Wendy Sherman, Deputy of Secretary of State. Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket
- Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is set to start her four-nation tour in South Africa.
- She will also go to Angola, Gabon and France.
- With African countries, she will discuss issues around regional peace, maritime security and climate change.
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will start her four-nation tour in South Africa on Tuesday and will then go to, Angola, Gabon and France.
In South Africa, she will travel to Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Pretoria. She is expected to meet International Relations and Cooperation Deputy Minister Alvin Botes and other senior government officials.
In a statement, her office said Sherman and South African officials would “discuss furthering US-South African co-operation on a range of issues, including global and regional peace and security, trade and investment, sustainable infrastructure, health security, and the climate crisis”.
In Angola, she will meet President João Lourenço and Foreign Minister Tete Antonio. She will become the highest-ranking US government official to meet Lourenço before Angola goes to the polls later in August.
With the Angolans, she will discuss a similar agenda to her South African diary but added to it was maritime security in the Atlantic.
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“We will discuss our shared interests, including regional security and defence co-operation, economic prosperity, good governance, support for Angola’s Covid-19 vaccination effort, and co-operation on shared maritime law enforcement as well as economic, and climate-related challenges in the Atlantic Basin,” Sherman said.
Early in April, Angola’s minister of state and head of military affairs in the Office to the President, Francisco Furtado, met US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, and from that meeting the two agreed on making Angola the pan-African peacekeeping leader.
This would be done through the modernisation process of the Angolan Armed Forces.
Sherman will round up her African safari in Gabon where she will meet President Ali Bongo Ondimba, Foreign Minister Michael Moussa-Adamo, and Minister of Defence Félicité Ongouori Ngoubili.
They will “engage on our shared priorities including promoting environmental protection, addressing the climate crisis, and furthering security co-operation”.
The last leg of her tour will be in France where she will meet officials from Italy, Germany, France, and the UK to discuss “close co-ordination” to respond to the war in Ukraine.