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The 14th WTO Ministerial Conference, MC14, took place in Yaoundé, Cameroon from March 26 to 29, bringing together ministers from across the globe to shape the future agenda of the World Trade Organization and address urgent challenges in the global trading system.
ITC highlighted concrete initiatives supporting small businesses, women’s economic empowerment, and sustainable value chains. True to our mission at the Ethical Fashion Initiative, we presented a programme as multifaceted as the value chain we champion, one designed to put African talent, savoir-faire, and the people behind cotton at the very heart of the conversation. We brought something the negotiating rooms rarely see: the women who grow, spin, and transform African cotton, and the designers who give it new life.
Faces and Voices in the Value Chain
The programme opened with a live presentation that took the audience on a journey, from a half-hectare cotton field in western Burkina Faso to the design ateliers of Abidjan. Fatouma Sawadogo Maïga, EFI’s National Coordinator in Burkina Faso and Benin, opened with the women at the very beginning of the chain. Aminata, 54, mother of eight, has farmed organic cotton in Hèrèdougou her entire life. Gnanki, in the northern village of Pèdè in Benin, made the same choice: to produce differently, sustainably. Both are members of producer cooperatives supported by ITC. Their stories set the tone: behind this fibre, at every stage of the value chain, there is almost always a woman’s hand.
Fatouma walked the audience through each step. The ginning plants in Koudougou and Kandi, where seeds are separated from fibre. The spinning cooperatives, where more than 1,550 women across Burkina Faso and Benin transform raw cotton into fully local, artisanal thread, using a carder and a spinning wheel. The dyeing workshops, where women like Martine in Diapangou and Fridane in Parakou pull deep blues, intense reds, and vibrant ochres from their vats. And the weaving ateliers, where more than 2,500 artisans produce the iconic Faso Dan Fani of Burkina Faso and the Kanvo of Benin.
It was a deliberate act of visibility: to bring these women to the forefront, using their name and sharing their stories in a room full of trade ministers. As Fatouma reflected afterwards: “The creation of value in the cotton sector also rests on artisanship. Industry generates jobs and wealth and so does craft, while also preserving our cultural heritage.”
The presentation then passed to Isabelle Andoh Vieyra, Ivorian designer, YSAND founder, and co-founder of STUDIO 4 Abidjan, who walked the audience through the final transformation: how a woven textile becomes a garment. At YSAND everything begins with the fabric itself: its texture, its density, its history. From there comes creative intention, technical drawing, pattern-making, and construction. The result is what Isabelle describes as an almost architectural approach to clothing: nothing decorative, everything built. A live model brought the process to its conclusion, demonstrating how each design decision made on paper comes to life in movement.
Seven Countries on the Runway
Produced with the support of STUDIO 4 Abidjan and the Confédération Camerounaise des PMEs et Métiers de la Mode, the runway brought together designers and cotton transformers from across the C4+ countries, Cameroon, and Nigeria: Sartoria Gaecy, Yohou Couture, Camara Officiel, Awa Meite Design, Maison Tadie, We Are Everyone Atelier, and Honeyloom. With musical accompaniment by MZSS, it was a moment of visibility and continental pride, and for some in the audience, a first encounter with the contemporaneity of African fashion.
For the designers themselves, the significance went beyond the catwalk. Damiola of Lagos-based Honeyloom had travelled from Nigeria specifically for the event, a decision she describes as deliberate. For her, showing at MC14 was about more than creative exposure: it was about repositioning what African fashion can mean in a global trade context, and affirming that women-led, textile-based enterprises belong in that conversation.
Artisan demonstrations in cotton spinning and hand-weaving, led by the Centre de Tissage Gaaraadji, offered an immersive counterpoint, grounding the experience in the craft itself. Alongside the runway, a pop-up shop gave visitors a direct way to engage with and purchase the work on show – featuring pieces by Aidy Pearls, Wodossi, Fare Officiel, Bakus Oraya, Design by Katoo, Kashara Creation, Kayi de Vincent, Gainga by C.Y, Seannobayo, Mamoddafrik, Ziwiss Official, 3K Fashion, Mina Stones, Hands of Fashion, Cabes Official, Ciss St Moise, and Yalerri.
That shift in how the work is seen, not only as culture or heritage but as commerce, is precisely what EFI’s Océane Joncoux had in mind when designing the programme. The runway, she explained, was the celebration, but it was inseparable from everything surrounding it: the artisan demonstrations, the pop-up shop, the live testimonies. Each element was chosen to show that African cotton’s journey from field to finished garment is not a future ambition, it is happening now, carried by the hands and creative vision of the people who know it best.
EFI extends its deepest gratitude to the WTO, Afreximbank and EU ACP BF, for making this possible, to mzss____ for the soundtrack, to STUDIO 4 Abidjan and the Confédération Camerounaise des PMEs et Métiers de la Mode for their support in producing the events.
Fashion Show Designers:
We Are Everyone · Maison Tadie · Awa Meite Design · Camara Creations · Yohou Couture · Sartoria Gaecy · Honeyloom
Pop-up Shop Designers:
@aidypearls · @wodossi · @fareofficiel · @bakus_oraya · @design_by_katoo · @kasharacreation · @kayidevincent · @gainga_by_c.y · @seannobayo · @Mamoddafrik · @ziwissofficial ·@hands_of_fashion · @cabes_official · @ciss_st_moise · @yalerri
Live Demonstrations STUDIO 4 Abidjan and Gaaraadji Tissage
Thank you to our models: Ewoudou Marie Eleonore Cynthia, Venus EKath, Armonie Ebogo, Starliam Bazoa, Ulrich Fortuna, Mbazoa Kounou Rolande.
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