Sub-Saharan Cotton Initiative

The cotton sector, from the field to ginning, contributes to the livelihoods of over 40 million people in Africa. However, cotton cultivation has many challenges: improper pesticide usage harms humans and the environment, incomes for farmers are often not sustainable, and only a small portion of processing and value addition occurs locally. Moreover, productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa remains low, reaching only 50 percent of the global average yield. 
  

To make agricultural supply chains sustainable, interventions by governmental international cooperation alone are insufficient in the production countries. The private sector plays a key role. It contributes significantly to the professionalisation of agricultural processes through its innovative capacity, expertise, and additional resources. 
  

Greater transparency along supply chains, improved environmental standards, and a fairer distribution of value-added along the supply chains can only be achieved when internationally operating companies, global intermediaries, raw material suppliers, international standardisation organisations, and local partners work together. Global challenges require new forms of cooperation with the private sector. 
  

To address these challenges the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has consulted main actors in the cotton supply chain how cotton and textile supply chains in Sub-Saharan Africa can be made more socially and environmentally sustainable, and economically viable.