Honored to have all of you here. [applause] as we host our first Congressional Black Caucus annual legislative conference and brain trust on Foreign Policy. This years discussion will focus on the continent of africa, the challenges it faces and its future as a rapidly growing continent. Our theme is our africa, our future. Which coincides with and takes its inspiration from the 60th anniversary of the african union. Celebrated this year. We are having this conversation at a time of tremendous challenges but also tremendous opportunities for the people of africa. Africa is dealing with the growing threat of the climate crisis. With severe drought, famine reimaging the horn of africa the increasing instability. But africa is also undergoing a tremendous Economic Growth. The center for international internationaldevelopment projecn african countries will be among the 15 Fastest Growing economies over the next five years. Improving Education Systems increase trade are already improving the lives of thousands of millions of africans the poverty rates continues to plummet and migration is increasing as well. Spurring the spread of ideas, entrepreneurship and investment. Youth movements like in senegal, and in the Dominican Republic of congo are sweeping the continent giving us many reasons for hope. We dont talk about the successful stories enough. And i hope today we will be given that opportunity. Thank you so much, your leadership in wto comes at critical junction. Thank you, thank you, congresswoman. Is it works . Thank you very much, thank you for what youre doing to u. S. Africa relationships. I think much is needed. Let me start by saying im director of the World Trade Organization and i ask myself how can the wt of course and the multilateral trading system is supportive of our continent and i started by looking at what the organizations purposes. Thats why i joined the organization. It says that the wtos purpose is to enhance livering standards help create employment and support Sustainable Development of its members. That means its all about people and the people centered organizations that is rules based could be made to do more for our continent but when you look at the numbers, they are not very good. Africa is only 3 of world trade. Africa trade is limited 16 to 20 and yet supposed to foster enhanced Living Standards and create employment. So the key question is, what can we do especially in relationship to what is happening today so let me say that there are one or two things going in our favor. We know we have many in continent and we suffer from the neighborhood effects. Even if youre thousands of miles away its still africa. There are many opportunities we can see. First one is the largest one by country. 1. 4 billion, if we can really make that work, meaning lower the barriers between our countries and increase trading and provide market as large as china and india. Thats attractive for investment. This is a very important point and then i started asking myself, at this time instead of looking at the geopolitical tensions what are the opportunities that we see and there are many and im going to repeat something that i said in new york, africa is at juncture being courted by russia, china, by india, everybody. Africa has many suitors and what we must do is practice poleandry, we have to marry them all. We have to harness what it is, one thing that we can take advantage of now is the global desire to build resilience in the trade system. We have seen the vulnerabilities and supply chains during the pandemic and the war. In ukraine and the world is trying to say how do we build resilience, the same as Climate Change can do. What we are urging from wto reimagining globalization and to use this opportunity to regloballize, thats what we call it. Supply chains to those countries that were left out in the first place and using this to bring them into the margins of global trade. So thats how our continent can seize the opportunities. Why should we import 90 of our medicines and 99 of our vaccines . Why cant we manufacture them in our continent . Why cant we add value to minerals, have them processed in the continent . The world needs that for recash recarbonizing. Im excited. Like the United States could be better geared for access to International Markets . Well, i think we talked about it. Have they changed anything materially for the country. We looked at the trade between European Union and africa, the european africa is largest trading partner now by taking by china by 2030. We look at 14 epa, economic agreements negotiated with the eu and we look and saw that trade has not materially increased between eu and africa. Meaning we are not really benefiting. So i think we need to ask ourselves the question why. We want to renegotiate and we want to extend it now because we think its still opportunities, african union, Everyone Wants it. How can we use it to help us improve our Living Standards . We need to make sure that it really allows us to send in products that are manufactured in the continent, not just Raw Materials, we need to create good jobs for our people and export products that have value to them. Thats how we can benefit. The u. S. Markets should be open to that. Not just Raw Materials but commodities. We ourselves have a job to do. Not just those opening their markets. We have problems with the quality of our product so we cant meet certain requirements. We have problems with even meeting quantities demanded, walmart or target wants to buy something, they want huge quantities and sometimes they are not able to meet the demand. We have work to do to