Ufahamu Africa
Ufahamu Africa is a podcast about life and politics on the African continent, co-hosted by Kim Yi Dionne, professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside, and Rachel Beatty Riedl, professor of government at Cornell University. Each Saturday, a new episode highlights what is happening in the news, followed by an interview with a diverse thinker or innovator who is deeply ingrained in the life, culture, and politics of the continent.
Ufahamu Africa
Ep. 127: Mashup with Judd Devermont and Nicole Wilett from "49"
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- Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training
- Into Africa, hosted by Judd Devermont
- These are Not Gentle People by Andrew Harding
- Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
- The Good American by Robert D. Kaplan
- "When Africans Speak Out, Are Their Governments Listening?"
Find the books, links, and articles we mentioned in this episode on our website, ufahamuafrica.com.
Welcome to season six of Ufahamu Africa. My name is Kim Yi Dionne and I'm your host, and I'm thrilled to kick off the season with my partner in crime, my co-host Rachel Beatty Riedl. Hi, Rachel.
Rachel Beatty Riedl:Hi, Kim, and welcome to the first episode of season six everyone. Kim and I are particularly excited about this season and some amazing new voices that we're adding to the show through our non resident fellowship program. So stay tuned for that next week when all of our fellows will give an introduction tell you about some of the things that they're planning, what they're thinking about, as well as their favorite reads, of course. And for this week, we wanted to kick off this new season with one of our favorite formats: a podcast mashup. We're thrilled to share with you this conversation with podcast 49, which is an incredible new resource that explores the past, present and future of U.S. policy towards Sub-Saharan Africa. Judd Devermont, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Nicole Wilett, Chief of Staff at the Open Society Foundation, sit down with diplomats, journalists, civil society activists, and academics to discuss policy recommendations for the Biden administration. In 15 minutes or less, they pack it all in to deliver the goods on U.S. relations with African countries, as well as share the best of African music, food, dance, film and travel. So we're really huge fans of this new format and want to congratulate Judd and Nicole on a job really well done. The coverage and the depth of research, the level of thoughtful analysis is so valuable. Right now we want to dive right into this week's episode. But before we do, we, of course, want to highlight for our listeners, consistent with this theme of this week's show where we talk about US relations with Africa, that the Biden administration held this week, a summit for democracy. Now, this is the first of two summits for democracy that the US government will host that is aimed at bringing together leaders from government, civil society and the private sector to set an agenda for democratic renewal. Now, while the attendees of the summit include a broad range of countries, representatives from many African countries were invited right, Angola to Zambia. And to get African perspectives on democracy, Rachel and I want to point our listeners to the excellent series of pieces written by our colleagues at Afrobarometer that were featured in The Monkey Cage at The Washington Post. So this is a special series written just for the summit for democracy. There are seven pieces in total. So I'll just highlight in particular the most recent one that was written last week by Carolyn Logan, Joe Asunka and E. Gyimah-Boadi. It's entitled when African speak out are their governments listening? Now drawing on 45,832 face to face interviews in 34 countries during Afrobarometer round seven, so collected between 2016 and 2018, Carolyn, Joe and Gyimah's article illustrates citizen participation and government responsiveness as cornerstones of democracy. Now, they show that Africans have high political engagement. So in particular, when they're dissatisfied with our government, so nearly one in four of the people surveyed during Afrobarometer's round seven report taking direct action, like joining protests, when they're dissatisfied with government performance, and importantly, they find that responsive governance is actually linked to greater citizen optimism and satisfaction. You know, that really resonates with one of the key points that I think Nicole makes in this upcoming conversation regarding the emphasis on the low hanging fruit of US diplomacy and a focus on democracy, rights and governance, and just how that bears repeating again and again. So, we'll post the links to these articles on our website. And we'll continue our discussion and our analysis of what this summit for democracy means--the participants and the conversations that take place there in upcoming episodes. And now, here's our conversation with podcast 49.
Judd Devermont:Hi, my name is Judd Devermont. I'm the director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic International Studies. And this is my third time on Ufahamu Africa.
