Browsing: Agoa

• US$55 billion to be invested in Africa over the next three years along with several new partnerships and initiatives.
• The U.S.-Africa Business Forum was held and attended by 300 executives from American and African companies.
• For African youth development, the US announced more than $100 million in funding for the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI).

This year’s U.S. Africa Leaders Summit (13-15 Dec) in Washington has been defined not by the African guest’s colourful dress code, but by the billions that were pledged in aid, grants and support.

To the welcome of the flamboyant African leaders and businessmen, US officials and corporate chiefs announced US$55 billion to be invested in Africa over the next three years along with several new partnerships and initiatives.

The sum is significant, but going with President Joe Biden’s statement, this is just the beginning. “There’s so much more we can do together and that we …

Ahead of the US-Africa Summit in December, the Russia-Africa Summit next year and as new geopolitical alliances form, Africa is under great pressure to take sides.

China is increasingly becoming a strong economic powerhouse while Russia is making its own stand. The West finds itself reliving history, scrambling for portions of Africa.

This summer was most fulfilling for me, not because the Earth’s revolution had finally brought the sun to shine on my part of the World, I live in Tanzania, East Africa, its spring and summer all year around.

• Africa is under increasing pressure to take sides in new global alliances
• Africa wants an economic proposal in the upcoming US-Africa Summit
• 2022 witnessed the highest number of diplomats & presidents visiting Africa

No, it was not the weather, the reason my summer was most memorable is that my daughter came to visit from the US. We had excellent family …

Richard Neal, a US Representative who chairs the trade and tax-focused House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, held out hope that the US-Kenya talks could develop into a full trade deal.

“This initiative will lay the groundwork for a comprehensive free trade agreement that includes market access, builds off AGOA, and complements both regional and continental integration,” he said in a statement.

Neal said the United States should “embrace” Kenya’s willingness to deepen its economic ties with the United States.

Meanwhile, Meg Whitman has been confirmed by the US Senate as the new US Ambassador to Kenya. She will take over for Kyle McCarter, who left in January 2021.…

Agriculture value chain analysis, also commonly referred to as mapping the agriculture value chain, is the assessment of the value chain participants and factors influencing the performance of the agricultural commodity industry and evaluating the relationships between these participants to identify the main constraints.

The purpose of agricultural value chain analysis (AVCA) is to increase the efficiency, productivity and competitiveness of an agricultural sub-sector or industry and develop solutions for how the identified constraints can be overcome.

AVCA assists in developing an understanding of how value chain actors/participants deal with powers and who governs or influences the chain.…

Worth noting here is that Africa, including Ethiopia and most of its East African neighbours, are squirming in shipments of second-hand clothing, interestingly, imported from Europe, North America and other western countries.

What better defines neo-colonialism than Africa producing clothes to be exported to Europe and North America only for these very clothes to be sold back to Africa after they have been used! This sounds worse than the renowned exploitative colonial and post-colonial trade agreements (that still hold true and strong) where Africa, using cheap labour, produces raw material, which is cheaply exported to Europe, processed, packaged and sold back to Africa!

Several East African countries have attempted to honour up and ban the import of second-hand clothes. As you can imagine, the attempt failed.…

Africa is home to at least 47 foreign military outposts, with the US controlling the largest number. Djibouti is the only country in the world to host both American and Chinese outposts.

A recent survey by Afrobarometer across 34 countries indicated that 63 per cent of the population see China’s influence in Africa as positive, whilst 60 per cent made similar comments about the US. Are there benefits to be extracted from this searing rivalry?

Africa’s Agenda 2063 on the ‘Africa we want’ set by the African Union, advocates under its first aspiration, a ‘Prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development’ and ‘A Strong, United, Resilient and Influential Global Player and Partner’ under aspiration 7.…

As of 2017, the trade initiative had created over 300,000 jobs in sub-Saharan Africa, many of which were in the apparel sector.
We recently carried out a Kenya country case study on the implementation of AGOA in the 2000 to 2016 period. We found that in this period, Kenya’s total exports to the US grew by US$443.2 million (or 405 per cent) from US$109.4 million to US$552.6 million. By 2020, the figure had risen to US$569 million, with most of the country’s exports coming from eligible products.
Looked at differently, in the nine years before the trade programme (1992 to 2000), Kenya’s average annual exports to the US were US$101 million. In the nine years after (2002 to 2010), average annual exports to the US rose to US$305 million. They rose further on average to US$557 million in the 2012 to 2020 period.…

Economically, Ethiopia is on the receiving end after the US government declared that the East African nation had violated the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) due to the alleged human rights violations in Tigray. This means that Ethiopia will not have duty-free access to US markets if it does not comply by January. If the AGOA privileges are removed, it would lead to an “existential threat” for Ethiopia’s manufacturing sector.
The non-compliance could have come from the publication of the joint Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and OHCHR report on November 3.
Ethnic violence, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, property looting, destruction of infrastructure and religious sites and violations of international humanitarian law and other human rights violations are some of the issues highlighted in the report.…

At the same time, KEPSA said the initiative will provide a unique platform to facilitate U.S. and Kenyan SME partnerships.

It will also help in supporting women and youth to run Kenyan entrepreneurs as well as U.S. women, minority, and diaspora owned businesses, and help SMEs in both countries address the current challenges many faces to access the two markets.

The agreement was signed by CCA President & CEO Florizelle Liser and KEPSA CEO Carole Kariuki and witnessed by President Uhuru Kenyatta in New York, U.S.A.…

With these kinds of benefits, the AGOA has to be improved to align with the demands of the AfCFTA. In February 2020, the US and Kenya signed the first of a kind trade agreement between the United States and a Sub-Saharan African (SSA) country.

The FTA represents the most significant innovation in US-African trade relations since the enactment of AGOA and if successfully concluded, the FTA would undoubtedly signify an important shift in US trade policy in the region.

With the reality that competition for business in Africa is heating up, the FTA is a crucial issue which the Biden administration and Congress must grapple with especially now that the AfCFTA has been operationalised. On the other hand, Africa must be wary of any external forces that would disintegrate the AfCFTA in the guise of doing business with individual countries.…