benefit from this agreement. Definitely. Why do you think more african countries are trading with the outside world and not within the continent . How do we change that . What advocacy or work is the World Trade Organization doing to promote more internal trading within the african continent . Because 17 i think is where its at right now and that sounds insane. Its a very, very important question. The reason is that the cost of trade between african countries is too high. It is cheap tore send something to china from legos, than from legos, i dont know so we have to ask ourselves why. 300 tariffs. Just think about it. Already people are disadvantaged, customs, barriers, investment barriers, customs, lack of infrastructure. All sorts of costs and i say some of them we can do away with. The trade barriers and the customs, lets digitize. If we can digitize we can reduce costs. We need the lower the costs of trading with each other and with the outside. Thats the big problem and the biggest barrier is infrastructure. We are not well connected with each other if we cannot build a rail and the roads and the air from one part of the continent to the other, sometimes they have to fly to europe to get to another country, thats not really acceptable. We have to solve the problem. Its not like people are going to come do it for us. Theres a lot of talk about free trade zones. Im curious to hear your perspective on that movement in the continent, what are the pros and cons . Pioneered by china. Taxes and so on. They are law, nonexistent so that companies can produce and export. Its a good thing. It would be very low in such zones provided they work and they can export. Ive seen trade zones in certain countries where instead of exporting, they are importing into the country and competing with existing enterprises and that doesnt work. So if we are going to have the free trade zones, lets use them properly. And lets make sure that the cost are low and those located in the zones can really materially increase exports for us. I think we can talk all day but you have to get to an event. I want to thank you so much for joining us and thank you for your incredible insight and the important work that you do and inspiring generation of African Women to lead. Well, thank you very much and thank you all for listening. Thank you for the incredible work you do. [applause] all right, we will continue our speeddating round. Now im honored to welcome patrick, the ceo and president for the center for American Progress. Welcome patrick. Thank you for allowing a mediocre man with these women. Given the background in the Public Sector anden in profit sector, how do you think our government and Civil Society can collaborate can african governments and their Civil Society to strengthen Economic Cooperation . Thank you for the question and thank you for the extraordinary leadership in congress particularly in standing up Foreign Policy work that integrates africa centrally in that role. Ive had the privilege of being in government leading philanthropies and being activist in our diaspora. In every single one of those spaces i had the sense that we have been underutilizing diaspora and underleveraging the extraordinary power that could benefit all of us from the african continent if we leaned into sharper partnership. Its been thrilling to see the Vice President of the United States, the treasury secretary of the u. S. , a number of other cabinet officers go to the continent with the private sector in toe and not just arriving at the goal post rhetoric becoming actual partnership to the tune of 27 billion in actualized realized deals from the africa summit in december of last year through recent compacts in the last several weeks. Thats extraordinary but we are at a moment of intense geopolitical competition and rivalries and we are at a point where we are facing a number of existential threats not the least of which is, of course, Climate Change and i would in responding to that question really focus on this question of climate. We should all appreciate that by 2050 the african by 2050 africans will comprise a quarter of the worlds population and 50 of the worlds youth. Did you hear me, quarter of the World Population and 50 of the worlds youth. Being in partnership with africans, africa for our Civil Society and government its not a question that charity, its actually absolutely necessary if we are going to overcome the great challenges of the day and innovate in spaces like climate. Africa has something to the order of about 60 of the potential Renewable Energy on the planet. It has a third of all the Critical Minerals that we need for things like our telephones, electric vehicles that, a number of interesting billionaires are building and and yet there are about 600 million folks in sub Sahara Africa lacking electricity or electrical generation. So theres keen and Important Partnership that should be sharpened between american folks in the west to africans that would be the Mutual Benefit of africans that are denied that access and the rest of the world that are increasingly dependent on those Energy Sources if we are going to make this transition on time to literally save the planet. I think that the stats you mentioned oftentimes people dont think about it or hear it. So thank you so much for doing that. During your tenure as ambassador to south africa, you led critical efforts, greatly integrating and improving south africas healthcare and infrastructure, can you go into more detail of that work abroad and how it impacted your understanding, role of diplomacy in strengthening africau. S. Partnership . Im copy to do that since im shameless unapologetic cheerleader. Pepfar the emergency plan for aids release. It has made hundreds of billions, its made hundreds of billions of dollars of investments around the world and has save tad million lives s and was initiated by president bush at the height of the aids epidemic and renewed consistently by democratic and republican president s, democratic and republican senates an congress, however, in the several months there are some performative members of congress who are holding up peffar as exhibit a in their culture wars and they are wrongly accusing the leaders of pepfar somehow providing Reproductive ServicesReproductive Health health services, Abortion Services around the world which is not the case at all. What peffar actually is the greatest Prolife Program that the u. S. Taxpayer has ever invested in. I will tell you i had the privilege of serving this country in south africa as ambassadorburg during the moment of sars epidemic in parts of the continent. When south african trained epidemiologists who were able to advance to the ranks of the academy and in their labs as a consequence of u. S. Investments able to go to other parts of the continent to provide emergency relief not on aids and hiv but other consequential healthcare matters. There are thousands of laboratories in the continent. Pepfar has helped generate capacity healthcare and church in south africa, in cape town. He was at the Un General Assembly a few days ago and he was involved with pepfar renewal and said to american, you dont want your relationship in africa to be defined through a security prism. You really should lean further and harder into investments like pepfar. You should be rightly proud of them. Every american should be made aware of it and if you truly are in competition with other nation states for the hearts and minds and souls an partnership of africa, you want to lift up efforts exactly like this one. Im an evangelist for pepfar and proud that the vast majority, not just democrats in congress but your republican colleagues as well. I think its fascinating hear republicans talk about pepfar because it was a republican president initiative. We should give a shoutout to congresswoman barbara lee for leading the charge in that fight. I dont know how she convinced to do it but she con quinced bush to do it in the midst of voting against the iraq war. Extraordinary diplomacy. It is extraordinary. You you have not only served as an ambassador to south africa but you have another connection to africa. You were born in africa. Werent we all . And so its no surprise that the organization that youre leading now has a new Foreign Policy lens. What work are you guys looking forward to doing in regards to africa . Thank you, i was born in the republic of congo of haitian parents. Its a complicated its a complicated history. My father always like fun fact when i found out. My father likes to joke that he had to flee and ended up with richard nixon. He wasnt sure he had done much better. The center for American Progress does have regional expert oh, my god. Regional expertise in africa now. Im proud that my colleague anne griffin is here. She focused, yes, on the Climate Transition but also on the Critical Minerals question as well and on sovereign debt which really has to be curved and curtailed but the only way that you get at the sovereign debt issue on the continent congresswoman is if we reform constitutions like the world bank, imf, et cetera, because we know that in all of those spaces there has been a reluckance to african countries because we have been deemed too risky. Like black folks going to the bank and trying to start a Small Business always deemed too risky. In the meanwhile we have the best talent for hustle. African nations have been considered way risky to be invested by those institutions but in the meanwhile they are spending all of their resources trying to mitigate famine and drought thats caused by Climate Change thats led, of course, by the things that we are doing here in the u. S. And elsewhere. So theres a need to reform those institutions, theres a need to infuse significant capital in the global south not as aid but as investment around renewables, for instance, if we are going to change the narrative and through the change of narrative the story as well. You have someone else thats a powerful storyteller and i know that politics is down stream of storytelling and culture. If we think about the challenges that we faced in the u. S. And elsewhere we have to recognize the solution to those challenges lies in africa literally on the ground, under the ground and in partnership. I want to go a little further than what my elder sister from the wto said earlier for the need for africans, i think its kind of different. You know reality show married at first sight. Unfortunately africa has been married at first sight to too many folks after the first date and we have to make the second date a little more complicated than its been. Right now it was an extraordinary Climate Summit which was solidarity, the peoples compact and those two stories are incredibly different. Right now in kenya 90 of kenyas energy comes from geothermal basins, 90 of Renewable Energy. However, all of the energy accrues to kenyans only through the instruments of multilateral private sector that charges kenyans exorbitant rates for access to their own energy. We have to change that and flip that and so with my colleague in the center for American Progress we are doing everything that we can to advocate within partnership and on behalf of Civil Society. Thank you