How Benin is on the road to reshaping its cotton industry, with China’s help

For decades, moving Benin’s cotton harvest from the north of the country to its southern ports was a slow, difficult journey along unpaved roads.

Benin is Africa’s largest cotton producer, but it lacked the infrastructure needed to connect its northern cotton-growing belt to the coast and processing plants in the Glo-Djigbé Industrial Zone (GDIZ) near Cotonou, the country’s largest city and economic capital.

The GDIZ – part of the government’s efforts to end raw cotton exports – now processes a fifth of the national cotton harvest into finished clothing for global brands such as US Polo Assn and The Children’s Place.

But the transport bottleneck is easing, thanks to a 184km (114-mile) road from Djougou in the northwest to Banikoara in the northeast – the “white gold” capital accounting for more than a third of Benin’s total cotton production.

The project – which is nearing completion – has been co-financed by the European Union and the Africa Growing Together Fund, a US$2 million facility funded by the People’s Bank of China and administered by the African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

Aristide Medenou, Benin’s new Finance Minister, said the project was a logical investment given Banikoara’s location.