U.s. Official Aid To Africa In The Early Twenty-first Century Analysis

The aid to Africa is an important means for U.S. to achieve its foreign policy and global strategy, Successive U.S. governments have attached great importance to the aid to Africa. The initial period after the Cold War, the fight between U.S. and the USSR in all the world came to an end, Africa's status relatively declined in U.S. global strategy, so the focus of U.S. policy towards Africa transferred from the political to economic, from aid to trade and investment, and implemented the "democratization " to fill the vacuum left by the Soviet Union. Overall this period the scale of assistance to Africa was not so large. in 21st century, both the Clinton administration and the Obama administration have attached great importance to the aid to Africa, U.S. official aid to Africa has changed a lot in many aspects. First, the amount of aid to Africa has greatly increased, only in the Bush administration, U.S. aid to Africa has increased by 3 times, based on this ,after Obama came to power, he continued to increase aid to Africa substantially. Second, the projects of aid to Africa were much more livelihood, besides the traditional economic and military assistance, two governments have given strong support to assistant on the agriculture, environmental protection and health. Secondly, there were more conditions for recipient countries, emphasizing the expansion of democracy in Africa.On the basis of discussing on the policy and the fact of U.S. official aid to Africa , I proposed these questions: in the 21stcentury , why does the U.S. policy of official aid to Africa have such a big change ? there are three reasons accounting for this change:Firstly, in the post-"9?11"era, the United States needs a new global strategy against terrorism,.Secondly, the United States needs to maintain energy security by achieving energy import diversification strategy .Thirdly, competition between China and U.S. in Africa intensified in new century .In short, compared to the U.S. aid to Africa in the early post-Cold War policy , in the 21st century , U.S. official assistance to Africa has made significant strategic adjustments, there are three core objectives of adjustment: guarantee U.S. homeland security , maintain energy security and strengthen the U.S. competitive in the dominance of Africa. Through the analysis of The United States'official assistance to Africa in the 21st century ,it helped us understand changes of the United States'aid to Africa and understand U.S. the global strategy.