A geographic conflagration of conflict, militarism, and human suffering is unfolding across the northern stretch of sub-Saharan Africa. Civil wars marked by genocidal tactics have raged in Sudan and Ethiopia, a corridor of coups stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are taking advantage of the dysfunction to expand. Inevitably, hunger is spiking, while the rule of law and fledgling democratic institutions are being subverted, if not eliminated entirely. People across the region are being deprived of their democratic aspirations to determine their own future. As a result, the interests of the United States and its allies are at stake, too.
The common denominator in all these events — the engine driving the opportunistic chaos — is a captured State. Kleptocratic autocracies, often in the garb of military juntas, engage in grand corruption, backed by extreme violence and enabled and facilitated by foreign governments, mining companies, banks, and others profiting from instability. These are “failed States” only insofar as they disregard the normal functions of government. Indeed, they are highly functional and profitable for the armed factions, the corrupt elite, and their business partners, and particularly suitable for transnational organized crime networks looking to launder their proceeds. State-sponsored looting is the raison d’être — the operating system that incentivizes and is protected by violence and repression.
In the short run, the people of captured States face enormous odds in reclaiming their sovereignty through popular, civilian control. Kleptocratic autocrats use violence, coercion, and ill-gotten resources, backed up by tools, tactics, and technologies from their foreign conspirators, to maintain control at home. These regimes are, for the most part, resistant to the kinds of policies that have evolved over the decades to respond to African crises. Episodic policy focus has more often than not led to erratic efforts at conflict resolution, ineffectual peacekeeping operations, sporadic sanctions on individuals, slow-moving international justice mechanisms, capacity building aid with little oversight, and support for elections without the requisite preparations.
Coups, wars, and disasters have displaced so many community leaders and activists who were working in support of democratic aims. Nonetheless, many remain in country and on the ground, often risking their lives, with active support from democracy advocates now in exile. They know what’s best to help restore more democratic, civilian rule in their own countries, but given the complexities of the challenge, they need more determined, strategic, and consistent international support. That is, to challenge State capture, they need support for a strategy of “State retrieval.”
Today’s kleptocratic autocrats seek military support to maintain power and accept enormous bribes to allow access to investment opportunities. Russia, most prominently through the Africa Corps (formerly Wagner Group), has opportunistically provided mercenaries in exchange for access to diamonds and gold. Meanwhile, China has forged major, opaque deals for critical minerals in areas Western firms avoid, contributing to a lack of commercial transparency in the process. The United Arab Emirates is a major hub for illicit conflict gold. Iran pursues uranium, likely for its nuclear program, from regimes such as the one in Niger. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and others contribute to the resource-driven feeding frenzy, as well.
These arrangements are not new for Africa. The United States and Europe have deeply problematic histories on the continent, with roots in the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, Cold War clientelism, and corruption-fueled mineral extraction. France’s historic role in the Sahel is a case in point, with recent years seeing numerous coups against often corrupt rulers in its former client States. Russia has aggressively exploited this dynamic throughout the region.
Sustaining Support for Democracy in Africa
The difference today is that the United States and many European countries have more recently championed democracy, invested in independent media, supported civil society, organized peace negotiations, and buttressed local human rights and anti-corruption efforts. Indeed, support from the United States and Europe aligns with the aspirations of hundreds of millions of Africans who seek more accountable, transparent, and responsive governance. The highly-respected Afrobarometer, which has been tracking views on democratic governance across 39 African countries for the last 25 years, has found that two-thirds (66 percent) of Africans “prefer democracy to any other system of government.” The authoritarian and kleptocratic alternatives from Moscow, Beijing, and their ilk are not responsive to the demands of the local populations.
Investing in the foundations of democracy and good governance remains among the building blocks of a longer-term strategy that could help make a positive difference in Africa, particularly if the West is honest about the role it played in helping to create the current conditions. As of now, however, these positive efforts are far too disconnected and modest to have substantial impact in the face of captured States and their international supporters. These approaches also tend to be combined with aid for State capacity building, investment in infrastructure, and forging of power-sharing deals among armed factions, initiatives that leave kleptocratic autocracies intact and unchallenged while deepening and prolonging the conditions leading to chronic crisis.
The United States, European governments, and other allied countries concerned about Africa’s future should instead focus more resources, more quickly, on enabling local democratic actors to lead State retrieval over the long term.
