Obama urges African nations not to make economic 'excuses'
Tue Jul 29, 2014 7:11am GMT
By Annika McGinnis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday gave a preview
of a summit he will hold with African leaders next week, saying African
nations should look inward for solutions to economic woes and not make
"excuses" based on a history of dependence and colonization.
Speaking to 500 young Africans finishing a six-week Washington leadership
fellowship, Obama said while it was important for developed countries to
consider providing some targeted debt relief, it was time to end the notion
that all of African nations' problems resulted from "onerous debt imposed by
the West."
"At some point, we have to stop looking somewhere else for solutions, and
you have to start looking for solutions internally," Obama told the
enthusiastic audience.
"And as powerful as history is, and you need to know that history, at some
point, you have to look to the future and say, 'OK, we didn't get a good
deal then, but let's make sure that we're not making excuses for not going
forward.'"
Next week's U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington will convene economic
and political leaders from across Africa to discuss the continent's
development and the U.S. role in partnership and investment.
Obama's remarks amounted to a rejection of comments last month from
Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who said Western
"neo-colonial" domination of Africa has impeded the continent's development.
Nguema blasted what he said were too-low exchange rates, problems with
natural resources' pricing and Western-imposed "barriers to international
trade" at a summit of the 54-nation African Union.
Obama said there was not a "single country" in Africa that could not be
doing better with the resources it had.
"There are a lot of countries that are generating a lot of income, have a
lot of natural resources, but aren't putting that money back into villages
to educate children. There are a lot of countries where the leaders have a
lot of resources, but the money is not going back to provide health clinics
for young mothers," he said.