The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) provides beneficiary countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with the most liberal access to the U.S. market available to any country or region with which the U.S. does not have a Free Trade Agreement. In spite of this liberal access, countries in West Africa have not been able to export their fresh fruits and vegetables to the United States . This is because the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) restricts fresh products from entering the US until a pest risk assessment has been conducted and a rule has been placed in the US Code of Federal Regulations.

Pest risk assessments are rigorous scientific documents and must be approved by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the USDA before a new rule can be created. The process of writing and getting risk assessments approved can be long and complicated. To help West African countries through this process, USAID WARP has partnered with USDA APHIS to place an APHIS Advisor at the WARP mission in Ghana.

The APHIS Advisor arrived in Ghana on September 27th. He will assist West African plant protection organizations by writing and editing risk assessments to accelerate the approval process. He will also advise WARP and the West African Trade Hub personnel on national and regional trade capacity building needs in the area of animal and plant health.