The Foreign Service Journal, June 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2023 25 partnerships that advance mutually beneficial goals, such as improving lives and livelihoods, promoting economic growth, or advancing democratic values. It is a humbling yet critical task for U.S. national security interests with our African part- ners. And with stakes as high as they are, one may wonder how the summit would advance U.S. policy priorities in Africa. Let’s start at the beginning. The Road to the Summit During his first trip to Africa as Secretary of State, in Novem- ber 2021, Secretary Blinken affirmed that “Africa will shape the future—and not just the future of the African people, but of the world.” He also conveyed President Biden’s intention to host the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in 2022; eight months later, in virtual remarks to the Corporate Council on Africa’s U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Morocco in July 2022, Vice President Harris announced the dates. “This Summit will demonstrate our enduring commitment to our African partners ... will be based on mutual respect, shared interests and values ... and a critical element will be to bolster our economic relationship,” stated Vice President Harris. Her remarks were accompanied by a concrete demonstration of the administration’s intentions, the presence of senior leadership from 10 U.S. government agencies, including Millennium Chal- lenge Corporation CEO Alice Albright, U.S. Trade and Devel- opment Agency Director Enoh Ebong, U.S. African Develop- ment Foundation CEO Travis Adkins, and a delegation of U.S. institutional investors who manage more than a trillion dollars in assets seeking investment on the continent. The vice president’s public announcement of the dates also set the stage for interagency collaboration and stakeholder consultations to commence in earnest as we prepared for the summit. As special adviser for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, I led my team in conducting extensive consultative sessions with members of Congress, the African diplomatic corps, members of the American and African private sectors, members of civil society, and the African diaspora to feed into the interagency policy process. The aim was to craft a set of discussion topics that would speak to the president’s vision with clearly defined objec- tives, concrete deliverables, and innovative elements—with an emphasis on partnership. That collaborative process netted agreement on thematic sessions that focused on shared priorities, including new themes and topics that had emerged since the first summit, in 2014: for instance, the role of civil society; the strength of our African diaspora; health security and improved health systems; climate change, adaptation, and a just energy transition; peace, security, and governance; global food security and food systems resilience; digital transformation; and even cooperation on space exploration. BENSOLOMON/U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE U.S. President Joe Biden (center) and African leaders at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 15, 2022. PAULKIM/U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE