Obama: Africa should not make excuses
By Annika McGinnis
Speaking to 500 young Africans finishing a six-week Washington leadership fellowship, Obama said while it was important for developed countries to consider providing some targeted debt relief, it was time to end the notion that all of African nations' problems resulted from "onerous debt imposed by the West."
"At some point, we have to stop looking somewhere else for solutions, and you have to start looking for solutions internally," Obama told the enthusiastic audience.
"And as powerful as history is, and you need to know that history, at some point, you have to look to the future and say, 'OK, we didn't get a good deal then, but let's make sure that we're not making excuses for not going forward.'"
Obama's remarks amounted to a rejection of comments last month from Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who said Western "neo-colonial" domination of Africa has impeded the continent's development. Nguema blasted what he said were too-low exchange rates, problems with natural resources' pricing and Western-imposed "barriers to international trade" at a summit of the 54-nation African Union.
"There are a lot of countries that are generating a lot of income, have a lot of natural resources, but aren't putting that money back into villages to educate children. There are a lot of countries where the leaders have a lot of resources, but the money is not going back to provide health clinics for young mothers," he said.