St. Louis is about to get its 17th official sister city — Kigali in Rwanda.
A delegation of political and business leaders will sign the agreement as part of a nine-day trade mission to the African continent that leaves Friday. It is the first trade mission to the continent led by World Trade Center St. Louis, part of the region’s economic development arm.
“Africa is really where it’s going to be,” said Stella Sheehan, deputy director of the World Trade Center. “There’s so much potential. There is such a young, young population, and the Chinese are there already. The Europeans are there. We really are late to the table.”
The official Sister Cities designation is the culmination of years of work among businesses and nonprofits with economic or cultural ties to Africa. Conversations about adding a second African sister city — Saint-Louis in Senegal has had the official designation since 1994 — originally focused on Kenya, Sheehan said.
Then, in 2021, Arnold Donald spoke at the World Trade Center’s annual gala. The head of Carnival Cruise Lines, who has deep ties to the St. Louis business community, was at the time the chair of the World Tourism and Trade Organization, which had just held its first meeting on the continent in Kigali.
“He was very enthusiastic about what he saw about the ease of doing business, how prepared they were to receive delegations, how clean the country was, everything,” Sheehan said.
Donald reached out to some of his contacts in the community here, Sheehan said, and that’s how the conversations shifted to Kigali.
They included the African Chamber of Commerce, where Annie Mbale sits on the board.
“If you look at the African history, most of the time decisions are being made by people who think that they know what Africans want,” said Mbale, the program director at the St. Louis Mosaic Project. “The exciting part of this was that the African diaspora here in St. Louis were sitting at the table and being involved in the decision-making.” That included decisions about the itinerary of the trade mission.
The chamber’s president, Linda Ogbah Faas, said in a statement that “to see that this is becoming a reality is a dream come true for me, the founders, the board and the entire African community in St. Louis.”
Business owner Zellipah Githui, president of the committee pushing for the official Sister Cities designation, said the effort the Trade Center put into organizing the opportunity to build relationships in Africa was “amazing.”
“It says volumes about their commitment to this global engagement,” she said. “Plus, it says volumes even for us residents of St. Louis who are Africans. It’s not the ‘pity continent’ anymore.”
Githui is a native of Kenya who came to the United States to study. Her company, Gitzell Fair Trade, works to develop American and international markets for subsistence farmers who sell crafts for additional money. She is taking time before and after the official trip to meet with some of the artisans.
The 36-person delegation includes representatives from industries including crop science and transportation and logistics. But there are also advertising and lobbying firms, and the Missouri Foundation for Health, which focuses on health inequities in the state.
The diversity of the delegation attracted the attention of Ivory Clarke, the foundation’s vice president of strategic relationships.
“It’s not just returning from the meeting with a list of solutions for our communities to adopt, but it’s really to return with new perspectives, stronger relationships and thoughtful questions that might help us become a better partner to the communities that we serve,” she said.
Clarke added that she is excited to learn more about a hub-and-spoke method of delivering healthcare that could bring more resources to rural areas.
There’s a cultural element too – Michael Johnson, the restaurateur behind Sugarfire, Hi-Pointe and the Boathouse in Forest Park, will bring St. Louis cuisine to the embassies in Kigali and Nairobi.
St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page and Rodney Crim, president and CEO of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, are also making the trip.
Source: www.stlpr.org
