Dar es Salaam – During the 10th edition of the annual textile event
‘Origin Africa’ (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 28-30 October 2019), experts
from the public and private sector tried to forecast the future of the
East African cotton, textile and garment industry. Much to the
annoyance of numerous fashion designers in the conference room, most
forecasts neglected to mention African designers or their role in
adding aesthetic, commercial and sustainable value to the African
cotton value chain.
Even Stella Manyanya, the Tanzanian Deputy Minister of Industries,
Trade and Investment, was criticized by some listeners for not
referring to the important role of fashion in the regional creative
industries and especially in the cotton-to-clothing supply chain. She
got applause, however, for her proposal to encourage Tanzanians to
wear traditional clothing every Friday and Sunday (around one-third of
the nearly 60 million Tanzanians are Muslims, another third are
Christians). Over 100 various tribes with their own colorful clothing
traditions live in Tanzania, but outside the country garments called
‘kanzu’ (a white or cream-colored long tunic for men) and ‘khanga’ (a
more colorful dress for women) are considered to be the traditional
attire of Tanzania.
Strong African identity
Antoinette Tesha, Director Textiles & Apparel at the East-African
consulting organization Msingi (Nairobi, Kenya), encouraged the
audience to make good use of the image of African fashion in the
world. She said: “African fashion has a strong identity globally
whereas nobody seems to know what Chinese fashion is for instance.”
Msingi has experience with SWOT-analyses of industries with high
growth potential across Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Msingi
experts recently developed a strategy for the textile industry of
Uganda. Antoinette Tesha believes that employment in the East African
textile and apparel industry, including Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and
Uganda, could reach 80,000 jobs in 2025 and 200,000 in 2030. Garment
exports from the region could reach 1.4 billion US dollars in 2025 and
double to 2.7 billion in 2030. This is not wishful thinking, as
examples of rapid growth in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam
demonstrate. Also Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa, is slated to show
fast apparel export growth in the next few years, in spite of the
obvious errors made by pioneering Turkish and Asian investors who
apparently believe that Ethiopian workers are some kind of cheap robots
in which to put two dollars, or less, per working day.
The American entrepreneur and consultant Samuel Meeks (ex-Levi
Strauss), who lives in Madagascar, predicts that within two or three
years Madagascar will be Africa’s biggest apparel exporter to the USA
under AGOA (the African Growth and Opportunity Act), beating Kenya and
all other AGOA-entitled African countries. For the time being, nobody
knows what the effects will be for Mauritius’ well-developed apparel
sector, of the Free Trade Agreement with China that the small island
country signed on October 17, 2019. Will Chinese textile groups see
Mauritius and its production base in Madagascar as a soft spot in the
new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which comprises 54
countries?
Strong African designers
The Tanzanian couturier Mustafa Hassanali, Chairman of the Fashion
Association of Tanzania, is convinced that fashion designers can
significantly contribute to the industrialization of Tanzania, as
championed by the country’s dynamic President John Magufuli, nicknamed
‘The Bulldozer’.
It’s obviously not only by showing off their talent during the
Swahili Fashion Week, which Mustafa Hassanali founded in 2008, that
the Tanzanian designers will attract international brands to their
country to set up a business and manufacture garments. This year, the
Swahili Fashion Week, currently the biggest annual fashion event in
the whole of East and Central Africa, will take place in Dar es Salaam
from 6-8 December 2019. Participating fashion designers regret that
their African-style creations, though getting global applause, usually
don’t function as an entry ticket to production facilities or Western
brands. The Tanzanian fashion designer Jamillavera Swai explains:
“It’s true that we, African designers, don’t have to pay for
inspiration. Just living in colorful Africa gives us inspiration. It’s
nevertheless frustrating that all those prosperous international
brands that greatly benefit from us by sucking inspiration from our
creations and shows, give nothing in return. Our creations are not
respected or rewarded as intellectual property.”
During Origin Africa 2019, some self-confident designers raised
their voice requiring more attention and appreciation for their role.
Tanzanian fashion designer and entrepreneur Kemi Kalikawe (brand name
Naledi) said: “Designers are mostly forgotten when experts discuss the
cotton-to-apparel value chain. But at the end of the day, we are the
ones who create the most value. I went to India and saw there that
designers can work with factories and that factories want to work with
designers. At the same time, I learned that East African designers
hardly have any training working with factories and brands. We need to
learn how to make patterns and to use CAD-equipment. Unfortunately,
here in Tanzania we don’t even have fashion schools.”
No fashion schools in Tanzania? Kemi Kalikawe founded the Naledi
Fashion Institute herself as well as the Naledi Fashion Incubator to
help young designers become more effective in their careers. It was
also Kemi who rallied a number of Tanzanian ready-to-wear designers to
collectively exhibit at Origin Africa 2019. Another confident
designer, Herriet Mkaanga, founder of Moro Batiki Group, motivated a
number of batik artisans to join her for exhibiting at Origin Africa
as well.
The star motivational speaker at Origin Africa was Mariama, a
fashion designer from Guinea, West-Africa. Her company, Mariama
Fashion Productions, with headquarters in New York, boasts being the
leading supplier of African handmade sustainable textiles and
accessories. How Mariama got in contact with the American billionaire
and designer Tory Burch, with the fashion brand Edun (founded by Bono,
from the rock group U2, and his wife) and a customer like Michelle
Obama, is a nice story to tell, especially to an African audience. A
few hundreds of female artisan tie-dyers from West Africa get orders
from Mariama. That’s not all. “I have this vision of helping so many
more people… my goal is really to help more than a million people”,
Mariama said in an interview early 2018.
Strong action needed
Just like the other African cotton-growing countries, with the
noticeable exception of Ethiopia, Tanzania is exporting the bulk of
its cotton lint, without further value added. This implies that
Tanzania and other African countries have to import most of the yarns
and fabrics needed to manufacture clothing, mainly from China and
India. This is why there are few opportunities for designers to get
involved in the world of apparel creation on an industrial scale.
Thanks to the textile policy under legendary President Dr. Julius
Nyerere (President from 1964 to 1985), Tanzania has a complete
cotton-to-clothing supply chain. However, the Government seems
hesitant to follow the example of Ethiopia to invest heavily in the
textile industry, manufacturing skills, fashion training, etc.
Adam Zuku, CEO of Tegamat, the Textile and Garments Manufacturers
Association of Tanzania, says: “The Government has the intention to
boost the sector. Now, action must follow. And action means money.”
Also Marco Mtunga, Director General of the Tanzania Cotton Board and
current Chairman of the African Cotton Association (ACA), confirms
that the Government is ready to take action.
Written by Jozef De Coster
Photo’s: Courtesy of Kemi Kalikawe, ‘Naledi Tanzania’
