State Department Photo
David Gilmour, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
New York, NY
September 25, 2014
9:00 A.M. EDT
The New York Foreign Press Center, New York, NY
MS. STAVROPOULOS: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us at the New York Foreign Press Center today. We are very pleased to have Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs David Gilmour here with us. I’ll be turning over the floor to him in just a moment. His remarks will be on the record, and afterwards we’ll open the floor for questions. I know we have a journalist in Washington, D.C. or a few at the – our sister center, and if they were to approach the podium, we will recognize them in turn to ask their questions as well. Thank you very much for joining us, and with that, we’ll turn it over – turn the floor to Deputy Assistant Secretary Gilmour.
MR. GILMOUR: Great. Thank you. Well, the – welcome. Nice to meet you this morning, and thank you for coming. And I’m very pleased to be here with you this morning on behalf of Assistant Secretary of State Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who was looking forward to speaking with you this morning, but she was called to another meeting. So I’m pleased to be here to take her place.
She’s been very busy this week meeting with many of the heads of state that – who we just hosted in Washington last month for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, and that summit was really an extraordinary event. It really sort of surpassed all of our expectations. We were very pleased with it. And I think what was clear for everyone was that even as Africa continues to face great challenges, we’re also seeing more prosperity on the continent with rapidly growing economies and lots of investment opportunities, a burgeoning middle class, and a very dynamic young population.
Certainly, one of the most pressing issues facing Africa right now, and particularly West Africa, is the Ebola outbreak, and it’s a virus that West Africans have not encountered before. And the health systems, particularly in Liberia, are breaking down under the demands placed on their very limited resources. The important thing about Ebola is that we know how to treat it and how to stop the spread of the disease, but no treatment can be effective if the patients cannot get to the facilities and if there’s no equipment and if there aren’t enough trained healthcare workers.
Last Tuesday, President Obama announced a major increase in our efforts to help the affected countries and the international community. And I should be clear that the United States has been involved in the response to Ebola since the very first cases were reported many months ago. However, as the outbreak worsened and increased, we determined that this is a national security priority for the United States and we ramped up our response.
One of the new components in the Ebola response – the U.S. response, that is – will be a joint force command that will coordinate a regional response on the ground. An estimated 4,000 U.S. forces will be involved in the staging and transporting of supplies, building additional treatment units, and setting up sites to train 500 healthcare providers per week.
Stopping Ebola will take more than just the efforts of the United States and we are mobilizing partners around the world to help, but we have to act fast. Last week, the UN Security Council resolution on Ebola had 134 co-sponsors, and that’s more than any other resolution in the Council’s history. As we move forward, we must turn that resolve into action to control the outbreak, prevent a humanitarian disaster, and to strengthen health systems for the future.
Another critical conversation that’s going on at UNGA this week is how the world is responding to the threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters. The President chaired a meeting at the UN Security Council on this topic, and raised it in his address to the General Assembly. Foreign terrorist fighters increase the brutality, intractability, and sectarian nature of the conflicts. And not only do these individuals threaten the states through which they transit, they return home radicalized to violence and possessing new military skills, increasing the risk of homegrown terrorist attacks.
We all know that the evil of terrorism is not just confined to the Middle East – it exists across Africa and throughout the world – and on Sunday we commemorated the solemn one-year anniversary of the al-Shabaab attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. Recently, we’ve made progress in pushing back al-Shabaab. In recent weeks, al-Shabaab has lost additional territory to the renewed offensive by AMISOM and the Somali National Army, and it has suffered the loss of its co-founder, Ahmed Godane, and seen terrorist cells in Kampala disrupted by Ugandan security agencies. We must remain vigilant and understand that the fight is not over yet.
On the other side of the continent, we’re dealing with Boko Haram in Nigeria, and as an aside, I’d like to mention – I’d like to certainly commend the Government of Nigeria for its efforts to combat the spread of Ebola. Nigeria was one of the very first nations to respond when it donated $3.5 million two months ago to ECOWAS to fight Ebola, and Nigeria’s also been very active in training healthcare workers from all three affected countries in Lagos. So we certainly commend Nigeria’s efforts in responding to Ebola.
