Posted on 08/29/2005 10:31:23 PM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Dakar, Senegal -- The four trade development offices operated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nairobi, Kenya; Gaborone, Botswana; Accra, Ghana; and Dakar are a prime example of the Bush administration’s commitment to expanding trade and economic development across Africa, says Lloyd O. Pierson, USAID’s assistant administrator for Africa.
Pierson made that point while briefing reporters on the importance of the USAID trade hubs at the recent African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum in Dakar. It was at that venue that the fourth hub -- located in Dakar -- was announced.
“We are not talking just exports to the United States,” Pierson told reporters while speaking of the trade hubs, “although that is important. We are also talking about what we can do to do a better job of economic development within the continent -- on a country basis, on a regional basis, and on a continent-wide basis.
“What we will see as a result of all these activities,” he said, “will be jobs, jobs, and jobs,” along with the social responsibility and community activity that responsible businesses “bring with them when they get involved.”
Pierson said that through the hubs, USAID is greatly increasing its number of public-private partnerships -- which now stands at 105 in Africa. “To show the aggressiveness” of this program, he said he had signed seven new public-private partnerships in the preceding three weeks.
As part of these arrangements, he explained, private-sector organizations enter into agreements with USAID to participate in a broad array of health, education, and development programs that promote social responsibility and help the community.
“We want the economic development. We want the jobs. But we also want the social responsibility of what a business or corporation can bring to the community,” Pierson told the reporters. A key part of that, he said, is being a good corporate citizen.
Pierson reminded his audience that in many African countries the unemployment rate is “staggering,” both in rural and urban areas, and so the need for economic development is urgent. “The more we can do to spur economic development -- income, jobs, community activities -- … then the better that community is going to be,” he said. “The best way to help the poor is to make them not poor -- so that is part of the approach that we are doing” through the trade hubs.
Pierson said the public-private agreements run the gamut, including an agreement with the Nike Foundation in Ethiopia, a cashew agreement in Mozambique, and an agreement with a diamond merchant in Angola.
Pierson was joined by representatives from three of the USAID trade hub offices and by USAID’s AGOA adviser.
IMPROVING TRANSPORTATION
Lisa M. Yarmoshuk, who represented the southern Africa trade hub in Gaborone, said that besides doing what Pierson described, her trade hub staff, like those of her colleagues, is concentrating on improving and streamlining transportation and customs issues across its region.
“As we have heard, getting product to market, getting inputs for product development -- there are a lot of inefficiencies” that add needless time and costs to trade. She said her staff, along with the other hubs, is concentrating on opening “transportation corridors” to make the flow of products more efficient within and across borders.
Additionally, she said, the trade hubs also work in a multipronged approach to help eliminate customs and trade barriers on key trade routes -- whether they are inside or outside their region.
PROMOTING COMPETITIVENESS
Scott Allen, USAID’s hub manager and regional trade adviser in Nairobi, said all of the hubs are working to “find the nexus” between key issues like trade policy, capacity building, trade facilitation, and customs issues.
“As we promote competitiveness, not just trade … we also try to mainstream key issues with regard to gender, HIV/AIDS, environmental issues," Allen said. The East African hub, he added, also focuses on public relations and information dissemination.
Pointing to the inefficiencies cited earlier by Yarmoshuk, he said it takes 60 days to ship a large container from Kenya's port of Mombasa to the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
“For those of you familiar with the United States, think of a container on a truck moving from Seattle [in the state of Washington on the West Coast] to Des Moines [in the state of Iowa in the Midwest]. If that took 60 days, there would be a revolution” in the United States, he said. That distance is customarily covered in the United States in two days.
EXPANDING TRADE
Touching on West Africa, Andy Cook, the director of the USAID trade hub in Accra, said his staff is focusing on expanding trade in five commodities: industrially manufactured apparel; handicrafts, with an emphasis on home décor; fish and seafood; shea [a fat used in food, soap and candles]; and cashews.
