Opinion
But What Does Africa Want?
By Eyob Tekalign
Africa has undergone a remarkable transformation. Yes, the truth is that most countries have not been able to take advantage of AGOA; not exploiting their full potential under this arrangement. The idea was that the big market opportunity in American would encourage Africans to organize themselves and harness their resources to export to the U.S.
Over the last 13 years, there has been a mismatch between what we as Africans want, and what our American counterparts expect from us. In the process, what has actually happened on the ground is that Africa has undergone a remarkable transformation. Yes, the truth is that most countries have not been able to take advantage of The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA); not exploiting their full potential under this arrangement. You can divide the reasons into two: One is because of serious supply-side constraints in Africa, and the second reason is on the American side.
To start, at the various AGOA forums we’ve had over the years, focus has been on America and how it is not doing enough to help AGOA along. There has been a constant call for the U.S. to support African countries in their AGOA efforts. But over the last three years – starting with the AGOA Forum we held in Zambia – the African countries started to suggest that they must look into their own houses to address issues; getting them in order, so to speak. Lusaka in 2011 was a turning point.
Then, as Chair of the Experts Group in Lusaka, the one thing I remember coming up consistently was this: Have we, as African countries, looked into ensuring that we take advantage of AGOA? Out of this meeting came the idea to develop national AGOA strategies for each AGOA beneficiary country. The idea was pushed through to the Ministers’ Meeting, and our Ministers overwhelmingly endorsed it. They, then, gave this assignment to the African Union and the United Nations Economic Council for Africa (UNECA) to help each country develop its own AGOA National Response Strategy. Ethiopia was the first pilot country to undertake this strategic initiative and in this regard, the Ethiopian Ministry of Trade, in cooperation with the African Trade Policy Center of UNECA developed a National AGOA Response Strategy to identify those constraints that impede the performance of the export sector.
An AGOA Baseline
Now, even though AGOA is about 13 years old, it took African countries many years to understand the essence of trade preferences and market access provision.
For instance, in Ethiopia, many people did not know what we were doing when we started having meetings with exporters in Addis Ababa. Business people and even the government did not understand the real potential of AGOA, not knowing that AGOA’s key architects expected the program to help with transforming Africa’s economic structures from mere agricultural sectors to stronger industrialized entities.
The idea was that the big market opportunity in America would encourage Africans to organize themselves and harness their resources to export to the U.S.
At the time, while I was Minister Counselor at the Ethiopian Embassy here in Washington, DC, we, for example, had discussions with Whole Foods to have an Ethiopian specific shelf at their nationwide stores. We worked on this plan for 3 years, and at the end of it all, we could not even provide one product, let alone a whole shelf. Africa, as a whole, lacks the capacity to produce products, package them – brand them and place them in a way that Americans could consume them. Even passing the quality standards is next to impossible.
Advent of National AGOA Response Strategies
The new development from Lusaka meant that all AGOA beneficiaries had an obligation to create their own National AGOA Response Strategies. What these national strategies will do is look at a product line from end to end. Subsequently, we can develop a holistic approach to ensure that our market potential – in specific regard to exporting to the U.S. is fulfilled.
In Ethiopia, to prepare for the national strategy, we held a national workshop with key stakeholders – private sector, government and donors – and talked about the fact that our country only supplied about 10 percent of sub Saharan Africa’s exports. When we asked why people were not taking advantage of AGOA, we found that on top of not knowing about the opportunity, there was not technology or production capacity. We couldn’t produce quality leather or textile products – the kind that could compete in the U.S. or against other African products. Many of those in the private sector did not have access to finances, and even with our 80 million or so people, Ethiopia does not have a fully trained workforce to man an industrialized economy.
