Tuesday Aug 04, 2026 Introduction For more than half a century, industrial policy has been at the centre of Africa’s ambition to build a competitive manufacturing sector. Across the continent, governments have introduced a wide range of policy interventions designed…
Perhaps the least visible, but important, characteristic of globally competitive textile clusters is their ability to make informed decisions based on timely market intelligence. Competitiveness in manufacturing is enabled by production efficiency as well as real-time economic data on where…
For decades, compliance was often viewed as a final checkpoint before products entered international markets. Today, compliance has become an integral component of how competitive textile clusters are designed and operated. The International Trade Centre’s Standards Map illustrates the remarkable…
While infrastructure, production capacity, and integrated supply chains provide the physical foundations of a textile cluster, people, knowledge, and innovation determine whether that cluster remains competitive over time. Around the world, the most successful textile manufacturing regions have demonstrated that…
One reason globally competitive textile clusters consistently outperform isolated factories is that they reduce production costs through shared infrastructure and common industrial services. Textile manufacturing depends upon extensive infrastructure, including reliable electricity, water supply, wastewater treatment facilities, transport networks, testing…
Possessing abundant raw materials does not automatically create competitive manufacturing industries. Successful textile clusters distinguish themselves through their ability to integrate multiple stages of production into coherent manufacturing systems capable of delivering quality products efficiently and consistently. The United Nations…
One of the defining characteristics of successful textile clusters is the presence of reliable upstream supply chains capable of supporting efficient downstream manufacturing. While garment production often receives the greatest public attention, globally competitive textile industries are built upon much…
Many countries seeking to accelerate industrialization begin by establishing industrial parks or export processing zones. While these initiatives often provide serviced land, factory space, and basic infrastructure, international experience demonstrates that physical infrastructure alone rarely creates globally competitive manufacturing industries.…
Friday Jul 30, 2026 The 10 capabilities that determine the global competitiveness of Africa’s regional cotton, textile, and apparel clusters. Introduction In the first article of this series, Beyond Factories: A New Framework for Measuring Africa’s Textile Competitiveness Under AfCFTA,…
Tuesday July 28, 2026 Why Africa must move beyond factory-level assessments to evaluate the readiness of regional cotton, textile, and apparel ecosystems Introduction The global textile industry has undergone profound structural changes over the past three decades. Manufacturing has become…