“In these areas," he said, "we work directly with African entrepreneurs and companies, and in most of these areas we find that facilitating them to attend trade shows in the United States is a very good way to bring them to the attention of U.S. buyers.”
Additionally, he said the hub is also working with regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to help smooth trade across the region and unify sanitary and phytosanitary standards so that goods can be exported to the United States.
Amanda Hilligas, USAID’s African Growth and Opportunity Act adviser, told reporters that while AGOA has been a big success across Africa, future efforts must concentrate on achieving diversity in U.S.-Africa trade.
As part of that effort, she said, “We are launching national strategies in Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho, and Namibia” to help those countries diversify their exports away from a heavy concentration on apparel.
For more information, see U.S. Aid to Africa
Next the US will take the excess workforce off the hands of the African governments as part of the WTO's Mode 4 rule, in the form of illegal immigration.
"Free trade" ping
Wake the American consumer up when Africa produces something worth buying.
Hell...make the empires of yesteryear clean up their own damned messes for once!
Just imagine all of the Bank accounts being opened in places like Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, etc. by the kleptocrats receiving all those dollars siezed from US taxpayers. "Bush - the greatest conservative since Reagan!"
It should scare you that our federal governemnt thinks its their duty to boost the economies of foreign countries using our tax dollars, and eliminating entire industrial sectors here so that the third world can have them.
I'd like to know what we make that poor people have the money to buy.
Introducing African products for sale in the U.S. and in other global markets underscores the essence of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), legislation that provides trade preferences to countries making progress in legal, economic and human rights reforms. In July 2004, President Bush signed into law the AGOA Acceleration Act, which extends duty-free access to the U.S. through 2015 for nearly all products Africans produce and export.
Building on the success of AGOA, the CCA Summit serves as an opportunity to amplify dialogue about the pace of economic growth and development in Africa, just one month before the 2005 AGOA Forum in Dakar, Senegal. The Forum will bring together senior U.S. administration officials, African government ministers and hundreds of U.S. and African business and civil society stakeholders to exchange ideas and information critical to AGOA's continued success.
http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2005/pr050622.html
Here's more, the welfare program that was signed into law when no one was looking....
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was signed into law on May 18, 2000 as Title 1 of The Trade and Development Act of 2000. The Act offers tangible incentives for African countries to continue their efforts to open their economies and build free markets.
***
You see, AGOA is promoting democratic reform in Africa by providing incentives for these nations to extend freedom and opportunity to all of their citizens. Under this law, African nations can obtain greater access to our markets by showing their commitment to economic and political reform, by respecting human rights, tearing down trade barriers, and strengthening property rights and the rule of law, which is precisely what the leaders of these five nations are doing.
As we expand our trade, the United States is committing to expanding our efforts to relieve hunger, reduce debt, fight disease on the African continent. One thing we discussed was the Millennium Challenge Account, and I assured the leaders we will work harder and faster to certify countries for the MCA, so that MCA countries, and the people in the MCA countries, can see the benefit of this really important piece of legislation and funding.
I also announced last week that the United States will provide about $674 million of additional resources to help alleviate humanitarian emergencies in African nations, especially the growing famine in parts of Africa. On Saturday, we also announced an agreement worked out through the Group of Eight Industrialized Nations that will cancel $40 billion in debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest nations, including 14 in Africa. The countries eligible for this relief are those that have put themselves on the path to reform. We believe that by removing a crippling debt burden, we'll help millions of Africans improve their lives and grow their economies.
--G.W.Bush
President Discusses Democracy, AGOA with African Leaders
Amazing. This kind of globalist nonsense would have been denounced by conservatives back in the days when the Great Stainmaker occupied the White House. Today, they just chirp about what a great compassionate guy we have there.
Liberals never case to impress legions of morons with their great "compassion." Few seem to realize that such compassion is always done with other peoples' money - never their own. When it's tax money, it's literally money extorted with the threat of violence. Just try not paying your taxes and see what happens.
P!ss me off? Yup.
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