allAfrica.com: Africa: Business Summit Aimed at Boosting U.S. Investment in Africa, Says CCA President (Page 1 of 2)

Africa: Business Summit Aimed at Boosting U.S. Investment in Africa, Says CCA President

The fifth U.S. Africa Business Summit, sponsored by the Washington, DC-based Corporate Council on Africa, opened in Baltimore, Maryland Tuesday night with a gala awards dinner. More than 2,000 people from 70 countries registered to attend the four-day event, the largest Africa-related gathering in the United States. Stephen Hayes, who has been CCA president since 1999, talked with AllAfrica in a pre-summit interview. Excerpts:

How is this summit different from the previous two?

We are emphasizing partnerships. We intend to build some really viable partnerships as a result of what comes out of the conference. We want every businessperson to walk away from the summit with potential partners. The fact is that U.S. business still hasn't significantly increased its involvement in Africa, to the extent that other countries have, and I think that we have to work on that.

What do you mean by partners?

Any African that means to sell to the United States is going to need a buyer or a partner on this side, and that is why a lot of the Africans are coming. We are having over a thousand from Africa. The United States, on the other hand - U.S. business people - need partnerships as well. So we will put legitimate businesses together. We are putting a lot of emphasis particularly on small and medium-sized businesses.

The event is trying to facilitate the interactions?

The fact is that networks really haven't been built. What we have done is to provide a forum for that to happen. The conference this time is more active - more "designed." For instance thanks to Oracle, you can contact anybody who has signed up. We haven't had that before. Registrants can scan the list and they can contact them immediately on email. And we have staff people dedicated to assisting the business people coming from Africa. If business people need to find a type of person, we work with them, encouraging them to do it on their own as much as possible, but helping them.

We just have to get more U.S. investment in Africa. So that is what we are trying to do. We are working a lot harder on the networking and building partnerships, trying to link sectors together, allowing our workshops to be more flexible. I think this is going to be our strongest conference yet, and I think we have had some pretty good ones.

What kind of country representation do you have?

All in all, close to seventy countries. We have a delegation from China registered, a delegation from Korea, a lot of different European countries - business people and in some cases governments. There are some Indian business people registering as well. So we are having a broader range than in years past, but it is still primarily a U.S.-Africa conference.

You say there isn't as much interest in Africa on the part of U.S. businesses as from European and, increasingly, Asian countries. To what do you attribute that?

I think the image of Africa is working against it. I do not think that business people understand Africa as an investment opportunity. I think it is seen as too difficult. And I think that one of the second major goals of this conference is to project a much more accurate, and in this case, a much more positive view of Africa. In our awards dinner, for example, we are honoring Carol Pinot for her film "Africa Open for Business." The business award goes to the Africa Channel - the first U.S.-based company to run 24-hour programming on and of Africa. Even though they are still technically a project - they intend to come out in July - we will use it as a premier. And the presidential award this year goes to Madagascar because a positive image is developing there: it is the first country to receive funding from the Millennium Challenge Corporation [a Bush administration development aid programme for countries meeting economic and governance reform criteria).

Another area we are really working on - we have brought in two people who have direct media experience. We are expecting about 200 media people. I think this could at least contribute to changing the consciousness of media people.

A lot of the problems are real. It is not that they are exaggerated. The wars are real, AIDS is real - but there is hope. For businesses, for a lot of people, there is hope. We are trying to be more activist; we are trying to project an image for Africa, and trying to show that there is far less risk than most people assume. Obviously you have got to pick and choose your spots.

Don't you think that most American businesses are unaware of the high returns on investment that are being realized in Africa?

Yes, you can get higher returns because of higher risks. So what we are going to do is reduce those risks. I hate to create the expectation of high returns; I'd rather have the expectation of long-term returns, long-term investment, rather than a quick in-and-out.

You picked Madagascar to acknowledge because they have taken a number of reform steps, and it is the first country to be approved for MCC funding?

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories

Today's Most Active Stories