The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has renewed its commitment to advancing Africa’s cotton value chain, pledging continued support for the transformation of raw cotton into finished textiles and garments through its involvement in the C4+ initiative.
Speaking at the opening of a two-day Steering Committee meeting of the Partenariat pour le Coton (PPC) at Afreximbank Headquarters in Cairo, Kanayo Awani, Executive Vice President for Intra-African Trade and Export Development, emphasized the bank’s dedication to building a modern, integrated cotton-textile-garment (CTG) industry in Africa.
The PPC, a global platform aimed at supporting value addition in developing countries’ cotton sectors, is initially focused on the C4+ countries — Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Côte d’Ivoire. Awani highlighted that cotton already contributes between 45–60% of GDP and foreign exchange earnings in some of these nations, signaling a significant opportunity for growth and transformation.
“By working with strategic partners, Afreximbank is committed to helping establish competitive textile and garment industries across Africa to support the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,” Awani stated.
She pointed to major challenges revealed in a recent Steering Committee study, including low cotton yields, limited processing capacity, infrastructure weaknesses, global market fluctuations, and climate change impacts—all of which must be addressed for Africa to become a global player in the cotton industry.
Afreximbank plans to deploy a wide range of tools to meet these challenges, including:
- Project preparation funding
- Tailored debt and equity financing
- SME support and export advisory services
- Insurance and digital market access platforms
- Trade facilitation and investment promotion
The bank also reaffirmed its US$ 80,230 grant to finance a baseline study essential to mapping out value chain development under the PPC. This grant, formalized during the meeting via an amendment to the Trust Fund Agreement with UNIDO, is part of the WTO-FIFA cooperation framework.
Jean-Marie Paugam, Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Chair of the Steering Committee, welcomed the move and expressed hope that the discussions would lead to tangible progress in industrialising and processing cotton locally in C4+ countries.
The Cairo meeting gathered high-level stakeholders from across the African and global textile sectors, reinforcing the growing commitment to industrial transformation through sustainable value addition in Africa’s cotton industry.