Nicole Wilett:Hi, I'm Nicole Wilett. I am the Chief of Staff at the Open Society Foundations. And this is my first time I'm the newbie.
Kim Yi Dionne:I'm Kimmy Yi Dionne, your co host here at Ufahamu Africa and I'm joined by my lovely co host Rachel Beatty Riedl.
Rachel Beatty Riedl:Welcome, Judd, Nicole and Kim. I'm Rachel Beatty Riedl, the director of the Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University and Kim's co host and partner in this podcast, so I want to say congratulations to Judd and Nicole on the launch of this amazing podcast, podcast 49. It's an exciting and I think really ambitious project for policymakers to cover US policy toward every country in Sub Saharan Africa. And you've already released episodes on Southern Africa and on West Africa. And one of the things that I really love about this project is the full coverage approach, right, recognizing the diversity of the relationships and the context and looking at the bilateral relationships between the US and each country. And this combination of history, the policy successes and failures and recommendations for current US administration on each country. So can you tell us how you've been conceiving of this project, who it's for? And what are your objectives?
Judd Devermont:Sure, I'll take this one. So as maybe your listeners know I have a podcast called into Africa. And one of the things that I found is that folks who call me up and say, you know, my boss said, "I should listen to this before I go to embassy Y" or "I'm about to go to Africom and so you should listen to this, this podcast." And that's great. We welcome all listeners, but into Africa, is sort of a reaction to news events. And I thought, instead of going through the back door, let's just hit it right at the top, like what is the past present and future of policy toward Sub Saharan Africa. And there is no one better to do that with than my friend Nicole, we both, you know, have this experience working in the executive branch at the National Security Council, Nicole at State Department. And so we kind of know how we can you know, how you maneuver and make policy happen. And the other thing that I think Nicole, and I thought was really important about the timing is this is when an administration is going to think about its strategy. So we thought that this was an opportunity to leverage our expertise to hit it right when it's important, as well as geek out a little bit on some of these histories.
Kim Yi Dionne:Now, you ask a series of questions on the show. And one regular question that you ask your guests is what the administration of US President Joseph Biden should focus on in dealing with the country. That's the center of the episode. And I want to throw that same question back at you, but with a whole region approach, what kinds of things do you want to see the Biden administration doing in their relations to African states?
Nicole Wilett:So thanks, it's a great question. We have been really excited on the pod to hear from so many different individuals across journalism, academia, from all across the continent, and in the United States, big ideas about what we could do differently. And that, of course, makes us think hard about how the Biden administration should approach this. You know, there's some low hanging fruit, right, the stuff we know, the bread and butter tools, engage, engage a lot, make sure you have representation in every single country, like that's actually still not even the case, ensure that you have high level diplomacy back and forth between leaders. But also one of the things I think has been underscored again and again, in this pod and that I subscribe to, is the importance of making sure that our engagement is of course, not just with government, or at least not just with political government, right? How do you engage with civil society actors? Who in in many countries, just like in the United States, are those who are really sort of holding the pieces together, even when there's extraordinary tumult in these countries? And how do you engage more with civil society? Now, of course, we have a donor relationship with civil society. But how do you ensure that policymakers are really spending the kind of time learning about the places where we are sending dollars or learning about the places where we are where there are legislative effects of what we do? How do you really ensure that there are relationships there that can be built in true partnership? Again, these aren't wildly new ideas. But with this administration, I think there are high hopes that Africa will not be taken as a monolith, it will not be considered the continent, which is behind the rest of the world in terms of desirability for postings for our Foreign Service. I'm not saying that is the case now. But there is a long history of that. And I think it's important that we move well beyond it. I think it's important that we don't have meetings at senior levels that are just about "Africa," or only about the great powers debate, for example, Africa vis a vis China, which as we all know, is something that is deeply dominating the rhetoric around the continent right now. This is really about how you engage directly personally in ways that are political, but are taking full consideration of the places we work. I have been surprised on the pod by the number of times guests have highlighted two things--one, the things we are not doing, again, like not having a presence in a certain country or having a presence that couldn't possibly begin to build those kinds of relationships all the way to I've also been struck at the number of times that our guests have talked about the Peace Corps or USAID or civil society exchanges. The number of times those interactions going back to the 60s have helped shape sort of lay person's understanding and appreciation of America and Americans. And I think we continue to forget that the relationships that we build are the ones that last over the decades, it's not necessarily the building we built, or the bilat, the Oval Office meeting that happens. So to me, it's really about a much more holistic approach, but one that truly considers the individual relationships in each country. Again, not groundbreaking, but we are still not fully there on this continent vis a vis the United States.
