The Foreign Service Journal, December 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2019 31 HJC: AFSA became a professional organization about 100 years ago. It became a collective bargaining agent nearly 50 years ago. I believe that AFSA’s role as a collective bargaining agent has made it stronger as a professional association. FSJ: What should AFSA’s primary focus be today? HJC: AFSA needs to concentrate on upholding professional standards and, above all, to protecting the professionals in the Service from being dragged into domestic politics that are leaking into foreign relations. I believe that AFSA is currently involved in real-time issues of this nature and is courageously fighting back. Life after the FS FSJ: Instead of taking a well-deserved break when you retired from the Foreign Service in 1993, you became a senior adviser to the Global Coalition for Africa almost right away. What did that position entail? HJC: The GCA was an intergovernmental body bringing together African finance ministers and donor nations. Our mission was to discuss, at a high level, how to make African economies stronger and speed up their growth. It was chaired by Robert McNamara, who was a pleasure to work with. He was full of wisdom. My life did not change much from State because I was meeting with the same senior African leaders I had known as assistant secretary. From them I learned how difficult it is to overcome cultural impediments to progress. Corruption was extremely strong in most countries, and hard for even deter- mined politicians to stop. FSJ: Your long interest in Africa is obviously as strong as ever. What are some of the main issues you track there today? Are there any trends you can point to that we should watch? HJC: A major phenomenon is a massive youth bulge. Thirty percent of Africans are under 30. Major reforms are needed to create jobs for them, and agriculture must be modernized to feed them. I see some leadership understanding this, for exam- ple, in Ghana, South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya. They have