Digging deeper: Brookings report looks at AGOA’s future

Jun 23rd, 2011 12:52 PM UTC
By ONE Partners

Zenia Lewis and Brandon Routman from the Brookings Institution’s Africa Growth Initiative reflect on the African Growth and Opportunities Act Forum.

The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum was held in Lusaka, Zambia a few weeks ago, and several of us from the Brookings Institution’s Africa Growth Initiative (AGI) were lucky enough to attend.

Needless to say, it was a busy week. We presented findings of our research, sat in on high-level meetings, spoke with media outlets and met scores of people.

The forum provided us an excellent opportunity to listen to others’ ideas and express our own thoughts on how to make AGOA work better for African economies.

Our most recent report, “Improving AGOA: Toward a New Framework for US-Africa Commercial Engagement“, looked at this very topic. First and foremost, it addressed the obvious issue of the legislation’s future.

AGOA and the duty-free, quota-free provisions it gives African countries is set to expire in 2015. Whether these provisions will be extended past this date remains uncertain — an uncertainty which creates a disincentive to those looking to invest in Africa. Second, the report discusses how important regional economic integration is for the continent and provides strategies that can enacted to support this outcome. Third, it talks about the Third Country Fabric Provision, a measure which furthers the development of Africa’s textile industry by encouraging non-African businesses to set up shop on the continent. Lastly, it recommends policies that address non-tariff barriers to doing business in Africa, such as US agricultural subsidies and African infrastructure deficiencies.

Attending the forum provided a real opportunity to discuss these and other important issues with the very people in positions of power able to do something about them. For instance, AGI had extensive contact with Zambia’s Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry, Felix Mutati, who, in both his conversations with US officials and in his closing remarks at the Forum, highlighted the issues we had flagged and agreed wholeheartedly with many of our recommendations regarding them.

Witnessing this type of political impact was a great experience for us, and we look forward to furthering these successes in the future and seeing AGOA help Africa grow, create jobs and transform its economies, sustainably and equitably.

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