We still cant hear you. I wonder if we should try having you sign in again or have you call in rather than just a video link and we could hear you by dialing in. I will let my staff interact with you directly and in the meantime we will begin with some questions. My apologies, Mister Morrison, we will get this worked out. Let me look for any of our witnesses that can be heard. The current pandemic began in china. If possible the next pandemic may begin somewhere else. If the pandemic were to begin or begin spreading in africa what level of confidence do you have in our ability to identify that it is taking place, what transparency would we find, given there was not much transparency out of china in some critical early days and weeks, how would you assess the threat of a pandemic coming from the african continent . Can i start . Sure. Im confident that should such a pandemic start in africa we would have tremendous cooperation. I look back on the situation with ebola in west africa where we were on the verge of a pandemic with 3 countries being affected and concerned that it could impact the entire globe but because of strong efforts by those governments as well as cooperation by the International Community and leadership by the United States we were able to bring that under control and more people lost their lives than should have in this crisis fewer lost their lives then could have had there not been an effort, a partnership with the International Community. A couple things came out of it that were important. One is the african cdc that was already in development became much stronger and we have seen the africa cdc be responsive in the current effort and african countries have been responsive. I happened to be in liberia in early march and when i arrived in liberia march 3rd my temperature was taken at the airport, handwashing stations were in front of every single public building that i visited and that was long before the crisis was declared a pandemic. We can be confident in africa despite their limited infrastructure, budgetary challenges, capacity challenges they would be supportive to stem a pandemic that might start on a continent. Of this pandemic is expected to make the response to other Health Imperatives much more difficult. What will the pandemic due to the malaria response or the hiv response. Is africa likely to lose more people from malaria because the healthcare response to malaria . Anyone . I will start, we did see some backsliding in terms of healthcare across the continent because of the requirements for covid19 but we also saw that in the United States as well. I do think people were not going to hospitals when they had malaria or resolve treating themselves for malaria when they had a fever, might have gone to the hospital for covid19. Many were unable to get their antiviral drugs for hiv because of covid19. I believe there was a negative impact we saw across the continent and it is something we have to be watchful of in the future. We are still working on Mister Morrison. We may have a work around, Mister Morrison was able to keep his video on, we may be able to get audio from the cell phone. Mister himes. Thank you, mister chairman and all of our witnesses this afternoon. One question, not sure who to directed to but something a couple of you have touched on which is likely scenarios with respect to sovereign debt in various african countries, if you look at the literature a year ago before worried about a sovereign debt crisis a year ago precovid19 and currency availability and other things that have gone dramatically south. My question, a lot of debt is owed to the private sector, not necessarily multilateral or other countries, my question is what should we look out for in terms of the intersection of debt that is not likely to be serviceable and therefore the country needs restructuring with the turmoil, what is the intersection of that intensity with likelihood that political instability could generate more extremist violence . What should we keep an eye on that anyone wants to speculate, what do we do with a lot of that in the private sector in china, try to alleviate the challenge. I will try to answer the question. I think the debt problem is severe and serious and deserves attention from the us. It is hard because if they are able to pause or have some relief they can direct that money towards stress relievers for the outcomes you are talking about, getting food at a lower price, subsidizing it and addressing some of the social welfare programming they need to do now. One of the challenges on commercial debt is the africans are pressing for debt but dont want it to affect their credit. There is a real conundrum here even if we got the commercial sector, the private sector to release the debt, africans are concerned their Sovereign Rating would go down. It will take a number of creative collaborations between the us and the private sector to try to find a way around this so that their death is relieved or suspended without affecting their Credit Rating which we as a government were encouraged for a long time to build on. I am less worried how the debt will affect insecurity as the downstream effects on it. With costcutting they do on other issues like food prices and food prices are a corollary to unrest whether we are talking about 79 race right in liberia or spiking bread prices in sudan that led to public unrest, thank you. Thank you for that. Do any witnesses want to answer the question with particular hotspots with political instability to keep an eye on . I would take a stab, finished with sudan i would keep a close eye on sudan where they were already squeezed with a fiscal space for new Transitional Government to deliver