Will the Prosper Africa Initiative Succeed?

             Before I begin this blog, I must admit that I am biased toward Prosper Africa.  I wrote the first response by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to the National Security Council’s initial outline for the initiative, and I was a member of its secretariat until I retired from government in 2021.  I do think it will succeed and overcome the obstacles it faces now and will face in the future.

            I was prompted to write this blog piece after reading an article written for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace by senior fellow Zainab Usman and nonresident scholar Katie Auth entitled The Three Issues That Will Make or Break the Prosper Africa Initiative.  I mostly agree with their points and have a couple to add.

            Referring to H.R. 6455, the Prosper Africa Act, they wrote: “First, the bill needs revision. Its expansive scope purposefully allows for flexibility but could prove unwieldy. The draft legislation is written without an explicit focus on any specific sectors of the economy. This is based on the rationale that the private sector’s interests and capacity should drive its areas of focus, and the U.S. government should not artificially narrow the range of priority investments.”

            Since we began discussing Prosper Africa with Congress in 2018, the scope of the initiative was explained and reshaped more once.  The purpose of this legislation is to codify Prosper Africa, making appropriations process more automatic and easier to achieve.  Prosper Africa is bound to a large extent by existing mandates for the 17 agencies that comprise its operational arms.  Their mandates are neither new nor beyond current authorities.  Moreover, Congress has the ability to intervene if there is a belief that it has somehow overstepped its dictate.  Certainly, there should be hearings and robust debate on Prosper Africa’s parameters, but the initiative was designed to allow the private sector to help guide government in shaping a successful U.S.-Africa commercial relationship.  Like the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was originally meant to be, Prosper Africa is supposed to be a business-to-business program and not a government-to-government one.

            “Second, the United States should utilize Prosper Africa to align its own strategic geopolitical and economic priorities with those of its African partners. For example, Prosper Africa could be a tool to help the United States diversify its critical minerals and technology supply chains away from China and Russia by facilitating investment in refining and processing of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other minerals crucial for clean energy in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia while also strengthening social and environmental safeguards.”

While a complete alignment of interests is not possible, it would be in the interest of both the United States and African partners for there to be a more diverse supply chain for critical minerals and technology.  Over-dependence on one partner is not in the interest of African countries, and a more level playing field in competition between superpowers would be beneficial in the long run.  Of course, American companies are bound by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids bribery and illegal or unethical inducements to make deals.  That makes competition with China and Russia, who don’t have such limitations, more difficult.

However, African officials must weigh the short-term benefits of sweetheart deals that provide quick revenue but which could end up with their losing control over their resources.  The American government and private sector are bound by our country’s legal structure and monitored by civil society and the media.  Wrongdoing may occur, but there are many avenues to end such activity and punish those who engage in it.

“Finally, the U.S. Congress should also consider more ways of engaging African partners—especially those in anchor economies such as Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa—in shaping the legislation and the initiative. Policymakers, businesses, and civil society—both in Africa and in the U.S.-based African diaspora—have an important opportunity to help influence its content and direction and to ensure that it speaks not only to U.S. interests, but to the mutual benefits to be gained by both the United States and its African partners through a closer, more investment-focused relationship.”

            As it happens, I also worked on AGOA from the beginning when I worked in Congress in the 1990s.  There was an effort to ask for input from the African diplomatic corps, but we should have gotten input from African government officials back home, African private sectors and African Diaspora business people here in the United States.  This is what should be done now in advance of the current iteration of AGOA expiring in June 2025.  If both trade programs are to be optimally successful, then those current and potential stakeholders in their success should have input into how they are implemented.

            Government and private sector entities all talk of their support for the Diaspora to be more involved in AGOA and Prosper Africa, but since big business moves the needle on the amount of trade in dollars more than small and medium enterprises, few Diaspora commercial entities are at the table or seriously considered for U.S. government assistance.  The point has been made that it take just as much effort to help a $100,000 deal get done as it does for a $100,000,000 deal.  I don’t doubt the truth in that estimate, but while the big deals generate more revenue, the smaller deals create more jobs and are more likely to build wealth for those engaged in them.  I’m all for big companies getting involved in U.S.-Africa trade and investment, but there will be little to no impact on development for smaller businesses unless some effective way is found to include them in this commercial activity.

            Prosper Africa was built partly on the notion that if there were tangible business ventures with quantifiable revenue projections, an African government would be more inclined to make necessary regulatory reforms to access those business ventures.  Western governments have long called upon African government to make changes to reflect the way in which developed country economies work, but there must be a demonstration of such benefits with change if we want reforms to be enacted.  That’s what Prosper Africa offers.

            The four pillars of Prosper Africa are: U.S. exports to Africa, African exports to the U.S., U.S. investment in Africa and African investment in the U.S.  Of the 17 agencies in Prosper Africa, 15 focus on U.S. exports and investment in Africa.  Only USAID and the African Development Foundation have a focus on facilitating African exports to the United States, with the participation of Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration in terms of identifying and ensuring regulatory compliance.

            The U.S. Department of Commerce will be responsible for guiding African investment in the United States, and one hopes that will include African investments in Diaspora entities – not just those owned by African-born Americans, but also those owned by traditional African descendants.  USAID, through its partnership with the minority-run National Association of Securities Professionals, will have input on U.S. investment in Africa.

            There have been previous efforts to combine U.S. government resources in pursuit of more robust U.S.-Africa trade, such as the Trade Africa program during the Obama Administration.  It seemed to me that there was a greater effort with Prosper Africa to define each agency’s role and to coordinate assistance provided.  There were initial clashes over two-way trade since not all agencies deal with imports, but over the period of ongoing discussions among agency representatives, it was agreed that two-way trade was more mutually beneficial and sustainable.  Logistically, you’d want an increased chance for full cargo vessels going and coming each way.  Not doing so makes U.S.-Africa trade less economically viable.

            In the months leading up to the 2020 elections and in its aftermath, there were those who worried that Proper Africa would be seen as a Trump plan and discarded if and when he lost the election.  I never thought that would happen because this initiative is too good an idea to discard, regardless of whose initial idea it was.

            Successful U.S.-Africa trade is in the interest of business people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and the effective coordination of government efforts, in collaboration with interested and expanded private sectors, will ensure that Prosper Africa will succeed.