Africa has a number of manufacturing advantages that it has yet to fully realize. Besides low labor costs and abundant resources, which include duty-free and quota-free access to U.S. and EU markets for light manufactures under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act and the Cotonou Agreement. Location wise many West African countries have a close proximity to Europe and closer proximity to the United States than the popular Asian manufacturing hubs.
The African Manufacturing Initiative is a Public/Private partnership that seeks to establish a sustainable and ethical luxury apparel manufacturing supply chain in Ghana for an export market base. By providing jobs, education and increased incomes, AMI will contribute to poverty reduction for the local disadvantaged community.
Using a business model with a market-based approach, AMI will create links and commercially viable production contracts with international high-end designers and buyers from Europe and North America.
“I’m convinced that there is the potential to develop luxury in Africa and I want to help designers make their products.”
FRANCA SOZZANI - Vogue Italia editor-in-chief
Our facility will not just be a factory that only services our employees but also a center that supports the local community providing clean water, green energy, health care, technology and enterprise training.
We believe that when local people are involved in a project and more importantly are allowed to benefit from the resulting facility they will in turn respect its right to exist. We would highlight the Umbuntu Centre in Port Elizabeth South Africa as a case study. Applauded by architects not only for its design but for its role as a state of the art health facility in one of South Africa’s poorest townships.
The Ubuntu Centre is a living building in the heart of Zwide Township. It gets people talking. It gets people smiling. Life literally flows through the building and out into the community, instead of stopping at its borders.
In 2009, before the Ubuntu Centre was even built, the design of the building won the coveted Progressive Architecture award in the United States and was featured on the cover of the U.S.–based Architect magazine. Since then, the Centre has won two Fulton awards for building and concrete in architecture.
The Ubuntu Centre is more than prize-winning design. It sends a clear message to the global community: the children of Port Elizabeth deserve the best the world has to offer. www.ubuntufund.org
We also seek to provide some respite to the ills of the local community by teaching people how to provide for themselves in a way that is sustainable and provides employment opportunities and new products and services. We believe our facility will provide the local community with many opportunities to create cottage industries: such food and catering for our employees, transportation services and more. We can potentially support dozens of local small businesses, which in itself will provide a sustainable benefit to the local community.