Across much of Africa, industrial policy has traditionally been guided by the objective of developing complete national textile and apparel industries. Governments have sought to establish domestic cotton processing, spinning, weaving, garment manufacturing, and export capacity within their own borders. While this approach reflects understandable aspirations for industrial self-sufficiency, it has often resulted in fragmented production systems that struggle to achieve the scale, efficiency, and competitiveness required in today’s global textile market.

Experience from leading manufacturing regions demonstrates a different model. Competitive textile industries operate through regional production ecosystems in which countries specialize in complementary stages of the value chain according to their comparative advantages. Rather than duplicating industrial capacity, neighbouring economies coordinate production, allowing raw materials, intermediate products, investment, skills, and finished goods to move efficiently across integrated supply chains. This specialization enables firms to achieve greater economies of scale, improve productivity, and attract investment into activities where they possess the strongest competitive advantages.

The AfCFTA creates an unprecedented opportunity for Africa to adopt a similar approach. Cotton-producing economies across West Africa, for example, possess abundant upstream agricultural resources but comparatively limited textile manufacturing capacity. Other regions have stronger spinning, weaving, garment production, or export logistics capabilities. Instead of viewing these differences as structural weaknesses, they can be understood as complementary production assets capable of supporting regional industrial integration.

A practical illustration might involve cotton produced in Benin, Mali, or Burkina Faso being processed into yarn within a regional spinning hub, woven and finished in another specialized manufacturing cluster, assembled into garments in a neighbouring apparel hub, and distributed across African and international markets through coordinated logistics corridors. Such a system allows each production centre to specialize, invest, and innovate within specific segments of the value chain while benefiting from access to a much larger regional manufacturing ecosystem.

Importantly, regional specialization also improves investment attractiveness. Investors are generally more willing to finance industries operating within integrated production systems supported by predictable input supply, specialized labour markets, efficient logistics, and large regional markets. By contrast, isolated national industries frequently face challenges associated with limited scale, duplicated investment requirements, and constrained domestic demand.

For policymakers, this represents a significant shift in industrial thinking. The objective should no longer be to replicate identical textile industries across every African economy. Rather, it should be to develop complementary industrial capabilities that collectively strengthen the continent’s cotton-to-clothing value chain under AfCFTA. In this context, regional specialization becomes not a compromise on national industrial ambitions, but a strategy for achieving continental competitiveness.

Ultimately, Africa’s comparative advantage will not emerge from 54 separate textile industries competing independently. It will emerge from a coordinated regional production system in which countries specialize, integrate, and create value together.

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