 Thank you, Ambassador Carson, for joining us today in this Ask the Experts conversation about the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit, and I want to start by congratulating you on your appointment as the special presidential representative for the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit implementation. Thank you. I am pleased to be with you this morning. One of the major sort of commitments from the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit is to advance peace and security. Why is peace in Africa so important? Peace is essential to development. Peace is essential to progress. Peace is essential to prosperity. When there is no peace, there generally is uncertainty, chaos, potentially bloodshed, and instability. Peace is absolutely essential for people to be able to improve their lives, to build their businesses, to send their kids to school, to be able to know that there is a hospital, that there are services that the government can render. Peace is absolutely essential. The absence of peace undermines growth in an economy. It misuses resources, diverts them from things that can in fact be used to strengthen and develop a country, to move it forward. But when there is instability, when there is conflict, when there is war, things slow down and resources are diverted, lives can be damaged, property and other things destroyed. Peace and conflict destroy hope. All over town there have been lots of meetings and conversations and high level conferences and workshops all around the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit. Could you give me some of the highlights from the summit and some of the accomplishments you feel that were achieved? I think the summit has been a great success for the Biden administration and I think it's been a great success for those African states that have come to Washington and have participated. A number of things have been done over the past three days, which will help to reaffirm and reinvigorate the engagement that the United States has with Africa and African leaders. I think that the first thing to note is that yesterday in Washington the President of the United States signed a vision statement on the partnership between the United States and Africa and he did that with the current chairman of the African Union, President Mackie Saul of Senegal and with the chairman of the African Union Commissioner, Musafaki. This vision statement sets out in very clear terms the kind of partnership that Africa and the United States want with one another. It sets out a desire to collaborate and cooperate on the global challenges that we all face. It sets out a desire for inclusive economic growth, for the strengthening of democratic partnerships of respect for human rights, the expansion of trade, cooperation with Africa on things that are important to Africa with Africans. The vision statement also underscores some of the things that have gone on over the last several days. One or two are essentially quite important. In the political realm the administration has said that it is going to formally request that the African Union be included as a permanent member of the G20. This would be an enormous step forward. The administration is also reaffirmed that it is going to seek UN Security Council reform that would include Africans sitting in the Security Council as permanent members, not rotating members. These are quite significant steps on the political stage. But it's also an elaboration of the things that the United States is going to do in working with Africa in support of its African free trade agreement, which in fact creates one of the largest free trade areas in Africa and in the world. These are all very important political steps. There are other things that the administration is doing on the second day of the conference. There was a time set aside for US and African businessmen to make deals that will be beneficial to the United States companies and to African. It was announced that some $15.5 billion in new trade and investment deals were done between the United States and in Africa. These are going to move forward. The administration has also announced that the Millennium Challenge Corporation has for the first time signed a regional MC Compact with Niger and Benin to strengthen the transportation network between the port of Kootenoo and Benin all the way up to the capital of Niger, NMA. This is an important port, road and land link that will help to facilitate trade inward and the export of goods mostly agricultural out. These are important. There also were announcements that MCC would be providing new grants to Mauritania, to Niger, to Senegal and Gambia. But a range of things have been completed and I think all of these things helped to reaffirm US commitment to working with Africa as a partner. I know you had a chance also to meet individually with several African leaders and have discussions, public discussions and off the record discussions. How would you sum up some of the messages from African leaders to the United States? What are some of their messages? You're right. We were privileged here in the building here at the United States Institute of Peace to meet with at least a good half a dozen or more presidents and foreign ministers and outside have also had an opportunity to meet with a number of presidents and foreign ministers. I think that African leaders want to see the US engaged as a partner in Africa. They want to see the US as a political partner, an economic partner, a commercial partner and an investment partner. They want to realize and understand that we are committed to Africa as Africa looks to try to find partners to work with them on the challenges that they face. They're looking for partnership. They're looking for collaboration. They're looking for investment. They're looking for trade and they're looking for ways that we can work together to help them address some of the challenges that they face. The challenge of climate change, the challenge of global health pandemics, the challenge of food insecurity and the challenges they face within security and the desire that they have to have more peaceful societies, more inclusive societies, societies that are growing, prosperous societies that are stable and moving forward. This is a long list of complex interrelated issues that these partnerships will hopefully help face these challenges that Africans face, that really the whole world is facing. This is enormously important for the United States as well as Africa. Many people I think still don't realize the significance of what Africa represents. Africa today is the youngest and the fastest growing continent in the