Opinion
But What Does Africa Want?
Ultimately, this has an impact on regional integration.
AGOA does, indeed, affect regional integration. When Madagascar was removed from AGOA, other African countries like Mauritius lost out.
Countries are moving together. Look at the remarkable progress that is happening in the Tripartite Group, and also in ECOWAS. Ethiopia’s leather industry is exporting to African countries and these are using infrastructure like COMESA to do business with each other.
There’s empirical evidence in the various studies like the UNECA Brookings study that show that AGOA must continue to do what it has done in the past.
We must, therefore, not punish those that are doing well –like South Africa – so that Africa can do much better in terms of regional integration.
Editor’s Note:
Eyob got onto a flight from Addis Ababa, flew into the U.S. on a Thursday evening – and on Friday morning, he was ready to meet
with people, clients and colleagues to prepare for the testimonies at the United States International Trade Commission (USITC). Although he had a tight schedule, he sat down for an in depth conversation, and then even wrote this eloquent piece for us. We can only hope that you learn something from this article. We did, indeed.
The views expressed in this article are neither those of Ethiopia’s Government nor those of UNECA.
