
doing that.
Moving on, Africa still faces tremendous electricity access
challenges. China is heavily engaged in the African power
sector with investments of 13 billion between 2010 and 2015. Do
you believe that the U.S.-based programs like Power Africa are
competitive enough against China increasing engagement on the
continent specifically in energy and development, the
development sphere?
Mr. Day. Thank you, Congressman.
You know, I think Power Africa really has been a successful
model. And I think we have learned a lot from our experience in
Power Africa.
Power Africa has facilitated over 120 transactions, almost
$20 billion. And there are 58 million people on the African
continent now who have electricity who did not have that before
the initiative started.
I think if you wrap that into a larger package, as we roll
out the more details about the Prosper Africa initiative, which
will be kind of multi-sectoral, an effort to really coordinate
all of the U.S. Government toolkit to support private sector
engagement on the African continent, then I think we can get to
the scales I think you are talking about there.
Yes, we have had some real success on the power side with
Power Africa, but Prosper Africa is an umbrella effort to
really support American businesses on the African continent.
And this is us coming to the table.
Mr. Yoho. And I appreciate your bringing that up.
And you said something in the beginning that I feel with:
you should work yourself out of a job.
Mr. Day. That is right.
Mr. Yoho. If we are successful in our foreign aid policies,
you know, you have passed the baton off to that country because
they have become self-sufficient.
The bulk of the money that we put in there, sub-Saharan
Africa has generally seen between 25 percent of the total U.S.
bilateral aid, the bulk of which supports health programs.
We were in the Congo with Chairman Royce and Chairman Engel
a couple years ago and we were at the cabinet meeting with
President Kabila who could not find the time to meet with
America, but his cabinet did. And this was a rhetorical
question I asked, but it was shocking on how rapid the response
was. I asked them, What are you doing for social programs?
And he goes, What do you mean?
I said, Health, education, you know, housing, you know,
hunger.
He goes, We have you.
You know, that is not sustainable. We have got to work with
the countries like the Sudan and Ethiopia. How do you find
countries willing to come along? And the ones that are, do we
really run and push a lot of effort with these people to build
their countries and government?
Mr. Day. Sure. Thank you for the question.
This is something that we are having many, many discussions
about. And the administrator has laid out a vision which we
call a Journey to Self-Reliance, which is really looking at the
level of commitment and the level of capacity in our host
country, host country partners.
And those countries that have not demonstrated a
significant level of commitment, our relationship will
ultimately, from a development perspective will ultimately
shift.
Mr. Yoho. I have got to add one more question in here.
Mr. Day. Yes.
Mr. Yoho. If Congress, meaning the House and the Senate,
fails to fund the BUILD Act or the U.S. International
Development Finance Corporation, as intended by Congress, and
the administrators cannot prepare--allowing the administrators
not to prepare for the massive roll-out that everybody is
anticipating for October 2019, how detrimental will it be to
our foreign policies in the future?
Mr. Day. It will be significant. We are very excited about
the DFC coming operational on October 1. From a USAID
perspective this is an incredibly important tool to engage the
private sector on the African continent.
Mr. Yoho. Ambassador Nagy?
Mr. Nagy. Absolutely essential. That is one tool that I
have been pointing out in all my visits around the continent
and in speeches to U.S. business is they are so excited about
that. Because I cannot order U.S. business people to go to
Africa. That is why I tell African governments put in place a
business environment that will welcome U.S. business because
they are eager to go. But the BUILD Act will be very important.
Mr. Yoho. Chairman.
Ms. Bass [presiding]. Thank you.
Mr. Bera.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
I am glad my colleague from Florida, Mr. Yoho, brought up
implementation of the bill. Back in as chair of the
Subcommittee on Oversight we want to make sure it is
implemented and rolled out in the most effective way. So, we
will be looking at that and making sure that implementation
gives you the full tools necessary.
You know, I was in west Africa last summer. I actually
wanted--I am a doctor by training, with a public health
background--I actually wanted to go to the western part of the
DRC when that outbreak is going on. But through risk tolerance
they would not let me go there, so we went to Sierra Leone
instead to kind of get a sense of, you know, what we learned
from the 2014 outbreak.
And on that category of risk tolerance, you know, the one
thing I worry about--and again I am thinking about this as a
doctor and public health specialist--Mr. Day, you absolutely
pointed out what is happening in the eastern Congo is getting
worse, and it is rapidly getting worse. And, you know, talking
to health workers who, and our workers from CDC, who have been
in country recently or currently are in country, it is
difficult to address this without actually being at the
epicenter and providing supervision.
And, you know, I guess my question maybe to Ambassador Nagy
would be what is that risk? I do not want to put our personnel
in harm's way but I also understand if we cannot get close
enough to the epicenter, maybe going in and out, this rapidly
can get out of control.
And maybe for Ms. Lenihan, is there a role for our, you
know, outside of diplomatic security, additional DoD security,
et cetera? I do not know, maybe Ambassador Nagy?
Mr. Nagy. Yes, sir. The risk is something we have looked at
very, very carefully and had our experts look at it to see
where effectively we can be stationed, for example, to do the
most that we can. Some NGO's have a much higher risk tolerance
than we do.
Our Ambassador, if we let him, would have a much, much,
much higher risk tolerance. He is that kind of a person. So we
have to literally hold him back. Because everybody is so
keenly, keenly just intent to put a stop to this because the
dangers are immense, you know, going off in different
directions, crossing borders of countries that could not be
able to deal with it.
So, we are extremely seized with this. But the risk for
American personnel definitely takes priority.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Bera. Mr. Day?
Mr. Day. Sure. And I would just that I am glad you
mentioned kind of the short-term capabilities of being able to
get into some of the more hotspots. The primary population
centers have been Beni, Butembo, and Katwa. Our head of the
Democracy Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, Admiral Ziemer,
was just there last week. So, we are able to kind of get in on
short term and to do quick assessments.
But the WHO is actively working in many of those areas, so
they have roughly 400 or so personnel that are there. But I
agree with the assistant secretary, the operating environment
right now is not conducive for long-term USG.
Mr. Bera. And I appreciate that. And, you know, from the
folks that have been in country that we have been interacting
with they do think there is that possibility of sending some of
our folks in for a day or two at a time and pulling them out so
they can oversee, you know, how the workers that are in these
hotspots are actually doing, give them advice, et cetera. But,
you know, and maybe it is that in and out darting of, you know,
providing supervision, not, not idea but maybe what we have to
do.
Ambassador Nagy, you touched on something that I hear
increasingly from our foreign service officers and our
Ambassadors around the world. Kind of in this post-Benghazi
environment of diplomatic security and embassy security we have
put a lot of our personnel behind walls and so forth. And these
men and women, who are truly patriotic out there, understanding
that there is risk, you know, I almost feel like we have
overcorrected. Because where we used to be out with the people,
interacting on a daily basis, now you see the Chinese and
others.
And I hate to see us building these embassies with big
walls. And our men and women want to be out there. And, again,
I do not know the right answer of risk tolerance, but I want to
make sure we have not overcorrected and hurt our diplomats and
our development workers' ability to be most effective. And
maybe if you can comment on that
Mr. Nagy. Sir, having a son who is in diplomatic security,
he and I have argued about this a lot. Because I am the kind
that wants to be out there. When I was an ambassador, you know,
going to church there was only one road, so that was the only
choice I had. But each of our Ambassadors takes a look at this
very carefully.
They are very competent, very professional, they adapt
circumstances sometimes based on the day of the week. I,
personally, am very comfortable that we have found that
compromise.
Mr. Bera. Yes.
Mr. Nagy. And from an oversight perspective that is
certainly something that we are going to be looking into
working with our diplomatic security personnel, but also making
sure that our men and women that are out there representing our
values and our country on a daily basis----
Mr. Bera. Yes.
Mr. Nagy [continuing]. You know, can do their jobs as well.
Mr. Bera. Thank you.
Ms. Bass. Before I go to Mr. Kinzinger, I did want to ask
Ms. Lenihan a followup question from Mr. Yoho, which is the
same question he posed to the other witnesses.
If the BUILD Act is not funded completely what will the
impact be from your perspective of DoD?
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you for your question.
I defer to my colleagues here who are focused, more closely
focused on the BUILD Act.
Ms. Bass. Thank you.
Mr. Kinzinger. Well, thank the Chairman for yielding. And
thank you all for being here. I very much appreciate it.
You know, post-conflict stabilization spans years.
Democracy building takes longer. And sometimes in our society
we like to kind of see it all done immediately and we forget
our own history that, you know, we had a revolution, and then a
civil war, and a lot of division. And some people think that we
are divided today. But compared to the past, it is nothing.
And so the deteriorating situation in Libya I think is
proof of the time it takes. While the international community
had high hopes for the 2011 transition plan, we have seen anti-
government militias gain control of key resources and suffocate
the U.N.-backed government. And I am concerned with the current
stability of Libya, as well as the country's long-term health.
As a result of the ongoing hostilities between the LNA and
the U.N.-backed government of national accord, we have seen the
creation of the perfect environment where terrorists groups can
flourish.
So, Ms. Lenihan, how has the fighting impacted U.S.
operations in combating the threat of ISIS and other terror
groups in the region? And, also, have we seen an uptick of ISIS
fighters fleeing Syria and Iraq to regions in Libya?
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you, sir.
We agree the situation in Libya is grave. We have concerns
about the ongoing----
Ms. Bass. Speak up just a little.
Ms. Lenihan. Of course. We agree with the concerns about
the situation in Libya and ongoing instability as far as the
impacts, as well as the impacts on other areas.
We are in support from the Department of Defense on a
political solution that is truly the way forward in order to
have long-term stability in Libya. We currently do not have
forces in Libya conducting CT operations.
