GENEVA—IISD is saddened by the recent loss of Ciata Bishop, a long-time friend and advisor to our team and a passionate advocate for ensuring that investment is conducted sustainably and with the involvement of the communities affected. 

Bishop was an influential international trade and investment lawyer with several decades of experience in government and private sector roles, working extensively in her home country of Liberia as well as internationally in the United States, the Cayman Islands, and Jamaica. Among her many leadership roles, Bishop served as the Director General of the National Bureau of Concession in Liberia, as well as the Executive Director of Liberia's National Investment Commission. 

Her collaboration with IISD first dates back to 2011, when she took part in the fifth edition of the Annual Forum of Developing Country Investment Negotiators, an event that brings together delegates from developing and emerging economies to network, strategize, and generate new ideas for international investment law and policy grounded in sustainable development. That year’s event was held in Kampala, Uganda, with Bishop serving as one of the keynote speakers, expertly walking us through the topic of "Rising or Uprising? Africa’s Inward Investment, Development and Sustainable Development."

Our relationship with her grew over time, with Bishop contributing her deep knowledge and expertise on responsible agricultural investments and the legal frameworks that make these possible. Over the past 2 years, she signed on to our agriculture team more formally as an advisor, working with us to help develop an updated IISD model contract for responsible investment in agriculture. 

"Ciata was a joy to work with. Her humorous spirit and infectious 'good morning' on team calls brought a lot of light, despite the fact that she was often in the dark—getting up at 5 a.m. to join us across distant time zones—and never once complaining," said Nyaguthii Maina, IISD Associate and International Law Advisor.

Bishop was deeply devoted to sharing her knowledge with the policy-maker community, helping us develop and undertake workshops for government officials on topics ranging from responsible contract farming to agriculture investor–state contracts and international investment agreements. Bishop was also a regular contributor to IISD's Community of Practice for developing country negotiators working on agricultural investment, an online space for exchanging articles, reports, event invitations, experiences, and new ideas. 

She was equally generous in sharing the lessons learned in her own personal experiences as a leading government official in Liberia, taking part in our “Stories of Change” series to walk us through how her country worked to draw in large-scale investments in agriculture in its early post-war years and what they learned along the way.

"Besides being a great team member, Ciata's illustrious career and deep care for the issues brought insightful reflections and perspective to our work. She was always willing and eager to share practical and useful insights on how to move from theory to practice. We will deeply miss her," said Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder, Senior Director of IISD’s Economic Law and Policy program.

Bishop's work will continue to shape the field of responsible agricultural investment for years to come, reminding us that each country's experience is different, and that we can achieve more if we learn from each other than if we move ahead by ourselves.

African and Caribbean nations recently took a major step toward building up their commercial and trading relationship, hoping to unlock what one report identified as more than USD1 billion in export potential.

Hundreds of delegates from both regions attended the first-ever AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum to discuss ways to create bilateral business opportunities and strengthen their trade ties. The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), Export Barbados, and Invest Barbados organized the 3-day conference in Bridgetown, Barbados.

The investment forum focused on business-to-business engagements and discussions on a range of topics such as accelerating industrialization and manufacturing; developing special economic zones and industrial parks; improving infrastructure, financing and trade logistics, including regional integration; creating the conditions to accelerate private sector investment; promoting trade and tourism; improving agricultural productivity; and expanding agribusiness opportunities and food security.

Despite historical linkages, investment and trade between Africa and the Caribbean have been negligible. For example, while Caribbean countries are awash with fish, Africa imports USD 4.5 billion of fish from the global market—with the Caribbean accounting for less than 1% of this trade, according to the African Union. Less than 0.1% of African exports were destined for Caribbean markets in 2020, while Africa bought less than 1% of Caribbean exports that year.

The International Trade Centre launched a new report at the forum showing that the two regions have an export potential exceeding USD 1 billion in sectors ranging from agrifood and healthcare to tourism, fertilizer, and automobiles. International Trade Centre Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton identified four ways to transform African-Caribbean trade, such as tackling trade barriers and considering a free trade agreement between the two regions.

Traders in Caribbean and African countries are aware of the opportunity. Barbados, for instance, shipped a 20-foot container worth more than USD 20,000 to Ghana in April. “We’re starting in Ghana, but we’re hoping that we can then go further afield, all throughout the continent of Africa, because there’s significant demand for our products no matter where we go,” Barbados Minister of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology Davidson Ishmael said at the time. “We want to encourage local producers to see Africa as an open playing field for them, an open market for them to be able to see how they can get their products and services onto the continent.”

Stronger African-Caribbean ties are especially important as economies around the world face recessions, unsustainable debt burdens, reduced flows of finance for sustainable development, climate change, and global supply chain disruptions, African Union Commissioner Trade and Industry Albert Muchanga told the forum.

