1. Change at the Helm
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Change at the helm as USAID Trade
Hub project steers towards its third act
Thursday, July 19 2012
Denise Awoonor-Renner
After 10 years in West Africa, USAID West Africa Trade Hub
Director Vanessa Adams will be moving on August 1, leaving
behind a dynamic economic growth project that has had
significant impact across the region.
USAID Trade Hub Director Vanessa Adams is moving on after eight years at the Trade Hub.
“It’s been an amazing experience and we’ve done some great work,” said Adams. “I’m just very
thankful to have had such excellent people to work with at the project and with our partners
across West Africa.”
The USAID Trade Hub will continue under its current guise until March 2013—under the
guidance of incoming director Byron Battle, a former Chief of Party on a USAID project and,
more recently, U.S. Peace Corps Director in Mali and Mexico.
A former Vice President of CARANA Corporation—implementing partner for the USAID Trade
Hub—Battle brings technical depth in economic growth, export and investment promotion, and
business environment, as well as experience managing complex field projects.
“For me, personally and professionally, it’s a pleasure to return to West Africa after my years of
experience in Mali, Benin, Guinea and Gabon,” Battle said. “I look forward to taking over the
leadership of the USAID West Africa Trade Hub.
“We will miss the presence of Vanessa Adams who has done a magnificent job during these
years on the project, but I’m enthusiastic to continue her good work along with the work of the
outstanding USAID Trade Hub team.”
With Ghana's Vice President John
Mahama at Shea 2011: Sustainable
Solutions in Accra.
Exceeding all targets
Adams’ impact at the USAID Trade Hub—
and indeed across the business world in West
Africa and the sectors the Trade Hub works
in—are remarkable. Under her leadership, the
USAID Trade Hub exceeded by multiples all
of its targets.

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“Certainly, skeptics may say the West Africa Trade Hub rode a wave of increased trade across
Africa,” said Brinton Bohling of USAID West Africa, which funds and oversees the USAID
Trade Hub. “But in each sector, specific challenges that seemed quite overwhelming at the time
have been overcome by the work of the USAID Hub and their West African partners, and trade
and investment have expanded in these sectors.
Being interviewed by the BBC at the launch of the Border
Information Center in 2011.
“Perhaps more importantly, the Trade Hub has contributed to
improvements in transport, finance and the business environment
that benefit all West African sectors, businesses, workers, and
consumers.”
Over the last five years the USAID Trade Hub has strengthened the competitiveness of export-
ready firms in five product categories with associated industry brands: apparel, cashew, home
décor & fashion accessories, shea, and specialty foods through linkages to overseas markets.
“The USAID Trade Hub has been an important supporter of trade and investment in West
Africa,” said Guy M’Bengue of the Cote d’Ivoire Export Promotion Agency, echoing a
sentiment heard across the region. “Vanessa Adams has been a tireless champion of efforts to
increase exports who will be greatly missed.”
In concrete terms the USAID Trade Hub has facilitated over US$194 million in exports from
Trade Hub-assisted firms as well as over US$5 million in regional trade, and over US$53 million
in investments. It has provided technical assistance and expert consulting to over 3,400 export-
ready companies across the region and training to more than 10,000 people in sector-specific
workshops on production and quality management, standards and certifications, financial
planning and analysis, sales management and export logistics.
It has also prepared hundreds of West African firms to market their products using multi-
stakeholder-supported and internationally respected industry brands at major trade shows over
the years.
More than 20,000 people have been trained in transport and logistics and major policy changes
have occurred thanks to insight and analysis it has provided to stakeholders across the region.
AGOA – and ahead of the curve
A recent New York Times article, "Africa on the Rise,"
highlights the importance of the African Growth and
Opportunity Act (AGOA), which promotes trade by providing
duty-free access to the American market. The Trade Hubs - there
are three in Africa - grew out of AGOA.

3. Change at the Helm
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The columnist, Nicholas Kristof, describes AGOA as “… one of the best
aid programs you’ve never heard of—except that it isn’t an aid program but
an initiative to help Africa lift itself up and create jobs through exports.”
The USAID Trade Hub developed international brands with stakeholders in
targeted sectors to increase the visibility of West African companies in
international markets.
The USAID Trade Hub has been practicing this ‘trade not aid’ approach
since its inception in 2003, improving understanding of and implementation
of policies and procedures to utilize AGOA. It coordinates and assists a
network of 18 AGOA Resource Centers—essentially business resource centers—across the
region and provides technical assistance to governments and companies on AGOA trade
preferences.
Despite the success of the AGOA legislation, certain provisions critical to jobs in Africa are
awaiting renewal from Congress.
Vision and realism
In his article, Kristof brashly states that “African countries
themselves have botched trade because of corruption,
onerous rules and uncompetitive minimum wages,”
referring to the ‘infuriating red tape’ that impedes business.
But Adams, who has lived and worked with the realities on
the ground over the last decade, has a different view.
“Of course there are frustrations for business but the opportunities and the successful initiatives
deserve more attention,” Adams said. “That’s really what people should be talking about—what
is working and how is it working.
“For too long, there has been a mentality that has pervaded how people talk about business in
Africa—when they even talked about it, which was usually a footnote in between talking about
political instability, disease and famine. That mentality was a tiring, almost paralyzing drumbeat
of negativity. Those days are—happily—coming to an end.”
Adams’ strengths have included a “can-do” attitude, steely determination to get things done, and
an ability to deploy diverse strategies using her knowledge of local practices, timescales and
nuances.
"I've always taken a very private sector-minded view," she said. "Even in terms of the public
sector work we're doing with Borderless. Who's going to invest in this? Who's going to sustain
it?"
In 2005, many were skeptical that an alliance of African cashew stakeholders would impact the
industry. But it has.
Adams has also helped guide the building of industry alliances that are now recognized as
credible and essential to the industries they represent.

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Although obviously important today, the alliances were not always considered as such. Funders
of the African Cashew Alliance at its inception said they felt they were taking a significant risk –
and that Adams’ conviction and tenacity were the most important reasons they acted.
"Yes, you could say I take my work home," Adams wrote in a column for Tradewinds last year.
"I take our successes and results, constraints and challenges personally."
It showed to many people who came in contact with the USAID Trade Hub.
The Global Shea Alliance, formed in 2010 and now
under the stewardship of Managing Director Joseph
Funt, now has 145 members and has quickly become a
force for the industry. The Borderless Alliance is the
latest ‘child’ on the block, also with a new Managing
Director, Justin Bayili.The Global Shea Alliance has
quickly become a force in the industry.
As in the agribusiness sectors – shea, cashew – there are seasons of planting, cultivating,
harvesting. Adams and her team have planted some of the seeds of economic growth. It is now
for the Alliances, USAID Trade Hub team and West African private and public sector
stakeholders to make sure that West Africa receives the rich harvest that it deserves.