And as far as foreign terrorist fighters, we have not seen
a serious uptick in return based on advances in the Middle
East, but certainly that is something that we will continue to
follow closely out of concerns that that could occur.
Mr. Kinzinger. And could you talk about Egypt's role in
combating terror on that shared border?
Ms. Lenihan. Sir, Egypt falls outside of my portfolio. So,
with all due respect, I will defer.
Mr. Kinzinger. Any of you guys? Ambassador, same?
So, let me transition then. Through the Belt and Road
Initiative China made the geo-strategically significant country
of Djibouti one of their first major initiatives. Through their
debt trap diplomacy, a Chinese-owned company has taken control
of the container terminal and the adjoining multi-purpose cargo
facility.
What concerns me is that six miles away is America's
largest military base in Africa which is supplied through the
now Chinese-operated port. Additionally, the PLA base in
Djibouti located adjacent to the port has used military grade
lasers to interfere with American C-130's flying into the base.
Ms. Lenihan, how does the presence of a Chinese military
base affect American operations across Africa and the Middle
East?
Ms. Lenihan. Yes, sir. Thankful for raising the question.
In alignment with our national defense strategy China is a
strategic concern for the Department of Defense. Certainly with
the advent of the Chinese base in close proximity to our own
base at Camp Lemonnier it raised some certain complications. We
have to be concerned about safety and de-confliction and create
mechanisms in order to manage that.
As we have noted before, China is an integral concern on
the continent, and so what we continue to do is promote our
model to ensure that we remain the preferred partner with our
African partners and then also continue to eliminate some of
the concerns about working with China overall.
Mr. Kinzinger. And let's say we reduce our role in there in
Africa in general, or in that region, how would the Chinese
react to that? And I will ask that also of the Ambassador.
Ms. Lenihan. Sir, we maintain engagement from a DoD
standpoint. We have a robust activity of specific cooperation
across the region to include within the Horn of Africa and in
Djibouti. So----
Mr. Kinzinger. OK. I will----
Ms. Lenihan [continuing]. We will continue that.
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you.
Ambassador, if you could.
Mr. Nagy. Yes, sir. Thankfully, we are not reducing our
role in Africa because the Chinese would be delighted if we
reduced our role in Africa. I want to dramatically increase our
role, especially on the business side. I want U.S. business
people to be running over the Chinese business people instead
of the other way around.
Mr. Kinzinger. And with the 50 seconds left do you want to
more generally kind of address China in Africa as a presence?
Mr. Nagy. Absolutely. It is they are a strategic
competitor. For decades U.S. business people have not been at
the door. And when the door was opened that is why the African
governments have been doing deals with the Chinese.
You know, we went through a debt restructuring back in the
1980's and we forgave a lot of debt. And, hopefully, we do not
have to get to that again where African governments will be
looking to see how they can get out from under Chinese debt.
You know, to trade one debt trap for another would be
devastating for our African friends.
And getting U.S. businesses you do not--you reduce
corruption, you increase good governance, you have greater
rights for women, you care more about the environment, and on
and on and on. So, there are so many pluses. And there would be
so many minuses with the U.S. ceding that territory, sir.
Mr. Kinzinger. And I was pleased with getting the Eximbank
up and running. So, I yield back.
Ms. Bass. Representative Castro.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Chairwoman. And thank you all for
your testimony today. It is great to see that we are having a
full committee hearing on Africa in the Foreign Affairs
Committee.
For the longest time, certain parts of the world, including
Africa, have gotten the out of sigh, out of mind treatment.
There are things that happen in Africa that if they happened in
other parts of the world would get much more attention.
We see once in a while cases where 50 people or 100 people
are killed or are victims of a natural disaster, and that is a
blip on American news media.
And so let me ask you, there was some conversation here
about making sure some of the countries, after we have infused
development moneys into them for years, are able to get back on
their feet or get on their feet and establish their own
economic strength. What are we doing to help those economies
and their businesses? I know what we are doing to help U.S.
businesses, what are we doing to help African businesses build
their own capacity and export and become successful?
Mr. Day. Thank you, Congressman.
You know, USAID has been active on the African continent
for six decades. And this has been a big part of our area of
focus for pretty much that entire time. Many of these countries
have been able to take advantage of the Africa Growth and
Opportunity Act. And so, USAID has worked with a lot of African
firms to prepare them and to build capacity so that they can
actually export their goods via AGOA.
Now, we, USAID, works through our Trade and Investment
Hubs. And we have three Trade and Investment Hubs on the
continent. And so a lot of firms will come to those Trade and
Investment Hubs. We will work with them, build those capacities
and then make business linkages back to the U.S. if there is
export opportunities for them.
Mr. Castro. Sure.
Mr. Nagy. Yes, sir. I think AGOA is one of those examples
of multi-political projects that have ben supported by both
parties. Now the United States is strongly supporting the
continent-wide Free Trade Agreement which the AU has been
sponsoring. It looks like it will be coming into force.
And on the side of that we would very much like to have a
very first Free Trade Agreement with an African country. We
only have one Free Trade Agreement with Africa, and that is
with Morocco. We would very much like to have a sub-Saharan one
exactly to meet those interests, sir.
Mr. Castro. Sure. And I would hope that we would do
something to help them export to the United States and export
to other countries.
Again, we want our American businesses to be successful.
But if it is truly, if our development is truly about having
countries get up on their own feet, you have also got to help
their own economic infrastructure.
Let me ask you, Mr. Day, what has happened to the USAID
budget with respect to Africa in the last few years?
Mr. Day. The budget----
Mr. Castro. Has it gone up, or down, or flatlined?
Mr. Day. I think there has been a fluctuation, as always.
Mr. Castro. I know the proposal was to take USAID down
dramatically. But I am trying to remember specifically for
Africa what happened?
Mr. Day. In 2018 the non-security outside of the
international disaster assistance was roughly 8 billion.
Mr. Castro. But how does that compare to 2017, 2016, 2015?
Mr. Day. I do not have those numbers in front of me right
now, but it has fluctuated back and forth over the last several
years.
Mr. Castro. OK. And then the second part of it is what are
we doing to develop democracies on the continent?
Mr. Day. So, you know, the work that USAID, USAID does all
across the continent is centered on the core value of democracy
because that is a reflection of American values and principles.
So, democratic principles are woven into essentially every
program that we have on the continent, which is hundreds of
programs across 40 countries. And so, democratic principles,
whether it is electoral support or good governance, we work
with governments when we can. In some cases we cannot. But we
work on electoral principles, we work with civil society, we
work with media all across the, all across the continent. We
work with political parties. And so it is woven through all of
our programs in all of our countries.
Mr. Castro. Sure. Well, and again I want to thank you for
you all's work and everything that you are doing. I know that
you are doing it sincerely and earnestly.
I just think that we have to avoid the temptation to see
these nations as only charity cases because I think that it
undermines, I think, their humanity and who they are. And we
have to be, we have to be concerned not just with our own
success and American businesses' success, which of course we
all agree with, and we want to beat China out. I do not want
China to have stronger relationships on the continent than we
do, but I think the way that we do that is by affirming Africa
and their nations and affirming their own capacity and building
their own capacity.
So, thank you again for being here. Thank you for
everything you guys are doing. We appreciate it.
Ms. Bass. Representative Wagner.
Mrs. Wagner. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I thank, thank our
witnesses for their time and for their service to our country.
Ms. Lenihan, I understand that Russia has been expanding
its footprint in Sudan and is considering establishing a naval
base near Port Sudan. But after months of protests against the
autocratic regime, Russian-backed Omar al-Bashir has been
deposed on a peaceful coup. Will regime change in Sudan
increase or diminish the likelihood of an enhanced Russian
presence in Sudan? And how would this affect U.S. interests?
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you, Congresswoman, for the question.
Russia also is of strategic concern for the United States,
as outlined within the national defense strategy. And we do see
an increasing interest on the continent. In the context of
Sudan, there certainly is a relationship. The situation is
obviously very dynamic at present as far as what will occur
within that country with the transitional military----
Mrs. Wagner. Will the regime change do you think increase
or diminish the likelihood of their enhanced Russian presence?
Ms. Lenihan. I would say it would be difficult to tell. But
certainly once there is an established relationship, that could
be affected once that leader is gone.
Mrs. Wagner. Ambassador Nagy, Russia's actions in Sudan
look a lot like its activities in Venezuela and Syria to me.
What do you think Russia's intentions are, and what lessons
should the U.S. draw from Syria and Venezuela scenarios?
Mr. Nagy. Thank you very much, Congresswoman.
I believe that Russia is very opportunistic in Africa. They
do not have the resources of China. They certainly do not have
the resources of the United States. They look for places where
they can cause trouble, basically, and poke us in the eye. Or,
as in the Central African Republic specifically, poke the
French in the eye.
We just have to be very careful and block wherever we can.
With, you asked about Sudan, I am hoping that if the transition
in Sudan goes in the direction it does go in, we end up with a
civilian-controlled government, then they will have a totally
different view of Russia than the government that they will be
replacing.
Mrs. Wagner. We absolutely are all hoping for that.
Mr. Day, I am so glad that you highlighted the centrality
of women's empowerment in achieving sustainable development
goals. Education and economic empowerment for women have
positive, positive ripple effects in developing countries all
across the globe.
I am particularly interested in efforts to reduce the
gender gap in property ownership in sub-Saharan Africa where
the World Bank found that men are almost three times more
likely than women to own property by themselves. This disparity
has wide-ranging economic consequences and their, their
daughters.
Can you tell me how USAID is working to reduce gender gaps
in property ownership in sub-Saharan Africa?
Mr. Day. Thank you, Congresswoman.