any kind of relief to the population, the odious regime that was there in this crisis and the Overall Economic environment only makes it worse. It is incredibly fragile transition, and its civilians cant demonstrate a connect and improve quality of life for people it does give military actors in that kind of not so happy arranged marriage of Transitional Government the upper hand, something i would be very concerned about. I would add ethiopia, on the precipice of reform with a reform minded government. Use saw the reforms taking place, on the verge of an election and that election was delayed and michelle mentioned in her remarks with delay of the election, the uncertainty of what is coming next that ethiopia is a country also, to keep a close and watchful eye on. Thank you very much. We have a workaround with Mister Morrison speaking go over his phone. You may need to use the grid to see him as webex may not pick up his audio. Mister morrison. Can you hear me . Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your prior help on combating misinformation campaigns against vaccines and the support youve given to the commission on strengthening the Health Security. These issues around misinformation and front and center in this crisis at home, africa and elsewhere, a huge problem to face. I will skip ahead in the interests of time and cover key recommendations we have developed here. First, i am not here allowing for specific provisions, the next emergency pandemic measure moved by congress addressed International Concerns at issue here today. There is a white paper that was assembled, with interaction that called for 12 billion commitments to meet the needs and Health Response needs for operational costs in africa and other low Income Countries. These are urgent needs that have grown since the original commitment. There is a stark need to begin early, to bring forward us commitments to cover a significant share of the cost of production and distribution of a vaccine in africa, advocates of called upon the us to make early forward commitments upwards of 15 billion. The estimated costs in aggregate, global distribution, 65 billion and we need to make action early on. The us should take up trying to forge an International Agreement that 5 of the first doses be reserved for healthcare workers, frontline workers, migrant populations, it is fragile across all countries in the world. Experts estimate that would require 250350 million doses. Dont lose sight of the ongoing need for commitments, bilateral and multilateral in tuberculosis, malaria, polio, reproductive health, family planning, immunization, bipartisan congressional support has been essential for the past 2 decades and it remains essential. The pandemic has disrupted these programs globally, 80 million children have gone nonimmunized and seen a resurgence of measles, yellow fever and vaccine derived polio. To expedite the delivery of the 1. 6 billion in emergency assistance. There needs to be concerted action to lift export restrictions on protective equipment, test and ventilators. We need greater action in the g7 and the g 20 for expansion of debt relief and absent from the most promising initiatives, bringing together the eu industry, who, world bank, major foundations around bringing equity and access for vaccine therapies, diagnostics, the most promising effort we should be joining. It makes no sense to defund who and terminate us bishop, that will damage who, scientific partnerships and us standing in the world and play into the hands of the chinese was i appeal to congress to preserve us relationship with the who and urged the administration to put it support behind an independent review of the responses and was recently approved by the world health assembly. My fifth recommendation has to do with intelligence. Who weve seen has no power for independent greatly limited ability to know when a country is cheating, concealing an outbreak. To hold that country to account more serious consideration needs to be given to the United States and likeminded countries including the chinese. What new forms of systematic sharing intelligence can support the who . African states reason their vulnerability to bad choices made last year and earlier this year by china. Many african states will welcome the effort to strengthen who grabbed but what is happening around the world. We need to take the long view. Now is a choice moment to restore the director for bio defense for the National Security council and create a strong authoritative mechanism that establishes health diplomacy, leadership at the state department and unity of purpose around Health Security bringing great benefits to africa. Thank you very much. Let me see if i can hear you without the phone, see if that is working. I cant tell if that is the phone or not. We can hear you loud and clear in your testimony, thank you very much. Thank you, i want to thank our panelists. The pandemic has posed a threat to Security Assistance effort such as Un Peacekeeping and counterterrorism. They have been using this pandemic as an opportunity to seek advantage, what your thoughts were about what would to do about it and whether we can maintain these advantages accrued during the pandemic going forward. I open that up to any panelists. The intersection between the pandemic and ongoing security efforts in the region especially in fighting counterterrorism. There is an intersection between extremism and covid19. I mentioned in my testimony, many of the extremist groups, in the basin, part of their trajectory to do these things but we cant discount many Security Forces are on double duty addressing lockdown measures and doing counterterrorism and International Partners