Samson Sesete weaves a small bag at his loom in Salem’s, a small-scale Ethiopian manufacturer of scarves and bags. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Mar 26 2014 (IPS)

The sign for Salem’s directs you off a busy road in Addis Ababa, down a side street to a compound where multiple pairs of feet move up and down working treadles, and wooden shuttles flit back and forth, as Ethiopian sheumanoch — weavers — ply their trade.

Seated at their looms, most appear to be making scarfs, the majority of which are sold on site in a colourful shop. But a small number of scarfs are destined for shores and stores far away from Ethiopia. Ethiopia currently has 60 garment factories and 15 textile mills in operation, as the country tries to position itself as the next source country for the world’s clothing industry.

Currently, increased international interest in Ethiopia’s centuries-old textile industry is seeing some of the world’s biggest companies investing in it.

At the same time this interest is affording small-scale business like Salem’s, which employs 14 weavers, a chance to grow.

“It is a time of change, absolutely,” Salem Kassahun, the owner, tells IPS. “Now we make what our grandmothers wore but also what our daughters will wear and what the wider world wants.”

Last week she exported 700 scarfs to London-based Rose & Rose, which sells designer scarves and accessories. It was only the second shipment, but she hopes it will become a regular order.

Five years ago, there was little interest in Ethiopia’s textiles, Salem says, but during the last three years queries from overseas have increased steadily.

Larger domestic manufacturers appear to share her optimism.

More buyers are being attracted as a result of increased international attention, Fassil Tadese, chief executive of MAA Garment and Textiles Factory, tells IPS.

The MAA Garment and Textiles Factory, which is based outside Mekele, a city in northern Ethiopia, employs 1,500 workers, of which nearly 90 percent are women, and exports knitted garments to Europe and U.S.

Also, Fassil points out, manufacturers of auxiliary accessories and dyestuffs are coming, which is helping improve the local supply chain and access to materials.

Trends and events on the global stage have impacted where large international textile manufacturers set up shop. 

The collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh last April, which killed more than 1,100 people, drew worldwide attention to the poor conditions of many Asian factories.

At the same time, production costs in Asia are increasing, with salary increases easily outstripping inflation.

And election-related violence in recent months has disrupted Bangladesh’s clothing industry, the second-biggest after China. In addition, strikes by garment workers in Cambodia, another major supplier, have increased pressure on global firms.

Tesco, the world’s third-largest retailer, recently announced it expects to source more clothes from Ethiopia.

Hennes & Mauritz, popularly known as H&M, the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, also said it sees good opportunities for producing clothing in Ethiopia and across sub-Saharan Africa.

Ethiopia currently has 60 garment factories and 15 textile mills in operation, as the country tries to position itself as the next source country for the world’s clothing industry, according to Tadesse Haile, state minister for Industry.

Ethiopia’s new role as an awakening textile giant is helped by an abundance of cotton — millions of hectares suitable for growing cotton remain untapped — and labour, thanks to a population of about 90 million, with a large proportion under the age of 30.

That this influx of foreign companies might squeeze out local manufacturers is not a concern, Fassil says. The massive textile market means there is plenty of room.

Also, he says, competition spurs efficiency and technological upgrades: “Hence we welcome investments from all over the world.”

So as international companies try diversifying from relying on Asian sourcing — H&M is one of the biggest buyers of garments from Bangladesh — Ethiopia increasingly appears to be a beneficiary.

Tesco predicts that by 2014 and 2015 it will export about 1.5 to two million dollars of products from Ethiopia, increasing to about 11 million dollars by 2016 and 2017.

At the same time, foreign companies are particularly sensitive about the need for regulated growth and ethically sound practices, so that mistakes made elsewhere in the world are not repeated.

“It really matters to us that clothes are produced in good conditions and everyone involved is treated decently,” Giles Bolton, the ethical trading director at Tesco, tells IPS.

Hence the company is engaging closely with the Ethiopian government and local business to ensure the long-term development of a well-regulated, ethical clothing industry, he adds.

An advantage in Ethiopia is many suppliers have worker unions which ensure effective dialogue between workers and employers, Anna Eriksson, a spokesperson for H&M, tells IPS.

At Salem’s the weavers appear content working away in the smart and breezy compound. But like most employees, they have concerns.

