Faculty/Research < On Topic

Helping Africa would benefit U.S.

“The world owes Africa,” Foote tells IU audience

by Steve Hinnefeld
The Herald-Times, Bloomington, Indiana
October 6, 2005

Americans should care about what goes on in Africa because it’s the right thing to do, Melvin Foote said. And they should care because it’s in their self-interest. “If we don’t start dealing with the globe, the globe will deal with us,” he said.

Foote, the founder and executive director of Constituency for Africa, has spent two decades lobbying, building coalitions, and educating the public—all on behalf of Africa. He was at Indiana University October 5 to give the SPEA Neal-Marshall public policy lecture, sponsored by the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Neal-Marshall Alumni Club.

Foote said Africa is crucial to the United States for economic, political and national security reasons. It’s especially important for African-Americans, he said, and it always has been.

“We have no choice. We are Africans ourselves,” he said.

Foote’s involvement with Africa began in the 1970s, when he was a Peace Crops volunteer in Ethiopia. Back in the U.S., he worked for Africare, an aid organization, to educate Americans about Africa. He thought it would be easy, he said, but learned otherwise when he met with black journalists and learned how little they knew about Africa.

When Africa got attention, he said, it was for famine, corruption, military coups or civil wars. Aid organizations raised money for Africa, he said, but the message from donors was, “Just get those starving babies off the TV set."

Foote started the coalition of organizations called Constituency for Africa in 1990. He said its efforts, along with increased world travel, Internet sites and cable news channels and more engagement by U.S. leaders, have produced greater awareness of Africa.

Former President Bill Clinton’s travels in Africa brought it attention. And Foote credited the Bush administration with working seriously to increase trade, target resources to fighting AIDS and help broker a peace agreement in Sudan.

“We’re moving in the right direction, but we have a long way to go, “ he said.

Foote said the U.S. should lead the movement to forgive the debt of African nations, much of which was accumulated to support dictators and their wards. He said the developed world owes its wealth to Africa: African resources created colonial powers in Europe, and African slaves helped build the Americas.

“Call it reparations if you want,” he said, “but the world owes Africa. And I think debt relief is the first payment.”