Inside Biden-Harris White House and Africa: Another coup attempt in West Africa, how should the United States respond?

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Here are our top stories today.?When United States President?Joseph R. Biden Jr.?was sworn into office last year, he made a bold pledge that he will defend democracy against autocracy and we saw some bold moves in Ethiopia and Sudan, although little success was achieved there.

In Africa, and particularly in West Africa, there have been several coups or attempted coups in the past months alone in Mali, in Guinea and in Burkina Faso.

On Tuesday, President?Umaro Mokhtar Sissoco Embaló?of Guinea Bissau survived the latest coup attempt in West Africa, just a week after a military takeover in Burkina Faso led to the arrest and detention of President?Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.

It’s the ninth coup or attempted coup in the small West African nation of 1.6 million people since independence from Portugal in 1974, and only one democratically elected president has completed a full term in office, media reports noted.

Sissoco, 49, was presiding over an extraordinary cabinet meeting in the capital Bissau when heavy gunfire began to ring out nearby, and as the confusion and chaos lasted, the president’s whereabouts were unknown for hours raising concerns that an attempted putsch was underway. Local and international media said the coup appeared to have failed.

It is unclear where the next coup or coup attempt will be recorded in Africa. However, civilians have been celebrating whenever a democratically elected head of state has been ousted. This, as we noted in one of our recent newsletters, can be explained by the fact that democracy does not seem to deliver results to the people.

Poverty is increasing, hunger is increasing, corruption is increasing, terrorism is increasing, hopelessness is increasing, activists, human rights fighters and journalists are broke and many media houses that could be holding the leaders accountable via well funded investigations are shutting down, other foreign players are storming the continent and helping to install their allies into power.

The question is what can be done at regional and international levels? What can the United States do? The answers are all over the place and can be found in partnerships with Africans abroad and at home. And that is our top take today.

Simon Ateba, Publisher and White House Correspondent for Today News Africa in Washington.