First and foremost, the U.S. government, along with democratic allies and partners in Europe, Africa, and Asia, should focus on dismantling the networks at the heart of each captured State’s looting machine, just as they do for drug cartels and terrorist groups. This involves the robust use of network sanctions, through which — as the name implies — entire kleptocratic networks are subject to sanctions designations, enforcement actions, and anti-money laundering efforts. The aim would be to work with global and regional banks to shut these networks out of the international financial system, greatly increasing the cost of doing business and imposing some financial accountability on those profiting from human suffering.
At the same time, great efforts should be made to exempt from such sanctions those humanitarian and commercial transactions not controlled by the kleptocrats in affected countries. The kind of total embargo that Nigeria led against post-coup Niger increased suffering and has nothing in common with a focused strategy of financial pressure.
Targeting the highest relevant political-military leaders in kleptocratic regimes, however, can often provide leverage. As Cameron Hudson, who formerly directed African affairs at the National Security Council writes on sanctions, “Rather than threatening their imposition, we should be negotiating their removal — then we will see how quickly the sides are prepared to come to the negotiating table.”
The United States and like-minded governments should also greatly increase and adapt their support of pro-democracy and anti-corruption civil society groups in captured States. For example, in addition to supporting independent media that can expose corruption and human rights groups that document abuse, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED, where one of us, Damon, is president and CEO) is working to help local democratic actors seize the initiative by investing in a strategy of dismantling kleptocratic networks. This means building the capacity in local groups to detect illicit flows, including the capability to access, analyze, and leverage large data sets and open-source intelligence related to kleptocratic supply chains (i.e., those that evade sanctions, circumvent export controls, rely on forced labor and false invoicing in trade, etc.). This work also entails training investigative journalists in the complicated work of tracking financial flows, as well as investing in local groups capable of partnering with international nongovernmental organizations to develop material that directly supports sanctions determinations.
Joining Forces
Supporting local actors is a necessary, but insufficient, step. In settings where capture has been consolidated, it is essential to support key groups within and outside these countries that can work together to challenge transnational kleptocratic networks. Local groups are often overmatched, however, when dealing with their local elites and rulers, who are themselves working in common cause with formidable external powers such as China, Russia, the Gulf States, or increasingly, a combination of these. A new mindset is required for approaches to have any hope of gaining traction. Organizations such as the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCPR) and Transparency International are joining forces to enhance and amplify the work of local investigative journalists to ensure democratic governments and international financial institutions can draw on their work.
Often, local partners can learn from one another. Russian democratic actors that expose and target Kremlin-linked corruption, for example, can share approaches with African partners seeking to do the same, and vice versa. This is why NED is investing in peer learning and adopting a venture capital approach, inviting local partners to test new approaches that many donors might view as too risky. As a private, nonprofit foundation that receives congressional funding but is independently governed, NED is able to take prudent risks, such as providing support to civil society and media in settings where autocratic governments aim to prevent their citizens from accessing assistance and offering its partners the time, resources, and flexibility needed to experiment with innovative approaches. Civil society groups need room to try new strategies outside of traditional boxes, especially as they face growing threats and repression. Just as their oppressors are backed by and learn from other autocrats, local democratic actors need connections to and backing from like-minded partners.
The United States and allies with significant African trade relations should enhance efforts that support legitimate elements of the private sector in captured States, as an antidote to the cabals and monopolies that have hijacked these countries. Such support could include investing in local private-sector efforts aimed at building resilience in the face of climate change. The Center for International Private Enterprise, with the support of NED and affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, partners with independent business associations that have the ability to operate in captured States. These groups are well-positioned to bolster the forces of positive change within society and to help educate publics on the loss of sovereignty that comes with kleptocratic “corrosive capital.” Comparably, independent trade unions can help ensure that supply chains are more resilient against kleptocratic capture.
China, Russia, and the Gulf States consistently do business with systematic secrecy to shield kleptocratic actions from public scrutiny. This secrecy at scale is deeply corrosive, but at the same time provides an opportunity for the United States and its democratic allies to exploit a natural competitive advantage of doing business openly and transparently. While the United States and Europe may be disadvantaged in individual military-run States with Russian security assistance, they are not necessarily disadvantaged regionally. Regional trade initiatives, including the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the African Continental Free Trade Area, EU trade agreements, and preferential trade and investment programs have strong appeal to African partners. The Millennium Challenge Corporation also offers important tools for incentivizing State retrieval.
