NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 19 (IPS) – United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is touring to South Africa, Zambia, and Senegal this week within the hopes of strengthening U.S.-Africa relations at a time of waning U.S. affect on the continent — the primary in a sequence of Biden administration journeys introduced eventually month’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.
As African ladies leaders working for peace and local weather justice, we welcome this renewed engagement with a area that’s too usually sidelined. However conferences and photo-ops usually are not sufficient.
If the US desires the belief of the African individuals, we’d like greater than phrases. We’d like tangible motion to materially enhance the lives of communities throughout the continent.
There are two steps the Biden administration might take right now to do exactly that: supporting a brand new issuance of Particular Drawing Rights (SDRs) for cost-free, debt-free disaster reduction, and offering extra monetary assist for the Loss and Injury Fund agreed to at COP27, the latest UN Local weather Convention.
Three years because the COVID-19 outbreak, beneath one-third of Africans have obtained a single vaccination dose. Financial development in Africa slowed “sharply” in 2022, attributable to a worldwide financial stoop, inflation, and an ongoing sequence of shocks.
The World Financial institution is warning of a “sharp, long-lasting slowdown” in 2023 that can “hit creating international locations laborious.” One-fifth of Africa’s inhabitants faces persistent starvation—double the world common—and the local weather disaster is barely deepening these stark statistics.
For perspective: Pushed by local weather and battle, half of Somalia’s inhabitants faces acute meals insecurity. Trekking for weeks to refugee camps for meals, many Somalis are compelled to bury starved family members in shallow graves.
In opposition to such challenges, the 2021 issuance of $650 billion in SDRs by the Worldwide Financial Fund supplied a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of Africans. SDRs are a reserve asset that may be issued in instances of disaster without charge to the U.S. or another nation. Growing international locations can then use these SDRs to pay money owed, stabilize currencies, or fund vital purchases like vaccines and meals provides.
Because the 2021 issuance, over 100 low- and middle-income international locations have used their SDRs for sometimes life-saving care for his or her residents. African international locations used SDRs greater than another area, with 47 of 54 African nations utilizing some or all of their allocation.
Although final 12 months’s SDR issuance was impactful, it was not sufficient. That’s why African leaders like African Union Chair Macky Sall and finance ministers throughout the continent are calling for a brand new SDR issuance of a minimum of the identical dimension.
The UN World Disaster Response Group on Meals, Vitality, and Finance; dozens of US lawmakers; the Worldwide Chamber of Commerce; and practically 150 civil society organizations worldwide additionally assist the proposal.
Moreover, African international locations have to be compensated for the harms brought on by a local weather disaster for which they bear little duty. Regardless of having contributed the least of any continent to greenhouse fuel emissions, Africa stays probably the most weak to local weather change.
Nineteen million Africans have been affected by excessive climate occasions in 2022 alone, and cyclones and droughts wrought havoc on infrastructure, agriculture, and home economies.
Within the phrases of the Pan-African Local weather Justice Alliance, “you can not set hearth on somebody’s home and promote them the hearth extinguisher, or worse nonetheless, mortgage them cash to rebuild it.” The Loss and Injury Fund will present local weather reparations by means of monetary assist to nations most weak to local weather shocks.
The Fund’s impression, nonetheless, will solely be as robust because the world’s dedication. Whereas nations like Germany and Belgium have made symbolic pledges to the fund, present contributions fail to deal with the existential magnitude of the disaster. Elevated U.S. monetary backing will pave the way in which for added assist from different high-income international locations.
Naysayers could balk at the price of these proposals, or recommend they don’t align with U.S. nationwide pursuits. Nonetheless, a brand new SDR issuance, whereas costing nothing to U.S. taxpayers, would foster international financial—and subsequently political—stability, whereas proving U.S. responsiveness to African wants.
Following the passage of the highest-ever Pentagon price range, the Biden Administration ought to recall their very own evaluation that local weather change exacerbates international safety challenges.
As a substitute of paying huge sums for weapons of conflict, usually within the title of debunked methods to counter terrorism, the U.S. ought to spend money on measures that deal with the foundation causes of violent battle in locations like Somalia and the Sahel.
Throughout final month’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, 60 organizations, together with Companions In Well being, Africans Rising, and Mates of the Earth US, referred to as on President Biden to assist these two pressing proposals. On the time, he failed to take action.
As Secretary Yellen travels to our continent, the administration has one other alternative to maneuver past rhetoric and towards motion to enhance the lives of Africa’s 1.2 billion individuals.
Supporting a brand new SDR issuance and contributing funding for the Loss and Injury Fund would go a good distance towards salving the ever-present financial wounds of colonialism, addressing the local weather disaster, and bolstering alternatives for Africans to chart their very own course within the twenty first century and past.
Pauline Muchina comes from the Rift Valley in Kenya, the place her household nonetheless resides. She is the Coverage, Training and Advocacy Coordinator for Africa for the American Mates Service Committee in Washington, DC, and the Chair of the COVID-19 Working Group of the Advocacy Community for Africa.
Emira Woods, initially from Liberia, is the Govt Director of Inexperienced Management Belief and an envoy for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace, and Dignity, a community of African social actions on the continent and the diaspora.
IPS UN Bureau
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