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Introduction and Background

Many African countries had built substantial cotton, textile and apparel manufacturing capacity through more devel-opment orientated import substitution policies. These factories generally clothed the people of Africa for many years prior to the advent of structural adjustment processes and the consequent liberalisation of markets. Whilst the transfer of used clothing from developed to poor countries was common place by the 1970’s it with the afore men-tioned shift to liberalised markets that has seen the deluge of second hand clothing landing in Africa. The trade quadrupled in the 1980’s and continued to expand through the 1990’s. Figures from the year 2000 to date in those countries surveyed tend to suggest a levelling off and in some instances a marginal decline in the trade. The domestic garment industry in many of these countries peaked in the early 1980’s and at the point of liberalisation tended to go into steep decline to the point where in many countries there is no significant domestic production (domestically owned factories producing for domestic consumption) to speak of. What exists now in some of the countries is an export orientated industry that imports most of its fabric for production for consumption elsewhere in the world. This is an aspect of retailer led global supply chains.

This report has been prepared for the ITGLWF 8 th International congress and should be read as a summary of the findings of field and desktop research conducted in a number of African Countries predominantly in South and East Africa. The purpose of the document is to inform policy debate and an approach to developing the clothing and textile industries on the continent. The field research was conducted over two and a half months travelling through countries by road in order to get a proper sense of the distribution of the trade. The countries visited in this process were South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. Madagascar was also subject to field research but was obviously not reached by road. Ghana as a West Afri-can sample was still to be visited but this was not possible prior to the compilation of this document. The desktop research infor-mation has however been included in the report. Whilst the research has been concluded within relatively tight time frames in order to have information available for the October congress, data was sought from a large cross section of sources as the intention of the research was not simply to collect evidence that the trade in used clothing is harmful to domestic industry but in order to develop fairly specific policy recommendations as to the development of a domestic industry within the strategic framework for the sector developed by the ITGLWF Africa regional office and affiliates. As such the data interpretation does not limit itself to the issue and nature of the used clothing trade but sees this as a context to the development of viable and sustainable internal production and consumption markets within Africa as an alterna-tive to the highly vulnerable and exploitative largely foreign owned export orientated industry that typifies the African garment and textile industry today. For this reason the report contains elements of the strategic framework within its recommendations and analysis.

Research By:
Civil Society Research and Support Collective
labrat@dbn.stormnet.co.za