Former ambassador Princeton Lyman had one main message for the
30 or so students and faculty gathered in Bunche Hall on Tuesday
evening: Africa is becoming more and more central to the U.S., and
not just in terms of humanitarian and charity concerns.
“The tendency to treat Africa largely as a humanitarian
objective morphs into treating the continent as a charity
case,” Lyman said. But doing so, he said,
“doesn’t take care of the long-term
development.”
Lyman, a Ralph Bunche senior fellow, visited UCLA on Tuesday to
present a report published by the Council of Foreign Relations Task
Force on U.S. policy toward Africa.
Lyman, who is also a project director for the task force, cited
that U.S. and European investment in Africa’s growth in
farsighted sectors, such as agriculture and education, has declined
by 90 percent since the 1990s.
Lyman spoke on the growing economic competition in Africa, the
continent’s policies against terrorism, stopping and
preventing genocide in Darfur, democratization of African countries
and the continuing fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
He said the report called for a more comprehensive policy that
would allow the U.S. to “operate effectively in the
increasingly competitive environment in Africa.”
Instead of focusing on emergency aid, the report said the U.S.
needs to build a broader framework that will incorporate both
foreign help and local infrastructure.
“So far, we’ve gotten good responses (from Capitol)
Hill, but whether or not that translates into changes, we’ll
have to see,” he said.
Lyman previously served as U.S. ambassador to South Africa, U.S.
ambassador to Nigeria and director of the U.S. Aid Mission to
Ethiopia at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
He currently is the director of Africa Policy Studies Council on
Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.
There are only four African members on the 21-person task force
he co-directs, but Lyman said that is how it should be.
“We don’t need Africans to say Africans are
important. We want other people ““ not normally associated
with Africa ““ to say Africans are important,” he
said.
The people who came to see him, many of whom were not African,
affirmed his statement.
“This was a really new perspective,” said Jamie
Zimmerman, a second-year international development studies student.
“I hear more groups asking for pleas for humanitarian aid,
but maybe we can do something more sustainable,” she
said.
Zimmerman, who recently attended a conference regarding
Africa’s HIV/AIDS crisis, said her interests in global health
care issues drew her to the event.
“It’s our responsibility to be informed,”
Zimmerman said.
Lyman’s presentation also attracted members of the UCLA
Darfur Action Committee.
“I was really pleased with (Lyman’s) focus on the
Darfur region,” said Kristen Thompson, a fifth-year
international studies student and head of the endorsement committee
for UC divestment from Sudan.