This is absolutely vitally important to Africa's
development, so thank you for raising it. And it is also
vitally important to many of the countries that I have worked
in in my----
Mrs. Wagner. Yes.
Mr. Day [continuing]. In my career, including the Middle
East. But it is probably even more so in Africa in that I
sometimes say that these economies are not going to succeed if
they only use half their brain. And I think that is never more
true than in, than in Africa.
And so, women need access to not only land rights but also
education. And they need access to finance so that they can
access markets. They need to have access to networks. But then
also there is a regulatory, and a policy, and a legal, and a
cultural environment that needs to also be, that needs to be
changed. And that is exactly what USAID is doing in the Women's
Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, WGDP.
Mrs. Wagner. Right.
Mr. Day. So, we are really looking forward to digging in
our heels in the program.
Mrs. Wagner. Well, let me know how we can be helpful
because I see it as really the only way forward. And the
property ownership gap is outrageous at the moment.
I have a little bit of time left. So, Mr. Day, Tanzania has
long been considered a democratic success story. However,
current President John Magufuli, I believe, has begun to
violate democratic norms in the name of eradicating corruption.
Can you tell me how USAID is working to prevent democratic
backsliding in Tanzania?
Mr. Day. Thank you again for the question. And the
assistant secretary and I have had numerous conversations about
this, lamenting about----
Mrs. Wagner. Yes.
Mr. Day [continuing]. The developments in Tanzania. We are,
we are deeply concerned about the rhetoric coming out of
Tanzania, not only from a human rights perspective but from a
democracy perspective as well, and a business perspective.
Because there are a lot of American businesses who are waning
their interest in Tanzania because of the developments there.
Now, we have continued to work on our health programming,
particularly PEPFAR, which is vitally important in Tanzania.
But a lot of our programming has really had to shift away from
support and partnership directly with the government as a
result of these developments. And we are now really focused
more on civil society and independent media. And that's where
we've shifted a lot of our programs.
Mrs. Wagner. Well, I would really hate to see backsliding.
And, Ambassador Nagy, I know I am out of time, but I would
be very much interested in your perspective on this, too, and
certainly I think our committee would. So, either in writing or
perhaps would be----
Mr. Nagy. Sure.
Mrs. Wagner [continuing]. Would be best.
Mr. Nagy. Very quickly. Tanzania is especially sad because
that was one of the beacons----
Mrs. Wagner. Right. Yes.
Mr. Nagy [continuing]. Of democracy through Africa's
history and decolonization. So it is, it is hurtful to the
entire continent and the friends of Africa. And our embassy,
believe me, is extremely engaged across a whole spectrum of
interlocutors of making the point trying to promote democracy,
and also trying to help those organizations that are
Tanzanian----
Mrs. Wagner. Right.
Mr. Nagy [continuing]. And are trying to hold onto
democracy. Because there is a danger of it evolving into what
we would call a Potemkin democracy where you have the
structures of democracy but without anything really behind it.
Mrs. Wagner. Well, the backslide is just terrible. And I
appreciate the chair's indulgence, and for your tremendous
service in the area.
Ms. Bass. And, Representative Wagner, in the subcommittee
we are probably going to take up some of these subjects again.
And you are welcome to come.
Mrs. Wagner. I look forward to it. You bet. This is
something that is near and dear to my heart.
Ms. Bass. Good.
Mrs. Wagner. And I would be very pleased. So I appreciate
my friend Ms. Bass' invitation.
Ms. Bass. Absolutely.
Representative Lieu.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you. I would like to thank the panel for
being here. Thank you, Ms. Lenihan, for your public service,
including your service in our Naval Reserves.
I would like to ask you first some questions about Libya.
So, Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan has said that he
believes that a military solution is not what Libya needs.
Would you agree with that statement?
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you, sir.
I would say we need a political solution in Libya for long-
term stability.
Mr. Lieu. OK. On April 7th, Secretary of State Pompeo said,
``We have made clear that we oppose a military offensive by
Khalifa Haftar's forces and urge an immediate halt to these
military operations against the Libyan capital.''
Would you agree with that statement?
Ms. Lenihan. Sir, I would note that we do agree a political
solution is required in Libya.
Mr. Lieu. Right.
On Friday, April 19th, there was a story that ran in the
media. I will just pick one of them. This happens to be from
CNN. The title is, ``Trump praises Libyan General Haftar as his
troops march on U.S.-backed government in Tripoli.''
So, my question is what is the current U.S. position with
regards to Libya, are we supporting General Haftar or are we
supporting the current government of Libya?
Ms. Lenihan. We continue to support a political solution
led by the U.N. Ghassan Salame has been working to bring all
sides of the parties to the table in order to find a way
forward in Libya.
As far as Haftar, over time we have engaged with multiple
parties in discussions recognizing how complex the situation is
in Libya and how all parties need to be onboard for a solution
forward.
Mr. Lieu. Is the United States supporting General Haftar?
Ms. Lenihan. The United States supports a political
solution in Libya.
Mr. Lieu. Is it your understanding that Russia is
supporting General Haftar?
Ms. Lenihan. I would say General Haftar has supporters from
the international community.
Mr. Lieu. Do those supporters also include United Arab
Emirates?
Ms. Lenihan. We have engaged with United Emirates in order
to talk about a political solution, recognizing the way forward
is through a coordinated effort in Libya.
Mr. Lieu. Is it your understanding that Russia and UAE have
provided weapons to General Haftar?
Mr. Day. Sir, I cannot speak to that.
Mr. Lieu. OK. And are you aware or not if Saudi Arabia is
supporting General Haftar?
Mr. Day. Again, sir, I cannot speak to that.
Mr. Lieu. OK. After General Haftar's attack on the Libyan
capital the U.S. pulled some military forces out of Libya. Do
we have any more U.S. forces in Libya?
Mr. Day. DoD removed its forces and has not returned them.
Mr. Lieu. I am sorry, say that again?
Mr. Day. DoD removed its forces and has not returned them.
Mr. Lieu. OK, thank you.
I would like to end just this thing on Libya by saying I
think it would be good if Donald Trump and his State Department
friends got on the same page on Libya because I am just reading
the same facts you are and there are being conflicting signals
sent by the President versus the Secretary of Defense and
Secretary of State.
So, I would like to ask now about civilian casualties. The
2018 National Defense Authorization Act required an annual
report on civilian casualties resulting from U.S. military
operations. Congress has also directed DoD to develop a
strategy for reducing casualties. At the same time, we are
seeing a number of reports from non-governmental agencies that
contradict the numbers from the Department of Defense.
So, my first question is, what methodology does DoD use to
track and investigate civilian casualties, particularly in
Africa?
Ms. Lenihan. At the Department of Defense we take civilian
casualties extremely seriously. We take extraordinary measures
in order to ensure that we avoid any harm to civilians in our
operations.
In the case of Somalia we work closely with the partners as
well as under the consent of the Federal Government of Somalia
and all attacks occur in Al-Shabaab areas which are normally
secluded, with low civilian populations. And anything as far as
our practices I would say I would be more comfortable talking
about in a classified environment.
Mr. Lieu. So, if we could either get a classified briefing
or a letter that sort of lays out the methodology that DoD
uses, would that be OK?
Ms. Lenihan. Sir, I will followup with you on that.
Mr. Lieu. OK. What methods does DoD use to measure whether
your efforts to reduce civilian casualties are successful?
Ms. Lenihan. We undergo extensive analysis within our
planning before we undertake any kind of operation. And then
afterwards we continue to do a review of what occurred. We also
welcome any reports from others as far as any allegations or
concerns with civilian casualties. Then we run those through
for thorough reviews.
We also continue to review practices to ensure that we are
appropriately dealing with this in the best manner. We hold
ourselves to a very high standard. And continue to----
Mr. Lieu. Thank you. If I could ask one last quick
question.
In the last 2 years have civilian casualties in Africa from
U.S. forces have they gone up, or gone down, or stayed the
same?
Ms. Lenihan. Sir, in the last year we published our 2018
CIVCAS report. Within that we noted those two civilian
casualties which occurred in Somalia.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Bass. Mr. Fitzpatrick.
Mr. Fitzpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for
being here.
I want to spend a little time focusing on the current human
rights situation in Zimbabwe. As I am sure you know, Zimbabwe
is a country that has experienced multiple challenges to
democracy and human development over the past two decades. And
our government, as well as international human rights
organizations have documented disappearances, torture, killing,
rape, and other acts of violence committed by government agents
against its own citizens in Zimbabwe.
And since the recent elections, live ammunition has been
used against civilians on two separate occasions, resulting in
multiple deaths.
Our government has consistently maintained the need for
fundamental changes to occur. Targeted economic measures will
be lifted from individuals in positions of power in Zimbabwe.
And I would encourage my colleagues to join me in a letter that
I am putting together reiterating the changes we would like to
see to allow for Zimbabwe to head to a place that embraces
human rights.
So, I have two questions for the panel.
No. 1, Zimbabwe continues to experience repressive violence
targeted at stifling freedom of assembly. Just this week,
government actors targeted street vendors. Across the continent
we have seen continued seemingly harsh measures employed by
government agents to discourage citizens from protesting. And
my questions is, what is the State Department doing to
encourage tolerance of freedom of assembly across the
continent, but specific to Zimbabwe?
And second is, during the January protests in Zimbabwe
internet was suppressed for many days, raising tensions of
citizens both within and outside the country who were unable to
confirm the safety of their loved ones. What measures is the
department engaging in to encourage citizens that they are able
to maintain communication, in particular as the U.N. has
declared access a basic human right to aid in access and
freedom of opinion and expression?
Mr. Nagy. Thank you very much, Congressman.
