Africa: Trade is Key to Continent's Economic Growth

July 22, 2009 - Trade is the key to long-term, sustainable economic growth and development in sub-Saharan Africa, says Florizelle Liser, assistant U.S. trade representative for Africa.

Because trade is vital to sub-Saharan Africa's economic future and to improving lives and livelihoods, the 8th Annual African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum, to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, August 4-6, is an important venue for cultivation of trade opportunities, Liser said in a July 21 interview with America.gov.

"Trade is critically important to economic development. Right now, Africa has about 2 percent of all world trade, which is hard to believe when you think about all of the tremendous resources that they have -- oil, diamonds, gold ... not to mention all the agricultural products such as coffee, tea, cocoa -- and to think that Africa still only has 2 percent of world trade is really incredible. But the power of trade is that if the Africans were able to increase their share of world trade from 2 to 3 percent, that 1 percentage increase would actually generate about $70 billion of additional income annually for Africa," or about three times the total development assistance Africa gets from the entire world, Liser said.

It is well and true for Mr Liser to highlight these statistics. It's one thing identifying and another actually doing something about it. The time has come for the developed countries to stop making false promises. Africa is a continet that can sustain it'self only if given the opportunity to do so.

On the part of our leaders all I ask that you realise the important roles the youth can play in the economic growth of Africa. You need to impart youths with the necessary skills as well as provide opportunities for them to pursue. Africa has a capable populace of young people who are flighting the continent in search of opportunities abroad and in most cases exploited and abused in the process. Let's harness these and use them to our adavantage. Most developed nations have benefited from the generousity of Africa in terms of natural resources, we can't be idle and watch our best resources, educated youths being expropriated because we have failed to integrate and accomodate them in the development process.

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What is CIYDA
Contemporary Indigenous Youth Development Africa (CIYDA) is an non-profit organisation founded in 2008 and is based in Harare, Zimbabwe. CIYDA is working to develop and empower the youths of Zimbabwe for the benefits of the nation and Africa as a continent through the use of new media, information technology and networking amongst other things. Through these drivers, CIYDA aims to facilitate an information hub and service provision in the areas of Business Start-up, Social & Cultural Integration, Socio-economic Mentoring and Volunteering. CIYDA currently has a network connection of over 500 Zimbabwean youths in many countries amongst them, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, United Kingdom, United States of America, Australia and Canada.