Back to Boko Haram, Boko Haram threatens not only the stability of Nigeria but the entire region. And long before the world’s attention was captured by the brutal kidnapping of hundreds of young women and girls in Chibok, we’d been working with Nigeria and its neighbors to address the growing threat from Boko Haram. Sadly, the Chibok girls and women are not the only victims of Boko Haram’s brutality and terrorism. More than 2,000 persons have been victimized by Boko Haram’s violence this year alone and recent events in Borno State and in Cameroon’s far north are evidence of this, and we’re deeply concerned about the security of Maiduguri in the near and in the long-term. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes, some into Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.
And just as we are stressing to our coalition partners in dealing with the threat posed by ISIL, the response in Africa cannot be exclusively military; it must be comprehensive. And that’s why we urge Nigeria and all the countries confronting this problem to invoke a comprehensive approach that brings both civilian and security tools to the fight. And we’re committed to supporting Nigeria in these efforts.
Let me turn for a moment to the Central African Republic. And I’m pleased to report that we’ve resumed operations at our Embassy in Bangui this week – or last week, I should say. And this coincides with the handover of authority for peacekeeping from the African Union-led mission MISCA to the new UN-led mission MINUSCA, which is the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission for the Central African Republic. And MINUSCA will continue to work alongside the French and European forces that are already there in place.
Unfortunately, the standing up of the UN mission does not mean that the humanitarian emergency is over. There’s still great need in that country. And in response to the urgent needs on the ground, the United States recently announced 28 million in additional funding for CAR last week and is providing over $145 million in humanitarian assistance for the crisis thus far. And we’re certainly continuing to support the Central African Republic as it moves toward the process of a national dialogue, reconciliation, and eventually free, fair, and peaceful elections – that its people certainly want and very much deserve.
Let me come back a moment to the African Leaders Summit, and I would comment that the feedback we’ve received from leaders this week that the assistant secretary’s had in her meetings has been overwhelmingly positive. The leaders were very pleased to have so much time to engage with President Obama and with the American private sector. Here in New York, we’ve seen what an infusion of positive energy the summit has brought to these relationships. Secretary Kerry is pleased about that, as is Assistant Secretary Thomas-Greenfield and all of us who work on U.S.-Africa relations day in and day out.
During the course of the summit, we announced $33 billion in commitments for new trade and investment from U.S. companies, and another 4 billion for Africa’s development, including maternal and child healthcare, delivery of vaccines and drugs. We launched a number of new programs from the Security Governance Initiative to the Global Resilience Partnership to the Doing Business in Africa Campaign, which will spur U.S. investment in Africa and increase African investment in the United States.
In addition, we’ve committed $110 million a year for the next three to five years for the new African Peacekeeping Rapid Response Partnership or what we call APRRP for short. And this program will help to build the capacity of African militaries to rapidly deploy peacekeepers to – in response to emerging conflicts.
We also hosted a very successful 13th AGOA ministerial, the African Growth and Opportunity Act on the eve of the summit. And President Obama has made it clear that he seeks a seamless renewal of the AGOA prior to its expiration next year, and we will work with Congress to achieve that goal.
Leading up to the summit, we were all talking about the fact that most of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies are in Africa. The African continent is home to a burgeoning middle class with an appetite for U.S. products. As African economies continue to grow, there’s an opportunity for job creation in the United States, and American CEOs recognize that.
Although much of our attention and energies at this moment have been diverted to dealing with Ebola, it does not define our relationship with Africa or with the affected countries. As the international community comes together to tackle the epidemic and to stop the further spread of Ebola, which I know we can and we will do, I’m confident that the – that Africa’s economic health will replace the other health headlines once again.
And with that, I’ll stop there and be happy to take your questions. Thank you.
