US-Africa Business Summit Opens with Diamond Success Story
The 15th edition of the US-Africa Business Summit officially opened at the Royal Aria Convention Center in Gaborone on 12 July 2023. An invitational golf tournament took place on 11 July 2023 and the conference will last till 14 July 2023. The 15th US-Africa Business Summit follows the successful holding of the 2nd US-Africa Leaders Summit (#UALS2) in November 2022.
Being the host country, Botswana delivered the welcome address in line with the theme of this edition which is “Enhancing Africa’s Value in Global Value Chains (#GVC).” Florizelle Liser, President and CEO of the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) opened the conference highlighting the advances and commitments reached at the US-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022.
Diamond is Botswana’s best friend and so can other strategic minerals become the best friend of other African countries.
Botswana is considered a well-developed country in Africa and owes its remarkable economic success thanks to the judicious exploitation of its key mineral resource, diamond. Indeed, Botswana has managed to move up the Global Value Chain in the diamond industry.
Starting from exporting diamonds in the rough, Botswana has gradually risen up the value chain by performing more and more local value addition (#LVA) before being able to produce jewelry such as the much-coveted diamond ring. On this occasion, Debswana Diamond Company — a JV between the Government of Botswana and De Beers Group — shared its success story in some detail during the plenary session.
Several heads of state or government attended the conference, including the President of Botswana Mokgweetsi Masisi, the President of Niger Mohamed Bazoum, the President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa, the President of Mozambique Filipe Nyusi, the PM of Eswatini Cleopas Dlamini and the PM of Lesotho Samuel Matekane.
As part of the conference, several country-specific sessions are on the program whereby the national investment promotion agency will endeavor to promote #FDI into their respective country. The delegates will also explore a number of themes ranging from #FoodSecurity, #ClimateChange to #CriticalMinerals, all the while comparing notes on how to accelerate the upgrade of Africa up the #GVC.