doing as much as they can but they stalled rotation for peacekeeping missions and xena phobic attacks on peacekeepers in key areas and in south sudan and the Central African republic. What i didnt mention in my testimony is how extremist groups are using it as propaganda talking about how measures of the Nigerian Government are against muslims and if you join boca her rom you will be free from coronavirus or doing well among the population, just this week, they open the clinic, a tactic they used in the 201415 to gain goodwill. There are a number of measures we could be doing alongside african partners to address this. Weve seen, employing religious leaders to counter these narratives. There may be some purposeful opportunities to use Contact Tracing and other methods to deal with counterterrorism. It is a challenge but to stem their growth during the period governments are doing a number of other things. Other question, how have other nations, colonial powers, turkey, india, using the pandemic to influence the region and how effective has that been . Many see the opportunity, they dont have an opportunity, they i would put them in the near colonial relationships and they see an opportunity to push their agenda, opportunity to criticize us and see what is happening and how we are responding and using that narrative to encourage closer relationships, we are seeing russians moving even before corona to Central African republic providing security there, turks are making a lot of effort in somalia and increasing those efforts and a lot of these things they are watching but more than watching, they require a proactive response from us and others in the International Community and that response is not there for the moment. Do you want to add . I completely agree. We see a number of these actors with donations of ppe and medical supplies, seizing the moment to present themselves as critical alternatives and one of the things i see is playing this transactional gain is a loser for the United States. We created a scenario the world has watched us bidding against ourselves for access to equipment, not participating about ensuring access to vaccines and that creates a situation where it is everyone for himself, whos got something on offer today, very ad hoc transactional way of building relationships and its not in our interests because it doesnt play to the uss strength. It is important to ask, but what it reveals is the leadership gap that others have spoken to. Thank you. Mister quigley. Thank you for participating. A deeper dive, you touched on this but we have a country where i would say a majority are skeptical of foreign aid. If you cant appeal to their hearts how do we appeal to the american peoples mind, when Upton Sinclair wrote the jungle he said i appeal to the heart and hit a little lower. How would you say this to a skeptical townhall white is in the american peoples interest to deal with capabilities of addressing the virus in these areas of africa . Thank you for that question. The way i used to answer that question, before the changes in our own environment was Americans Care and because we care we are out there supporting people, we care as we look at policies toward africa but still feel strongly Americans Care. When you look at the proactive activity, missionary groups in africa and the work they are doing and what ngos and other International Humanitarian organizations are doing they are making a difference in winning hearts and minds and for that reason we stay in the game but also no longer in a world where we are isolated and if you see a virus happen in china or anyplace else in the world you know because of the connectedness of the world that you are going to see that happen in the United States and the only way to deal with it is to be out there in front of it to ensure that the us is protected and if we are not out in front of it by providing Financial Support to International Aid programs to our diplomacy, we will not be able to curtail this into the United States. I saw you nodding your head. Your thoughts . I couldnt agree more. Nothing like Infectious Disease to explain to a skeptic why you cant write off big swaths of the globe as not mattering to you or imagine that it can never affect you but i also think a lot of americans may maybe havent cracked their minds around the fact that in 2034, one in every four people on the global be african. There is a huge demographic shift underway and the downside risk, if you dont pay attention, a risk of Infectious Disease, instability that metastasizes into organizations that have global reach and threaten our interests but there is an upside as well, these are new markets, no way to address major global challenges like Climate Change without african partners, there is no way to do it so i think the reset in imagining africa is incredibly remote but also reminding people theres a lot to be gained from it peaceful and prosperous set of african partners. Thank you. I killed back. Mister sewell. I was hoping ambassador thomas greenfield could address whether covid19 has slowed down initiatives as it looks to africa. Absolutely it has slowed it down but hasnt stopped it but has certainly slowed down because china is dealing with its own crisis internally and domestically and lots of questions inside china, expending recourses on the initiative when they have problems at home and the initiative is moving forward much slower and having impact when you look at the infrastructure that is on the continent of africa, in kenya and ethiopia with djibouti, the chinese clearly see that it is making a difference. I dont see them stopping that, as rapidly as they intended to deliver, the look at what we might do to