ACCRA, Ghana – In case you missed it, last week, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke at the Institute of Economic Affairs in Ghana on a recent congressional delegation to West Africa about the economic and political partnerships between Africa and the United States.

“We don’t yet know what the Trump Administration’s initiatives will be for Africa, but we do know, and I’m here to reassure you, that on a bipartisan basis, we in Congress will continue to sustain these tremendous initiatives that have been launched and built up by Presidents both Republican and Democrat,” said Senator Coons.

“We have shared goals to strengthen our democracies, to grow our economies, to have countries that are less corrupt, more efficient, more capable of delivering on the promises that we all care about together,” said Senator Coons.

Full audio and video available here.

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Senator Coons' remarks, as delivered, are below:

Thank you for welcoming us all to your wonderful country. Let me not delay any further, I want to introduce to you Congressman Charlie Dent and his wonderful wife Pamela, would you please stand for one moment please. The rest of our delegation is in Cape Coast with Ambassador Jackson because of departing Congress, it was the hope and expectation that not only would they have some wonderful visits with traditional leaders and see some important historical sites, but that we would also be meeting with the President and ministers in Cape Coast today. He has changed his schedule and we will be meeting here not long after this address. Much of our delegation was so excited to see historical sites and meet with traditional leaders that they kept that part of the agenda, but Congressman Dent and I have been having a very full, very rich, and very important series of meetings here today, not least of which was beginning the day with Bridge. I have seen very few joint churches that are Anglican and Presbyterian and Methodist in my life. As a Presbyterian, I’ll tell you I think it is a good model, it’s something we might consider following.

Congressman Dent is a very senior and very influential member of the House of Representatives. He’s an appropriator, he has chaired the House Ethics Committee. He is from a district very close to mine, he represents Hershey’s, among many other interests that have close connections to Ghana. One of the things I treasure about traveling with Congressman and Mrs. Dent is that I happen to be a Democrat, he happens to be a Republican. Nonetheless, we are good friends. I trust him, I like him, he is engaging and positive. And President Kufuor, you honor us with your presence, but one of the things I noted in the time we had to visit beforehand, even those who at one point may have been on opposite sides of party, or of ideology, or of a trajectory of history, there’s something about the journey, there’s something about being with those with whom you’ve served, with whom you’ve explored and known the world, and with whom you’ve faced challenges, and Charlie, I’m so grateful that we get to travel together again this year.

It was just before our Presidential election that my wife and I joined Congressman Dent and his wife and traveled throughout Eastern Europe to a number of countries facing uncertainty about what our Presidential election would produce and whether the United States would keep its commitments to NATO and to our Eastern European allies. We had a number of very difficult conversations, and I’m grateful to have you with me again to have conversation across four countries around the continent. The rest of our delegation includes two other Senators, from Michigan and from Colorado, and members of the House of Representatives, from Delaware, and Florida, and from California. So we have a robust delegation, and we are very excited to become better informed about what is going on in the African continent, about our relationships, and about our trajectory together. I want to just briefly thank the Majority Leader, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, thank you for being with us today. Tane Okayja, great to meet you. Honorable X and Minister Asante, who shared with us some of your long service, and your wisdom. I’ll tell you briefly if I could, just to echo some of what Charles said about my first experiences in Kenya, I was an arrogant young man, an American college student, and I thought I knew a lot, and within a matter of days, families who whom I had the honor of staying with across Kenya humbly, quietly, helped teach me how little I really knew about a very wide range of things. It was my first attempt at milking a cow, it was very unsuccessful. My first attempt at working the ground with a hand hoe, and two girls, one eight years old and one ten years old, were much more productive than I was. A number of other experiences, but one that stays with my to this day, I was in a Presbyterian Church in East Africa, it began with song, and some reflection, and some prayer, and about an hour into it, there was a spontaneous parade, and we all got up, and we went out, and we walked all the way around the village, to welcome anyone who wasn’t up yet, and anyone who wasn’t at church yet was brought into church for the second and third hour. And as the sermon began, a woman sitting next to me turned to me and said, “Are you a missionary from your country?” And I said, “Me? No, no. You don’t need a missionary from where I’m from, where I’m from needs a missionary from here.” I’d never seen such excitement and passion for service, passion for making a difference, commitment to family, and to connectedness and to tradition.