Weaving is a difficult and physically demanding job, Samson Sesete, who has been a weaver for seven years, tells IPS.

And they are paid per item, which means incomes vary, 21-year-old Teshome Onke, who began weaving at 14 in southern Ethiopia, tells IPS.

Fast weavers can earn about 2,000 birr (110 dollars) per month, he says, though their slower companions average closer to 1,500 birr (81 dollars).

And being paid for an item that is then sold for at least twice the cost appears a source of frustration.

Salem says she discusses wages with the weavers, acknowledging how they always want to be paid more.

“But then I wouldn’t be able to sell anything,” she points out.

A 25 percent mark up in price covers overheads, Salem says. A further 65 percent is the maximum profit margin that could be added, and 30 percent of this goes to the government in taxes.

Another challenge for a small business like hers is access to capital. Banks want to see collateral — colourful designs and ideas are not sufficient — and currently she doesn’t have enough.

Across the road Salem has a second compound where she wants to employ dozens more weavers to grow the business.

But currently it’s still too early to commit to expansion.

“Although we are getting plenty of interest, I’m waiting to see whether questions turn into orders,” Salem says.

And even if those orders come, she acknowledges that it will be hard work within the highly-competitive international market where order quotas must be delivered on time, every time.

“You have to strive for perfection,” Salem says. “All of us need to adapt our mindsets for the international market.”

A model wearing YeFikir clothing. Growing international recognition for designers in Ethiopia and Africa is partly a result of growing demand for ethically-produced fashion designs. Credit: Kyle La Mere/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Mar 20 2014 (IPS)

Female fashion designers are drawing on Ethiopia’s rich cultural heritage and adding a modern twist to find success at home and increasingly impress abroad. 

In fact, fashion design is proving to be one of the most successful Ethiopian sectors for small business and entrepreneurs, generating profit margins ranging from 50 percent to more than 100 percent, according to Mahlet Afework, the 25-year-old Addis Ababa-based founder of fashion line MAFI.

The country is a fashion designer’s dream due to its multiple ethnic groups from which one can draw design inspiration, Mahlet tells IPS. Her most recent collection was inspired by the Dinguza pattern from southern Ethiopia’s Chencha region.“[Ethiopia’s fashion industry] is showing the diversity and beauty of Ethiopian culture, and providing some of the world’s best hand-woven cotton fabrics.” -- Fikirte Addis, fashion designer and founder of YeFikir Design

Small companies like Mahlet’s can flourish due to the absence of big chain department stores, and relatively low start-up costs set against high prices individuals are willing to pay for quality hand-made fashion garments

And the economy at large is benefiting from increased international interest in Ethiopia’s textile and garment industry. The industry’s small-scale businesses, with a labour force of 10 or less, registered exports of 62.2 million dollars in 2011, up from 14.6 million dollars in 2008.

And the Ethiopian government believes the industry can raise its aggregate production value to 2.5 billion dollars by the end of 2015.

Ethiopia’s successful fashion designers are predominantly women, according to Mahlet and other designers, who grew up surrounded by traditionally woven cotton fabrics, learning from mothers and aunts the tailoring and embroidering skills for making beautiful and delicate clothing.

This female-inspired heritage is not forgotten. Mahlet works exclusively with female weavers to help them support themselves and their families amid a male-dominated weaving sector.

Despite many designers having the advantage of a home-spun fashion education, a lack of formal fashion design education is preventing many from breaking out internationally, says Mahlet, who is self-taught and credits Google Search as her primary tutor.

Another problem in the international arena is conducting sales transactions.

Ethiopian banking restrictions mean there are no foreign banks in Ethiopia and international customers are often reluctant to pay into African banking accounts, fashion designer Fikirte Addis, founder of Addis Ababa-based YeFikir Design, tells IPS.

The company currently has to sell through Africa Design Hub, a U.S.-based online store founded in 2013 by Western expatriates to showcase African designs.

“After living in East Africa for several years we saw the potential of African designs in the global market,” the store’s co-founder Elizabeth Brown tells IPS.

She also noticed a gap in market linkages and knowledge sharing between the industry and global consumers, which Africa Design Hub seeks to bridge.

Currently almost all of its customers are in the U.S., although this year it plans to start selling products to Canada and Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan and Taiwan that have shown interests in African-made goods.

