The Obama administration is pressing African leaders to tackle corruption and give greater recognition to the rights of women as the first U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit opens in Washington.
"No democracy can survive without the active, intense participation of its people," Vice President Joe Biden said in remarks Monday to the summit's civil society forum.
"This is more easily said than done," Biden said, underscoring that in many Africa countries there is "still an effort to monopolize power" and muzzle civil society with "harassment, intimidation, arrest, even violence."