support africa on rebuilding from scratch their infrastructure. As we look at chinas efforts to exports ig do we have leverage to go back to our african country allies, talk about the risks of so much information to the chinese. Africans are concerned about giving information to the chinese, this does provide an opportunity to help africans have the technical capacity to deal with issues of 5g and threaten relationships with china but we cant just approach by pointing our fingers at the africans, we have to approach it in a more strategic way, with giving them the data, they need to respond so they can respond in a way that benefits them in our national interests. Can anyone speak to the african countrys ability to distribute a vaccine and what role we can play once the vaccine is found and mass produced, how to enable that . I would like to take a cut at that. There is a lot of action underway right now to try to win consensus across governments, international bodies, industry, around the norms of distribution so low Income Countries have affordability and transparency, the most Significant Initiative in that area has been led by the eu, the who, the bill and Melinda Gates foundation, that grew out of the g7 initiative, had successful pledging action that raised 7. 5 billion to get field trials for the major vaccine candidates completed and campaigning on making sure those Vaccine Developers which are in human field trials that there is consensus around dedicating certain portions to low Income Countries. Theres been progress in getting agreement with the astrazeneca, proposing 2 billion of its vaccine and having those apportioned around the world and sitting sites distributed around the country so it is quite amazing to me the level of open sharing dialogue what happened in the last 2 or 3 months. The United States has been largely absent from that, china made symbolic appearances here or there but the drivers of this, the who, the European Union and major industry folks, the door is open for participation by others but the norms have changed, data protocols, and planning ahead, it will take 65 billion to distribute vaccine to reach heard immunity around the world, doses of the 7. 8 billion people in the world, we need to get through 5. 6, 5. 7 billion. It is an extraordinary and unprecedented enterprise that will require a lot more care to finance and organize. Mister castro. Thank you ambassadors, and Mister Morrison, for your testimony today. I know we are talking different nations but around the world there have been some nations that have handled the response better than others. South korea was pretty good, singapore, ours was lackluster but not the worst. Where would you put those nations, Subsaharan Africa, not just one, but the region in terms of their effectiveness and the prognosis for recovery. I am happy to say a few words on that but it is important to know we had low numbers until recently the numbers are galloping forward, why have such low numbers for such a long period of time. The population is dispersed geographically in many parts of the continent but one of the most important things was in midmarch, they took the step of putting in strict lockdowns early in the point of progression of the pandemic into africa so they took steps not unlike what happened in singapore, hong kong and south korea that acted very aggressively and early in order to go into lockdown and bend the curve from that point forward. Africa took that step for reasons we heard. The lockdowns when you had a large poor population depending on the informal economy, south africa has shown exemplary action but had problems with access reliance on police and military, they were not very transparent on projections and shifted their strategy from a nationwide strategy to one that is focused on the hotspots in cape town and elsewhere. Thats what we will see in many countries where lockdowns are not sustainable. They have to move into morning focused hotspot strategy and we are seeing that unfold in south africa and we will see that. Second question, i want to ask about George Floyds murder, how that is everyone has been on lockdown, in terms of your perception based on your expertise, what has it done to the image of the United States, what does the region think about systemic racism and mass protests in the United States largely by the africanamerican community, what goes on . A couple pieces, their thoughts on George Floyds murder, at the leadership level some extraordinarily strong statements, talking about the president of ghana, the academic journalists you have 3 responses, heartbroken by what happened and disappointed about the us losing a valuebased approach towards governance. The second response that any statements the us has made prior in the future about human rights are hypocritical and one of the most interesting developments is an internal look at can african governments talk about human rights abuses when there is also them in their own country. We had a variety of responses. We seem protests across the continent from ghana to senegal and we are seeing pointed comments even in multilateral forums, sponsoring antiracism resolution in geneva in the coming weeks. This puts us as i said in my testimony in a poor place relative to china. Earlier on when the us and others are making statements about racist treatment of africans limited our ability to talk about that, because it points to our own racial divide. It is a tough moment. I hope you will occur this, talk truthfully and honestly about the wounds in our own society and that is a better approach from the chinese which is the 9099, incredible ambassadors speak from the heart what that murder means to them and things