RABAT, 11 January 2021 – The US Agency for International Development (USAID) will open an office for the brand new, continent-wide Prosper Africa program in Morocco.
The Morocco office will serve as one of several hubs or satellite offices across Africa for the new program which will promote two-way trade between Africa and the United States.
It will also expand American investments across Africa..
USAID’s John Barsa – Photo CNN
The program will invest $500 million over a five-year period, according to a press release from the agency, citing its Acting Deputy-Administrator John Barsa.
Prosper Africa estimates that for every dollar in public funding, its brand new program will leverage $9 in private investment.
USAID says these investments will “deliver billions of dollars in exports and invetments, and create hundreds of thousands of Afrian and American jobs by 2026”.
The program “will provide well-coordinated services aligned with private sector needs (complementing other U.S. government) tools for trade and investment,” the press release added.
Farmers tending their fields – Photo Center for Industrial Development
African countries are keen to get a bigger size of the American market.
America’s 330 million inhabitants wield over $13 trillion in purchasing power.
Centralized hubs, like the one in Morocco, will manage billions of dollars in exports and will be staffed, among others, by experts, whose job will be to advance business development, offer investment facilitation and support improvements to legal and regulatory frameworks across Africa.
USAID describes the initiave as not just a new progam but “a new way of doing business that will dramatically expand the investment by the United States in Africa’s growth by harnessing private-sector resources and innovation”.
