Biden’s Africa Trip: What Are the Payoffs?
In his first and only visit to Sub-Saharan Africa as president, President Biden will visit Luanda, Angola in early December. He is scheduled to meet with Angolan President João Lourenço to discuss collaboration on a number of issues, including economic cooperation. Among the Biden administration’s leading initiatives in Angola is the Lobito Corridor, a collection of rail and infrastructure projects.
What place do Angola and Africa hold in the administration’s foreign policy priorities? What are the gains from investment projects like Lobito? What should the next president prioritize as it relates to U.S. foreign and economic policy towards Africa?
To discuss these questions and more, the Quincy Institute held a webinar featuring Ziyanda Stuurman, senior analyst for southern Africa at the Eurasia Group, Elizabeth Shackelford, senior policy director at Dartmouth’s Dickey Center for International Understanding, and Dan Ford, junior research fellow at the Quincy Institute. Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, senior advisor for the Quincy Institute and editorial director at Responsible Statecraft, moderated the conversation.
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Panelists
Ziyanda Stuurman
Ziyanda Stuurman is senior analyst for southern Africa at the Eurasia Group, where she analyzes political and economic developments with a focus on South Africa, Mozambique and Angola. She tracks policy trends in the region, focusing on macroeconomics, security, trade and energy. Ziyanda has been a policy researcher in the South African Parliament, and she has worked as an advisor on policymaking with a development economics think tank based at the University of Cape Town. Ziyanda holds a BA in political science from Stellenbosch University, an MA in security studies from Sussex University, and an MA in international development from Brandeis University.
Dan Ford
Dan M. Ford is a junior research fellow in the Global South Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Previously, Dan worked as a Research and Communications Assistant at the Global Interagency Security Forum (GISF), an organization focused on supporting the safety and security of humanitarian and development professionals across the world. Prior to that, Dan spent time working and interning in a variety of different organizations, focused mostly on international development, human rights, and conflict prevention and resolution. Dan speaks English, French, and Albanian.
Elizabeth Shackelford
Lizzy Shackelford is the senior policy director at Dartmouth’s Dickey Center for International Understanding and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Previously, she was a senior fellow on US foreign policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She served as a career diplomat in the U.S. State Department until December 2017, with postings in Warsaw, Poland; South Sudan; Somalia; and Washington, D.C. Her outstanding work in South Sudan during the civil war earned her the prestigious Barbara Watson Award for Consular Excellence.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is a senior advisor for the Quincy Institute and editorial director at Responsible Statecraft. Previously she served as Executive Editor at The American Conservative magazine, where she has been a contributing editor since 2007. She also spent 15 years as an online political reporter in the Washington bureau of Fox News.