U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is revamping and rebooting the Prosper Africa initiative.
Prosper Africa — which brings together 17 U.S. government agencies to work on boosting trade and investment on the African continent — was launched under former President Donald Trump but got off to a slow start.
This week, the White House announced the Prosper Africa Build Together Campaign, a “targeted effort to elevate and energize” U.S. commitment to trade and investment across the continent. It has the goal of “substantially increasing two-way trade and investment,” said Dana Banks, the National Security Council’s senior director for Africa.
Banks said the administration has requested an additional $80 million for the effort.
What it is: The initiative will focus on sectors including energy and climate solutions, health, and digital technology, and it will look to provide various types of support. The U.S. Agency for International Development, for example, will seek “to strengthen business enabling environments,” while other agencies might focus on deal matchmaking between investors and African businesses.
The U.S. government will work to bring in diaspora businesses and investors, and it will focus support on women on the continent, as well as on small and medium-sized enterprises, according to Banks.
Why it matters: The effort appears to have significant administrative buy-in, with multiple officials, including U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, speaking about the initiative Tuesday.
“The ambition is making Prosper Africa as robust as possible,” Raimondo said at the U.S.-Africa Business Summit, adding that she hopes it will be a new chapter in the relationship between the U.S. and African countries.
The administration said the initiative is not about countering China. “The reason we envisioned the Prosper Africa partnership based on shared prosperity” is because it aligns with U.S. foreign policy and American beliefs and goals, Banks said.
About the author
Adva Saldinger@AdvaSal
Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex where she covers development finance, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development and authors the weekly Devex Invested newsletter bringing the latest news on the role of business and finance in addressing global challenges. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
