Combined Federal Campaign #9956

Trade & Economic Development

The Trade and Economic Development Committee proposed the following framework for recommendations as prerequisites to effective and meaningful participation in African trade and development by Africans in the western hemisphere Diaspora:

The African Union should consider the African Diaspora as Business Partner, and:

• Ensure that governments and businesses consider African business owners in the Diaspora as suppliers of goods and services, and not depend only on traditional mechanisms.
• Establish official programs to identify and qualify Diaspora businesses.
• Realize that Africans in the Diaspora still struggle for a fair share of markets where they presently live.
• Issue a common visa, or eliminate business travel visas for Diaspora businesses.
• Help eliminate foreign and domestic monopolies within African countries.
• Ensure that Africans in the Diaspora are appropriately represented and also include them in the trade and economic development dimensions of Africa's future. This will not be an easy process, as it has not been a success in the "developed" Western Hemisphere Diaspora world. It will require innovative ideas, flexibility, commitment, discipline and constant dialogue to achieve the basic objectives.

The African Growth & Opportunity Act

The AU should:

• Encourage duty free entry to US market for other products beyond the general system preference list.
• Identify and prioritize products that can be traded (imported/exported) between Africa and Africans in Diaspora to promote intra-Diaspora opportunities.
• Enhance opportunities for Africans in the Diaspora to provide appropriate equipment and technical services to enable African countries to meet AGOA standards.
• Promote and advocate the change of mandatory criteria, which states that African countries must adopt free-market economic policies before they are allowed full participation in AGOA.
• Support the development of small and medium sized businesses in Africa and the U.S.
• Investigate and develop linkages among trading blocs that connect Africa and the Western Hemisphere Diaspora.
• Promote and encourage advocacy for AGOA in countries where Diaspora resides.

Capital Market Development

The AU should:

• Remove the institutional constraints that prevent the development of efficient capital markets in Africa.
• Increase products that will allow for financial breadth and diversification of risk in financial investments.
• Build incentives into financial markets comparable to the standard of foreign developed markets to build confidence and encourage both local and foreign investment.
• Enact laws that reduce financial risk and protect incentives built into the money markets.
• Encourage regional integration of rules and regulations regarding the formation of efficient capital market systems.
• Adopt a plan to introduce a universal African currency.
• Reduce the public sector's involvement in private sector activities, and give the private sector with more autonomy in order to increase competition, enhance productivity and innovation.
• Develop and integrate informal African markets into the formal markets.
• Work with international financial institutions and organizations to provide financial services for SMEs, with special emphasis on micro-finance for women.

Commodity Markets and Commodity Pricing

The AU should:

• Assure that Africa gets parity in considerations that enable price competition so country producers are not at price disadvantage.
• Remove subsidies that strangulate Africa's ability to compete through WTO and other regional trading blocks.
• Create a mechanism to promote trade and investment between Africa and Africans in the Western Hemisphere Diaspora.
• Encourage the technological transfer of organic product cultivation.

Reparation

The AU should:

• Include in its agenda the 'crime against humanity' concept and work with Diaspora organizations to suggest a process for reparations.
• Review, educate and sponsor open discussion to get insight into slavery.

Labor Issues

The AU should:

• Continue to develop and enforce rules and regulations, which increase and strengthen women's rights in business and career development.
• Assure that all children's educated prepares them for careers in business, to promote economic development.
• Promote the rights of women in society to participate in the economic system via community-based development.

In turn, the African Diaspora Should:

• Establish a Western Hemisphere Diaspora Trade and Economic Development Committee to coordinate and facilitate the follow-up process to these recommendations with the AU.
• Work with AU to disseminate information regarding AU goals and objectives.
• Register volunteer experts in the Western Hemisphere Diaspora to help develop business in Africa.
• Set up a Western Hemisphere Diaspora secretariat in Africa.
• Lobby to impact trade legislation in the U.S and other Western Hemisphere Diaspora countries.
• Support the development of funding mechanisms such as trust funds, investment funds and charitable contributions.
• Encourage the establishment of a voluntary$5 per year US tax deductible contribution to the AU Trade and Economic Development Fund for the US Diaspora.
• Promote the development of joint ventures and partnerships between the Western Hemisphere Diaspora and African business communities.
• Ensure establishment of an industry specific Western Hemisphere Diaspora data base endorsed by the appropriate Diaspora representatives.
• Provide opportunities for Diaspora expertise dedicated to poverty alleviation initiatives.
• Advocate and lobby with existing organizations and institutions for debt relief in Africa.
• Ensure involvement of Western Hemisphere Diaspora women's organizations concerned with trade and economic development to work with AU member country women.