The Global Shea Alliance will host its inaugural North American event in New York City May 13, reflecting the organization’s meteoric growth in just two years. Launched with 54 stakeholders in 2011 with USAID Trade Hub support the alliance today counts more than 350 members from all over the globe.

Dr. Daniel Bromley is the Anderson-Bascom Distinguished Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at Humbold University in Berlin. He is the author, most recently, of "Vulnerable People, Vulnerable States: Redefining the Development Challenge." The views expressed here are his own.

Global Shea Alliance participates at in-cosmetics, trains women in Ghana

The Global Shea Alliance, co-founded by the USAID Trade Hub in 2011, participated at the In-Cosmetics international trade show and the Union for Ethical Bio Trade conference in Paris, distributing more than 100 annual reports and membership directories to shea butter distributers, brands, and development agencies from around the world.

Catch up with the Global Shea Alliance and other leading organizations involved in sustainability in the cosmetics industry at the fourth North American edition of the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit in New York City.

www.globalshea.com

The Global Shea Alliance invites you to the Inaugural North American Shea Trade and Industry Conference and Luncheon, to be held May 13, 2013, at the Radisson Martinique on Broadway, New York City.

For more information and to register, visit www.globalshea.com

Border Information Center opens at the Port of Dakar

105 stakeholders in Senegal participated in the launch of West Africa’s fourth Border Information Center in Dakar. The new center is hosted by the Conseil Sénégalais des Chargeurs (COSEC).

More than 500 representatives of all points in the shea value chain participated in the Global Shea Alliance’s “Global Perspectives” conference, held in Abuja, Nigeria, in March, and set the course for the future of an industry whose global significance grows with every year. Alliance members set up working groups on sustainability on the critical issues of quality and sustainability, and elected a new president.

AGOA opened the U.S. to  duty-free sale of more than 6,000 items (tariff lines) from African nations provided those countries conduct free and fair elections. Products from West Africa that have utilized the program include textiles, apparel, agricultural products such as cashews and shea butter as well as oil and gas.

Featuring an interview with Paul Brenton, the World Bank’s Trade Practice Manager for Africa, and a review of the success of the USAID Trade Hub’s access to finance strategy, the USAID Trade Hub’s monthly newsletter, Tradewinds, was delivered to more than 12,000 subscribers. www.watradehub.com/tradewinds