Good progress in African cotton sector, CmiA reports
The Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF) has released a summary of activity on its Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) programme in 2023.
It said its aim was to offer the public insight into how its partners in Africa are implementing the requirements of the CmiA programme, with management, people, planet, and prosperity as the four pillars.
In 2023, 23 verifications were conducted, including 13 at the field level and ten in cotton ginneries. These involved 20 cotton companies in 11 countries south of the Sahara.
Verification results showed that partners had made significant improvements since 2022, for instance earning excellent scores in terms of small-scale farmers’ access to high-quality inputs and to pre-financing, as well as in terms of cotton fibre quality. Excellent scores were also awarded for criteria relating to transparency in the supply chain, the Hamburg-based organisation said.
Dignified working conditions and support for small-scale farmers were evaluated as “very good”, due in part to the emphasis placed on protecting the rights and health of employees and labourers through appropriate working hours.
In the 2022/2023 season, around 900,000 cotton farmers worked 1.7 million hectares of land in accordance with the CmiA or CmiA Organic standards, producing more than 508,000 tonnes of ginned cotton for the global textile industry, enough cotton for around a billion T-shirts.
Image: Malicky Boaz for CmiA
