In the two years since the December 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the Biden-Harris Administration significantly expanded engagement and partnership with African nations, driven by the conviction that the future of Africa and the United States depends on what we can achieve together. At the Summit, the United States pledged to invest $55 billion in Africa over three years. We have surpassed that goal - the Administration has committed and spent over $65 billion in Africa since the Summit. These investments have enabled the Administration, together with African partners, to accelerate development progress, advance trans-continental infrastructure, expand trade and economic opportunities, and support African-led efforts on conservation, climate adaptation, and a just energy transition.
But the achievements go beyond numbers, underpinned by our belief that solving global challenges requires African leadership and African partnership. The United States championed-and ultimately helped secure-the African Union's permanent membership in the G20 and announced our support for creating two permanent United Nations (UN) Security Council seats for African states. Since the Summit, we have laid out a vision alongside Kenya to help developing countries facing mounting debt burdens. Our partnerships enhanced food security and helped build more sustainable and resilient food systems, improved governance and security, and advanced shared public health goals. We catalyzed landmark diaspora-driven engagement, fostered an inclusive and resilient African digital ecosystem, and made strides to promote gender equality and women's empowerment.
High-Level Engagements
Throughout the Biden-Harris administration, President Biden has prioritized high-level engagement with African countries and partners.
Following the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in 2022, President Biden directed an unprecedented pace of senior-level U.S. Government visits to the continent. Twenty Cabinet Members and leaders of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies have visited the region since the Summit, with visits centered on deepening partnerships with African countries, institutions, and people. In March and April 2023, Vice President Harris visited Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia, where she announced more than $8 billion in public and private sector investment commitments towards climate and food security, women's empowerment, and digital inclusion across Africa.
In May 2024, President Biden then hosted President Ruto of Kenya for a State Visit and Dinner, the first State Visit of an African head of state since 2008. During that visit, which highlighted 60 years of official U.S.-Kenyan partnership, President Biden announced a slew of deliverables to improve economic opportunities for both our peoples, strengthen democratic resilience and safeguard human rights, and bolster our work together on a range of pressing issues, including climate and health.
In December 2024, President Biden traveled to the continent, becoming the first-ever U.S. president to visit Angola and the first sitting President to visit sub-Saharan Africa since 2015. During the visit, President Biden spoke about the past horrors of slavery and its legacy, while welcoming a bright future of deepening collaboration between the United States and the continent. He announced more than $1 billion in additional humanitarian funding and co-hosted a Summit on the Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor, underscoring the importance of private sector investments, inclusive economic growth, and sustainable development. One year earlier, President Biden had hosted President Lourenço of Angola for an Oval Office meeting. President Biden's historic trip to Angola topped off significant engagement with the continent throughout the entire Biden-Harris administration.
Trade and Investment
The Administration harnessed the dynamism of people from across the African continent and throughout the United States to expand prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. In the past two years, the United States has supported and helped close 1,385 new deals for a total estimated value of $62.6 billion in new two-way trade and investment between the United States and African countries. This represents a more than five-fold increase in the value of closed deals over the two years preceding the Summit. Illustrative highlights of these trade and investment initiatives include:
- The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has investments of over $13 billion in more than 300 projects across 36 countries in Africa. Since the Summit, DFC has committed over $5.3 billion to new projects in Africa in key sectors such as energy, healthcare, infrastructure, mineral resources, and support for small businesses.
- Since the Summit, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has funded 24 project preparation activities to advance the implementation of over $7 billion in digital connectivity, clean energy, and healthcare infrastructure projects on the continent. In 2024, USTDA arranged 10 reverse trade missions and workshops focused on regulatory convergence for healthcare products, transportation, green hydrogen development, cybersecurity, methane abatement, and sustainable energy, connecting African public and private sector representatives with the latest U.S. technologies, services, and financing solutions.
- Since 2022, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) has strengthened partnerships across Africa, approving approximately $4 billion in authorizations for sub-Saharan Africa. This includes transactions across a wide variety of sectors including two of the largest renewable energy projects in EXIM's history, aircrafts, civil works infrastructure, and radio equipment.
- In fiscal year (FY) 2023, the EXIM Board of Directors approved a $281 million transaction to support the export of several Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft to Ethiopian Airlines Group. This transaction supported 1,600 U.S. jobs across Indiana, North Carolina, and Washington. In FY 2024, the EXIM Board of Directors approved an additional transaction of more than $456 million for Ethiopian Airlines for the purchase of five Boeing aircraft, supporting an estimated 2,200 new U.S. jobs in North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington.
- Since 2022, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has invested almost $2.4 billion through agreements with African partner countries who have demonstrated their commitment to good governance, democratic values, and investing in their people. Funding is expanding energy markets, furthering private sector energy generation, enhancing farmers' supply chain integration, and improving education access to increase long-term employment opportunities.
- Prosper Africa funded and supported several initiatives to boost two-way trade and investment for key markets in Kenya, South Africa, and Morocco, to include the "Why Kenya, Why Africa" Roadshow in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, the launch of Atlanta Phambili with South African business and government leaders in Atlanta, and the U.S.-Morocco Venture Capital Forum. Prosper Africa also provided technical assistance to Togo-based Caisse Régionale de Refinancement Hypothécaire, supporting a $275 million housing deal with Bank of America.
- At the Summit, Prosper Africa announced the Catalytic Investment Facility, which provides first-loss and operational funding support to 10 African asset managers to mobilize $600 million from private investors, to deploy into African tech startups. To date, $93 million has been raised by the 10 African asset managers, and $44 million has been deployed into 61 startups throughout the continent.
- In September 2024, Prosper Africa announced a catalytic pooled fund to drive social investment. In partnership with the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, and in support of the Africa Venture Philanthropy Alliance, the fund aims to pool $200 million of catalytic capital over the next five years from African and global philanthropies and government donors. This capital is expected to leverage up to $2 billion in private capital.
- Prosper Africa provided a $1.275 million grant to the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility (LSF) to cover operational costs of LSF's work enhancing trading liquidity for African countries and lowering the cost of financing. LSF builds free and transparent capital markets in Africa and provides investors with an investible benchmark for evaluating the performance of African sovereign debt instruments such as the IBoxx LSF USD African Sovereign index, in conjunction with Standard & Poor's.
- The Small Business Administration (SBA) provided 34 small businesses with export financing that supported approximately $185.7 million in export sales involving the African continent from December 2023 to October 2024. Building on the SBA Administrator's visit to Cote d'Ivoire and Togo in 2023, SBA also undertook new activities in 2024 to connect members of the African diaspora in the United States with businesses in both continents.
- In November 2023 and July 2024, President Biden reiterated his strong support for the reauthorization and modernization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to deepen trade relations between the U.S. and Africa, strengthen regional integration, and realize Africa's immense economic potential. In 2023, AGOA imports totaled $9.7 billion and supported tens of thousands of jobs in the United States and Africa.
Infrastructure
President Biden's flagship G7+ initiative, the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI), advances strategic, values-driven, and high-standard infrastructure, investment, and sustainable development in low- and middle-income countries-with Africa as a key continent of focus. At the G7 Summit in June, leaders celebrated progress toward PGI's ambitious goal of mobilizing $600 billion by 2027 in global infrastructure investments that will make a difference in people's lives around the world, strengthen and diversify our supply chains, and advance shared national security interests. During his historic trip to Angola December 2-4, President Biden co-hosted a Summit on the Lobito Trans-Africa Corridor
