President’s Message - August/September eJournal

It has been a busy and very productive few months here at CCA. We were in Lomé, Togo in early August for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum. We jetted off to Kigali, Rwanda for the first Africa Travel Association (ATA) World Tourism Conference under CCA leadership and finally, we just returned from New York, where we hosted several key events on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). As I reflect on the discussions and interactions I have had these past two months, there has been a recurring theme on the importance of the diversification of African economies.Economic diversification is not a new idea and I would argue that it is a concept upon which the world’s most successful economies are built. However, it is particularly interesting in the African context. For some countries, the fall in commodity prices has necessitated governments and private businesses to focus on new sectors. For other countries, which have planned for diversification, there is a growing awareness that these sectors cannot develop in a vacuum.During the AGOA Forum, senior U.S. officials met with African Ministers of trade, U.S. and African companies benefitting from AGOA trade, and members of civil society to discuss the importance of value addition – i.e., Africans adding value to their commodities. More importantly, there were examples of African businesses supplying a range of value added products to major U.S. buyers, and by doing so becoming part of global value chains that support investment and job creation on the continent while making U.S. businesses more efficient and profitable. The story of Alaffia – a U.S. socially conscious enterprise run by a Togolese and American couple that is producing high quality shea butter being sold to Whole Foods – is one I love. Alaffia employs hundreds in their facility in Togo and supports some 11,000 women harvesting shea nuts.Another interesting dialogue on African economic diversification is taking place in the tourism sector. Countries like Rwanda that may not have much by way of products are promoting tourism as an important engine for sustainable economic growth and diversification. During the World Tourism Conference in Rwanda in August, President Kagame noted that tourism is Rwanda’s largest foreign exchange earner. This accomplishment has been a direct result of the government’s investments in this sector, including a new airport and modern convention center (in which we were privileged to hold the conference), as well as policies liberalizing and simplifying visas for both tourists and business persons from Africa and around the world.At CCA’s Presidential Dialogue on the Future of US-Africa Business, during UNGA, Mr. Aliko Dangote boldly stated that he hoped that oil prices would continue to remain low. Although his own company is building the largest oil refinery in Africa and thereby contributing to diversification and value addition in that important sector, Mr. Dangote touted the opportunities in agribusiness, projecting that Africa will be the world’s food basket of the future. Africa’s agribusiness and agro-processing sector will not only support Africa’s millions of smallholder farmers, but also create opportunities for new businesses along the value chain in processing, packaging and transporting of produce. Africans and their U.S. and other business partners investing in regional and global agricultural value chains – from farm to factory to fork – will all benefit.The largest takeaway from these last two months was that we need to change the way we think of industries in Africa. Even here at CCA, we segment companies by sector based on their primary business interests in agribusiness, energy, finance, health, infrastructure, security, technology, and tourism. Even though we are aware of how these industries intersect, we still tend to discuss them individually. One of my goals at CCA is to change this. While we will certainly have conferences focused on key industries, we want to have more in-depth conversations about how industries are impacted or can contribute to growth and changes across sectors.This idea was one of the key differences of the ATA conference from other tourism conferences. It was not just a conference for travel professionals and hoteliers, it was a conference for technology companies interested in streamlining and improving the traveler experience; companies investing in capacity building; and companies committed to supplying the growing demand for food, handicrafts, and local products and services at tourist venues.The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Nations recently declared 2016-2025 as the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa (IDDA III). Both organizations have developed an ambitious Industrialize Africa Strategy that aims at more than doubling the continent’s industrial GDP. I strongly believe that the strategies that will most successfully promote greater African industrialization will both cut across as well as link many sectors and industries. For industrialization and diversification to be successful in Africa, we will need every industry we work with to come together to effectively harness the continent’s immense opportunities and tackle the challenges. I believe there is no better convener for this task than CCA.