Zimbabwe is another one of those tragic needless cases
which is where the tragedies are purely manmade. For me it is
very special because my kids were born in Zimbabwe.
I had this same conversation with President Mnangagwa at
the United Nations in September. And I told him exactly what we
were looking for if we want to start opening the door to better
relations.
I will be going to Zimbabwe in a couple of weeks, and I
look forward to having my next conversation with President
Mnangagwa because nothing much has happened since then. They
keep coming to us saying that, well, Zimbabwe is open for
business. We want to engage. We want to have better relations.
Our point is there are two odious pieces of legislation
which have been on the books:
One, specifically prevent public assembly, freedom of
assembly;
The other one is on freedom of expression.
And before we can talk about anything else, those two
pieces of legislation need to be either withdrawn or replaced
by much more positive ones. Because until then, we are really
not interested, despite so many people wanting to get back to
doing trades and things like that. We just cannot.
We appreciate the ZIDARA legislation because we can point
to that. As you mentioned, sir, we have had a number of
specific sanctions. We hold that in reserve going into the
future.
So, the United States of America is not going to warm
relations with Zimbabwe until they have been talking a good
game, let's actually see something that start improving the
environment.
Recently, in the most recent demonstrations where there was
violence a couple of months ago, for the first time we had
evidence of Zimbabwe security forces using rape as a weapon of
war. That is a road that we cannot allow the country to go down
on. So, we will maintain a very strong pressure on there until
there are actual concrete acts on their part.
Mr. Fitzpatrick. No question, sir. And the situations that
we are being apprised of are horrific, including rape being
used as a tool of war; false imprisonment of people who are
just advocating for freedom of assembly, freedom of speech.
There was one gentleman who had the privilege of meeting Pastor
Iban who is going to be detailed, the details of that case in
my letter. I would really encourage you, sir, to look into that
circumstance, look into those situations. If there is anything
we can do on this committee to advocate, please let us know.
I yield back.
Mr. Engel [presiding]. Thank you.
Mr. Sherman.
Mr. Sherman. Mr. Day, hello. We provide a fair amount of
aid to Africa. One thing that occurs to me is that we should be
providing textbooks, electronic of paper, everywhere. First, it
is pretty hard to steal a textbook. If you do steal textbooks,
it is pretty hard to sell them if the United States is
providing them in that country for free to the students. And
they, of course, could be electronic. I am talking about
teaching materials.
But in that way, while I am not saying that the textbooks
need to be written so that Berkeley, California's School Board
would approve them, they can reflect our values of democracy,
freedom, openness, transparency. I hope you will take that
under consideration.
Mr. Day. Thank you. We absolutely will. Education programs
are at the core of what we do. So----
Mr. Sherman. And I know in some countries parents are
required to pay for the textbooks. And that is one reason to
either not send your kid to school or to send your kid to a
madrasa if you happen to be in one of the countries where the
Wahhabis are funding madrasas.
The President referred to the region we are talking about
as a group of blank line-hole countries. Ambassador Nagy, I am
sure that was not helpful to our outreach to the peoples of
Africa. And so, the question is what do we do to counterbalance
that, erase it, by demonstrating to the people of Africa that
America regards their countries as important, vibrant,
progressing, an important part of human kind's future?
One possibility is that the President goes to Africa. I
know his relatives have gone. That has not been entirely
successful. I am not--I cannot guarantee that the President
would do everything he should, should he go to Africa, but his
mere appearance there might demonstrate that his administration
values the continent.
Would that or anything else you can identify help remove
the taste in the mouth in Africa of the unfortunate comments?
Mr. Nagy. Congressman, in my visits to Africa--I have now
visited I think 15 countries, I am going to visit five more--I
have come across only genuine good feelings toward the United
States of America. What I keep telling Africans, look at
America. By thy deeds thou shall be known. I have had nothing
but positive interactions.
I agree with you, high level visits to Africa are so
welcome by our African friends and partners. For the White
House travel schedule, sir, I would refer you to the White
House.
Mr. Sherman. Let me move on to another question.
We see the debt trap system that China is using. Of
particular concern is their possible control of the Doraleh
container terminal in Djibouti or their efforts to acquire
same. And I am working on legislation that would declare that
certain debt trap instruments the country would just be free
not to pay. And they would not lose their credit rating. They
would not lose their access to U.S. capital. It would be the
``If It Is A Phony Debt, Just Tear It Up'' Act.
Ambassador Nagy, what do you think?
Mr. Nagy. Not being an economist, I have to beg off. But I
agree with you totally about the concern of the debt. What I
mentioned before was we went through a whole decades of
Africans owning incredible debt that had to be forgiven. And
why do through that cycle again?
Being sovereign countries, of course----
Mr. Sherman. Well, the Chinese do not forgive the debt,
they take the port. We have seen that in Sri Lanka.
Mr. Nagy. We did.
Mr. Sherman. We will see that in Africa.
Mr. Nagy. We did. Up to now, the Chinese have not seized
any piece of State-owned property in Africa. But that is not to
say anything about the future.
Mr. Sherman. Well, discovered this technique.
Mr. Nagy. So, it is of concern, equal concern to us.
Mr. Sherman. And I will point out, I mean, the question
arises for any African country, why repay the debt? The answer
is because western financial institutions will not loan you any
more money if you default on debt. And if it is legitimate
debt, fair debt, that is probably a good idea.
Mr. Nagy. Can I?
Mr. Sherman. But, but to have the Chinese debt, if you do
not pay it, if you do not pay a bad Chinese instrument we would
have to define that. That should not hurt, affect your credit
rating.
Mr. Nagy. Can I give you a piece of good news?
Mr. Sherman. Yes.
Mr. Nagy. An American company actually won a contract from
the Chinese in Uganda for a $3 billion refinery. They are doing
it as equity. And it took a while to convince Ugandans of the
advantage of that. But once they did they said, wow, that is
not incurring more debt.
Mr. Sherman. You are saying the Chinese are involved in
this, too?
Mr. Nagy. Americans----
Mr. Sherman. OK. I think you misspoke.
Mr. Nagy. The Americans won it from the Chinese.
Mr. Sherman. OK. We prevailed and got the contract?
Mr. Nagy. Yes, we prevailed, so.
Mr. Sherman. We did not get it from the Chinese, we
prevailed over the Chinese.
Mr. Nagy. We prevailed.
Mr. Sherman. Got you.
Mr. Nagy. Yes, sir.
Mr. Sherman. I believe my time has expired. Thank you.
Chairman. Engel. Thank you.
Mr. Wright.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ambassador, first,
thank you for your distinguished service for our country and to
Texas in particular.
I want to go back to Cameroon. I share Chairwoman Bass'
interests there. I have a number of Cameroon nationals in my
district. Both of you ran out of time.
You mentioned that the government have established some
Potemkin Institutions. They were not really doing anything to
bring the two sides together. Could you elaborate on that,
because you ran out of time before?
Mr. Nagy. Sure. Yes, sir.
I understand the Cameroonian Government established several
commissions. And I am sorry, I do not know the exact name of
it, whether it is the Multi-cultural Institution for National
Reconciliation or something, which on the face of it sounds
good. But the institution--and there have been a couple of
these--but they have not been provided adequate budget, and
they have not really done anything.
Because what the country needs more than anything else is a
genuine open dialog probably to include the diasporas of the
Cameroonians because they have a great deal of interest in
this. Because, sir, what is happening, both sides are becoming
further and further radicalized.
Unfortunately, I believe that the President of Cameroon is
being told by his hard liners that he can win this thing
militarily. There is no way that they are going to win this
militarily. The violence is going to get worse in the northwest
and the southwest. The arm for an arm, literally an eye for an
eye, and the whole world will be blind there. The violence will
spread to the west province. It may even spread to the litoral
province which is the large city of Douala, so there has to be
something.
We are very, very energetically speaking with our allies.
That is why I said that we just had in the Security Council
this Monday a what the United Nations called an Arrias where it
is an open debate. And it is so clear that everybody wants to
move forward on this.
Are sanctions on the table? Everything is on the table
moving forward. But we have to bring this situation to an end,
else there is a possibility of what happened in Nigeria with
Boko Haram. It started as a small movement and now look at it.
And it would be disastrous for the region if the Cameroon
Government turned this thing into yet another type of Boko
Haram.
Mr. Wright. Or Boko Haram came back into Cameroon.
Well, you mentioned, you know, it appears to be spiraling
out of control because the more the security forces clamp down,
the more resistance there is on the Anglophone region. So, what
can we do that we are not already doing?
Mr. Nagy. Well, like I said, the best we can do for right
now is just work for our allies to really make the Cameroonian
Government understand the need for a real dialog. And if that
does not happen relatively quickly, then we have to look at the
array of other tools we have in our toolkit. Because, frankly,
the possibility of sanctions is always there. But it is always
better to work in concern with our friends before we go in that
direction.
Because it is, the frustrating thing is that it is in the
interests of everybody to have a national dialog. The situation
will not end militarily. Each day the atrocities will get worse
and worse.
Mr. Wright. Is permanent separation of the two regions a
possibility?
Mr. Nagy. Sir, I do not believe so because I think both
Cameroonians, including in the southwest and northwest, have a
sense of Cameroonianness, and the concept of a separated what
they call Ambazonia in my view is not realistic.
Mr. Wright. OK.
Mr. Nagy. It is the view of the United States of America to
recognize the integrity of the country of Cameroon.
Mr. Wright. Right. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Chairman Engel. Thank you very much.
Ms. Wild.
Ms. Wild. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here
today.
I am troubled, as I think a number of people are, about
China's expanding business interests in Africa, especially the
manner in which they are expanding their business interests,
including predatory lending and obtaining substantial
collateral and leverage over African governments. And
specifically, this question has to do with access to minerals
and natural resources.