So, if I might just start by that, I think one of the ways I which Ghana is a model, not just for Africa, but for the world, is in six decades of independence, repeated, multi-party, wide open elections, and peaceful transitions. And one of my own classmates from Amherst College was just reelected to the Presidency of Kenya, and it was an open question about whether or not this election would happen peacefully, and whether it would happen on time, and in continent, in a world, where democracy is under real pressure in so many places, in so many ways, I want to begin by thanking you, for being as a free nation, over six decades, an exemplar to the world of what repeated elections make possible, and that we together can continue this journey of democracy. Neither of our democracies is perfect, neither of them has yet fully lived up to the promise of the institutions of democracy, but we can learn a great deal from each other.

So let me just say, the overarching goals of our delegation, are first, to learn more from you, to ask your input and your advice, and to learn more about he challenges facing West Africa, and in particular, Ghana, and to ask what your good friends and partners, the American people, can do together. And we’ve had a number of meetings just earlier today, to look at some of the challenges, for example, of climate change, to look at some of the challenges of changes happening in our world some of the challenges of drug trafficking, for example, which afflicts both of our countries.

Second, we’re here to understand Africa’s potential and its opportunities. We’re here to listen and to find new ways to work together. One member of our delegation has literally never been to Africa before. One member has been to Ghana, Christy, I believe 11- 12 times, this is her twelfth visit- Congresswoman Barbara Lee. So we have members of our delegation that are new to the continent, and members who know if far better than I. One other thing I have to correct about my introduction, which was overly generous- nothing, nothing has happened in the Congress of the United States with regard to the US- Africa relationship without great partners, without Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate. Perhaps I am just more self-promoting than others, and you have the mistaken impression that I am the most effective; there are many who have done this work along with me. And as I say, we come from all over the country, there are many issues over which we disagree, there are other things that divide us in Washington, as you may have picked up in news reports, but we are, all seven of us, committed to a sustained, deep and constructive relationship between the United States and Africa. Congressman Dent and I recognize that around the world, many are questioning whether or not the United States will sustain its commitments, whether or not we will continue to meet the commitments that we’ve made, and whether we will still be the kind of country and the kind of leader that we have long been. My principle message to you today is to reaffirm our bipartisan commitment in Congress to a sustained and strong relationship between the United States and Ghana, and between the United States and Africa.

To clarify, the Legislative Branch is essential to America’s government; it is co-equal with the presidency. All seven of us were elected before the current President and hope or expect to serve beyond the current President, and we will remain committed to Africa, and encourage you to build and maintain partnerships with the Congress and with our Executive Branch as well. To give you just a few quick examples, our commitments don’t just transcend political parties, they transcend American Presidencies. That’s why successful initiatives designed to bring our countries together have endured. If you think about it, AGOA, HEPFAR, MCC, Power Africa, Feed the Future, YALI… these are just a few examples, but they are examples of continuity.

When we have a new President, a new Presidency, there is not a dramatic shift in American policy towards Africa. If anything, President after President have refined and built upon the connections built by their predecessors. It was President Bill Clinton who signed into law the African Growth and Opportunity Act. It was continued and sustained by Presidents Bush and Obama, but it was my friend and partner, Senator Johnny Isakson, who worked along with me in 2015 to extend it by ten more years, and it was President Obama who signed that extension into law.