QUESTION: (Inaudible.) All eyes will be on Nigeria as the country prepares for the 2015 election. What advice would you give the government? And in view of already charged scenario, politicians are making provocative statements and charging the system. What advice do you have for the government?
MR. GILMOUR: Well, in terms of – as I mentioned, in terms of the security situation, what we advocate is certainly a comprehensive approach to the problem, that it’s not a problem that can be solved purely by military means or by – with security tools. The north of Nigeria is a region that’s been underdeveloped for a long time, so there needs to be a response by the whole of the Nigerian Government in terms of social services, in terms of economic development, in terms of investment. So that’s what we see as the kind of long-term solution to that problem, as well as a strong security response. So all of the tools have to be used.
And I think we see other examples around the world. You can look at countries like Colombia, where there have been successful campaigns against insurgencies using the broad range of tools, so that’s the approach that we advocate. So I think that’s an important part of the discussion.
Just in general, we certainly hope for a robust and broad political discussion in Nigeria and free and fair and open and credible elections.
MS. STAVROPOULOS: It looks like we have a question from Washington. Can you go ahead, Washington?
QUESTION: Can you hear me?
MR. GILMOUR: Yes, go ahead.
QUESTION: Right. Philip Crowther with France 24. First of all, one question on the foreign fighters story that was important yesterday. Are you seeing any movement of foreign fighters from African countries and from countries where you know that terrorism and particularly the Islamist terrorism is rife? Are you detecting any movement toward the likes of Iraq and Syria at the moment?
MR. GILMOUR: Well, I think we’re always concerned about the possibility of that, and certainly concerned about the possibility of movement within Africa between the conflicts that are going on in the different regions. And as we speak to the African leaders, we hear a constant concern about, particularly groups like Boko Haram potentially connecting up with extremists from East Africa or those in the Central African Republic.
I particularly look after the Central African region as my main portfolio, and speaking to leaders out there, they’re very concerned about this problem of fighters potentially moving across borders. So it’s something we all need to – all the governments need to work together on, in not only restricting the movement of potential fighters but also in restricting financial flows as well.
QUESTION: Been any movement so far toward particularly Iraq and Syria? I know you’ve been able to detect plenty of American citizens. Have you been able to detect citizens from other African countries that you’ve been looking at? Have they made their way to Iraq and Syria, do you know?
MR. GILMOUR: I don’t have any information on that. No.
QUESTION: Can I –
MR. GILMOUR: Yeah. Sorry.
QUESTION: Thank you. Thank you very much for being here with us. I’m curious to know about the – a little more about the joint forces command with 4,000 U.S. forces and how that is going to be implemented. Would you shed some light?
MR. GILMOUR: Well, the 4,000 number refers to all the personnel that would be involved kind of throughout the entire chain, both from the AFRICOM headquarters in Germany through – there are plans for intermediate staging areas in other countries to move supplies, and then finally the forces that would be on the ground, which would be primarily, as I understand it, engineers who would do construction. Because our main challenge is to – and particularly in Liberia – is to help construct as quickly as possible Ebola treatment centers. So there will be – so there are plans to construct a large number of these treatment centers. And then also there’s going to be – the Department of Defense has announced about a week ago that they would bring in a field hospital, so that will be set up. So it’s mainly personnel to help with logistics and bringing in supplies and doing construction.
QUESTION: And so the headquarters will be in Germany?
MR. GILMOUR: Yes.
QUESTION: So is there going to be —
MR. GILMOUR: It’s U.S. Africa Command.
QUESTION: — a secondary managing center for the –
MR. GILMOUR: In Liberia.
QUESTION: In Liberia?
MR. GILMOUR: Yes.
QUESTION: What about – and from Liberia it will spring to other countries, or not necessarily?
MR. GILMOUR: Yes.
MR. FORD: There’s an intermediate base in Dakar.
MR. GILMOUR: Is that? Okay. So that’s been – yes.
