Washington File

By Jim Fisher-Thompson

February 9, 2006

Washington – People-to-people dialogue and exchanges, known as public diplomacy, will be a major focus for two new U.S. envoys heading to West Africa, senators learned February 8.

Jacobs, who has served more than 25 years as a U.S. diplomat specializing in consular affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she is "a firm believer in active public diplomacy and, if confirmed, will work with my country team [heads of embassy sections] on communication strategies that effectively explain U.S. policies and programs."

Senator Mel Martinez (Republican of Florida), who presided at the confirmation hearing, is a former Cuban refugee who prides himself on being the first bilingual attorney in central Florida. Noting his long-time interest in public diplomacy as applied to Latin America, he told Jacobs, "I commend you for your interest in that [effort] and hope you have success."

Jacobs said: "I have devoted my personal and professional life to serving the United States in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere around the world. If confirmed, it would be a great privilege to represent our country in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. Both countries are friends of the United States."

Jackson, who previously served at the U.S. Embassy in Kenya and in the Africa bureau of the State Department, told the Senate panel, "Burkina Faso is on a path to multiparty democracy and to improving its human rights record." If confirmed, she said, she "will strongly advocate for funding for political party capacity building" and for voter education, "primarily in rural areas," and "campaign financing rules."

Like Jacobs, Jackson said she also would focus on public diplomacy efforts in her new posting. "My country team and I also will push public diplomacy and personally engage at all levels" with the public in Burkina Faso, she told the Martinez panel.

Ambassador-designate Jackson, who had a parallel career as an Army reservist, recently retiring with the rank of full colonel, said that with Burkina Faso playing more of a stabilizing role in the region, a U.S. International Military Education and Training (IMET) program has now been established in the country.

She told Senator Russell Feingold (Democrat of Wisconsin) that IMET is appropriate because, as well as standard military training, "it includes human rights training [and] anti-corruption training" for "core military personnel in Burkina Faso, and I believe it is an important link … to human rights progress."

With that in mind, Jackson said, "We need to increase our IMET program in Burkina Faso," pledging that she would work with the Department of Defense "to increase military cooperation and training to help ensure Burkina Faso is a positive contributor to regional security."

Turning to Ambassador-designate Jacobs, Feingold said: "In my opinion, we have a lot to learn from Senegal. I had a very interesting and positive trip there a couple of years ago. This country has been a bastion of stability in an unstable region and holds lessons for the international community for developing assistance programs throughout the continent."

Crediting President Abdoulaye Wade with much of that stability, Jacobs said that for the last five years Wade "has played a constructive role in the international arena and exercised dynamic leadership on the continent."

Asked by Feingold how much time she would devote to Guinea-Bissau, Jacobs said she and her staff in Dakar would travel there on a regular basis and that already one political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Dakar devotes about 80 percent of his time to the country.

Jacobs is the daughter of a former U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officer, and her son, Eric, is also in the U.S. diplomatic service. Her husband, Ken, is an official with the Department of Defense.

Jackson, whose husband, Mark, is also a foreign service officer, said the couple "looks forward to once again serving the United States of America in Africa, where we have already journeyed more than 10,000 miles overland and experienced the rich culture and vast natural beauty of the continent."

For additional information on U.S. policy in the region, see Africa.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)