US to help Africa get louder global voice, says Jill Biden

First Lady Jill Biden said the United States was committed to helping African nations get a louder voice at the UN and other international bodies, as she visited Namibia on Thursday.

Biden arrived in the southern African country on Wednesday in the first stop of a two-nation tour aimed at deepening ties with the continent.

"We're committed to making sure that African countries not only have a voice in organisations like the UN Security Council and G20, but that those voices are valued as equal partners," Biden said at a luncheon in Windhoek.

In the capital the 71-year-old community college professor met with President Hage Geingob and First Lady Monica Geingos.

Africa has become a renewed diplomatic battleground, with countries aggressively courted by Russia, China and the West.

Biden's trip is to focus on hunger in the Horn of Africa and the empowerment of women and youth.

On Friday, she will head to Kenya where she is to draw attention to the Horn of Africa's worst drought in decades, which has left more than 20 million people with acute food shortages.

The tour aims to build on the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington late last year where President Joe Biden said his country was "all in" on the hotly courted continent.

This is Biden's first trip to Africa as the first lady of the United States.

© Agence France-Presse