Launching Prosper Africa Tech for Trade Alliance

Nextrade Group is proud to share the launch of the Prosper Africa Tech for Trade Alliance we formed in 2021-22 is a public-private partnership supported by the U.S. Government’s Prosper Africa initiative and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and 17 leading corporate partners to enable Africa’s trade through technology. The Alliance supports the aspirations of the Prosper Africa initiative and the Digital Transformation Africa (DTA) announced in the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit - where the Tech fro Trade Alliance too was announced.

The Alliance leverages leading U.S. and European companies’ technology assets, services, and expertise to grow African trade and ecommerce flows in goods and services; promote African firms and economies’ trade and productivity; build African workforce’s technological talent to thrive as digital service providers and create their own technology companies; and promote a better policy enabling environment for trade and investment in Africa.

By way of its work, the Alliance supports the aspirations of the Prosper Africa initiative and the implementation of the U.S. African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), and promotes the adoption of digital and trade policies conducive to U.S.-Africa trade and investment.

The Alliance will orient and measure its activities via innovative analytics on digital transformation of Africa’s trade ecosystem and businesses, growth in trade flow and trade throughput, and on African countries’ digital policy frameworks and implementation of the AfCFTA commitments. The Alliance pays particular attention to using technology to empower women-led firms and bridge geospatial economic disparities.

The Alliance includes Cargill, Google, Mastercard, Visa, DHL, UPS, FedEx, Youredi, VTEX, eCommerce Institute, Interswitch, Kasha, Celo, King & Spalding, Ringier One Africa Media, HelloTractor, and Nextrade Group. The Alliance was launched during World Bank-IMF spring meetings in April in Washington, in the context of the Africa Fintech Summit.