Kim Yi Dionne:I love that answer. Because it's actually reminding me and I know that, you know, we're not trying to talk about great power relations, but it's actually reminding me a lot of Lina Benabdallah's book about China-Africa relations is that it's this human to human contact. And, she does even write about the US Peace Corps in her book as kind of, you know, a comparison, right to the US. So even though it has this long history, I do think it's a pretty creative way of thinking about it. So I agree. I like that.
Nicole Wilett:Yeah, thanks. I mean, you know, you don't want to go back to just sort of traditional hearts and minds, right, because that sort of takes away, I think, the agency and importance of having true relationships right on equal footing, that is not about sort of any manipulation of erasing past mistakes of which we know there are about a zillion on the continent, but really does promote the idea that in any position in government or civil society, that you would have serious counterparts with whom you can engage on these issues that are most important. And that really does translate down through generations through institutions. And we're hopeful that more of that can happen.
Rachel Beatty Riedl:Inshallah. Exactly. Absolutely. And Judd, I want to get your takes on, you know, the podcast as a whole. You're providing some recommendations, right. And this is building on exactly what Nicole was just talking about thematically, looking at historical experiences, bringing in these expert guests. So what are some of the major themes that you've identified throughout this process? You know, across the series?
Judd Devermont:Yeah, I have a couple maybe Nicole has some to add, but for me, is that the US government needs to treat African counterparts as if they were any other country in the world - have a normal relationship. This was a conversation we had with Zenaida Machado, who is at Human Rights Watch in Angola. And we'd like what's the big idea? She's like, engage. Right? The big idea was just do what you would do with any key partner. And so I think that that kind of comes through again, and again and again, that Africa is not, you know, a freebie or something that you do if you have a little time or, you know, these are important countries, and we have to engage with them as such. And I think related to that is something that we had a conversation with Ibrahima Aidara, who's at OSIWA the Open Society initiative for West Africa. And he was like, Don't paper over the problems either. So Senegal, for example, which I know, Rachel, you follow very closely. Yes. Macky Sall, you know, it was an important election when he took power in 2012. And he was lauded by President Obama, there was the meeting in Dakar when President Obama traveled there. But there's some other some problems in the relationship now in terms of, you know, Macky Sall's democratic trajectory, we can say those things. I think that was one of the things that's really resonated with me. And just finally, and this is maybe both my own view, and also from our guests is talk about global issues with African partners. I think Uzo Iweala said this, who's the executive director of the Africa Center in New York, he talked a lot about climate change, like how do you solve climate change without Africans, without Nigerians? And so those are three that I think really resonated with me, Nicole, I don't know if you had others.
