This week Washington will host the fifth Sub-Saharan Africa Tradeand Economic Cooperation Forum, which will bring togethergovernments and representatives of the private sector and civilsociety to discuss how the African Growth and Opportunity Act(AGOA) "can continue to be a vehicle to increase trade, investmentand economic cooperation between the United States and sub-SaharanAfrican eligible countries." Economic growth and developmentin sub-Saharan Africa depends greatly on increasing thecompetitiveness of African businesses and entrepreneurs. AGOAcontributes to that goal by providing duty-free access to the U.S.market for most imports from the region. However, trade preferencesare not the best long-term solution. For sub-Saharan Africancountries to take full advantage of trade to spur growth anddevelopment, their governments must remove barriers to trade amongthemselves and should enter into a full free trade agreement withthe U.S. This will take time to negotiate and implement. The U.S.should begin work now to transform AGOA into a free trade agreementby its expiration in 2015.