West Africa Wants to Weave Wealth With Cotton

Hey, Hannatu here 👋

And today, I’m talking about cotton.

In places like Burkina Faso, cotton is more than a crop.

It is the country’s second-largest source of export revenue after gold. It makes up approximately 18% of national export revenues and provides millions of jobs. 

For decades, the white fibre has been important enough to warrant its own political battles, including one that put Burkina Faso up against one of the world’s biggest agricultural companies.

In 2016, Burkina Faso decided to abandon one strain of genetically modified cotton crop, from the Monsanto Company, after years of cultivation. 

The Monsanto Company was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation that sold genetically modified cotton seeds to Burkina Faso as protection against caterpillars. 

The problem was not simply that farmers were unhappy with the seeds. 

The cotton’s fibre had become shorter, threatening the quality that had helped Burkinabè cotton compete on international markets. The country’s cotton industry ultimately sought CFA 48 billion ($76 million at the time) in compensation from Monsanto.

Burkina Faso had fought to protect the value of its cotton.

Now, 10 years later, it wants to capture more of cotton’s value.

After a prolonged period of weak prices that began in 2023, cotton markets globally have started to recover. 

Cotton is also one of the better-performing commodities of 2025, according to Commodity Market Update.

Global cotton trade is also projected to expand steadily at 2.4% per year over the medium term, fuelled by rising import demand in Asia.

For African cotton producers, a stronger market is good news.

But there is a bigger opportunity than simply selling more bales.

It is what happens to those bales after they leave the farm.

Cotton from Burkina Faso, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali remains valued by Asian spinning mills for its quality, traceability and relatively low contamination. Yet about 98% of the region's cotton is still exported as raw fibre.

Africa grows the cotton, but someone else spins it, weaves it, dyes it and turns it into clothes.

And, as we’ve established several times on Ag Safari, processing is where more money is made.

Burkinabè cotton farmers have long complained about their limited influence over pricing and other decisions within the country’s state-controlled cotton system. 

A 2022 report by Engels, citing a union survey, captured the frustration of one producer: “We work all year round, but the price is fixed without our input. It’s like we are laborers on someone else’s land.”

Think about a bale of cotton grown around Koudougou, Burkina Faso.

It can travel hundreds of kilometres to a port, then thousands more by sea to a mill in Asia. There, it becomes yarn, then fabric, then a finished product: a shirt, a towel, a bedsheet, or a school uniform.

Some of those products eventually make their way back to African consumers.

The cotton might have been African.

But the people with real power are the buyers who turn cotton into valuable products.

The gap between the farm and the finished product is what the region is now trying to fill.

Spinning, weaving, dyeing, garment manufacturing, packaging, logistics and other supporting industries make up what could be called the missing middle of Africa’s cotton economy.

At Benin’s Glo-Djigbé Industrial Zone, Afreximbank says cotton, which previously generated around $40 million in export earnings as raw fibre, has the potential to generate up to $800 million when transformed into finished garments.

That is the calculation behind the region’s current push: not necessarily grow more cotton, but make more things from the cotton it already grows.

Burkina and a group of other West African countries - Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali, and Côte d’Ivoire - known as the Cotton-4 Plus or C-4+, are trying to build that missing middle together.

In September 2024, they launched the World Trade Organisation -FIFA “Partenariat pour le Coton” or Partnership for Cotton (PPC).

They planned to unlock more value for cotton across Africa via a regional manufacturing chain. 

The ambition was a lot grander.

The partnership completed its diagnostic phase in 2024–25, identifying where investment is needed across the cotton-to-textile value chain.

In March 2026, it moved into its next phase: implementation.

At an event in Yaoundé in March, the WTO and UNIDO launched Africa Textile Invest, a platform designed to connect investors with information about industrial zones, infrastructure, workforce profiles, market access and investment opportunities across the C-4+ countries. The partners are now trying to turn the investment opportunities identified during the diagnostic phase into actual projects.

The countries are not trying to build five identical textile industries, but one regional chain.

Cotton could be grown in Burkina Faso, spun into yarn in Mali, woven into fabric in Ghana and turned into garments in Benin.

The finished product could then move across the region and be sold to consumers under the African Continental Free Trade Area.

In other words, the ambition is not five textile industries, but one regional textile ecosystem.

Building the factories, however, is only half the equation.

Someone has to buy what they produce.

Africa itself could be that first market.

The continent imports large quantities of clothing and textiles despite producing cotton, creating an opportunity for manufacturers that can compete on price, quality and delivery.

The PPC is already looking for early buyers.

Through its partnership with FIFA, the initiative is supporting the production of apparel in the C-4+ region for FIFA’s Football for Schools programme. 

A factory does not need to sell everything it makes to Europe, Asia or the United States. It can start with neighbouring markets, build scale and eventually compete for international orders.

It may seem like a small order compared with the global apparel industry, but these kinds of buyers can matter when factories are trying to establish themselves.

A manufacturer needs someone willing to place the first order before it can demonstrate that it can handle the hundredth.

And AfCFTA could eventually make the much larger African market easier to serve, provided the region can move goods across borders efficiently and agree on rules that ensure “Made in Africa” actually means substantial African production.

Africa has already seen how quickly industrial parks can create manufacturing employment. Ethiopia’s Hawassa Industrial Park attracted international garment manufacturers and created thousands of jobs.

But the experience also raised questions about wages and working conditions.

The WTO says the initiative is targeting decent jobs, particularly for women and young people.

For decades, the journey of West African cotton has largely been one-way.

It leaves the farm as fibre and crosses borders to be transformed elsewhere.

Now, the region wants to change the route.

Many things are aligning.

Cotton prices are recovering. The continent has a huge consumer market. AfCFTA offers a framework for regional trade. 

If the plan works, cotton grown around Koudougou could be spun into yarn somewhere in the region, woven into fabric in another country and turned into a shirt, school uniform or towel somewhere else in West Africa.

The finished product could then travel across the continent as an African-made product.

Burkina Faso has already spent years proving that its cotton is worth protecting.

Now the region is betting that the real value lies in what happens after the cotton is picked.

The question is whether West Africa can finally weave the wealth itself.

What do you think?

Should governments prioritise building local processing and manufacturing capacity, even when producing locally may initially cost more than importing?

→ Let me know here.

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Cheers,