Nicole Wilett:Yeah, thanks. You know, my impression here is that you get the big bucket. But it's fairly predictable, right? I mean, it's democracy and human rights, it's peace and security, it's investment and economic development. These are things that everyone who works on issues related to Africa policy, and who is on the continent wrestling with these questions in terms of what would be most useful is, these themes come up again and again in those conversations, and those are really broad, right. But it does come back to this idea that Judd is referencing of, have real conversations with our counterparts that aren't pre-scripted, that aren't about some specific agenda point. Of course, there's going to be that in diplomacy, but also really engage as partners on broader issues. And I think if we don't do that, it's to our peril as we look, you know, to the future of the world. You know, Zenaida and I were talking, all of us were talking a bit about, you know, the narcotic transnational network that you know, heroin that comes right through Mozambique on its way to Latin America, right? So there are there issues in which if we are not engaging together in serious ways that we will never be able to tackle just through sort of traditional diplomatic partners. So I think that's a big one. You know, one of the other themes that comes up again, and again, is support for democracy and human rights. And I think there's two pieces of that, that rise the top in these conversations, one consistently is support for independent institutions and for civil society, right, we're talking about the backbone of what helps countries particularly those who are fragile, or who face political instability, including ourselves, being able to sustain through all of that, up and down is to know that there are structures in place that are going to support what is best for the country, rather than what is best for the leader. And I think that we have not always done everything we can do on that front. And it's not hard. We know how to do it. And in some cases, it's not that expensive, right? I mean, DG - democracy and governance - programming is not the most expensive thing we do. And a little can go a long way. And we have consistently underfunded democracy and governance budgets in the United States. Yet so many of our guests from the continent and not have really highlighted that is something that's so critical. So we really need to close the daylight between those asks, and those priorities.
Rachel Beatty Riedl:Completely agree and in listening to the, you know, guests, absolutely a theme I'm thinking about for example, in Ghana and the relationship between the support for democracy and how important that is in terms of the bilateral relationship and how Ghana's relationship has been more outsized because of that role and the need to maintain that strength.
Kim Yi Dionne:So, one thing I love about the show is the quick rundown of political and diplomatic history at the start of each episode. And at least when we listen to it, you're alternating right? One of you runs the history on some and the other on the other episodes. And I don't know if the work breakdown is also equal in this way. But I'm curious to know, if you, you could share with us, you know, what's the process for whittling down, you know, decades of history into such a tight format? And if you could share, you know, what are some of the most surprising or interesting things you've come across in your background research whether, you know, it made the the cutting room floor or if it made it into an episode?
Judd Devermont:Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned this, Kim. Because these episodes take way more time to prepare for then into Africa. I mean, sometimes a couple of hours, or days to kind of get the history right. But I found this resource that I want to share with your audience called the association of diplomatic studies in training, ADST, and it's an oral history, they interview former diplomats about their experiences and their careers, which means that like, if you're trying to do a piece on Mauritius, there may not be a US Mauritius history book, but these testimonies give you this flavor. And so that's often why we're quoting former diplomats. And so we we take that, plus what we both know in terms of our own experiences, plus, I know a lot about their sort of the declassified history of US analysis. So I sometimes leverage that and try to get up with something. But some of these ADST documents are 600 pages in and of themselves. So it takes a long time. Congo was a nightmare to sort of prepare the history for and like, it's 15 minutes, like we can't have the history section be 15 minutes. So we try to do a good job on five but a couple of things that I really want to highlight that I loved finding out. We did airdrops in Zambia after Rhodesia declared the unilateral declaration of independence because we were worried about Zambians being able to get food. Like, that's like Berlin, right? Like, I've never known of that kind of action. I mean, there's a little bit of that was sort of Operation lifeline with South Sudan in the 80s. But here it's 1965. Another one that I loved learning about, especially as we think about infrastructure challenges on the continent. The Army Corps of Engineers built Kismayo port in Somalia. Right. Fascinating. And the last one, I thought of it, as you mentioned, Ghana, Rachel is this. What do we call it Nicole? It was like gift diplomacy oh, scarf diplomacy between, you know, Rawlings in Ghana and President George HW Bush exchanging gifts between each other in a period when our relationship was warming so it gives you the spectrum of what our military can do, our political leaders can do. Our, you know, our diplomats, it's really been, I think, fascinating to find these. And just quickly what I want to do with those is, Nicole and I used to sit in interagency meetings where people say, that's impossible. We can't do that. And I feel like every time we write one of these histories, we're giving people ammunition to say there was a precedent for this. It's not impossible, the system can do this. And so that's kind of the ulterior motive sometimes with the history sections.
