The focus of the 2010 African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Civil Society Forum, which convenes in Washington July 29, is to make the U.S.-Africa trade relationship beneficial to both Africans and Americans. The theme of this year's civil society forum is "A Decade of Progress in Bridging the U.S.-Africa Trade Gap”.
In 10 years, exports from Africa’s AGOA eligible countries have grown over 300 percent, from $21 billion in 2000 to $86 billions.
Entrepreneurship Summit and AGOA Foster Networking
The forum in Washington follows the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship held on 26 and April 27 in Kansas City (Missouri). The Forum on Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), aim to offer business participants and entrepreneurs an opportunity to network productively.
The summit fulfills President Obama’s pledge, in his Cairo speech in June 2009, to hold such a conference. And the summit will provide a forum where entrepreneurs can exchange ideas on building their businesses.
The goal is to help entrepreneurs build networks of contacts so that they can work together, because the multiplication of commercial contacts contributes to economic growth in Africa. The annual forum is held alternately in the United States and Africa, with last year’s conference in Nairobi.
An interface between Africa and the USA
The idea of the entrepreneurship summit is to bring entrepreneurs together with fellow entrepreneurs in the United States to network and find ways to expand their businesses. The summit will host 250 delegates from some 60 different countries. Twenty-three African entrepreneurs — including 11 women — will attend from 10 African countries.
In the United States, venture capital firms actively seek businesses in which to invest. In other parts of the world it can be hard to find funding and investment capital. This summit will provide an opportunity for entrepreneurs to share ideas about finding funding, starting a business, soliciting potential investors and dealing with government regulations.
For example, a country like the Comoros can benefit from the AGOA market. The economic benefits will be multiple for the archipelago: products such as vanilla and ylang ylang, which are very popular, will be sold on the U.S. market.
A training space for entrepreneurs
For Gregory Simpkins, spokesman for the coalition of U.S. civil society on trade and investment in Africa it is obvious that if Africans need to do more in terms of reform and making their commercial environments more hospitable to help expand U.S.-Africa trade, but there are also things the United States can do.
"We need to do more training for producer groups on U.S. sanitary and phytosanitary regulations" and work with governments across Africa, he said, to help facilitate and enhance trade progress under AGOA.
Simpkins stressed that both the executive and legislative branches of government - in the United States and Africa - play an important role in helping to create conditions for enhanced trade. And, he said, there needs to be greater cooperation among government, business and civil society on both sides of the Atlantic.