we need to do to heal our society. Can i say a few words . The chairmans discretion since our time is up. I wanted to say it is not exclusive to africa but in many opinion circles theres a sense of shock when they watch what is happening in america, we have 12,000 dead, 42 million unemployed, weve not succeeded in getting control over this pandemic, 20,000 new cases, that is shocking and add on to that a social practice rooted in racism and Police Brutality with turmoil and strife, 60 million under curfew at the peak which creates an image of crisis building upon one another in which people of color, people of poverty have been the most disadvantaged and impacted by the economic crisis, the pandemic in racism and Police Brutality. People look at this and say our society is one that is not operating with much coherence or functionality. Where does this go . Theres fear where this may lead and concern, a lot of solidarity for those suffering most in these crises. Mister heck. My gratitude as well for an excellent presentation today. Doctor morrison, i want to start with you. You said something i found fascinating if i heard it correctly, that african countries deeply regret their transactions, my word, not yours, deeply regret was your phrase with china, many months and a few years of listening to reports with chinas relationship, never heard it expressed that strongly, after can countries beginning to wonder, question, would like to revisit but you said deeply regret and i would be interested in having you give a little color to that and be more specific to help us understand that characterization. What those requests is if i heard you correctly. My point is africanamerican leaders resent, what i mean by that is you had a period, and unknown period of 6 or 7 weeks at the end of 2019 in which this virus existed and was spreading rapidly in wuhan and the surrounding province and for political reasons that news was repressed and was only disclosed to the world december 30 first after much critical time had collapsed that spread wildly. It delay sharing of specimens, delayed the scientific expertise. Those in neighboring asian states and elsewhere, and the country as powerful as china, where they originate for reasons we get into. With insider visibility and ability to weigh in and they are the weakest capacity to deal with this are on the precipice of major catastrophe with week defenses. There is no accountability and transparency with these dangerous pathogens for those that choose to repress that knowledge at that critical moment when it is essential to intervene with maximum aggression to repress and contain that. Perhaps i misunderstood you. You said deeply regret, not reasons and i thought it was a reference to the other arrangements that have been made over the past few years that ramped up involvement, is that not what you were suggesting . I meant to say reasons but there is regret and misgivings that other experts deal with that have to do with terms of the compact struck in africa and those terms with respect to the quality of what is delivered, the debt load that comes with it, relinquishing of sovereign control over Natural Resource borders and critical decisions on infrastructure. I have limited time. Are you suggesting this awareness over unfavorable terms and conditions or those arrangements is growing both in breadth and depth in africa, the relationships and transactions with china . It has been growing for some time, congressman and this pandemic aggravates that, further magnifies. I yield back, mister chairman. Thank you. Lets go to mister welch. It has been a tremendous panel. One of the dilemmas, very compelling straightforward recommendations how the us can be a constructive voice but it offers an interest in the government to play a role, a constructive force. Gavin mentioned the transactional game was a loser. We have an administration that is all about that and essentially a view the government doesnt work, diplomacy doesnt work. I take your advice as wise and we do our level best to accomplish that in policy but i am interested in your reaction in the world we have now with the government as it is, given what we know is the limitation at the administration level, so fundamental in the execution of foreignpolicy, maybe we can start with ambassador springfield . Interestingly from all of this, interactions and diplomacy, diplomacy goes a long way bridging those relationships that mean persontoperson contact and that has been missing in africa, having very few highlevel visits to the continent as i look at the chinese president going to africana yearly basis and despite all of the issues we were discussing in the previous question the chinese are constantly working to engage and we need that engagement to show respect to African Leaders by giving them here and having discussions with them and giving them opportunities to share with us what they see as their priority needs and to hear from us how to eclipse them and as a former diplomat, not sure you can become a former diplomat but as a former diplomat i would start with diplomacy. May i jump in . I will be brief. One thing you can do is what you are doing which is talking about, what happens on the hill gets covered in africa. The power of your voice as a member of the u. S. Congress is not insignificant. This time in our country demonstrating there are parts of our country still interested in transparency and accountability that will speak honestly about we have done wrong in our own response overseas, try to get to the heart of the matter and be steadfast in the support for our democratic values, support for human rights acknowledging flaws in our own society but keeping our true north