By Seun Ibiyemi
The Bashir Adeniyi Centre for International Trade and Investment (BACITI) of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) has called for African countries to take strategic steps to reposition their economies as discussions intensify over the renewal or redesign of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the United States’ long-standing trade preference programme for Sub-Saharan Africa.
AGOA, enacted in 2000 under the U.S. Trade and Development Act, granted eligible African countries duty-free and quota-free access to the American market for thousands of products.
Over the past two decades, it has served as a central pillar of U.S.–Africa trade relations, supporting export growth and job creation across key sectors, especially in apparel, agriculture, and light manufacturing.
However, a new policy insight by BACITI notes that AGOA’s impact has been uneven across the region.
While non-oil exports from countries such as Kenya, Lesotho, Ethiopia, and Madagascar grew steadily, the programme was dominated by oil exports from Nigeria and Angola, which accounted for over 85 per cent of total AGOA trade at its peak.
Between 2001 and 2008, U.S. imports from Sub-Saharan Africa surged from $8.2 billion to $66.3 billion, driven largely by crude oil.
But following the 2008 financial crisis and the U.S. shale oil boom, AGOA trade volumes fell to around $14 billion by 2014 and have remained subdued since.
BACITI observed that the overreliance on commodities and limited diversification hindered the region’s ability to sustain long-term gains.
Structural challenges including high production costs, unreliable power supply, inefficient ports, weak quality standards, and poor export coordination have further constrained competitiveness and limited the developmental impact of the programme.
As AGOA’s renewal remains under discussion in Washington, the Centre emphasized that African countries must focus less on preferential access and more on building industrial capacity, productive infrastructure, and export diversification.
“Africa’s challenge is not simply whether AGOA is renewed, but whether the region can strengthen its structural and productive capabilities to benefit meaningfully from such frameworks,” BACITI stated.
The Centre recommended that Sub-Saharan African countries adopt integrated trade and industrialisation strategies, invest in logistics and energy infrastructure, strengthen certification and compliance systems, and align AGOA strategies with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to boost value-added exports.
Ultimately, the report concluded, the future of Africa–U.S. trade “will be shaped less in Washington and more in Africa’s own industrial parks, ports, and production hubs, where competitiveness and sustainable growth must be built from within.”