Why is this important? Because it gives duty-free, quota-free access to the American market, and particularly for apparel in Ghana, but in many other areas, it has allowed for great growth in the US-Africa relationship. AGOA, non-energy exports from Africa to the United States under AGOA have grown from just under a billion in 2001 to over 4 billion last year, a fourfold increase in exports to the United States. But there is so much more that we can and should do to strengthen our trading relationships. By one study’s account, 300,000 jobs have been created by AGOA’s impact in one country alone. President George W. Bush led the creation of the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. PEPFAR since 2003 has achieved remarkable results in partnership with African leaders and African public health professionals. Today, investments by partners, the resilience of the African people, and the generosity of the United States have saved over 12 million lives, and nearly 2 million babies have now been born HIV free to infected mothers. President Bush also started the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an innovative approach to aid and development, which continues to reduce poverty through economic growth in countries across the continent. Ghana has benefitted from the MCC now twice. On my first visit here in 2011, I specifically went with Senator Isakson to see some of the positive first fruits of that first compact. That $547 million first compact was focused on transportation and agriculture and rural development. And the second, which began in 2014, is focused on electricity, it’s a roughly $500 million compact to improve access to electricity and it’s my hope that you will make significant progress in the steps that have to be taken for the utility sector to be able to take advantage of this significant partnership.

One of the things I most like about the MCC model is that it begins with what an African nation’s own development priorities are. We don’t show up and say, “These are our development priorities, would you like our money?” We show up and say, “What are your development priorities?” And in a long steady process, identify shared priorities and commit to a five year, in this case, nearly $500 million partnership. It’s my hope that political will will exist to make the hard choices in front of us, to make progress together in providing access to power.

President Obama continued this bipartisan legacy with the Power Africa Program, which is the primary focus of this second MCC compact, and many of us worked hard together to pass the statute, the Electrify Africa Act, that made that legally possible. Power Africa has the potential to deliver electricity to 50 million Africans. That makes a difference in terms of children studying at home, or cutting edge hospitals being able to deliver state of the art healthcare, or manufacturing. If you really want to have one manufacturing plant in every district, there has to be electricity to power those innovative new plants.

Feed the Future, another great initiative of President Obama’s, was designed to address the root causes of hunger and increase agricultural production, and as I mentioned, in my first visit, we got to see, we didn’t see, we tasted, the best pineapples I’ve ever had in my life; some remarkable agricultural advances in Ghana, I think we just had some more at lunch today. If we’ve got most of the arable land on Earth on the continent of Africa, and it is one of the highest employment sectors on the continent, and yet Africa is a net food import, then something isn’t right. And it is, to the United States, to transfer technology around hybrid seeds, around storage and production and transportation methods, and to work with you in partnership, to the extent that there are lessons to be learned from our agriculture sector, wonderful. And I think that’s essentially what Feed the Future is about.

Let me close with one other personal favor, the Young African Leaders Initiative. Last night, our ambassador hosted a reception for some of the YALI fellows, particularly some who have just returned from their fellowships this year. It is an annual program started by President Obama that brings 500 promising young Africans from a wide range of ages- young, they’re not 18, some of them are as old as 30- and I’ve gotten to speak and to meet with them at the University of Delaware, from my own state, is one of the host institutions. And a friend of mine, an entrepreneur from Zimbabwe, is starting a program to make it a mutual exchange, where young Americans coming out of college or graduate school come to Africa to learn about business and opportunity here for six months just as 500 young Africans are coming to the United States. And that’s a program I’m determined to work with President Obama, with partners in the Congress, to sustain for the long term, to make sure that it’s vibrant, to make sure that we expose the positive side and the real side of the United States to thousands of young African leaders.

We don’t yet know what the Trump Administration’s initiatives will be for Africa, but we do know, and I’m here to reassure you, that on a bipartisan basis, we in Congress will continue to sustain these tremendous initiatives that have been launched and built up by Presidents both Republican and Democrat.

