US-Africa Leaders Summit: Will US diplomacy succeed in resolving African complexities?

“When Africa succeeds, the United States succeeds. And quite frankly, the whole world succeeds, too,” US President Joe Biden said, explaining the US administration's shifts from the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump.

After eight years of absence, the US-Africa Leaders Summit was held in Washington, DC, which included 49 African heads of state.

The new American vision for Africa looks to reshape the geopolitical reality of the region for US national security interests. It details who America's friends are, now and in the future. It also puts itself in comparison and competition with the vision of China and Russia in looking at the importance of Africa and ways to deal with the continent.

Ahead of the three-day summit, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US would commit $55 billion to Africa over the next three years.

Inter and intra-African state conflicts

Although the focus of the summit focused on economic prosperity in Africa and the economic ambitions of the United States in the continent, the summit discussed other issues, especially regarding conflict within and between African countries.

On the sidelines of the summit, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to discuss progress in implementing the November 2 agreement to stop the Ethiopian civil war in the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, especially the steps the Ethiopian government has taken to improve humanitarian access, begin restoring basic services, and allow access to the conflict areas by international human rights monitors.

The meeting, which was held on Tuesday, December 13, also touched on the need for all Eritrean forces to leave Ethiopia, in conjunction with the disarmament of Tigrayan fighters.

The Tigrayan side has already begun to withdraw from the battlefield. Two weeks ago, Tadesse Wereda, Commander-in-Chief of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, said, “We have accomplished 65 percent disengagement of our army.”

The issue of the Egyptian-Ethiopian dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was not absent from the agenda of the summit in Washington.

Blinken met on Wednesday, December 14 with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Washington, DC, and the two discussed the issue.

While the American side stressed the importance of reaching a diplomatic decision on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in a way that preserves the interests of all parties, the Egyptian president asked for US help in pressuring Ethiopia to reach an agreement on the dam, which Egypt considers an existential threat.

“This is a very vital and existential matter to us. And we thank the United States for its support and its attention,” Sisi told Blinken.

“Reaching a legally binding agreement on the rules of filling and operating can achieve something good in accordance with international standards and norms. We are not asking for anything other than that; we need your support on this matter,” added the Egyptian president.

Ethiopia had unilaterally completed the filling of the first, second and third dam without reaching an agreement with Egypt and Sudan, while starting earlier this year in operating the first turbine for power generation.

The three countries failed to reach an agreement in the last negotiations in April 2021 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and attempts to revive negotiations have failed since then.