Fashion design success in Ethiopia also depends on embracing the ever-changing present while keeping an eye on the past, Fikirte says.

A weaver making fabric for YeFikir Design. Credit: Salima Punjani/IPS

All YeFikir designs are made by hand or on traditional weaving machines operated by those using techniques that go back centuries to when Ethiopians made all their own clothing. 

“I love the traditional aspect of the clothing,” Rihana Aman, a café owner in Addis Ababa, who visited the YeFikir shop to buy a wedding dress, tells IPS. “So many dresses now are too modern, and use fabrics that lose what it means to be Ethiopian.”

Fikirte deals directly with and visits weavers she sources from to ensure that skills and incomes stay within communities, and practises remain ethical. She notes how children have been trafficked within the weaving industry.

As a result of the painstaking time and work required to make the garments, YeFikir custom-made dresses can sell for up to 15,300 birr (850 dollars), a sizeable sum, especially in a country where many toil for no more than 50 birr (3 dollars) a day.

Despite such apparent inequities, many Ethiopians — especially those in the growing middle class — remain content to pay handsomely for tailored garments with traditional influences, Mahlet says.

Ethiopians take great pride in the country’s ethnic diversity — around 84 languages and 200 dialects are spoken — and in displaying allegiances through clothing at special events such as weddings and festivals, Mahlet says.

This demand is seeping into the mainstream also. Mahlet’s clothing line MAFI specialises in ready-to-wear garments offering a notably funky take on the country’s ethnic melting pot. And it is a take that has proved successful.

International interest in Ethiopia’s fashion scene is undoubtedly growing — in 2012 Mahlet showcased her work at African Fashion Week New York. However, there are still some misconceptions. On a European flight, Mahlet recalls sitting next to a passenger who was surprised to hear that fashion designers existed in Ethiopia.

Others are not so surprised.

“Ethiopia has some wonderful and interesting craftsmanship,” Markus Lupfer, a London-based fashion designer of international repute who since 2010 has worked with Ethiopian fashion designers, told IPS.

Growing international recognition for designers in Ethiopia and Africa is partly a result of growing demand for ethically-produced fashion designs, Lupfer says.

Although for now such recognition still eludes many of Ethiopia’s fashion designers. And while local demand remains buoyant, designers agree that international demand remains the key to success.

Hence Mahlet and Fikirte plan to bolster their companies’ online presences this year. Both share a goal of exporting clothes to boutiques and online stores — and want to show the world what Ethiopian designers are capable of.

“Ethiopia’s fashion industry is changing the image of Ethiopia,” Fikirte says. “It is showing the diversity and beauty of Ethiopian culture, and providing some of the world’s best hand-woven cotton fabrics.”

Garment worker at a Bangladesh factory. Credit: B A Sujan/Map/IPS

By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY, May 25 2013 (IPS)

Australia’s largest textile workers’ union and activist groups are up in arms that the country’s leading retail chains, who source most of their fashion labels from Bangladesh, are refusing to sign a legally binding accord that will help to improve labour and safety standards in Bangladeshi garment factories.

Local Bangladeshi unions and international human rights groups have approached international clothing manufacturers to join the global initiative for improved building and safety conditions following the collapse of the eight-storey Rana Plaza on Apr. 24 that killed almost 1,200 factory workers.

“Companies that search the globe to find the lowest labour costs cannot claim ignorance (of) the consequences of that decision.” -- Michele O’Neil
As rescue teams pulled corpses and survivors from the debris in the town of Savar, about 25 kilometres from Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, they also found the charred remains of clothing labels bearing the names of major Western retailers like Walmart, H&M, Gap, Primark and many others who outsource their production to Bangladesh to avail themselves of cheap labour in the impoverished country of 150 million.

As a result, the proposed Bangladesh Building and Fire Safety Agreement requires companies to conduct independent safety inspections, make their reports on factory conditions public and cover the costs for needed repairs.

It also requires them to stop doing business with any factory that refuses to make safety upgrades and to allow workers and their unions to have a voice in factory safety.

Major Australian retail chains that source garments from Bangladesh, like Kmart, Target, David Jones and Big W, have not been connected with the Rana Plaza tragedy; but in the spirit of creating a global culture of ethical production, labour unions and rights groups like Oxfam Australia are urging them to sign the agreement.