And the one I am particularly interested in is cobalt,
which of course is important for electric cars. And we know
that the DRC has an abundance of cobalt. I have heard reports
that China has infrastructure agreements that essentially give
it, China, monopolistic mining rights in the DRC. And I have
also, I also have come to understand that China has taken on an
imperialistic approach through labor abuses and displacement of
local workers in favor of Chinese nationals.
So, before I go any further, I see a couple of nodding
heads. Am I generally correct about what I have just said?
There seems to be consensus. Mr. Lenihan, do you agree?
Ms. Lenihan. [Nonverbal response.]
Ms. Wild. And it is not a trick questions, I just, you
know, wanted to make sure that this was something that I
understood correctly.
What I would like to explore is how we make inroads in
those markets and at the same time preserve, as somebody who is
very labor oriented and very--I am the Education and Labor
Committee in addition to this--I am not interested in only
working on education and labor rights here in the United States
but making sure that we are not taking advantage of workers
abroad, or that our employers, our United States employers are
not doing so.
So, for any one of you I am interested to hear what your
thoughts are on what we can do to at least compete with China.
And let's focus on the DRC right now.
Mr. Nagy. Thank you very much, Congresswoman, especially
for focusing on the DRC because there I think we have a real
opportunity with new President Tshisekedi, who since his
inauguration has been doing a lot of the right things and
saying the right things, and we remain very engaged with him.
And he has said that he would prefer the United States of
America to be his partner of choice.
So, if he pursues the right moves in fighting corruption,
in leveling the business playing field, I know the U.S.
business sector will be wildly enthusiastic to get back in
there.
I met with our business community when I was there. I met
with business people here who are eager to get into China and
specifically deal in some of those commodities you are talking
about, cobalt, including the rare earths, because that is
another whole field.
And this is, again, the thing with U.S. business
investment: U.S. companies have so any positive practices, not
just toward the environment but toward labor, toward women's
rights, not paying bribes, and things like that. This fits in
squarely with President Tshisekedi's goals. We have to trust
and verify and work hand-in-hand with him. But I am more
optimistic about the Congo than I ever have been before in my
life because this is a, this is a huge deal.
Again, U.S. businesses bring jobs. It is not the condition
that everybody above turning a shovel is brought from another
country.
Ms. Wild. Right.
Mr. Nagy. And the Africans appreciate that. Even the
dictators can look outside their doors and see the millions of
young Africans without jobs who are angry. So they are just as
eager to bring American companies that bring the jobs. So----
Ms. Wild. So, what can we do to encourage that? What can we
do to help that practice along and facilitate it? Mr. Day, you
seem to want----
Mr. Day. Go ahead.
Mr. Nagy. No, go ahead, Ramsey.
Mr. Day. I was just going to quickly add that we are active
in this space, in the DRC. We have been supporting the
Responsible Minerals Trade Program for quite some time. And we
have been able to validate over 450 mines in the DRC as
conflict free, which increases the level of transparency
throughout the entire process. And so, these are important
programs to focus on.
But I would also defer to the assistant secretary?
Mr. Nagy. So, exactly. With the BUILD Act, for example, the
support that we can give to U.S. businesses, having our
embassies weaponized to aggressively support U.S. business, to
set up the field teams, to work with the host governments to
tell them specifically what they can do to improve their
business environment, this all works together. It requires a
tremendous amount of energy but it is well worth it.
And I can assure you the U.S. business community is beyond
interested and excited about the possibilities that Africa
offers.
Ms. Wild. That is the sense that I have also.
Thank you so much. I yield back.
Chairman Engel. Thank you.
Mr. Watkins.
Mr. Watkins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to the
panel for being here.
Islamic extremist groups in Africa, including al-Qaeda, Al-
Shabaab, Boko Haram, have caused problems of course for a long
time. Which group do you feel poses the greatest threat?
Ms. Lenihan. There are a significant number of terrorist
groups operating in Africa on multiple parts of the continent.
We have a priority operating in Somalia where we have seen Al-
Shabaab have a significant impact on the country. Although, I
would note that there is some progress that we are seeing in
Somalia in a heartening way.
We have seen the Federal Government of Somalia work with
the Federal member States, which is critical for political
progress.
We have seen the return of our embassy back to Mogadishu
for the first time since the 1990's.
So, although progress is slow in Somalia, we are in fact
seeing it.
But there are also other groups of concern across the
continent. We have talked about the Sahel where today you have
both al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates operating there with
increasing gains, and other nodes throughout.
Mr. Watkins. Yes. Somalia has been fragile and violent for
more than 25 years. What more should the U.S. be doing? Any
comments? Please, Mr. Ambassador.
Mr. Nagy. Sure. Exactly right, Congressman. That has been
one of my biggest frustrations. In 2002, when I left as
Ambassador to Ethiopia, Somalia was a mess. There was an
Islamic radical group called al-Ittihad. I come back 20-some
years later, Somalia is still a mess. The Islamic radical group
is called Al-Shabaab. Billions of dollars spent since then.
Luckily, now for the first time I think we have the
opportunities to make real progress. We have an extremely
talented Ambassador on the ground in Mogadishu, Ambassador Don
Yamamoto, who engages constantly, continuously with the Somali
Government.
We have what I feel like is a three, a real 3D approach
there to where we are working very closely together, and with
the Somali Government. Very dynamic prime minister. Maybe,
maybe this time it really will happen. I do not want somebody
else to come back here in 20 years and face the same situation.
Mr. Watkins. Does it concern you, I believe the DoD is
planning a 10 percent reduction in Special Forces deployed to
the--to Africa? Is that a problem?
Mr. Nagy. Honest to goodness, Congressman, I do not believe
so because to me part of that, and of course I will turn it
over to my colleague to address it more clearly, I think part
of that is actually based on some successes. For example, in
northern Cameroon, working with the Cameroonians. And if I
looked at the total number of exercises and DoD activities in
Africa last year, they were actually larger in number then than
the year before.
We will obviously work together with whatever resources we
are given to make sure that they are optimally used and to
effectiveness. So, from my point of view that is a decision for
DoD. And we will work with our partners the best way possible.
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you. I can add to that to say that the
majority of our activities in Africa are not affected. We are
engaged in a robust level through multiple tools which I
referenced in my opening comment. Some adjustments that we have
made are CT-focused specifically, as Ambassador Nagy mentioned,
oftentimes they are in areas where we have already seen success
and our partners have matured through those programs and so
they are coming to a natural end.
But we will continue to review whatever decision to make.
We constantly review our activities and our posture in order to
react to conditions on the ground. And I am sure we have got
the best way forward working in conjunction with State and our
other partners in the U.S. Government.
Mr. Watkins. To the best of your knowledge is al-Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb, is that AQIM organization affiliated and
interconnected with al-Qaeda in Iraq or in the Middle East?
Ms. Lenihan. AQIM is an al-Qaeda affiliate, so it is part
of a larger organization. We also have seen some consolidation
of al-Qaeda groups into something called Janam which is
operating within the Sahel.
Mr. Watkins. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I yield
my time.
Ms. Bass [presiding]. Representative Allred.
Mr. Allred. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank the
chairman for holding this hearing today and you all for coming
up here.
I think it is critical that we not ignore Africa and that
we counter Chinese and Russian influence in Africa. And I want
to commend many of our efforts through USAID and the State
Department to stabilize and support institutions in Africa, in
particular of course, the PEPFAR program which was created by
my constituent, President George W. Bush.
However, I do have some concerns with the Administration's
approaches, including the recognition of the fraudulent
election outcome in the DRC, a watering down of the U.N. sexual
violence resolution, and of course, the budget cuts that were,
this committee had a hearing on not long ago that were
rejected, of course, out of hand.
And I wanted to turn to some comments on the
Administration's national security strategy which portrays
Chinese influence as undermining African development by
``corrupting elites, dominating extractive industries, and
locking countries into unsustainable and opaque debts and
commitments.'' I agree with that assessment. But the
Administration's intention to counter that appears to be
through bilateral actions.
I think one of our strengths that is unique to the United
States is our ability to engage multilateral allies to engage
in whatever the issue is. I just want Ambassador, Mr.
Ambassador, and Ms. Lenihan if you could, to address why we are
approaching this through bilateral communications and actions
instead of the U.N. and some of our allies in the region?
Mr. Nagy. Congressman, as I said earlier, I have worked
through seven different administrations. And each
administration has its own unique priorities and their
approaches to how to do business. Not that one is, you know,
any better than the other, they are different. The priorities
for this Administration is doing things bilaterally. And that
can work just as well as doing things multilaterally.
Some efforts are more effective one way, other efforts are
more effective the other way. We maintain a very robust
engagement with the African Union. For example, this conference
that we have organized for tomorrow afternoon on Sudan, the
African Union is both sending a representative from Addis and
they will be teleconferencing from Khartoum where their expert
is engaged directly.
So, we engage with African States bilaterally. We also
engage at the sub-regional level. In all of my visit to the
continent I have visited ECOWAS. I visited EGAD during my trip
to East Africa. So it is a dual-track approach.
We, as I have said, we have also supported very strongly
the continent-wide Fred Trade Agreement. So it is a bit of
both. We will do whatever is the most effective, sir.
Mr. Allred. OK. I want to move on and talk about the Belt
and Road Initiative that is now putting a digital silk road
through which some countries in Africa have been emboldened, I
am particularly thinking of Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Uganda, to
increase surveillance on their citizens, including into the
political opposition.
So, Mr. Ambassador and Mr. Day, what are the implications
of the expansion of this digital Chinese influence in Africa?