Widen Participation in Peace Talks
Finally, the United States, other governments, and international organizations need to widen their apertures on who should be involved in African peace processes or negotiations to restore democracy. Too often, negotiations include only the groups with the biggest guns, sidelining numerous political parties and civil society organizations that comprise huge internal constituencies for peace, human rights, and State retrieval. To have a chance at lasting stability, diplomatic efforts must include the communities that truly support peace and reform.
As private institutions such as NED and The Sentry (of which John is the co-founder) adapt and experiment, elements of a long-term, forward-thinking strategy are being conceived and tested by key parts of the U.S. government, including the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. This includes efforts to implement the 2019 Global Fragility to Act to the 2021 administration strategy on countering corruption. To have real impact, these efforts need to be scaled up and made an all-of-government approach, with leadership from the highest levels of the White House and Congress. Such an initiative would have bipartisan support, as there are champions of pieces of this strategy on both sides of the aisle.
Of course, this cannot be just a U.S. effort. It must begin with the local partners who are demanding that their nation’s citizens have a say in their government’s direction. Furthermore, a coalition of African, European, and other like-minded countries should together develop and roll out an evolved strategy, reinforced with resources and broad political will.
The EU could begin by expanding the mandate of the European Endowment for Democracy (which was modeled after but has no affiliation with NED) to include sub-Saharan Africa. The Republic of Korea, Japan, and India, which bring no historical baggage to the continent, should adapt their own overseas development assistance rules (which channel assistance only through governments) to enable them to directly support democratic actors and independent civil society in Africa. A broad coalition could also help foster regional democratic solidarity as a bulwark against State capture. Countries in the region which have changed power democratically and peacefully, including Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal, show there is an alternative path, and they merit support. We need to help these democratic systems succeed and provide a counterpoint to the failures of captured States to deliver for their citizens.
Sudan: An Egregious Case Study
Sadly, Sudan is the most egregious, timely case study, marked by multiple coups, genocidal violence, Gulf support for the warring parties, a resources-for-security deal with the Wagner Group, the biggest starvation crisis in the world, and a history of terrorist ties. Two rival kleptocratic gangs armed to the teeth are destroying the country, including the capital of Khartoum.
Sudanese civil society, such as the Darfur Network for Human Rights, is taking the lead on exposing the scale of human rights violations. NGOs are collaborating globally to document the scale of the catastrophe: more than 10 million displaced, 19,000 killed, and as many as 20 million facing potential starvation. Human Rights Watch is tracking the extensive use of rape as a weapon. Twenty years after the genocide in Darfur commenced, similar tactics are again being used. At the time, there were worldwide protests for action; this time, the absence of such a movement — and concerted global action to go with it — is striking.
The ferocious battle for the control of Sudan dictates who will control the levers of financial enrichment, because the resources of the country have been largely privatized and the State institutions repurposed to profit the networks controlling them. It’s a classic case of State capture. If that system and those that control its various components are not confronted, the incentive structure favoring violence and repression will remain, regardless of short-term outcomes at the negotiating table.
For lasting peace to come to Sudan, a functional Sudanese State must be retrieved. The political and financial monopolies built up by these two warring parties — the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) — need to be radically diminished. As one senior official told us, “The SAF and RSF fear that any civilian check on their kleptocratic authority is a bigger existential threat than their opponent on the battlefield.”
The current level of financial pressure is not nearly enough to affect their calculations. To maximize impact, the United States and its allies should impose rapidly escalating targeted network sanctions and anti-money laundering measures on the officials and companies benefiting from the status quo, as well as on their international facilitators. To that end, U.N. Security Council consideration of sanctions against a couple of RSF leaders is a small step in the right direction.
Local actors are central to this effort. Despite the dire situation today, past investments have left a legacy of democratic gains. Sudanese civic groups, such as the Waey Organization, jumped into action supporting their communities with emergency response, countering the armed groups’ efforts to use humanitarian aid as a means both to coerce local populations and recruit new fighters. Others have stepped forward to play a leading role in documenting war crimes, human rights abuses, the network of foreign support for the kleptocratic armed groups, and their related financial flows.
Sudan is just one example of where parts of Africa could be headed if these hijacked States are not countered at their core. Much has been learned in the last decade about the inadequacy of current approaches to crisis response in Africa, but the clock is ticking. The longer these violent kleptocratic systems are left unaddressed, the deeper their poisonous roots will be planted in Africa’s governing structures, and the tighter the bonds will grow among Africa’s kleptocratic autocracies and their sponsors. Siding with pro-democracy, peace, and anti-corruption movements in Africa and acting against corrupt networks is a dual strategy that the democratic world cannot afford to ignore.