African Cotton: Africa grows the raw material, the West captures the value

Cotton is one of the few sectors where Africa dominates global production without reaping the rewards. For decades, several countries on the continent—notably Mali, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Côte d'Ivoire—have cultivated long-staple cotton renowned for its quality, but the bulk of textile processing remains outside the continent. According to allAfrica, which is launching a new editorial series entitled "Cotton to Cloth," Africa produces more than half of the world's finest long-staple cotton, yet captures less than 3% of the final value of this production. The media outlet asserts that this is not a trade problem but a "narrative problem," which it intends to correct through in-depth editorial work. If these figures are confirmed, the stakes are significant: loss of foreign exchange, industrial jobs not created locally, persistent dependence on global commodity prices set outside the continent, and a brake on African textile industrialization, which has nevertheless been identified as a priority by several national strategies. However, the analysis must remain cautious: the source cites neither a specific study nor an organization to support these two statistics, which originate from allAfrica itself as part of the launch of its own series. The gap between raw production and captured value is classically explained by the lack of spinning and weaving mills, energy and logistic costs, and competition from better-integrated Asian textile value chains.