And what plans do we have to protect civic and political space
in Africa from being eroded by the surveillance culture that
China is attempting to export?
Mr. Nagy. Sir, it is obviously very negative, the impacts
of that activity. We at the embassy level, at the Ambassador
level definitely engage with the governments, tell them of the
disadvantages and the vulnerabilities that they will have. In
some cases we have had to ask the government to take the
cameras down that face our embassies. And other embassies have
done the same thing.
Some governments are receptive. Unfortunately, other
governments are not. At the end of the day it is a sovereign
decision on their part. We regret very much what is going on
and, hopefully, people will realize the vulnerabilities that
they are opening up to themselves.
Mr. Day. Congressman, I would just add that we are also
working with our partners at our level to ensure that there is
a level of awareness of the risks, particularly to American
investment on the continent, and sure that there is an
understanding that American companies are going to be very
reluctant to engage in trade and investment with a particular
country if they have built their infrastructure on--the digital
infrastructure in this way.
And it seems to resonate. But in many cases they may not
have many options. And we are certainly sensitive to that. But
we are certainly trying to raise awareness of some of the risks
to this.
Mr. Allred. OK. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Bass. Thank you.
Representative Levin.
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And thank you for
your leadership in this area.
You know, I feel like the U.S. pays much less attention to
sub-Saharan Africa than it should. And this is a problem of
long standing. So, it was great to hear all of your passion and
commitment and knowledge this morning.
I want to start with a question on Somalia for Ms. Lenihan.
The U.S. has dramatically increased air strikes to counter Al-
Shabaab in Somalia since April 2017. We carried out more air
strikes in Somalia in the last 9 months of 2017 than in the 5-
years from 2012 to 2016. Then there were 47 in 2018, and almost
30 just in the first quarter of 2019 as far as I can find out.
Until recently, the Administration claimed that U.S.
strikes had not caused any civilian deaths in Somalia during
this period. However, last month AFRICOM acknowledged two, that
two civilians had in fact been killed by a U.S. strike in 2018.
And Amnesty International and other third parties have provided
credible evidence of additional civilian casualties that are
not accounted for in the U.S. Government's assessment.
So, Ms. Lenihan, my question is why are AFRICOM'S official
assessment, assessments of civilian casualties, so much lower
than the assessments provided by credible third parties?
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you, Representative for your question.
Our strikes are one component of our broader approach that
we take within Somalia. Civilian casualty is something that we
consider a very grave situation. It is something that has
significant senior leadership attention in the Department of
Defense. Any time----
Mr. Levin. So, I have very little time. So, can you answer
my question, why are they different?
Ms. Lenihan. Of course. So, we welcome any information that
we find from other groups. Amnesty International is actually
engaged with them. My team has met with them, as well as in
AFRICOM. We take that information under review. We do our own
analysis and so forth, and based on our own information and
what they have provided, we have a different perspective on the
numbers.
Mr. Levin. Well, but is not it true that AFRICOM launched
an internal review in part because of Amnesty's report, and you
found that 2018 air strikes targeting Al-Shabaab did kill two
civilians. That was, that was acknowledge; right?
Ms. Lenihan. There were two civilian----
Mr. Levin. And that is a fact that had not been previously
disclosed?
Ms. Lenihan. Our combatant commands are constantly
reviewing our best practices as well as their information.
AFRICOM did undergo an additional review. It did find out
information regarding two civilian casualties.
Mr. Levin. All right, so it is true, yes.
Ms. Lenihan. Yes. And----
Mr. Levin. All right. Well, I would just encourage you to
be transparent. And I am very concerned about civilian
casualties.
I also want to ask a question about a very different
subject to Mr. Day, and that is climate change.
In the span of less than 2 months we saw Cyclones Idai and
Kenneth hit southeastern Africa, and with them hundreds of
deaths and tens of thousands of people displaced. The New York
Times reported that this was the first time that two cyclones
had struck Mozambique in the same season ever.
What is the U.S. Government doing to improve the
Mozambique, Mozambican Government's response to such incidents
and increase the resilience of the local population to extreme
weather events, which seem like they will happen more and more
frequently?
Mr. Day. Thank you for the question. These, of course, were
devastating events, particularly Cyclone Idai in Beira. We have
had a longstanding and good relationship with the Government of
Mozambique, but a lot of our programs, particularly in Beira
and as you go further north, have really been focused on HIV
and AIDS work. So PEPFAR and PMI, the President's Malaria
Initiative have been active up there.
Mr. Levin. Right.
Mr. Day. We have not had many programs in that area of the
country. A lot of our programs have been in the south where
more of the population centers have been. So, we have not had
programs up to date when it comes to kind of disaster response.
But we have had a lot of programs that are related toward food
security and stabilization and resilience type work, which does
kind of impact some of those issues
Mr. Levin. Well, I am afraid you are going to need to have
more there and elsewhere.
Let me just ask you a broader question. Many countries in
sub-Saharan Africa have spotty electricity grids and coverage,
and other energy coverage. There is a huge opportunity here to
help the countries of sub-Saharan Africa leapfrog ahead and use
renewable energy technologies like solar, and wind, and
geothermal to provide power to their people. And it could play
a huge role in combating climate change.
So, I am curious. My time has expired, but I will let you
answer and then I will turn it back over, Madam Chairwoman.
Mr. Day. I would just quickly say that Power Africa has an
all-of-the-above approach. So, they work on solar, they work in
wind, they work in a variety of different sectors in the power
sector. Couldn't agree more. And so it is an area that I think
will transform many of these areas.
The Power Africa 2.0 we are transitioning that strategy to
not just in generation but also in transmission. We have
learned that if you just focus on generation but you do not
have the transmission infrastructure then it is not going to
work. So, we are focusing more on the transmission side as
well. But all of the above.
Mr. Levin. All right. Thank you very much.
I appreciate your patience, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Bass. Absolutely.
Representative Houlahan.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Madam Chair. This question is for
Ambassador Nagy.
I was wondering if you might happen to recognize the name
Christopher Allen?
Mr. Nagy. [Nonverbal response.]
Ms. Houlahan. So, Christopher Allen is the name of an
American citizen and freelance journalist who was killed by
South Sudanese forces reporting on the conflict in South Sudan
less than 2 years ago. And he is from around my community just
outside of Philadelphia. He was 26 at the time of his death.
And his parents, as you can imagine, continue to be heartbroken
and frustrated by the fact that there really does not appear to
be any accountability at this point in time for his tragic
murder.
And I was hoping if you, since you are not familiar with
him, would please for the record be able to prepare and update
a statement for us of what has transpired regarding his case so
that the State Department can be helpful in working to obtain
justice for Mr. Allen?
Mr. Nagy. Absolutely, Congresswoman. I promise you that I
will look into it. Now that I know the name, which happened of
course before I came here, absolutely. The loss of American
citizens, tragedy beyond words. And I will look into it and get
that back to you.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. I appreciate it. His family really
is quite heartbroken and I think they very much feel unheard.
And I think it would be really helpful in this new world order
if you have the opportunity to look into that for us.
My next question is for Mr. Day and Ms. Lenihan. And, as
you are aware, we talked about this a little bit earlier just
up the dais, the Women, Peace, and Security Act became law in
2017, and we are expected the required strategy to be released
any day now from Congress. As we know, it was due in October
2018. And given the current youth bulge in many African
countries, I think it is more important than ever, as we talked
about, to increase the efforts to support girls and girls'
education, to eliminate child marriage, and to provide women
comprehensive reproductive health services.
Can you tell me a little bit about how you are using the
2011 Women's Peace and Security Act and what you were doing in
anticipation in release of this other act? Thank you.
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you. I noted this is a topic I believe
strongly in and the Department of Defense strongly supports as
well. In my opening remarks I noted one example which is
Operation Flintlock which is the CT--I am sorry, Special
Operations Force exercise where we have a women, peace, and
security seminar, which we have done since 2017.
Other examples, in Tunisia we actually have training, all-
female training for intel. And then another example I can cite
is certain times with our education programs in order to
provide incentives for greater female participation. A country
may get an additional slot if a women is offered.
Ms. Houlahan. Mr. Day?
Mr. Day. Thank you for the question.
Again, this is something that USAID has really woven into
many, if not all, of our programs. We call it a cross-cutting
issue, this engaging women into, into our program, women and
girls, as well as youth.
I think one example would be in Kenya where the Musoni
Microfinance Organization partnered with DowDuPont to create a
microfinance facility in which over 5,300 microfinance loans
were issued through agricultural producers throughout the
country. 83 percent of them went to women.
And so this is something that is near and dear, I think, to
the heart of USAID because, as I said earlier, Africa is not
going to progress in its development progress without the
participation of women at all levels, through the economy,
through the political system, and certainly through the
educational system as well. So, this is part and parcel of what
we do.
Ms. Houlahan. And I serve on the Africa Subcommittee as
well and really have a deep passion for women and girls in
particular. I really think that 51 percent our population on
the planet really deserves a better shake. And I think that we
have a responsibility as a nation who leads to make sure that
we are doing that.
I am pretty disappointed that we, that we struggle with
this particular situation and that things are consistently late
in this area. I really appreciate your passion for it as well.
I have only 45 seconds left. And I just was wondering for
me, Mr. Day, if you could give me a little bit of an update. I
know you spoke a bit about the DRC and you talked a bit about
the Ebola outbreak and that it was not under control. But are
there any lessons that we have learned that could be further
institutionalized in order to improve this issue in the
international community?
I am sorry, I only have about a half a minute.
Mr. Day. We are continuing to learn lessons as we go. We
certainly learned a lot of lessons in the 2014 West Africa
outbreak. And we have been applying a lot of those lessons in
this particular outbreak.
There is a huge difference between the two in that the
operating environment is just so difficult, it is so complex.
