Africa.com CEO and Executive Editor, Teresa Clarke, brings you the highlights of what President Obama and the First Family got up to in Tanzania during the last leg of their three-country Africa tour.
This is the third in our three part series report on President Obama’s historic trip to Africa. After leaving Senegal and South Africa he has traveled to Tanzania.
President Obama has had three primary agendas. The first has been to pay homage to those Americans in Tanzania who were victims of terrorism here at the U.S. Embassy years ago.
The second agenda that he has had here has been to announce the Power Africa initiative. Power Africa is a public private partnership that the U.S. government is investing in along with private sector investors from both the U.S. and Africa. Electricity is clearly a key element to further development and without electricity Africa cannot achieve its full potential.
Thirdly Tanzania has seen the First Ladyies Summit which First Lady Michelle Obama has participated in along with former First Lady Laura Bush. The First Ladies of several African countries have gathered here in Tanzania in order to focus on important health and development issues. The theme for this conference has been Freedom From.
- Freedom from ignorance in order to focus on education.
- Freedom from sickness in order to focus on health. And quite interestingly beyond those development areas these first ladies have also looked at having Freedom from tyranny.
- They’re looking to play a part in their husbands governance to make sure that these countries are governed democratically.