Rachel Beatty Riedl:I love that. And I think absolutely, the history sections are so useful for us to take the long look, but in this very compressed and succinct way to understand the ebb and flow. And again, at a bilateral level, right, and the relationship, not in terms of region or continent, but what was happening as different presidents came to power and as different elements were happening in each country. So before we go, as Judd and Nicole know, we always ask our guests, what are you reading? So I'd like to ask you first, Nicole, what would you like to recommend with our listeners?
Nicole Wilett:So one of the things because I feel like it's always you know, there's like 17 things on the stack. But one of the things that I have been reading and also listened to a podcast on is the new book by Andrew Harding, longtime BBC reporter, lived in Johannesburg, for a long time, I was in Pretoria at our embassy, and we got to know each other. And he has written this really brilliant book called "these are not gentle people" about a 2016 murder in Free State in South Africa. And even though it's been a few years, I think it really calls forward, in addition to just being this fascinating, complex crime. It also brings forward so many of the issues that present day South Africa continues to wrestle with around the relationship between, particularly in the countryside and rural areas, between farmers and farm workers, between those who have power those who have not had access to resources over so many years, it really brings a history of violence in the country, what it means to have moved forward on race relationships, what South Africa has accomplished and what it really hasn't, how new of a country it is, in some ways, right? 1994 was really a split second ago in some ways. And it really highlights all of that wrapped in a really interesting and fairly provocative story about the search for justice in this murder. And Andrew is one of the most sort of understated, but deeply passionate writers and reporters that I have ever known. And I just think it's a remarkable book. And it turned out they also then did a podcast, which is excellent, so I can't recommend it highly enough. I also recommend anything that Andrew has written because it always is deeply nuanced about really complex places.
Judd Devermont:Okay, so first I just finished reading Who Fears Death By Nnedi Okorafor who is, I mean, all of her stuff is amazing. Like, you know, science fiction, with this sort of Nigerian flair to it and I owe Kim, her recommendations that first got me to the Binti trilogy. And now this book, and I'm really excited to share that she just joined us on into Africa. And then I'm in the middle of reading right now, the good American, by Robert Kaplan. It's about Bob Gersony, who was a contractor for USAID. And he's just kind of remarkable in terms of the way he approached his job, you know, really focused on talking to people like interviewing, whether they were in humanitarian camps, refugee camps, or if it was issues around piracy in Thailand and then coming up with solutions that work. And so it's a remarkable story about someone who can get things done in the US government. Of course, it's a little on brand for me but I've really enjoyed it
Kim Yi Dionne:I'm really excited to hear your interview especially with Nnedi Okorafor, because I have been waiting It feels like a whole lifetime for Who Fears Death on HBO to come out because the book is so perfect for a Miniseries or multiple seasons of a TV show, I mean, it's it's just the possibilities are...
Judd Devermont:And I think Binti is going to be a Hulu series too. So it's incredible.
Kim Yi Dionne:Oh my God, you are making my day Judd Devermont.
Judd Devermont:Oh, it was a she was very generous to join. But it was on the wish list for the podcast. So I was really honored that she joined us plus, I should just say if I'm going to promote that episode, David pilling from the FT joins us and Patrick Gathara who was Kenyan journalist and cartoonist, I'm sure your audience knows. And it's a great conversation about how to think about Africa differently. You know, how do we take different angles? How do we tell new stories, so it was so much fun,
Kim Yi Dionne:An all star cast. Well, thank you so much, Nicole and Judd for joining us today.
Rachel Beatty Riedl:Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Ufahamu Africa. You can find more episodes show notes and transcripts on our website ufahamuafrica.com. This podcast is produced and managed by Megan DeMint with help from production assistants Jack Kubinec etc. Our non resident podcast fellows are Chido Nyaruwata, Wanjiku Ngugi, Samah Fawzi, Gretchen Walch and Soinato Leboo. We are generously supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and receive research assistance from Cornell University and the University of California Riverside. Our music is courtesy of Kevin MacLeod. Until next week, Safiri Salama.
