The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is a trade act adopted by the U.S. Congress in 2000. The Act provides for duty-free access to the U.S. market. To meet the Act’s eligibility requirements, countries must make progress toward building market-based economies, the rule of law, political pluralism, and the right to due process. In addition, countries must eliminate barriers to trade and investment and enact policies to reduce poverty, combat corruption, and protect human rights. The goal of AGOA is to promote economic growth through good governance and free markets.

This course will explore the practical impact of the Act, including reporting and compliance requirements and rights and obligations under the act.

The course will assist African trade practitioners in understanding such issues as:  

• Eligibility Criteria
• Product Priorities 
• Export Procedures 
• Market Intelligence 
• Compliance and Standards 
• Monitoring and Reporting 
• Market Diversification
• Dispute Resolution

Course Duration and Costs 

1 week:   $2,200

2 weeks: $4,200

Additional Inclusions

• Course materials, including a resource booklet
• Lunch and refreshments provided daily
• Access to post-course online resources and alumni network

Dates

1 week:   January 15 - 19, 2024

2 weeks: January 15 - 26, 2024

Location

Online/In-person

Course Advisor
Professor Kuhlmann is currently a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where she is also the Faculty Co-Director of the Center on Inclusive Trade and Development. She teaches courses in law, development, and international trade, and she is the faculty director of the WTO and International Trade Law Certificate program. Professor Kuhlmann has over twenty-five years of experience in international law, development, and trade. Her work and research focus on trade and development, regional trade agreements (with a particular focus on Africa), trade and gender, inclusive agricultural trade, comparative economic law, and the interdisciplinary connections between law and development.

In 2010, Professor Kuhlmann founded the New Markets Lab (NML), of which she remains president, a non-profit law and development innovation lab focused on inclusive legal and regulatory design, field-based law and development programs, and capacity building among lawyers and non-lawyers in economic law and regulation. She is also a Senior Associate with the Global Food Security Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and she serves as a member of the Trade Advisory Committee on Africa of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). She is also a member of the Bretton Woods Committee and WTO Gender Research Hub, and she serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Trade and Investment Law Group of the Law Schools Global League; the Forum on Trade, Environment, and the SDGs of the Graduate Institute and UN Environment Programme; the Washington International Trade Association; Listening for America; the Harvard Law and Development Society; the AI Institute for Food Systems at University of California Davis; and the Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Professor Kuhlmann was previously a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School, and she was the Yeutter Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law from 2020-21. Earlier in her career, she served as a trade negotiator at USTR and a lawyer at two international law firms, and she has held senior positions with several non-profit organizations and think tanks, including the Aspen Institute, German Marshall Fund, and an NGO focused on women’s rights. She holds degrees from Harvard Law School and Creighton University and was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship to study international economics.