But we are certainly learning that community engagement just
absolutely must be at the core of what we are doing because the
community distress that we are seeing, which has nothing to do
really from this particular outbreak, this is longstanding
traumatic issues, marginalization, predatory behavior by the
previous government. So these are major, major issues. But the
community engagement element of this is absolutely critical.
So, we will certainly take that with us if and when there
is another outbreak as well.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. And I have run out of time.
I also would like to acknowledge and thank Representative
Abigail Spanberger for yielding her time to me. I yield back.
Ms. Bass. Representative Spanberger.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And thank
you to our witnesses today.
Ms. Lenihan, I would like to start with a question for you.
Earlier this year General Waldhauser testified that AFRICOM
has not been granted ``offensive strike capabilities or
authorities'' outside of Libya and Somalia. However, the
Administration reported to Congress in 2018 that it considered
two Islamic State affiliates in Western Africa to be legal
targets under the 2001 AUMF.
My question is, in which countries does DoD assess it has
the authority to use military force, whether currently engaged
in hostilities or not, and under which authorities is it
operating?
Ms. Lenihan. As General Waldhauser noted, our two areas
where we have direct strike actions are in Libya and Somalia.
Under both of those accounts it is under the AUMF.
Ms. Spanberger. And are there other engagements in other
portions of Africa that are falling outside of those two named
locations?
Ms. Lenihan. No. We only conduct direct strike in Libya and
Somalia.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you. And pivoting and further
discussing Somalia, we have dramatically increased our air
strikes in Somalia. We have hundreds of troops on the grounds.
And according to DoD reports, we have forces that regularly use
self defense. We have seen this escalation over the last three
Presidential administrations. It is not limited to party or
anything else. But I do find these shifts something that we
within this committee should be talking about.
Do you assess that we are seeing a slippery slope of
engagement or mission creep in Somalia? And do you expect U.S.
military presence and the use of force to increase further as
time continues?
Ms. Lenihan. We have seen some successes and some gains in
Somalia. So I would say although it is a long slog there, we
have definitely seen some notes of optimism. We recently hosted
Prime Minister Khayre at the Pentagon where he talked about
some of the economic reforms in order to pursue dept relief and
so forth. Also noting how the security efforts are helping
create that time and space in order for development and
diplomacy efforts to take hold and to grow.
So, I would say although Somalia is a difficult environment
we are on a positive trajectory there, and that our defense
activities are just one part of a much broader USG effort. As
we have noted, for the first time our U.S. embassy has returned
there. USAID is heavily engaged with a high degree of activity.
We have also seen some other areas of improvements: the direct
payments to his soldiers in order to reduce corruption, as well
as biometric registration of weapons in order to increase
accountability.
So, the Somalis are taking some really tough steps in order
to build out their institutions, build out that infrastructure
and, ultimately, take responsibility for their own security.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you, Ms. Lenihan.
As a former CIA officer, I believe very deeply in the
counterterrorism efforts of our country and the nature of that
as a really multifaceted approach. I also now, as a Member of
Congress, remain deeply concerned that we are continuing to
operate under the 2001 AUMF that has been expanded and
broadened over time.
Initially it was focused on, on those who, who perpetrated
the September 11th attack. So, I do note that for the record
because it is something that I am very focused on.
But I would like to continue a bit. Ambassador Nagy, given
the 2018 stabilization assistance review placed the State
Department squarely in the lead, are you being consulted when
the military does broaden the scope of military targets, or
does endeavor to escalate the force in Somalia or Libya?
Mr. Nagy. On Libya I cannot address that. That is out of my
area of operations.
Ms. Spanberger. Yes.
Mr. Nagy. But in Somalia what we are doing with this, our
embassies have to give us their individual analysis in July so
that we can look at it comment-wide and see where we stand. And
it will become an annex, a strategy that we will look at
together.
Ms. Spanberger. OK.
Mr. Nagy. Just to further our working relationship. So, I
am encouraged by this process going forward. We very much
needed this.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you.
Ms. Lenihan. And if I could add to that, we work in close
cooperation with the State Department on our overarching
approach in how the security element fits in our broader U.S.
objective.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you. And one quick question for Mr.
Day.
It seems that we are all in agreement that the
counterterrorism efforts need to united defense, diplomatic,
and development efforts. Are there any other comments that you
would make regarding how the United States can improve the
capacity of African countries to prevent, mitigate--to prevent
and mitigate radicalization and violence so that we can get
ahead of military engagement?
You probably need another 20 minutes for that, sir.
Mr. Day. Maybe so. We look at it from both bottom-up and
top-down.
So, we certainly need good partners. And we have some good
partners on the African continent. In some cases we do not have
as good partners. So, in those cases we really have to work
from the bottom up. And that really starts with local
communities.
So, just like it does in any country it starts with local
leaders, local politicians, local chiefs and tribal leaders.
And so, having that grounding is absolutely critical.
Now, in an ideal world you can do both. But in some cases
we do not have that environment.
Ms. Spanberger. Thank you very much.
Madam Chair, thank you for letting us run over. To the
witnesses, thank you.
Ms. Bass. Sure.
Representative Phillips, I think you might be closing this
out. Proceed.
Mr. Phillips. It sure would look like that. Thank you,
Madam Chair. And I echo my now-departed colleagues' gratitude
to our witnesses for appearing today, had the collective
sentiment about elevating Africa amongst our priorities here on
this committee.
I think we would all agree that foreign assistance is a
pillar of our national security strategy. It should be,
especially as it relates to addressing the root causes of
extremism and instability around the world.
As I am sure you all know, Section 385 of the 2017 NDAA
empowers the Secretary of Defense to transfer up to $75 million
to agencies such as USAID and the Department of State to
implement foreign assistance programs, including conflict
mitigation, good governance, and peacebuilding to address the
root causes of violence and instability.
My question is for you, Ms. Lenihan. And can you tell me if
the Secretary of Defense has used that authority?
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you. One, for the Section 385 authority,
it gives us greater flexibility in order to address the issues
on the continent. We certainly explored possibilities and
considered programs, and we would like to implement that at
some point. But at present we do not have a 385 program
ongoing.
Mr. Phillips. OK. So, so nothing has been transferred.
Can you share something about the programs that you are
considering or ways that it could be deployed?
Ms. Lenihan. We have looked at it in the maritime concept.
We have also looked at it within the Sahel. And there are some
legal complications and so forth that we have to work through,
but we are intent on creating a program in order to exercise
that authority.
Mr. Phillips. OK. I speak for myself, and I am sure other
committee members, too, in that, you know, it was allocated for
a reason, and we would sure like to see it deployed, especially
considering the challenges that we face and the good uses for
it.
Mr. Day, I would like to turn my next question to in my
district Cargill is based in my district, the Third District in
Minnesota. Another number of other countries that help feed the
world. Wondering how the private sector and companies can
better engage with USAID, perhaps with help of Congress, to do
better by more people, especially in Africa?
Mr. Day. Thank you, Congressman.
You know, the private sector is absolutely critical to the
administrator's vision for the future of USAID. We have a
private sector engagement approach policy that we are now
implementing.
We are looking at this through the lens of we will never
have enough resources to meet the need on the African
continent. But if we can leverage what we are doing and if we
can partner with the private sector, then I think we can
mobilize so much more capital, move so much more capital onto
the continent for the benefit of both African but also American
companies such as Cargill, and others.
We have done this already with programs like Feed the
Future. But we want to take that even, we want to take that to
scale, which is why we are rolling the Prosper Africa
Initiative. So, agriculture, because the African continent is
still very much an agrarian economy, agriculture, and of course
health, digital commerce is still going to be, these are going
to be, I think, pillars of the Prosper Africa approach. But
that engagement and that leveraging of American, the American
private sector we think is a superior value proposition on the
continent which, of course, counters the influences of China.
It helps African development. It creates American jobs.
And so, this is why this is such a priority for us.
Mr. Phillips. Wonderful.
Why do not we close. I would like each of you maybe to take
20, 30 seconds and just express to us how this committee might
support efforts in Africa, if you could wave a magic wand and
implore that we do something. Maybe starting with you, Mr.
Ambassador, what might we do expeditiously and helpfully?
Mr. Nagy. I greatly appreciate these kinds of opportunities
to just publicize for the larger public as to what is going on
in Africa and the importance of Africa so that we can
articulate that. And also to show that the partnerships that we
have together that there really is a whole of government
approach there.
And then the tremendous things that, for example, we talked
earlier about the BUILD Act, ZIDERA, you know, these types of
other acts which are coming out which make our jobs much, much
easier. Because, like, for example, in Zimbabwe I can point
directly to the ZIDER--to ZIDERA and say, no, we cannot, you
know, open up greater relations until you do X, Y, and Z.
So, your support in that regard is just phenomenal. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
Mr. Day?
Mr. Day. I could not agree more with the assistant
secretary. This, this relationship is absolutely critical to
our success on the continent, whether it is AGOA or the
chairman and the ranking member's legislation on championing
American business through the Diplomacy Act, or the Electrify
Africa Act. I mean, these are all in support of direct goals of
USAID and transcend any administration.
So, we certainly appreciate the tremendous support.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Day.
Your final comment, Ms. Lenihan?
Ms. Lenihan. Well, as a testament to the synchronization of
our efforts, I will agree with my colleague. And just note
highlighting the importance of Africa, highlighting the great
work that USAID and the State Department are doing on the
ground, continuing to maintain a focus on it certainly is
helpful. And I appreciate the opportunity from this committee
in order to discuss it today and into the future.
Mr. Phillips. Well, thank you all, and I yield back.
Ms. Bass. Well, let me just conclude by thanking our three
witnesses for enduring the hearing today. It was--Oh.
