“As the United States continues its vital investments in global health, there is also an opportunity for additional investment in the kind of economic statecraft that will facilitate a transition from aid to trade, guaranteeing a higher return on investment for the American taxpayer and better enabling a sustained US government investment.” – Senator Chris

ONE members Craig Rottman – CDL OR-1 & Carolyn Barber – CDL OR-3 reflect on the successes of ONE’s policy influence in Oregon. On January 18, Senator Jeff Merkley organized a town hall event to speak with Oregonians about issues critical to our state. ONE members attended the town hall to share our voice. Delivering signed petitions

Greetings from the Garden State! We’re happy and excited to report that last Friday, President Obama signed S.3326, the Extension of the AGOA Third-Country Fabric Provision into law. This provision allows African manufacturers the freedom to purchase fabric from outside the continent to sew garments for export to the US market, saving 300,000 African jobs

A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to call your Senators and urge them to cosponsor S.3266, a bipartisan bill to support US trade with Africa. Well, we have exciting news — your calls made a big difference! Within an hour of each other, this morning, both chambers of the US Congress passed the

Last week, we sent out an email to ONE members asking you to call your senators and urge them to co-sponsor a critical trade bill which could save hundreds of thousands of African jobs. S.3326 is a no-cost, bipartisan bill to amend the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). And you responded big. Nearly 1,000

ONE is proud to introduce our exclusive handmade scarf made with fashionABLE, a company based in Ethiopia. ONE’s Nora Coghlan recently visited the fashionABLE factory and gave us this inside look into the production of our scarves. To buy a fashionABLE scarf, visit our ONE Store here. Two weeks ago, I got to meet some

Photo Credit: Flickr stream of futureatlascom Trade = development, but only with transparency. Last month, at the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke about continuing challenges and new solutions for success in US-Africa trade relations. AGOA is a trade preference program which aims to jump start economic development

Helinda Tetteh, 23, is a quality control supervisor at Lucky1888Mills, an apparel factory that opened in Tema, Ghana, in March. The company has 250 workers -– almost all young women –- and is hoping to expand its operations to add 300 more jobs in coming months. Here is her story, as told to Joe Lamport,

In a recent opinion editorial published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Daniel W. Yohannes, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and leading African philanthropist and ONE board member, Dr. Mo Ibrahim, highlighted achievements and opportunities presented by increased trade with Africa. Both Yohannes and Ibrahim, who are recognized leaders in African development, offered the

Business Action for Africa, an international network devoted to reducing poverty through business, says that accelerating regional integration is essential to unlocking Africa’s trading potential. The 2011 AGOA Forum brings back into sharp focus the key role of trade in driving Africa’s development. For Africa to secure its share of the benefits and gains from

Did you know that many of the products at the ONE Store are sourced from organic products from African countries like Uganda, Tanzania and Swaziland? To help raise awareness for African trade — a crucial tool in Africa’s efforts to develop their economies and escape poverty — we created a special tag to accompany all

Barrett Ward is the founder of fashionABLE, a Nashville-based fashion company that does trade with Africa in order to bolster economic opportunities for the most vulnerable. In this blog post, he writes about one of his workers, Bezuayhu. Bezuayhu parents died when she was a girl, so she stayed with her grandparents. They wanted her

We’ve heard from a number of commentators as part of our Trade and Development blog series on the importance of helping Africa trade more with the US and with itself. Richard Gilbert of Business Action for Africa and Zenia Lewis of the Brookings Institute both talked about the need to bring down the barriers between

Ed Gresser of the Trade, Aid and Security Coalition looks back on African trade to the US since the African Growth and Opportunity Act was implemented ten years ago. Perhaps you’ve seen it in a pet shop. “Nyjer,” a little black seed fed to birds like the finch and bluebird, is the priciest birdseed at

If you think US trade policy has nothing to do with you, think again. Ten years ago, it was much harder to get items, especially from Africa, imported into the United States and on supermarket shelves. I know some of you have to have been in my shoes. You try something on vacation in a