MR. FORD: Yeah. Dakar was going to be the intermediate base that they’re going to ship to and then they’re going to help feed the region.
QUESTION: In Dakar? Dakar?
MR. GILMOUR: In Senegal.
QUESTION: Senegal. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.
MR. GILMOUR: Okay. Thank you.
QUESTION: On the —
MODERATOR: We’ll come back to Washington in just a moment.
MR. GILMOUR: Oh, okay. Sorry.
MODERATOR: We see you; we’ll come back.
QUESTION: On the U.S.-African Summit, I don’t know what mechanism has been put in place to monitor the implementation of the commitment that has been made by the leaders.
MR. GILMOUR: Well, that’s part of the idea this week with the discussions. That’s been a main focus with – in – the Assistant Secretary’s discussions with leaders this week are the follow-up exactly to that, how do we move forward on implementing these. And some of the initiatives, like the security governance initiative that I mentioned and the peacekeeping initiative – those are with particular countries. And so certainly, there are specific follow-up on those. But I think that’s been a topic of discussion with all the leaders this week, is how do we continue to move forward on those. And certainly, it’s a process that will continue with our embassies in each of the countries around the continent as well.
Heading back to Washington?
MODERATOR: We can go back to Washington.
QUESTION: Yeah. Same one, Philip Crowther with France 24 again. Just wanted to make sure on the question that I asked earlier what your answer was. I couldn’t hear it, whether it was an “I don’t know” or a “No comment” on whether you know whether African fighters or jihadists have made their way over to Iraq and Syria. And after that, I’d just ask one more question if I may.
MR. GILMOUR: Okay. Yeah, no, I don’t have any information on that. And perhaps we can get you something on that, but I don’t have any knowledge of that.
QUESTION: And then just finally on the coalition that the President asked yesterday at the Security Council that he wants the world to join him in this diplomatic and potentially wider-ranging military coalition against ISIL, have you – what kind of outreach have you done to African countries? Who is on board? And what might they potentially do? Are we looking at staging areas more than anything, the likes of – I don’t know – I think you use Djibouti, Eritrea, and Niger at this point in terms of airfields. Do you know what is being done in Africa for this diplomatic and military coalition against ISIL?
MR. GILMOUR: No, I don’t have any information on that as of yet. Okay.
STAFF: Please go ahead.
MR. GILMOUR: Okay.
QUESTION: Yeah. There was an appointment, I think, yesterday of the Ebola coordinator Ambassador Powell. I don’t know – is she going to be on a shuttle around – I’m sorry, West Africa, or she will be stationed in Washington?
MR. GILMOUR: In Washington – she’s just come on board. She’s just started the job. And I’m not aware yet of any travel – I don’t know if you are, Rodney, but – so as far as I’m aware for now, her job is going to be in Washington coordinating. That’s not to say that she may not travel later, but I’m not aware of any travel being planned at this point.
MR. FORD: Oh, I think she’s here in New York too. She’s had —
MR. GILMOUR: And she is here today in New York, yes.
MR. FORD: — (inaudible) a couple of Ebola meetings here today.
QUESTION: Oh, okay, yeah (inaudible) Ebola today, high-level meeting today.
QUESTION: Would you please share with us some of the outcomes on the private sector side of the African Leaders Summit that was held in Washington?
MR. GILMOUR: Well, there’s tremendous interest, as you might know. We had this business forum, and there were 200 CEOs from major American companies and major African companies as well, and that the leaders had a chance to spend a full day interacting with them. So there was tremendous interest on the part both of African leaders and African business as well as American CEOs. And I think Americans see great opportunity for investment in Africa, just as companies in Brazil and India and China and many markets are looking at Africa as an investment opportunity.
So as I mentioned, there were some $33 billion worth of potential investments announced that came out of that deal. So yeah, as I say, there’s just tremendous interest, and I think we’ll certainly be seeing more of that.
There’s been some very successful joint ventures between American companies and South African – or – and African partners, I should say, and I think we’ll see more of that. There’s – particularly in the resource sector, in transportation, and in lots of different sectors. So there’s certainly great potential.
