As part of the AGOA Forum in Washington, participants in the Civil Society Forum were provided with the unique opportunity to meet directly with various US Senators on Capitol Hill and to discuss current issues and concerns. These Senators included the original architects of the AGOA trade legislation, as well as subsequent legislative amendments such as the extension of AGOA’s fabric provisions to 2007. Delegates were further provided with the opportunity of an intensive consultative session with various Congressional Staffers, who are responsible for the actual drafting of the legislation and advise the Senators on various policy matters. They thus form an integral and very important link between AGOA stakeholders (exporters, civil society, policy makers from AGOA beneficiary countries…) on the one hand and US policy makers on the other.

Senators present included Senator Bill Thomas, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Senator Charles Rangel, Senator Jim McDermott, Senator Don Payne and Senator Ed Royce. Congressional Staffers included Ms Angela Ellard (Rep. Thomas), Mr Jayme White (Rep. McDermott), Mr Tim Reif House Ways and Means), Mr Tom Sheehy (Rep. Royce) and Mr George Dalley (Rep. Rangel).

Following two days of deliberations at the Civil Society Forum (as part of the AGOA Forum, which consisted of the Civil Society Forum, a Private Sector Forum and the government-to-government Ministerial), various positions were agreed on and presented to the US Senators present. Key concerns and issues covered by the presentations included the pending expiry of the special apparel provisions, the need for improved access to the US market for African agricultural products, the issue of capacity building in various areas including trade law, trade facilitation and the certification of farming products (compliance with SPS measures etc.), the potential role of civil society (NGOs and various interest groups) in increasing Africa’s participation on international trade, as well as the scope of current product coverage.

The Senators present acknowledged that AGOA had achieved outcomes that could not have been envisaged at the time the legislation was signed into law. These were both positive and negative, and today present a set of challenges that will require an ongoing commitment from both sides of the Atlantic to broaden the success that AGOA has achieved thus far. In this regard, the dominant role of oil exports under AGOA reveal structural and supply weaknesses of African economies that need to be rectified. For example, while the growth of energy-related trade is positive, the falling share of non-energy exports – both in relative and nominal terms – is of concern and symptomatic of the concentrated nature of current exports under AGOA to the US. (See the trade data covering recent years here).

Likewise, a worrying issue is the fact that the time-bound waiver from normal rules of origin for clothing exports from eligible African countries has not had the desired effect of incentivising regional textile production and greater vertical integration. Instead, virtually all clothing exports from countries benefiting from the third country fabric rule are utilising foreign fabric (see the latest garment trade data under AGOA here). This is largely due to supply side issues (including the unique value chain dynamics in the global textile and clothing industry) that AGOA can not easily hope to address effectively.

While Civil Society delegates made a strong call on the extension of the current third country fabric provision until at least 2015, as well as including currently excluded countries (such as South Africa and Mauritius) in the list of countries that this applies to, US Senators provided a somewhat guarded response. While acknowledging that AGOA had not helped create a sustainable African textile sector, and that clothing exports were in danger of collapsing completely unless the provision is extended very soon, there were many political sensitivities around this that needed to be carefully considered (the same was said to apply to products currently excluded, since “sensitive products” were “political products”). Senators were cautious about introducing legislative amendments that would undermine their original resolve to provide a time-bound opportunity to African exporters, as they interpreted these as being unsustainable and devoid of true economic empowerment. However, despite some personal reservations, they largely agreed that the provision’s expiry may have deep and widespread negative impacts on a number of African countries, and the success of AGOA as a means of boosting Africa’s goods exports as a whole.

On the positive side, Africa – and a strong trade relationship between the US and Africa – is still firmly on the US trade policy agenda. While a decade ago Africa did not feature as much of a potential trade partner at all (other than, perhaps, as a source of raw materials), Africa today is well positioned to benefit from its greater integration into the world trading system, and with it the world economy.

Eckart Naumann

Read a related article here.