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Leslie Marbury is the Acting Chief Operating Officer, Prosper Africa, a United States government initiative that connects US and African businesses with new buyers, suppliers, and investment opportunities. Marbury joined Prosper Africa in July 2021 as the Acting Chief Operating Officer. Most recently, she completed a tour as the US Agency for International Development Mission Director in Rwanda and Burundi, where she led the development of a new Country Development Cooperation Strategy, established a leadership initiative to empower staff to achieve greater development results, and led the response to COVID-19. In this interview, she speaks about the initiatives and why she is visiting Africa. Excerpts:
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) has the potential to boost growth, reduce poverty, and broaden economic inclusion across sub-Saharan Africa. In what ways is the United States government helping to achieve many of the AfCFTA’s objectives?
AfCFTA offers terrific opportunities, both for Africa and the United States and we look forward to engaging the African Union Secretariat and countries in Africa, on how we can make US companies come in an engage Nigerian companies. The Biden-Harris administration is ready to held harness economic gains that we see from the AfCFTA and we are committed to providing technical assistance to support cross-border trade and investments, whether at the country level, at the regional, economic or communities level, working with the AfCFTA secretariat.
What is the US government doing to ensure that Africa is not left behind as economies all over the world try to recover from the negative impact of COVID 19?
In many areas. But I would speak to the Prosper Africa Initiative, especially the trade and investment aspect of it. I am coordinating the Prosper Africa Initiative, which is a US government initiative to increase trade and investment between African nations and the United States. We know that economies across the world were impacted by COVID-19 and the Biden-Harris administration has committed to helping to build back better from COVID. We have to leverage some of the opportunities that COVID created and we are focused on unlocking economic growth. So many of the initiatives and work under the Prosper Africa Initiative seeks to grow economies and help them recover from COVID.
Under this initiative, what kind of support are you giving to African businesses?
The Prosper Africa is a commitment to strengthening mutually beneficial relationship towards trade and investment. This includes trade and investment flows from the United States to Africa and also includes from Africa to the United States. So, we are trying to provide more competitive and comprehensive packages and support to both US and African companies. Particularly, we are helping African companies to attract investments.
So, how is this different from other programmes we had in the past such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)?
The Prosper Africa Initiative brings together the full suit of the US government trade and investment support services and it has added new and improved areas. So, the Prosper Africa Initiative is private sector led and it is to respond to the needs of the private sector by providing things like market insights, technical assistance, financing and more. So, it is different from previous initiatives in that we are taking a continent-wide approach, so that we can engage with companies and investors who are looking for viable sectors across countries.
Are there specific sectors the Prosper Africa Initiative is focusing on?
We are looking at sectors that are responding to Africa’s priorities; that are contributing to rebuild the economies from COVID and in areas where the US government has comparative advantage. Where we see opportunities are in digital, healthcare, climate, value-adding manufacturing. So, on this trip, we are looking at the creative sector and the digital sector and we are visiting Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Namibia, as part of our Prosper Africa economic diplomacy trip and we are focusing on the creative industry and digital. Nigeria’s creative industry has tremendous opportunities to create jobs and for partnerships between the US and Nigeria. The creative industry also provides an opportunity to change some of the negative narrative about Africa, by focusing on more diverse stories. So, specifically, in this trip we have engaged people in the film and music industries generally.
Can you share some of the success stories of the Prosper Africa Initiative since it commenced in 2019?
There are many, but let me choose the ones that would resonate with you. Since 2019, the US government has helped to close 800 Prosper Africa deals across 45 African countries for an estimated value of $50 billion. Part of what we are doing here is to look at how we can attract more businesses so that we can build on this momentum. Specific examples from Nigeria is the Tomato Jos. They used Prosper Africa advisory support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to raise over $4 million in investment. The company works with local farmers in producing tomato sauces and they recently opened their factor. Another example is ipNX. It is an innovative women-led digital infrastructure company based here in Nigeria. They are using funding from the US Trade and Development Agency to support the expansion of fibre optic cable across the country.
Women entrepreneurs in Nigeria are a growing market force, serving as a critical source of innovation and job creation and fueling economic growth. How does the US government seeks to support women’s inclusive participation in the economy in Africa?
Absolutely, when the Biden-Harris administration kicked off and relaunched Prosper Africa, they wanted to make it as inclusive as possible and wanted to focus more on women, engaging the diaspora and small and medium scale enterprises. We know that female entrepreneurs have a lot of potential and on this trip, we have sat down with a number of female entrepreneurs to know how they feel in receiving some support from the US government and what additional support they may need.
Digital technologies are creating exciting new opportunities particularly for a young, entrepreneurial, and innovative population like Nigeria’s. The Nigerian FinTech ecosystem has maintained its growth trajectory producing five out of the seven unicorns on the continent. How do you think tech start-ups and digital ecosystems can help drive sustainable economic growth in Nigeria?
Fintechs in Africa are doing tremendously and showing how Africa can create solutions to global problems. You can see that the amount of venture capital coming into Nigeria is quite impressive and the way the Prosper Africa Initiative may support the fintech players could be by providing advisory support and in helping them to attract finance.
It is often said that Africa’s fast-growing population and markets present tremendous long-term growth opportunities. What are the greatest opportunities that the United States sees on the African continent today and how committed is the US government and its private sector to deepening economic and commercial engagement on the continent?
First, Africa is the place of opportunity and the areas we are seeing tremendous opportunities are in key sectors such as digital economy, creatives, healthcare and in the energy space. With Prosper Africa, we are connecting the US and African businesses and helping to facilitate transactions. We provide support to American businesses and investors to export and invest in Africa and provide African businesses opportunities to export to the US. And we do that in few ways – providing market insights, deals’ support and financing.
What is your trip to Nigeria and other African countries all about and what do you seek to achieve and categories of business leaders and policymakers did you meet with?
This is the first Prosper Africa Economic Diplomacy visit. It is led by the Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Akunna Cook. I am also here as the Chief Operating Officer of Prosper Africa and we have someone from our Development Finance Corporation. We are visiting Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Namibia and the focus is to look at how we can increase trade and investment opportunities in the US and Africa, to look at opportunities we can promote and where we can make connections. We have been sitting down with business leaders, entrepreneurs, group of creative entrepreneurs and we also visited Abuja to meet some government officials.
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