Afreximbank President Benedict Oramah said the conference aimed to address these challenges and establish strong commercial and investment channels linked by banking and other financial services. This will “vastly increase the scale of both our markets and enable us to more effectively tap into and leverage the USD 27 trillion economy of the Americas and the Caribbean.” Afreximbank will invest half a billion dollars in the Caribbean after opening a regional bureau to support African-Caribbean trade, Oramah said. The bank will work with countries in the region to set up a Caribbean Exim bank as an Afreximbank subsidiary or affiliate, he added.

More than 40 high-level officials from 17 African countries attended an investment meeting in India last month aimed at beefing up commercial relations between the two trade partners. India is trying to strengthen its ties with Africa in a bid to catch up with China, whose trade with the continent climbed 35% from 2020 to reach a record-high USD 254 billion last year—mainly due to an increase in Chinese exports.

India is among the many countries wary about Beijing’s growing influence on the continent. Beijing has pumped billions of dollars into Africa over the last decade, building roads, bridges, and power installations in return for access to markets and resources.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told the meeting that Indian–African trade reached USD 89.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2021, up almost 60% from the previous year. However, data from the Ministry of Commerce & Industry show that bilateral trade between India and the 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa amounted to USD 46.8 billion in 2020-2021, down from USD 55.7 billion the year before. India has a negative trade balance with sub-Saharan Africa, ministry figures show.

Ministers and other officials from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Zambia were among those attending the 2-day meeting in New Delhi. The CII-EXIM Bank Conclave on India-Africa Growth Partnership was launched in 2005 with the support of India’s Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Commerce & Industry to encourage the development of private investment from India in African countries. Over the years, the meeting has “emerged as one of the largest congregations of senior ministers, policymakers, and business leaders from Africa and India, cutting across sectors” and is playing a “pivotal role in encouraging Indian companies to establish and grow their footprint in Africa,” according to the conclave website.

India’s main exports to Africa are refined petroleum products and pharmaceuticals. Africa primarily exports crude oil, gold, coal, and other minerals to India. India is now one of the top five investors in Africa, with about USD 74 billion of investments. Most Indian investments in Africa go to Mauritius, Mozambique, Sudan, Egypt, and South Africa. Indian firms are also increasingly active in countries rich in natural resources, such as Ghana and Nigeria. Several Indian multinationals have major interests on the continent, with strategic sectors including agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, information and communications technology, and energy.

Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal told participants at the meeting that his government is keen to clinch a trade agreement with Africa. Such an accord “is going to be promising for both India and Africa, because this is where the markets and opportunities are present,” he was cited as saying at the meeting.

The United Kingdom will invest GBP 160 million (USD 195 million/EUR 185 million) to support the development of clean energy in Africa—a plan that could create more than 180,000 jobs and cut carbon emissions while generating electricity for 3 million people.

Then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson presented the plan on June 23, 2022 at the Commonwealth Business Forum in Kigali, Rwanda.

He also announced a “preferential trade system” for 65 developing countries, including 18 Commonwealth members, from July 6.

This will involve “liberalizing our tariffs, getting rid of those pointless tariffs that are totally vexatious, that cost more to collect than the revenues you get from them—they exist—and improving our rules of origin to make it easier for all our countries to benefit,” Johnson said. “And what I feel so strongly about the Commonwealth is it’s not just about imports and exports—it’s about the partnerships we build; it’s about doing more together to ensure that everyone prospers from the new green industrial revolution.”

Many African countries can power economies entirely with hydro, solar, and wind energy, Johnson told Commonwealth leaders, noting that Kenya, for instance, gets 90% of its electricity from renewable sources.

“I see a fantastic future for all of us in these initiatives, for all of us,” he said. “And we, with our Clean Green Initiative in the UK, want to be the partner of choice of our African friends as you transform millions of lives with modern infrastructure, meeting the highest standards of transparency and environmental protection.”

Johnson described the Commonwealth as a “miracle fertilizer, a fertilizer of business” that helped businesses expand, increase their profits and lower their costs.

“I can prove that fertilizer knocks 21% off the cost of trade between commonwealth members. That’s 21% bigger profits if you do deals between the commonwealth, that’s 21% efficiencies without the expense of management consultants,” he said.

He said now is the time to “turbocharge those advantages” as the Commonwealth’s total gross domestic product is expected to climb by almost 50% to USD 19,500 billion. These “super fertilized markets will power growth and prosperity and create jobs in our countries, and at the same time help to ease those pressures that we all face on the cost of living,” he added.

Johnson also praised the African Continental Free Trade Area, which he said could generate “far, far more” capital than Africa could ever receive in development aid.

The 3-day Commonwealth Business Forum brought together government leaders, captains of industry and business executives, leaders of global and regional development institutions, young entrepreneurs, and representatives of trade and investment organizations from across the Commonwealth. It drew some 1,500 delegates, and participants explored topics such as financing growth, trade and regional integration, and the future of work.