We recognize that the fifty-four countries of the continent of Africa have unique histories, cultures, challenges and opportunities, and we are prepared to partner on a bilateral basis to help address them, to learn more about them, to make sure that we all have a stronger future together. We know that there are challenges that we face in common. As I mentioned, we visited at Burma Camp, the Naval Center, got to see some of what the United States Navy is doing in partnership with the Ghanaian Navy. There are folks who are brining illness and drugs to the coast lines of Ghana, just as they are doing all over the coast line of the United States. This is a scourge that affects all of our communities and people, and to the extent that we can share technology, and resources, and capability on the fight against drugs, we welcome the chance to do that.

We’re aware that some continue to exploit child labor in the cocoa industry and in fishing offshore, and great work has been done to address this challenge. I will also be visiting a cocoa farm in Côte d'Ivoire and meeting with the First Lady of Côte d'Ivoire. There’s more to be done on this- government efforts have been significant, but more needs to happen to hold perpetrators accountable and to improve our joint fight against trafficking in people.

We recognize also that too often, corruption has been a challenge, in my country, and in your country. You mentioned, just in passing, “local office.” I spent ten years in local office in the United States. Today, I’m the ranking Democrat on the Senate Ethics Committee, but I had a hard first decade in local office because I ran against a very powerful and entrenched local official who was successful in politics because he didn’t play by the rules. He broke some of our laws; he was ultimately investigated and indicted, and I was able to proceed with a cleanup of our police department, and of our local electoral system. But these processes only happen when there is an independent Judiciary and when there’s the courage to move forward with a Special Prosecutor, something I hope there will be the determination and conviction to do here, just as we are working in a bipartisan way to protect the Special Prosecutor currently at work in the United States Capitol on an investigation that is very important in our country. Neither country has a perfect democracy, but by traveling together, we can go farther, and we can go more assuredly.

We also know that there’s tremendous potential all across West Africa, not just as I mentioned before in your example as a multiparty democracy, but because of the things you’ve done in this region, and for the world. As we got to visit your military, both the Navy and the Army headquarters earlier today, we were reminded because of a monument to peacekeepers how much Ghana has contributed to peacekeeping, how much training you provide to other peacekeepers, and the more than ten UN Peacekeeping Missions to which the Ghanaian military have contributed their time, their effort, their skills, and in many cases, even their lives. Your leadership in ECOWAS, in the African Union, in the IAEA, is a reminder that Ghana has contributed to building peace, not just in this region, but literally, in the world. And there’s more that we can and should do together. We’ve had a number of visits to see, on a small level, how specific interventions can make a lasting difference, but I just wanted to point to these ways in which your contributions internationally have had a global and lasting impact. From agriculture to manufacturing, from technology to fashion design to film, we want to build partnerships between American businesses and West African innovators and entrepreneurs that build our nations. We’re determined to continue investing in programs like YALI that will train the next generation of leaders, whether to be journalists or entrepreneurs, faith leaders or civic leaders, we want to make sure that together, we create healthier and more prosperous world.

When I was first here in 2011 with my wife, we visited what was then Ridge Hospital. Earlier, we had a chance to visit Acrow Regional Hospital, and to see what a remarkable change there has already been in what is now a world class hospital for this entire region. So, we have shared goals. We have shared goals to strengthen our democracies, to grow our economies, to have countries that are less corrupt, more efficient, more capable of delivering on the promises that we all care about together. We have a great deal of work to do. I’ll remind you that when President Obama became the first sitting President to address the African Union in 2015, he told the gathered heads of state that the most urgent task facing Africa today, and for decades ahead, is to create opportunity for this next generation. I host an annual conference in my little state of Delaware whose title is “Opportunity Africa.” That is intentional, because every year, I have the opportunity to bring ambassadors, heads of state, business leaders, entrepreneurs, figures who are real leaders in Africa to help my constituents understand that Africa is not a continent of famine and disaster. Africa is a continent of immense potential. The twenty-first century will be an African century. If the United States can play its role in supporting and strengthening the democracies, economies, and futures of the people of Africa, it would be a great blessing for my people and my country. Thank you for the chance to be with you and I look forward to your questions.

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