U.S. Cooperation With Gabon

The United States welcomes Transition President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema to reaffirm and deepen the sixty-four years of strong partnership and cooperation between the people of the United States and Gabon. Through this visit, the United States is seeking to strengthen and elevate our partnership with Gabon on matters of mutual interest, including strong partnerships to protect the environment, foster economic development, and strengthen regional security.

The United States and Gabon reaffirm and celebrate this longstanding partnership and recognize that Gabon's commitment to a democratic transition creates unprecedented opportunities to expand and strengthen this partnership and work together to support inclusive governance and promote respect for human rights.

As part of this statement of enhanced cooperation, the United States and Gabon intend to pursue the following steps to support Gabon's democratic transition, enhancing shared security objectives, and promoting economic development and environmental protection.

• African Democratic and Political Transitions (ADAPT) initiative: In recognition of Gabon's significant steps toward a democratic transition, the U.S. government intends to support continued progress through the ADAPT initiative. Announced by President Biden at the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the ADAPT initiative provides political and technical support to states undergoing democratic transitions. U.S. technical assistance to Gabonese government entities, civic groups, activists, media outlets, and women- and youth-focused organizations will support inclusive constitutional and electoral legal reforms and free, fair, and peaceful transitional elections.

• Libreville Local Democracy Forum: Building off the success of the first of its kind Local Democracy Forum held earlier this year in Yerevan, the United States is pleased to convene a second Forum in Libreville in the coming months with distinguished U.S. mayors and Gabonese leaders for an exchange about the role of local leaders in a democracy.

• Expanding Gabonese Business Opportunities: The United States also warmly welcomes Gabonese attendance at the George Washington University Business Conference in the spring of 2025 to focus on expanding opportunities for African women entrepreneurs and climate initiatives. The Gabonese delegation will be led by the Minister of the Economy, Minister Mays Moussi, and alumni of the African Women's Entrepreneurship Forum.

• Sister Cities: The United States and Gabon also intend to explore a Sister Cities program, a hub for institutional knowledge and best practices in the field of citizen diplomacy, signaling our mutual interest in further developing open business, cultural, and educational ties between our people.

• Expanded Development Finance Corporation Pipeline: Building on the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)'s engagement in Gabon, including the Blue Bond for marine conservation with the Nature Conservancy, the United States and Gabon welcome the DFC's plans to conduct a visit in November to meet with Gabonese officials to explore additional opportunities.

• Driving U.S.-Gabon Trade and Investment: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched the U.S.-Gabon Investment Guide and hosted the U.S.-Gabon Executive Business Roundtable on October 1. The launch of the investment guide is a recognition of the immense capacity for economic partnership and seeks to promote greater collaboration between our two nations while supporting increased private sector engagement towards greater mutual prosperity.

• Securing Critical Mineral Supply Chains: The United States and Gabon have shared interests in supporting the reliability of critical mineral supply chains. Working with the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Department of State intends to undertake technical cooperation to assist Gabon with understanding the extent of its critical mineral resource potential, strengthening the competitiveness of Gabon's investment frameworks, and helping it identify paths to market for critical mineral resource development through quality investment that benefits the people of Gabon. The Department intends to conduct an assessment visit in the coming months to discuss Gabon's priorities and cooperation interest areas, subject to the availability of funds.

• USAID Staffing: The United States is pleased to announce that USAID intends to place a full-time Country Manager in Libreville in 2025.

• English Language Training and Resources: The United States also intends to extend English language training and resources to Gabonese educators, students, and entrepreneurs to improve English proficiency, deepen professional skills, foster economic growth, and increase social mobility for the people of Gabon.

• Supporting Coexistence with Gabon's Forest Elephants: In light of our shared commitment to environmental conservation, institutional capacity building, and conserving Gabon's nature-based tourist destinations, the U.S. government is supporting $2 million in new programs to protect Gabon's African forest elephants and mitigate human-elephant conflict.

• Sister Parks: The United States is pleased to build upon a renewed $20 million arrangement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Agency for National Parks (ANPN) in 2024, funded by USAID's Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE), and intends to promote connections to Gabon's ANPN by the U.S. National Park Service to identify specific topics for technical assistance and pursue potential sister parks.

• Combatting Nature Crimes: Additionally, the United States intends through funding provided by USAID's CARPE program, to work with Congress to support efforts to combat nature crimes in Gabon, including by strengthening Gabon's ability to identify and control illegal timber exports through provision of a Direct Analysis in Real-Time (DART) mass spectrometer.

• Maritime Patrol Vessels: Working with the U.S. Congress, the United States intends to provide maritime patrol vessels and related maintenance and operational training to bolster the ability of the ANPN to identify and combat threats to Gabon's maritime domain.

• Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation: To develop Gabon's capacity in ocean science research and its efforts to protect the ocean and restore marine biodiversity, the United States is partnering with OceanX to identify opportunities to work with early career scientists and youth from Gabon to expand access to ocean science research and foster a new generation of ocean advocates. The partnership will also explore the implementation of joint initiatives involving the R/V OceanXplorer in early 2025.

• Port Security: The United States intends to support port security by working with Gabon to create a port control unit that will increase Gabon's capacity to monitor and detect illicit trafficking at the Port of Libreville-Owendo.

• Shiprider Agreement: Further, the United States and Gabon look forward to exploring the potential for a bilateral maritime law enforcement agreement, known as "Shiprider," which would enable joint maritime law enforcement operations between the U.S. Coast Guard and Gabon, enhancing Gabon's maritime enforcement capacity and supporting the enforcement of Gabonese law within their maritime zones.

• Regional Maritime Awareness Capabilities (RMAC) Program: The United States is pleased to announce that the United States plans to support the creation of two new radar facilities at Cape Santa Clara and Mayumba and provide technical support for existing radar sites at Port Gentil and Cap Esterias to improve maritime awareness capabilities within your territorial waters.

• Renewed U.S.-Gabon Security Partnership: The United States is also committed to increasing our security partnership with Gabon and expanding the Gabonese security forces' capabilities to combat their internal security threats and contribute to regional security efforts. To this end, the United States and Gabon are also building on existing joint programs including Gabon's participation in the State Partnership Program with the West Virginia National Guard to provide Gabon with specialized training to professionalize their military force, develop emergency and disaster response capabilities, and secure their borders; and Gabon's role as host of Exercise OBANGAME EXPRESS 24, and other opportunities to expand the scope and frequency of our security cooperation. To reinforce this elevated security partnership, Gabon will host General Michael Langley, Commander of U.S. Africa Command, later this year.

Defense Cooperation Agreement: The United States and Gabon also expect to build on constructive engagements conducted to date and look forward to successfully concluding negotiations on a Defense Cooperation Agreement in the future.