By Joan Odafe
The Confederation of African Fashion (CAFA) has urged African countries to adopt common fashion policies to strengthen the continent’s fashion industry and improve its global competitiveness.
CAFA President, Lai Labode, made the call at a news conference during the ongoing Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) WKND 2026 on Thursday in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that CANEX is a platform established by Afreximbank to support the development of Africa’s creative and cultural industries.
Labode said Africa needed common rules covering textile production, intellectual property, quality standards and logistics to enable its fashion industry to compete internationally.
“Nigeria and the rest of Africa, we don’t have a shortage of talent.
“What Africa needs is structure,” he said.
Labode said Africa needed a unified system rather than the existing arrangements covering English-speaking and French-speaking countries.
He urged African countries to support the intellectual property protocol under the African Continental Free Trade Area, saying only two countries had signed the framework.
The CAFA president said the organisation was developing central platforms to help African designers market and export their products.
He said the continent must invest in textile processing, protect designers’ intellectual property and build internationally competitive fashion brands.
He also disclosed plans to establish about 10 fashion houses across Africa, with additional centres proposed for New York, Paris, Milan and London.
Also, Special Envoy in the Office of Liberia’s President for Trade and Investments, Maisie Dunbar, called for continental collaboration to strengthen African fashion.
Dunbar said the African Fashion Industry Growth Charter provided an opportunity for countries to unite behind the development of their respective fashion industries.
“I think, by having it out there from the Federation of African Fashion, and all African countries combined and supporting it, it makes us look like we’re all united to grow our fashion, to grow our fabrics,” she said.
She said every African country had unique fabrics and cultural expressions that deserved recognition and protection.
Describing fashion as an important part of African heritage, Dunbar also commended Labode for promoting Nigerian fashion internationally.
The Minister of Arts, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa, said partnerships, intellectual property protection and capacity building were essential to developing the industry.
Musawa said the Federal Government was working with the private sector to establish policies that would protect fashion designers’ intellectual property across Nigeria.
She added that such collaboration would contribute to economic growth and job creation.
Musawa said the government was also working towards establishing fashion hubs across the country to support training, infrastructure and production.
“We need to partner with the private sector,” she said.
Earlier, CAFA Mission Coordinator, Reginald Ekeanyanwu, told NAN that the African Fashion Industry Growth Charter would support an integrated production chain covering commercial cotton cultivation, textile processing, manufacturing, artisans and designers.
Ekeanyanwu said the organisation also planned to introduce common quality standards, a trademark and an e-commerce marketplace for African fashion products.
He said CAFA was engaging African governments and diplomatic missions to secure wider adoption of the charter and strengthen the continent’s position in the global fashion industry. (NAN)
Edited by Vivian Ihechu