Mr. Malinowski. I did just get a message to sprint from the
Transportation Committee.
Ms. Bass. Representative Malinowski.
Mr. Malinowski. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Thank you
for fitting me in in the last second.
So, a lot of things I could ask you guys about, but I
wanted to focus on a country that I visited I think four times
in my last few years as assistant secretary of State, and that
is Ethiopia. And I know it is a country near and dear to your
heart, Ambassador.
In 2016 this was an authoritarian State that was going
through turmoil, potential transition. And we worked incredibly
hard to try to promote the democratic transition that the
country sorely needed. And now, here we are looking at perhaps
the most promising democratic transition of any country in the
world I would say.
And I am glad that you agree. But my question really to all
of you is what are we doing to seize the moment? Because, and I
know that there are engagements, and just this week you guys
are, at least at your level, talking to a wide range of
Ethiopian officials. But this seems to me to be a case that
calls for a much more dramatic increase in U.S. engagement at
all levels. I know it is above your pay grade, but I mean,
this, I would much rather see the Ethiopian prime minister in
the Oval Office than Viktor Orban of Hungary, given the values
of this country.
So, I just want to challenge you all on this, to tell us
what are we doing to significantly step up our engagement and
support for Ethiopia? And how are we marrying that what I hope
will be a significant increase with continued encouragement to
move down this path?
Mr. Nagy. Can I start on this one, guys, and I will turn
it?
Thank you very much, Congressman, for that question. I do
not know if you had a chance to see what is happening this week
at the State Department, but we have the Ethiopia Partnership
Forum going on with a high level delegation from Ethiopia. And
line around the block of U.S. business people in the Ethiopian
diaspora to get in to engage with these high level officials as
to what they can do for Ethiopia, how they can invest in
Ethiopia, what are the sectors of investment.
Because Ethiopia has come to the point where there are a
couple of things that they desperately need. One is the prime
minister's grand vision to transform Ethiopia into a true State
of institutions. With that goes they are, they are working on
everything. It is like everything is a priority. And,
unfortunately, in one of those situations where everything is a
priority it is very difficult for us to fill all the gaps.
But then what they need more than everything else, and very
quickly, are jobs. And the prime minister himself has
articulated that. In that regard, I do not think anybody can
bring more money into the picture than U.S. businesses and
other responsible businesses because they are the ones that
create jobs, not the, not the Chinese infrastructure projects.
Right after the change started I remember coming over and
sitting down with Ramsey and Administrator Green to ask exactly
what can the United States do to very quickly respond to their
needs? And it has to be triaged because our resources, frankly,
are not limited. So many of them are tied up that we cannot
just all of a sudden put tremendous funds together. We are
working continuously comparing notes with Ambassador Mike
Raynor. We are so fortunate to have one of our best Ambassadors
in the world in Ethiopia to see where we can go quickly,
whether it is sending a technical expert to the Ethiopian Bank
or to this ministry or that ministry. They have created brand
new ministries. They want to have relationships across the
board. They want to open up all sectors of the economy.
It is an incredible opportunity but it is also an
incredible challenge to figure out where the United States can
bring its best value added.
Mr. Malinowski. Let me actually, because I only have 46
seconds, so one quick question for you and one for you, Ms.
Lenihan.
The former draconian charities proclamation is, has been,
my understanding, replaced with a new more liberal structure.
Mr. Nagy. Yes.
Mr. Malinowski. Are we taking advantage of this to do what
we could not have done before and to begin to work more
directly with Ethiopian civil society organizations? Are we
testing that space?
And then to you, Ms. Lenihan, can you assure me that DoD in
its mil-to=mil engagements is making it crystal clear there can
be no going back, given that the, you know, the security
institutions in Ethiopia I must imagine were not entirely
friendly to this transition. Some of them had to be removed
from the intelligence apparatus. And there is always this risk
of dual messaging. Can you assure me of that?
Mr. Nagy. Very quickly. Yes, both at the embassy level and
here. Tomorrow I am meeting with a group of U.N. NGO's who are
very interested in Ethiopia. So, we will promote that to the
best of our ability.
Mr. Malinowski. Including assistance?
Mr. Nagy. Yes.
Mr. Malinowski. OK.
Ms. Lenihan. And I note on the defense front, we are
thrilled by the changes that are occurring in Ethiopia and any
opportunities that that proposes. I was able to be at our
bilateral engagement with the minister of defense. We had 16
lines of effort in order to try to embrace them, and through
engagement really ensure those positive practices that you have
noted and that there would be no backsliding. To the point
where, actually, I think we were saturating what they can
absorb. So, we are trying to manage that.
But Ethiopia is also stepping up. They are leading
justified--Exercise Justified Accord this summer, taking a
leadership role within the region. And so, we are certainly
working with them on institution building all the way through
things like exercises.
Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, so much.
Ms. Bass. Thank you.
Representative Omar.
Ms. Omar. Thank you, Chairwoman Bass.
So, I just wanted to really get into this horrific reign of
terror and its spread in Africa. And, you know, we oftentimes
are really dealing with this issue. And it seems like we are
attempting to drone it to death. And I am just wondering what
the particular assessment has been because we know that in
Somalia, particularly in dealing with Al-Shabaab, since
President Trump has gotten elected the number of drones has
increased, but the number of attacks that Al-Shabaab has been
able to carry out has also tripled.
We also know the same to be true for Boko Haram.
And I am just wondering what, where do we go from here and
what the solution will be, should be?
Ms. Lenihan. Thank you for your question.
As I said, the Department of Defense employs a broad
spectrum of activities and engagements across the continent.
Our direct strikes is actually a very small component of what
we do. I noted earlier in my discussion, my testimony, we work
on building partnership capacity. We do security cooperation,
draining and clipping, but also working to employ medical
expertise, as well as security and so forth. So it is really a
broad spectrum of what we do.
In the case of Somalia, we also have a broad approach which
we have building the Danab, which is an Advanced Infantry
Brigade in order to provide security for people in Somalia,
high level of protection. We have seen great results from that.
We also work as a coordinating function in order to ensure
international donors' contributions are being used as
effectively without duplication as they can.
In the case of our strikes, I would say that we take
ultimate extraordinary efforts to ensure that we reduce any
kind of civilian harm and that we are working in coordination
with our partners to include the Federal Government of Somalia
to ensure that it is in line with what their broader approach
is on a full spectrum of economic, political, and so forth.
We are trying to maintain pressure on the network in order
that we can create that time and space. And we have seen some
improvements in Somalia, as we have noted before, you know,
just some of the economic reforms that are ongoing. We have
seen the Somalis take greater responsibility as far as joint
operations in lower Shabelle in order to expand the safety zone
within, within outside of Mogadishu.
And, additionally I would just note that you see increased
air flights coming in, commercial flights coming into
Mogadishu. You see Maersk using the port. So, there are some
real gains that have been made.
Ms. Omar. In that breadth, do you see sentiments within the
Somali community changing against Al-Shabaab? Or should we
reassess the way that we are dealing with Al-Shabaab? I mean,
maybe the Ambassador can take that one.
Mr. Nagy. That I, I wish I could answer, Congresswoman.
Ms. Omar. And if you could be brief, I have a few more
questions.
Mr. Nagy. Sure. I wish, I wish I could answer that. I
honestly do not know.
The crux of the matter is, the three of us can work
together perfectly well but we need that fourth partner, which
is a willing and capable government in place. The first day on
the job I talked about Somalia and I asked, how many forces to
Al-Shabaab have? How many forces does the Somali National Army,
and AMISOM, and the Federal member States have?
Based on the numbers alone it should be no contest. But you
need to have that willingness and that capability in the
partner. Hopefully, now we are getting to the point we have it.
I just spoke with Ambassador Yamamoto last week, so.
Ms. Omar. So, let me ask you this followup question. It
seems like that there is a direct sort of correlation between
our droning and the increase of their assaults. And their
recruitment seems to increase because of some of the civilian
casualties that might take place.
And so, how do we mitigate that? What is our strategy to
make sure that the people are on our side and that they are
partners in helping us fight terror?
Ms. Lenihan. And, again I would note that we have a broad
approach and that strikes are just one minor component of it. I
think one of the greatest issues in Somalia is just people,
governance, people feeling as if the government is taking care
of them, they are providing services, and so forth.
So as the Federal Government of Somalia expands its own
capabilities and its reach, then you are going to have the
greatest impact on eliminating the attractiveness of Al-
Shabaab. In addition to the security efforts that we are
employing in alignment with our partners, both AMISOM as well
as other partners in order to try to create that Somali
national security architecture so that the Somalis again can
expand the sense of control that they have over the
government--or over the country.
Mr. Nagy. I would just like to. And one thing I would
really like to do, I am looking forward to doing, I am eager to
do my next domestic outreach up to Minnesota to do outreach
with the Somali diaspora because I have found in my experience
that it is extremely useful to engage directly with the
diasporas to see if there are any other ideas or other
reflections on how things can be done.
Ms. Omar. I think that that probably would be very much
welcomed. You know, in your earlier testimony, testimoneys all
of you talked about the partnership that needs to happen in
order for us to have a greater influence in Africa. And I would
be remiss if I did not say that as an African on this
committee, when you have a president who uses language like
``shithole countries'' it makes it really hard for people in
Africa to sort of think themselves as being in partnership with
the United States.
And so I hope that we are in the business of developing
better relationships, we are in the business of really looking
at the language that we use to describe these nations that have
a great potential, that are just looking for a partnership. And
that is where America really can shine.
So, thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Bass. Wonderful. I want to close us out on that note.
And also reference that in our Subcommittee on Africa we would
like to followup and have you come back.
This committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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