world. Today Africans represent some 18% of the global population. In less than 30 years from now, in 2015, 25% of the global population will be African. One out of every four people on the globe will be African. By the turn of the century, the number of Africans will be even higher percentage of the global population. I like to think of one country in particular, one important country, one country that we are constantly talking about, and that's Nigeria, Africa's largest country in terms of population, Africa's largest democracy, Africa's largest economy and Africa's largest oil producer. Today Nigeria represents the seventh largest country in the world. In 30 years time, by 2050, the Nigerian population will exceed that of the United States and Nigeria will be the third largest country in the world behind India and China. It will be Nigeria. We will slip back, Nigeria will move forward. The reason for this is very simple. The median age in Nigeria's population today is only about 17 years. They have a huge growth spurt ahead of them in the next decade. While we see global trends where population growth is slowing down in Asia, slowing down in parts of Latin America, slowing down especially in Europe, and even starting the slow in the United States, we see Africa being more important. They're a huge potential trade market. They're a huge set of players in the international organizations, in the United Nations arena, in New York, in Geneva, and other places. So it's an important thing to remember. The continent is moving forward. It's growing. We need partners. We need both political partners, but we need strong economic partners, but we need partners who are at peace and inclusive and who believe and share our values and goals of democracy and inclusion. I know Nigeria has some really crucial upcoming elections and partnering with them to hopefully make sure. February of next year. February 2023. And we'll all be watching to hopefully make sure that those go well. And I also just want to build off of what you just said about this young population and the next generation. So as we look to the future, and we look to this renewed partnerships, these renewed commitments by the United States to Africa, we have to think about some of the past commitments the United States has made to Africa, to African leaders, to the African people. How do you see these commitments any differently? There's no doubt that this summit builds on previous American commitments to Africa. And there have been many, both from Democratic and Republican administrations. We've seen in Republican administration, the Bush administration, the creation of PEPFAR, which helped to battle HIV and AIDS across Africa. We saw the creation of the Millennium Challenge Fund under the Bush administration. It all rested on top of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which came during the Clinton administration. And we saw during the Obama administration a real explosion of commitments to Africa. We saw the creation of YALI, the Young African Leaders Program, feed the future, which was designed to bring about a green revolution in Africa and to address some of the food and security issues. We saw the creation of POWER Africa, which was designed to help bring renewable electricity supplies to the continent. This summit builds on top of America's previous commitments, but it takes it to a different level. And those levels include, I think, three or four things, one of which I've already mentioned. One is that for the first time, we see a joint vision statement between the United States, Africa and the African Union, signed by the President of the United States, signed by the current Chairperson of the EU, and signed by the Permanent Commission Chairman, Mackie Saul. That's new. The second thing is that the U.S. has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding in support of the African Free Trade area, and that memorandum has been signed with the Commission, again showing that the United States is committed to working with Africa to expand its free trade. Thirdly, Vice President Harris on the opening day of the summit at the African Art Museum announced the President's creation of a U.S. Advisory Council in the United States on the diaspora. This will be a council that will provide advice and suggestions and recommendations to the administration on how to deepen the engagement between the United States and Africa. And we have a large diaspora in the United States of both newer, first and second generation Africans who have contributed as older immigrants have to the strengthening of American society, and we have people like myself who can't hardly identify where I came from in Africa. It does constitute some 45 million Americans of color. This council will have people who will help drive the thinking and engagement on what we should be doing on Africa. It's advisory, but it's an important step forward. The administration is also looking to deepen its commitments with the Young African Leaders Program. These are all things that are there. And then finally, the administration has said they are going to appoint people like myself to advise on pushing implementation of these programs out there. The administration is also likely, if it has not already done so, said that it's going to appoint someone else to help push some of the economic agenda for it as well. So I think all of these things are powerful. They build on one another. The importance of this summit, as I said, has been to reaffirm strong American interests in partnership and collaboration with Africa, working with Africans to achieve the things that they want, but also that we share in common and want as well. It's also an opportunity for high-level re-engagement. Re-engagement with senior officials, I think virtually every U.S. cabinet member has had some role over the last three days in meeting with their African counterparts, Department of Commerce, Department of Agriculture, Inclusion, USAID, and others working alongside of their African counterparts, talking about issues of common concern. This is all extraordinarily important, that re-engagement. And it leads to that third thing, and that's the acceleration and re-energizing the relationship for common cause, common purpose, and shared values. It's really, really, really exciting to hear all of the sort of new endeavors, building on the old endeavors, and we're so privileged to have you here with us to take us through all of these accomplishments and achievements that have been this week in the U.S. Africa Leader Summit, and we really, really wish you all the best of luck in your new role. So thank you very much, Ambassador Carson. Thank you.