QUESTION: I know you mentioned China.
MR. GILMOUR: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: I would like to ask you about – how do you perceive the presence of China in Africa?
MR. GILMOUR: Oh, people ask us about that all the time, of course, and we certainly see China’s role as a positive one. China has much to contribute, and China’s made many investments, particularly in terms of infrastructure, that have been sorely needed for Africa. Africa needs all kinds of infrastructure everywhere, and so it’s great that the Chinese are playing an important role there. And our only comment is that – to African governments is that when they work with any foreign partner, they should ensure that the investments that they make, the partnerships they make, are a good deal for their country, and that they look out for the interests of the African countries in those, but – yes, but by and large, a very positive role.
QUESTION: Back to the Nigerian – forthcoming Nigerian general election is next year, that’s 2015. Is there any support the United States is making towards assisting Nigeria in the conduct of the election, and maybe other issues that have been coming up, like the issue of the (inaudible)? The situation has been very hard, and all – what support the U.S. is doing towards that?
MR. GILMOUR: Well, we have ongoing programs in support of democratic institutions. That’s certainly our priority everywhere, is just – and this is – President Obama has defined that that’s our top priority for Africa is the strengthening of democratic institutions.
And so we’re always ready to help bring in American experts to advise on democratic processes and things like the rule of law. So this is an ongoing effort of ours that we’re always doing. And we can get you some more details on what’s being done in particular in Nigeria. But yeah, certainly it’s something that we’re interested in supporting.
QUESTION: I’m curious to know if there is still an institutional memory at the State Department of a man that I much admired in the ’80s, Chester Crocker.
MR. GILMOUR: He’s still in Washington, yeah.
QUESTION: Meaning the work that he did in those days is still relevant as a backup for the – how do you deal – because he’s a very strong person in those – he was, he used to be in those days. And today, he’s still active there. And how – what is the – how would you compare the American foreign policy in Africa these days and –
MR. GILMOUR: Well, I think in – at that time, we were certainly focused on ending conflicts in Africa, and there were great conflicts going on in Southern Africa, and particularly in Portuguese-speaking countries in Southern Africa. And we’re very pleased that now – and I think we’ve just come on the 20th anniversary of some of those peace agreements, so that’s a very positive thing, that we can look back at these last 20 years and see Southern Africa in particular being at peace this whole time.
And I think the efforts are not that different. We’re focused on different areas of the continent now trying to resolve conflicts. But I think the prosperity and growth and success we’ve seen in Southern Africa is directly attributable to having – to our predecessors having solved those conflicts in the ’80s, and certainly the end of the Cold War played a major role in that as well, and the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa.
Now, we have different challenges today, but this – it’s the same idea. In order – Africa has such tremendous potential, and I’ve worked in and out of Africa for about 28 years my whole career, and in no time have I – in my career have I seen a greater sense of optimism and positive energy. And so these are really exciting, positive days, times to be working in Africa. And so I think all of us see the tremendous potential of so many countries, and then Africa has this fantastic youth population that’s growing so fast, and there’s so much talent and energy in Africa’s young people.
So in order to have Africa realize its potential through all those things, we have to have peace, and so solving these conflicts, particularly in West Africa and Northern Nigeria and that region and in East Africa, the conflict in Somalia and the extremism there – it’s really important to settle those so that these countries can realize their potential, in the same way that we’ve seen South Africa and Mozambique and Angola and the others that have been at peace for the last 20 years and how well they’ve done, so –
QUESTION: Thank you very much.
MS. STAVROPOULOS: Thank you, and if there are no other questions from Washington, we want to thank you very much for participating –
MR. GILMOUR: My pleasure.
MS. STAVROPOULOS: — today, everyone in the room that was in Washington and those watching via the web live. Today’s briefing was on the record and the transcript will be posted at fpc.state.gov later today or tomorrow. We invite you to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, so thank you very much.
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