U.S. Africa Command plays a supporting role to U.S. and international development efforts in Africa and must take its cue from the U.S. Agency for International Development "to do what we can to help where we are asked," said Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates, U.S. AFRICOM's civilian deputy, during a visit to Brussels, March 12-13, 2009.

"We don't make up the activities we do," she explained to a group of representatives from nongovernmental organizations based in Brussels. "We listen to the policy makers and they turn to the U.S. military and ask where we can help."

This was a key message the U.S. AFRICOM deputy to the commander for civil-military activities took to Brussels. She led a small delegation from the command's headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, to meet with Belgian Ministry of Defense officials, Ministry of Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, other U.S. government agencies, and defense attaches from African countries to share information about command activities and discuss possibilities for future cooperation.

The idea of U.S. Africa Command, Yates explained, is to have an operation "thinking 24/7 about Africa...to have a command unified in its commitment to Africa."

She characterized previous U.S. military activities in Africa as "episodic." Africa Command, now nearly six months old, allows the U.S. Department of Defense to consolidate all its activities in Africa through one command, versus three previously.

Yates, a former U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Burundi, spent about an hour explaining the command's objectives to the non-governmental organization representatives, which included USAID, the International Rescue Committee, and EurActiv.

When the command was first announced in 2007, "there was a lot of nervousness when AFRICOM came out of the gate," said one NGO representative. "I'm glad to see it's probably not as it was portrayed."

She added that a major fear was militarizing development and aid in Africa.

Yates, the most senior State Department advisor in Africa Command, said the command is not taking over the development role that USAID and non-governmental organizations have in Africa. "The U.S., though USAID, has been developing projects for decades in Africa," she said. "We don't go out ourselves. We work through the U.S. country teams. (The U.S. military) will do what we can to help when we are asked."

She emphasized to the group that U.S. AFRICOM has five senior USAID officers serving as key advisors.

"USAID has put these officers in the command, out of 1,000 worldwide, which is a huge commitment," Yates said.

A USAID official who attended the meeting said his organization has a strong record working with the U.S. military in delivering assistance.

"I'm glad that we have AID people embedded in AFRICOM," said Patterson Brown, a USAID advisor with the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. "Just that fact that we are engaging more and more closely is very positive."

USAID is one of seven U.S. government agencies with representatives on Africa Command's staff. Integrated at the headquarters' offices are senior advisors from the Departments of State, Commerce, Treasury, and Homeland Security; Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance; and Director of National Intelligence. The command is exploring the addition of others, including the Drug Enforcement Agency and Transportation Security Administration.

The inter-agency composition underscores the uniqueness of Africa Command relying on the expertise of other U.S. government agencies to perform its mission, remarked Jerry Lanier, the command's foreign policy advisor, at the 4th annual U.S. government Reconstruction and Stabilization Conference in Arlington, Virginia, February 18, 2009.

"What they (interagency representatives) do is provide the command with the insights into their parent organizations' activities in Africa and inject their own expertise and experience into the command's processes to enable the command to better develop and implement its programs, activities, and missions, and exercises," said Lanier, also a State Department senior foreign service official, in his prepared remarks.

"This results in a combatant command whose activities are more acutely focused and is better situated to support other U.S. government efforts in Africa," he said.

This approach to staffing a military command headquarters is "ground-breaking, and we're continuing to evolve," Yates told the group.

"We are still a listening and learning command," she added. "It's not easy to bring other people in, but it's a wonderful education so we can harness the whole of the U.S. government to work together."