as we tried to improve here and abroad, those are incredibly important because people do understand america is complex. There is no other way to make sense of policy in recent years. I think there is tremendous foreignpolicy value and power in congress being really assertive. There is a big element of offering reassurance of the nucleus, but completely lost its mind. Absolutely right. I cant tell you how much it makes us all grieve to hear you and others say how you hear from african colleagues they view the United States as a nation in decline. They see our behavior, our withdrawal, they go to multination donor conferences and we are not even present, to see how our standing has declined so precipitously. Very precipitously. Your thoughts and recommendations, turning that around, let me go to mister maloney. Thank you for the great panel and appreciate the discussion very much. Most questions on primary subjects have been answered but we are sitting here on a day the Supreme Court has issued a historic ruling for those of us in the Lgbt Community. I am curious if you can say a word on lgbt equality in Subsaharan Africa and what is the state of those who travel internationally, they are struck by the fact that there is literally nothing in the way of structural support, nonprofit, anything, Lgbt Community use maybe you could say a word on that today. If i may start, there is a lot of progress to be made but it is not being ignored overseas. When i served as assistant secretary it was always in our discussions with African Leaders. I remember president obamas trip to africa in 2016 he raised it with the government of kenya, the context of discussions at the eu, people on the continent particularly the Lgbt Community have supported in the United States. I am bored in the National Endowment of democracy, organizations looking at lgbt rights on the continent of africa, we encouraged and worked closely with civil society, so resistant to change and understanding rights across the board but we have made more progress that needs to be made but we have to give our folks on the ground a pat on the back for pushing against a strong push back moving the rock forward so i want to congratulate them but i stress a lot more needs to be done. Others . Let me say there have been some areas of genuine progress, in the high court case, nga was formed to protect the rights of lgbt, denied the capacity to register as a normal organization because of legal restrictions on sexuality and working its way through the courts when i was serving there. In conversation after conversation it was clear things were trending in the right direction, tremendous the conservative society in a lot of ways. It is an outlier in some ways but this can happen, gives me faith that progress is possible. The United States continues to play a role pushing on this diplomatically but giving our diplomats on the ground the space to know when to be prominent and when not to be. Had we approached it a certain way, we didnt hide from the issue. I talk about the fourth of july stretch but if we approach a certain way it would have slowed progress rather than set it up. Having faith in our diplomats on the ground to give space for a society to have a conversation it needs to have and get to the right places important too. May i add one point . I think you also wanted to as well. Shall i go ahead . We have had a wave of regressive action in africa against the rights of lgbt q in recent years putting stress upon us programs particularly in hivaids where access to the population is critical to success and weve had some very valiant efforts by our folks on the ground managing those programs and theyve shown some results but the struggle continues. As michelle indicated we have to go about trying to maneuverable we are instituting a 4 billion a year program that does give us some leverage in how we go about spending that money and if we see a strong deterioration of rights it contributes to real ignition of the hiv epidemic and related diseases so these things are inextricably tied to one another. If i could just add mozambique and angola have done a tremendous job moving antihomophobic laws from their books but when i think about this issue in addition to everything my colleagues have said it is a leading indicator of a country looking towards moving toward an authoritarian government and countries that have antihomophobic laws that tends to be a sign they are trying to distract, find an issue they think is populist and entrance their rule and when laws dont exist they dont have a phony legacy that is another sign, we saw that in chad. A number of things come together on this issue, vulnerability of populations but also what it tells you about its vulnerability and fragility and how it uses a wedge issue to regain control. I think that was our last member but murphy had to leave but i want to thank all of our witnesses for an extraordinary day of testimony, appreciate your years of service to the country and the insights you shared with us today which we will act on. So thank you very much, appreciate it and this will conclude our virtual hearing and with that, we are adjourned. What do you think we can do with that . With police reform, protests and the coronavirus continuing to affect the country, unfiltered government response with briefings from congress, governors and mayors from across the country updating the situation in the campaign 2020 trail, join the conversation on our live call in Program Washington journal. If you missed our live coverage watch anytime on demand, cspan. Org or listen to the free cspan radio apps. Live friday on the cspan networks the House Oversight and government reform he considers wayso