As part of an ongoing series of firsthand reports on the challenges facing drivers in West Africa, Bright Gowonu from the USAID West Africa Trade Hub’s Transport team hitched a ride with a truck driver on the Dakar-Tambacounda-Bissau transit corridor between Senegal and Guinea Bissau. This is his report.

AfricaNow! Handcrafts Exporters Workshop held at SIAO 2012

87 handcrafts producers and exporters from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo participated in the USAID Trade Hub-supported AfricaNow! three-day handcrafts exporters workshop at the Salon International de l’Artisanat de Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. The workshop was supported by the USAID BEAM project as well.

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About two years ago, Felicite Yameogo, known in Burkina Faso as “Mme Karite” (French for "Lady Shea") for her more than two decades of work in the sector, watched helplessly as her company’s financial viability came undone. Karikis, based in Ouagadougou, produces a variety of cosmetics with all natural shea butter produced by thousands of Burkinabe women.

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More than 30 West African women entrepreneurs formed the African Women Entrepreneurs network after meeting at the 9th annual AGOA Forum in Washington, D.C. Aug. 4-7. The network aims to increase opportunities for women to use AGOA’s trade benefits to increase exports to the U.S. and increase investment in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Trade Hub submitted its April to June quarterly report of activities to USAID this week. Trade Hub-assisted exporting companies generated US$1.5 million in exports last quarter, attracting US$280,000 in investment and creating 75 jobs (61 filled by women). A new enhanced AGOA Resource Center opened in Cameroon in April and the Transport team released two comprehensive studies during the quarter.

Explore the locations of some of the export ready companies we work with across the region. (N.B. This map was last updated in August 2010.)