US Envoy Heads to Africa to Advance Joint Priorities

IMPORTANT NOTICE: An external source produced this story. Sources provide us with insights and are an excellent resource for finding the truth and revealing community attitudes and opinions about events. Following this link opens a new browser tab and sends you to a website outside of Africa News Matters. We bear no responsibility for the link and its contents. https://www.voanews.com/a/us-envoy-heads-to-africa-to-advance-joint-priorities-/6930453.html

U.S. Ambas­sador to the Unit­ed Nations Lin­da Thomas-Green­field will trav­el to Ghana, Mozam­bique and Kenya this week to advance joint pri­or­i­ties fol­low­ing December’s U.S.-Africa Lead­ers Summit. 

Her tour, from Jan­u­ary 25 to 29, will focus on region­al secu­ri­ty issues, food inse­cu­ri­ty, human­i­tar­i­an issues, and sup­port­ing African efforts to mit­i­gate cli­mate change, a senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial told reporters on Monday. 

Thomas-Greenfield’s trip is hap­pen­ing in tan­dem with Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Janet Yellen’s ongo­ing mis­sion to Sene­gal, Zam­bia and South Africa that will con­tin­ue through Jan­u­ary 28. Yellen is seek­ing to deep­en U.S.-Africa eco­nom­ic ties, includ­ing by expand­ing trade and invest­ment flows. 

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden announced over $15 bil­lion in two-way trade and invest­ment com­mit­ments, deals and part­ner­ships at the three-day Decem­ber sum­mit that drew del­e­ga­tions from 49 African nations to Washington. 

Russia’s war  

Africa has deeply felt the impact of Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine as fuel, food and fer­til­iz­er prices rose in its after­math. This year, U.N. agen­cies have warned that the impact of the fer­til­iz­er crunch could reduce the size of har­vests on the continent. 

The U.N. and Turk­ish-bro­kered Black Sea Grain Ini­tia­tive has seen more than 18 mil­lion met­ric tons of Ukrain­ian wheat and oth­er food stuffs export­ed to inter­na­tion­al mar­kets since it was signed in mid-July. 

The Joint Coor­di­na­tion Cen­ter that over­sees the deal says near­ly 44% of the wheat export­ed has been shipped to low and low­er mid­dle-income coun­tries. The U.N. is also work­ing with Rus­sia to remove remain­ing imped­i­ments to export­ing its food and fer­til­iz­er products. 

But the U.S. blames Rus­sia for imped­ing the export of Ukrain­ian grain, say­ing it is not at the lev­el it should be. 

“Rus­sia has delib­er­ate­ly slowed down inspec­tions of these ships and essen­tial­ly throt­tled the oper­a­tion of this cor­ri­dor,” the senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial said of the ships sail­ing in the Black Sea. “That is hav­ing an impact obvi­ous­ly not just on Ukraine but for the entire world.” 

As of Sun­day, the Joint Coor­di­na­tion Cen­ter said 35 ships are await­ing inspec­tion. Five of them are wait­ing to enter Ukrain­ian ports and 30 are loaded with car­go wait­ing to leave for their destinations. 

Inter­na­tion­al sup­port has been strong for Ukraine at the U.N. Gen­er­al Assem­bly, but African nations have repeat­ed­ly abstained on res­o­lu­tions that might upset Russia. 

Thomas-Green­field, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as a U.S. ambas­sador to Liberia and Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of State for African Affairs, is mak­ing her third trip to the con­ti­nent since becom­ing U.N. ambas­sador in Feb­ru­ary 2021. 

Dur­ing her trip, she will be vis­it­ing two cur­rent Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil mem­bers — Ghana and Mozam­bique — offer­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to address the issue of reform­ing the U.N. Secu­ri­ty Council. 

For decades, coun­tries have said the 15-nation body needs to be expand­ed to reflect cur­rent real­i­ties, not those of a post-World War II world. 

In Sep­tem­ber, Biden said the Unit­ed States sup­ports increas­ing the num­ber of per­ma­nent seats on the coun­cil, includ­ing one for Africa. There are cur­rent­ly five seats — Britain, Chi­na, France, Rus­sia and the U.S.