2023-09-28 09:48:02
In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni declares war on second-hand clothes. He wants to ban its importation. These second-hand clothes from northern countries prevent the revival of the local textile industry.
It was during the inauguration of an industrial park built with Chinese companies that President Yoweri Museveni relaunched the idea of this embargo at the end of August. With chosen and highly applauded words: “ When white men die, their clothes are sent to Africa. The production of our textile factories is unsaleable because the market is flooded with these second-hand clothes from the north. ».
More than 6,000 tonnes arrive each month in Uganda, to clothe 80% of the population at unbeatable prices. This trade is also a source of livelihood: it supports 4 million people locally, assures its representatives, while the local textile industry has, for the moment, only a few thousand employees.
The terms used by President Museveni are inaccurate, but his call reactivates a real debate, recurring in Africa
It is not the clothes of the white dead that are flooding Africa, but those of the living, who consume fashion, fast fashion, like a disposable product. A product that we send to the southern hemisphere, especially to Africa, as soon as we get tired of it. Uganda is a cotton producer. In the 1970s, 85% of the harvest was destined for the local textile industry. It’s only 10% today, and the second-hand clothes market and its unbeatable prices are largely responsible for this.
In 2016 the Community of East African States called on its members to ban these imports, seen as neo-colonial dumping. Uganda made two attempts but failed, under pressure from the United States, a major supplier of second-hand clothes, and then under pressure from local importers.
Rwanda, on the other hand, held on
Rwanda resisted, despite its exclusion from AGOA. This support program for African exports to the United States is conditioned, among other things, on the imports of these surplus clothing. To dry up the second-hand clothes market, Kigali implemented prohibitive customs tariffs from 2016, up to $5 per kilo.
At the same time, the government created a textile industry from scratch, with Chinese capital and know-how. Exports have taken off: they jumped 83% between 2018 and 2020. They are still modest, bringing in around $35 million per year. Because it is the international market that is being targeted as a priority, locals do not yet have the means to buy made in Rwanda.
Will Uganda follow through on its intentions this time? ?
Kampala has little left to lose on the American side. Its textile exports to the United States were suspended, in protest against the anti-homosexuality law adopted last May. The government is moving cautiously because of other economic criteria. The embargo could attract new entrants – new, low-cost clothing produced in emerging countries – and this embargo will harm the purchasing power of Ugandans, already weakened by inflation.
The world’s best advocate for second-hand clothing is Ugandan designer Bobby Kolande. Disappointed by the weakness of national fiber production, he created collections based on these used clothes which he then exported at high prices to northern countries. Its slogan: “Return to sender. » A political approach and economic success. In a column published by the Guardian, he explains that this embargo is not the solution. Instead of helping the Chinese who are prospering in the region, the government, he suggests, would do better to direct its aid towards young national entrepreneurs to set up a sustainable sector, the real response from the south to this fast polluting fashion and its waste which clutters Africa.
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