CHAPTER 3
Clothing Exports in Low-Income Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa: From Footloose to Regional Integration?
Introduction
T
his chapter assesses the development of the clothing sectors in the main Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) low-income country (LIC) clothing exporters and their challenges in the post-quota and post-crisis world. Over the past decade several SSA countries have developed export-orientated clothing sectors, in particular the LICs Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Swaziland, as well as the middle-income country Mauritius where the process had already started in the 1970s. This took place, first, within a policy framework of ‘export-led growth’ as governments hoped that the sector would play a central role in (starting) the industrialization process as it did in other countries and, second, in light of quota restrictions in large Asian producing countries and based on agreements securing preferential market access to developed countries, in particular the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Despite exceptional growth of these countries’ clothing sectors in the beginning of the 2000s, since around 2004 the industry has declined quite drastically in terms of production, exports, employment, and number of firms in all of the main SSA clothing exporter countries (although to different extents). Direct reasons for this decline are significant changes in the environment for global clothing trade, in particulate the phaseout of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) at the end of 2004, as well as changing sourcing strategies of global buyers. The global economic crisis has accelerated these developments through a downturn in global demand and through its accelerating effect on changes in sourcing strategies of global buyers. Besides these ‘external’ reasons, ‘internal’ factors are also important in explaining the decline, in particular the specific integration of SSA LICs into global clothing value chains based on MFA quota hopping, and preferential market access dominated by foreign investments and a disintegrated clothing industry with limited local or regional linkages. This specific integration of SSA LICs limits the role the sector can play in promoting export diversification and industrial 47