Recently President Obama hosted the “United States Africa Leaders Summit” at the White House. As part of the summit, President Obama published an opinion piece in which he outlines his vision for how the United States can further support African development. In spite of all the struggles that Africa continues to face, President Obama argues that the way the West thinks about Africa needs to change. “We need to change the way we think about the continent, put aside old stereotypes and respond to Africans’ desire for a partnership of equals where Africans take the lead in their own development.”

To that end, President Obama proposes three areas of progress in Africa that the United States should strive toward. First he says the United States must work to expand trade, bringing more “Made in America” goods to Africa. Furthermore, the President urges, the United States and Africa must work together to strengthen democratic institutions; “the foundation of free societies and economic progress.” He suggests that the summit was an opportunity to “affirm the importance of upholding the rule of law, protecting universal human rights and combating the corruption that stifles economic development and undermines democratic progress.” Finally, President Obama writes that security partnerships between the United States and Africa must be strengthened so that common threats can be countered.

These three areas fall under the umbrella term “development assistance,” or “foreign aid,” which besides the areas listed above includes direct intergovernmental financial aid and foreign investment. To foster justice and solidarity among nations, the Church has long advocated an obligation toward development assistance. “Rich nations have a grave moral responsibility toward those which are unable to ensure the means of their development by themselves or have been prevented from doing so by tragic historical events,” the Catechism says. However, this does not necessarily mean that rich nations should simply throw money and resources at developing nations. On the heels of expressing the above obligation, the Catechism further explains: “Direct aid…does not suffice to repair the grave damage resulting from destitution or to provide a lasting solution to a country’s needs.” Beyond direct financial assistance, reform of economic, financial, and political institutions is needed.

However, the most important reform needed does not take place at such an overarching level. The most important reform is far more ordinary. “An increased sense of God and increased self-awareness are fundamental to any full development of human society.” While President Obama is right to be optimistic about the “promise of Africa,” and is well-intentioned in his three areas of progress, he is missing the fundamental reason why one should be optimistic about the future for Africa; the fundamental reason why development matters. In the 1987 Encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, then Pope John Paul II warns against such a naive view of development as endless, inevitable, or purely economic. “Development is not a straightforward process, as it were automatic and in itself limitless, as though, given certain conditions, the human race were able to progress rapidly towards an undefined perfection of some kind.” Instead, he foreshadows what the Catechism would later say about the full development of human society. “in trying to achieve true development we must never lose sight of that dimension which is in the specific nature of man, who has been created by God in his image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26). It is a bodily and a spiritual nature, symbolized in the second creation account by the two elements: the earth, from which God forms man’s body, and the breath of life which he breathes into man’s nostrils (cf. Gen 2:7).” The reform of the specific nature of man toward God is the most important reform needed for Africa’s future development.

Economic progress, and democratization, as good as they may be in and of themselves, cannot compare with the fact that Africa is populated by people. People created in the image of God; People with eternal souls. That is why development matters, because it betters the lives of people. That is why one can have hope for Africa, because people, moved by the spirit of God, can do amazing things to counter the evil in this world.