ALI Perspective

Africa has the world’s youngest population with more than 60% of the continent’s population of 1.4 billion people under the age of 25. By 2035, more African young people will join the workforce each year than in the rest of the world combined. Access to digital technologies will be key to fostering the continent’s economic growth and creating economic opportunities for its youth. 

Despite rapid growth in digitization on the continent, only 40% of Africans have internet connectivity and there are large gaps between urban and rural populations. The Administration has launched a series of important initiatives to close this gap. During her 2023 visit to Africa, V.P. Harris launched a $1 billion initiative to close the Gender Digital Divide, with more than half of those funds targeting women and girls in Africa. This included $400 million in partnership with business and NGOs. This past May, this initiative was expanded with the announcement of a new partnership to help increase internet access across Africa from 40% to 80% by 2030 and give 100 million African businesses and farmers digital access.

These initiatives, combined with the upcoming reauthorization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), are important foundations for America’s relationship with a continent that will play a rapidly growing role in the global economy. 

Coming Up

ICYMI

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (MA-4) joined ALI for a robust discussion regarding U.S. Global Engagement, especially in the Global South. The group discussed how to use America’s competitive advantages like development financing and its venture capital industries to leverage engagement in countries where the U.S. faces competition with China. There was discussion of the prospects for sectoral or supply chain agreements, as well as how countries could advance from preference arrangements, like GSP and AGOA, into full trade agreements. Finally, the group discussed the importance of upskilling America’s workforce in order to compete in a rapidly changing world.

More than 80 members of the WTO released a “stabilized text” for the Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on Electronic Commerce last Friday. The U.S. pulled out of these negotiations in October 2023, and the resulting agreement does not reflect several key U.S. priorities, including a permanent duty-free moratorium, and no provisions on cross border data flows and data hosting. This negotiation, among such a diverse group of countries, was an important occasion for U.S. leadership on global digital policies, and a missed opportunity to advance digital policies that reflect U.S. standards and values.

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“China has a focus on value extraction and imports as many minerals as possible from Africa…..The US and Western partners can promote more sustainable, mutually beneficial growth by creating incentives for major technology companies to move parts of their semiconductor manufacturing and R&D supply chains to African countries, just as they did with Southeast Asian countries in the 1970s and 1980s.”