A World Trade Organization-backed initiative is seeking to mobilize US$5 billion to industrialize West and Central Africa’s cotton sector, aiming to pivot the region from raw exports to higher-value textiles and garments, officials said Monday.
Unveiled during the WTO’s MC14 meeting in Yaoundé, the expanded Partenariat pour le Coton (PPC) targets the longstanding challenge that 98 percent of the region’s cotton is exported as raw fibre, limiting domestic value capture despite abundant labour and natural resources.
“We are on the cusp of creating a modern textiles and garment industry across West and Central Africa,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said. The partnership estimates that the investment and capacity-building could generate roughly 500,000 jobs across manufacturing, logistics, and design, with a strong focus on women and youth.
The initiative builds on the C-4+ bloc — comprising Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Côte d’Ivoire — and introduces a digital platform called “Africa Textile Invest”, designed to channel capital into industrial zones and bankable projects.
“This new portal is an example of how we can translate the vision of the C-4+ into concrete action,” said Gunther Berger of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). He described the value chain as “the bridge that connects natural resources to global markets.”
Pamela Coke-Hamilton, head of the International Trade Centre, highlighted the social impact: “The future of African cotton lies in value addition. Through this partnership, we’ll strengthen the cotton value chain across the continent, including through private-sector investment, so farmers and small businesses capture more value at home. This will change thousands of lives.”
Backing for the initiative comes from multilateral lenders and industrial operators, including the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and the African Development Bank, signaling a blended finance approach to scaling production and integrating regional supply chains. At the launch, Afreximbank President George Elombi pledged institutional support, declaring that “African cotton will be an engine of growth.”
For governments in the region, PPC represents a strategic shift: leveraging commodity endowments to anchor industrialisation, deepen intra-African trade, and capture more domestic value in an increasingly fragmented global trading system.
The initiative aligns with broader efforts to move African economies up the global value chain, addressing challenges from market volatility, low processing capacity, and limited access to investment. By fostering local textile and garment production, the program aims to ensure that the region retains more revenue from its cotton output, while creating sustainable employment opportunities.
With pilot projects already underway in industrial clusters across C-4+ countries, the program plans to scale across the region over the next decade, combining training, technology transfer, and private-sector investment to modernize the cotton-to-textile sector.
The PPC launch marks a significant step in Africa’s industrial ambitions, reflecting a push by governments, development banks, and international organizations to turn raw commodity production into a driver of economic growth, social inclusion, and regional trade integration.
If successful, the program could transform Africa’s cotton sector, enabling it to compete globally not just as a raw material supplier, but as a producer of value-added textiles and garments, benefiting millions of farmers, workers, and entrepreneurs across West and Central Africa.