According to their annual reports, Target Australia’s total revenue in 2012 was about 70 billion dollars, while Kmart, which runs 170 retail outlets across Australia, had revenues of roughly 3.8 billion that same year. Big W (a branch of Woolworths) increased their sales revenues by almost five percent last year to 53 billion dollars.

“Those companies need to (publicise) what they’re making in Bangladesh and they need to be completely transparent about their supply chain,” said Michele O’Neil, national secretary of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFU).

To date, “No Australian company has agreed to publish the location of their supplier factories,” Oxfam Australia’s Labour Rights Coordinator Daisy Gardener told IPS.

“This is important because it would allow independent verification of conditions by researchers, NGOs or unions who could visit the factory site and speak to the workers about wages, health and safety and other issues.”

She said it was “important that all Australian companies sourcing from Bangladesh” sign onto the accord, which gives workers the right to refuse dangerous working conditions.

It is possible that if the accord had existed prior to Apr. 24, the death toll would have been significantly lower: days before the disaster, huge cracks had appeared on the ceilings and beams of the building, which was intended to house just five floors.

Despite these clear signs, and warnings from engineers that a collapse might be inevitable, factory managers threatened workers with dismissal if they stayed away due to safety concerns.

Thirty international companies, including the Italian fashion brand Benetton, Spanish retailer Mango and British retailer Marks & Spencer, have so far initialed the binding agreement, along with other big names like Tesco and PVH (the parent company of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein).

In an angry email response to IPS’ queries, Kmart’s general manager of corporate affairs and sustainability, Tracie Walker, said, “We have not refused to sign the accord.” She referred IPS to the company’s “strong ethical sourcing code”, which is supported by “very stringent policies.”

Kmart says that none of the recent tragedies in Bangladesh occurred in factories that make clothes for them. The company says it organised a forum with its suppliers and auditors, and has also visited factories there.

“One of the key outcomes of the audit process was the identification of ‘high risk buildings’, which are those located above market places and factories located in multi-storey buildings with shared ownership,” the company noted. “Kmart no longer places orders with factories in these high risk locations.”

But activists like O’Neill do not believe that “brand-specific codes, self-regulation and private sector audits” will do the job, echoing activists in the U.S. who say refusals to sign the accord amount to admissions that companies “do not want to be held accountable for workers’ safety.”

According to O’Neill, only consumers have the power to force retail chains to sign the labour accord.

“The results of not having strong laws and unions is clear: look no further than Rana Plaza,” O’Neill noted in a statement on TCFU’s website. “Companies that search the globe to find the lowest labour costs cannot claim ignorance (of) the consequences of that decision.”

About 49 percent of Bangladesh’s population lives below the poverty line. Desperation drives many, particularly women, to seek work in one of the country’s 5,000 factories, taking on 10-hour shifts, seven days a week, in exchange for little more than 30 dollars a month.

Speaking on ABC national radio, Bret Inder, a development economist at Melbourne’s Monash University, said that Bangladesh has grown to be the world’s second biggest garments manufacturer precisely because it offers such a cheap workforce.

“Western buyers have been contracting out to producers all over, particularly in Southeast Asia and South Asia, moving from one country to the next (in search of) the cheapest labour,” he noted.

“There’ll be another country waiting in the queue if Bangladesh prices itself out of the market. To make an accord that is specific to Bangladesh doesn’t make any sense at all,” he added.

Others argue that Bangladesh is a special case that deserves targeted policies. Since 2005, at least 1,800 garment workers have perished in factory fires and building collapses, according to research by the International Labour Rights Forum.

The incident on Apr. 24, the industry’s worst disaster in history, came just months after a fire at a different factory, in November 2012, killed 112 workers.

Oxfam believes that the Better Factories Cambodia project, through which Cambodia gets easy access to U.S. markets in exchange for improved working conditions in the garment sector, may be a good model for Australia to follow.

“There have been international calls for garment companies to ensure they are paying factories enough to ensure workers (receive) a living wage,” notes Oxfam’s Gardener. “The Australian government can help educate Australian businesses about their responsibility to uphold the human rights of the people working in their supply chains.”

She added that the labour cost compared to the overall retail price is very small, sometimes just a few cents per garment, meaning Australian retail companies are able to pay their suppliers more without it having a significant impact on their bottom dollar.