gional dialogue. USAID is focusing on building a regional
counter violent extremism (CVE) strategy. Since the
civilian architecture is not in place for large scale refugee
and displaced person returnees, if catastrophic success were
to occur, expectations for essential services would not be
met, the grievances grow exponentially. Such an instance,
might be the impetus to establish a civilian multi-country
task force.
Colonel Ken Adgie, the Deputy Commandant of the
US Army War College introduced the last panel entitled
"US interest in Africa for the next 20 years". This panel
expanded on the USG options for the future, based on
past accomplishments and programs. USG plans should
coincide with national interests, often defined as security,
geopolitical, economic and humanitarian. However, plans
could align more functionally like the migrant issues facing
our European partners or China’s growing influence on
Africa. 19 of the top 25 countries in the Fund for Peace’s
Failed State Index are from Africa, making any strategy, a
challenge. The first panelist was ABM(r) Philip Carter III,
former Ambassador to Cote d'Ivoire and current president
of the Meade Hill Group, as well as the Executive Vice
President of the Washington-based international adviso-
ry firm of Jefferson Waterman International. The second
panelist was Kate Knopf, the Director of the Africa Center
for Strategic Studies.
The future of Africa is a challenging topic on its own.
The security space will not be shaped by how the African
nations will grapple with the terrorist threat, instead it
will depend upon the development of infrastructure. This
development structure will rely on the continent’s ability
to marshal resources for massive investment in resilient in-
frastructure that improves connectivity, such as roads, rail-
ways, ports, power generation distribution, and fiber optic
cables. No society can achieve sustained economic growth
without investing in their infrastructure. The African
governments must implement an aggressive private-sector
economic growth strategy for a sustained period in order
to create jobs for their burgeoning populations, which will
require an urgent and daunting shift in governance and
economic policy, as well as regional and continental coop-
eration. A major challenge facing Africa is climate change,
which has caused desertification, rising oceans affecting
the coastline, changing temperature which alters the flora
5
and fauna. Infrastructure development is the only factor
for mitigating climate impacts. Climate change will also
drive rural to urban migration, and raise the prospects for
greater pandemics. The developed world is getting smaller,
while the African population grows to encompass nearly
25% of the world’s population. This dynamic increase is
compounded by a burgeoning youth bulge with an average
age of 22-23 years of age, thus creating the largest labor
pool. Millions are moving within the continent to cities in
the hope of better economic opportunities and reduced
violence, creating the fastest urbanization rates on the
planet. Many of the migrants move into slums, where a lack
of infrastructure exacerbates the problems. To counter this
dynamic, African nations must invest in their own societ-
ies and neighbors. However the illicit outflows currently
exceed the development assistance inflows. Africa will need
to invest 1.5 trillion in infrastructure over the next 10-15
years, but state institutions are currently losing about 100
billion per year to illicit outflows, which is a huge gover-
nance challenge. Technically, these states have the ability to
reinvest in their own infrastructure. The youth migration
to cities creates a hyper-connectivity to each other, but
there is still limited inter-governmental connectivity. This
connectivity is changing expectations, as youth become
cognizant of opportunities throughout the world, they
demand more services (clean water, electricity, education
and jobs), which places a heavy burden on governance.
Cities and states/provinces will become the focal point for
governance development. For example, a mayor may be the
most important political partner over a head of state. The
US most focus security and stability efforts at the sub-pro-
vincial level. Democracy is a culture, not simply elections,
as has become the common implementation strategy. The
USG must focus on the principles of good governance,
where in governments are responsive to the needs of the
population. Enhancing state security does not ensure
stability, as the administration, police and military m