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from the BBC World Service. Please

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A complete lack of control of the state

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the impact of this war. The Global Jigsaw

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from the BBC World Service. Hello,

0:41

I'm Audrey Brown and today in Focus

0:43

on Africa we are talking about the

0:45

crime and exploitation on the frontier between

0:48

South Africa and Zimbabwe. He forced

0:50

himself on me because he said that you don't

0:52

have money so you don't have

0:54

money to pay us. You can do whatever you want.

0:56

You know if you want to cry there is

0:59

no money to pay too. There's no money to talk to. Ghana's

1:02

new health minister has written a book

1:04

about lessons learned from the COVID pandemic.

1:07

We invested into the code chain

1:09

and the code chain basically handles

1:11

vaccines that are meant for vaccination

1:14

of the population, not only for

1:16

COVID but for childhood programs for

1:18

other critical diseases that are mitigated

1:20

or handed through a vaccine deployment.

1:23

And the future of fashion in

1:25

Africa. The time is now. Digital

1:28

is playing a critical role in

1:30

shaping the future of the African

1:32

fashion industry. The key challenge for

1:34

us is how are we going

1:36

to transform that into an amazing

1:38

opportunity to address our main challenges.

1:41

It's Wednesday the 3rd of April.

1:50

First, we go to the border between

1:53

South Africa and Zimbabwe. Traffic

1:55

between those two countries is

1:57

brisk and constant because Zimbabwe

2:00

is landlocked, so most of its goods

2:02

come in by road from South Africa.

2:05

There is an official entry and exit point

2:07

at Bight Bridge, but you don't have to

2:09

enter that way. Not far

2:11

from the official checkpoint, there's

2:14

another entrance, unchecked and unmonitored,

2:16

ruled by criminal gangs. It's

2:19

where tens of thousands of undocumented people

2:21

cross into South Africa in

2:23

search of work. Now, South Africans

2:25

have long been complaining about the numbers

2:27

of people from across the continent, while

2:29

living and working inside the

2:32

country, undocumented. Xenophobic attacks

2:34

against African nationals rears its

2:36

ugly head ever so often,

2:38

violently. Many of

2:40

them enter this way across the Limpopo

2:43

River. The government claims it's tightening

2:45

security on the border. Ed

2:47

Habershon was part of a BBC

2:49

team that went to the border

2:52

to see how a newly established

2:54

management authority was operating. The

2:56

Messina border crossing is one of the

2:58

busiest on the border between South Africa

3:00

and the countries that border the country.

3:02

It's actually the busiest between South Africans

3:04

in Zimbabwe, and the majority of foreigners

3:07

living in South Africa come from

3:09

Zimbabwe. And it's traditionally one of

3:11

the busiest in terms of traffic coming across. So

3:13

that's basically why we chose it, just the best

3:16

place to do the story from. Was

3:18

it two-way crossing, or was it more Zimbabweans

3:20

coming the one way, and if you were

3:22

going the other way, was there a mix

3:24

of South Africans, Zimbabweans? Yes, so

3:26

it's interesting here. There's actually two stories on

3:28

this border. So we went to this place,

3:30

Messina. The actual border is called Bait Bridge.

3:32

That's actually right on the border between South

3:34

Africans and Zimbabwe. And first of all, we

3:36

went to the official port, which is where

3:39

you would come through, people would come through,

3:41

have their passports checked, go through customs. So

3:43

that was busy. The majority of the traffic

3:46

is coming from Zimbabwe over to South Africa,

3:48

but there is still a substantial number of

3:50

people going the other way. But then we

3:53

drove about 20 kilometres to the east of

3:55

Bait Bridge along a sort of a

3:57

dirt track, really, and the fence. actually

4:00

ran out. There was no longer

4:03

a fence and then we went down to

4:05

the river bank. So the Limpopo River runs

4:07

along the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe.

4:09

And what we found there were people just

4:11

walking across the riverbed. I mean you might

4:13

know it's very dry in Southern Africa at

4:15

the moment, very little water. And we stood

4:18

on the southern bank which is South Africa

4:20

and just probably 500 meters

4:22

across the riverbed is Zimbabwe.

4:25

And there were people walking freely, lots of goods,

4:27

carrying goods to come and sell in South

4:29

Africa. There were donkeys carrying carts, carrying goods

4:31

as well. There were a lot of people

4:33

coming over. These people come over pretty much

4:36

just to sell goods in the market in

4:38

Messina and then return the same day. But

4:40

there are also a lot of people coming

4:42

over who are looking to come and live

4:44

in South Africa. A lot of them are

4:47

undocumented. So there are two stories really. There's

4:49

the official – the people coming across the

4:51

official border at Batebridge but then very close

4:53

by there are undocumented people coming across the

4:55

border. And of course people coming across or

4:58

going the other way, there's often stories of

5:00

how people are being exploited, the criminality that's

5:02

involved in there. You've been talking to some

5:04

of the people that have been using that

5:07

border crossing and have been victims of

5:09

that level of exploitation. Yeah, that's right.

5:11

So these are mainly people who are

5:13

coming across for good as in they're

5:16

coming across to work, to live in

5:18

South Africa. We didn't go to the

5:20

point where they cross because these places

5:22

are very dangerous. A lot of these

5:24

areas are run by gangs and a

5:26

lot of people we spoke to, both

5:28

officials and locals in Messina, told us

5:30

that the main gang is called the

5:32

Magumaguma, the Zimbabwean gang. And these are

5:34

people who prey on undocumented migrants walking

5:36

south from Zimbabwe to South Africa and

5:38

will often promise to help them cross

5:40

but will ultimately rob them, attack them.

5:42

We met some people who said they were

5:44

raped. We met people who said that people

5:46

were killed coming across the border. So yes,

5:49

this is a very dangerous crossing for a

5:51

lot of people. And we spoke to one

5:53

woman called Portia. We visited a shelter where

5:55

there's an NGO looking after people who have

5:57

crossed the border. The shelter we visited... looked

6:00

after women and children, mainly those who have

6:02

crossed the border from Zimbabwe and didn't really

6:04

know what to do next. And unfortunately, Portia

6:06

says she was raped on her journey south.

6:09

Some of the people, they are nice, but some of them, they

6:11

are very rude. Especially when they know

6:13

that they don't have money, they just treat you

6:15

in whatever they like. You know, some of the

6:17

women, when they look at you in the situation,

6:19

most of them, they don't want to help you.

6:21

Some of them, they'll be like, they'll be laughing

6:23

at you. But I just managed

6:25

to say that I wanted to come

6:28

here with my journey. And

6:30

the men attacked you, even though

6:32

you were visibly pregnant. Yeah, he forced

6:34

himself on me because he said that, because

6:36

you don't have money, so you don't have

6:39

money to pay us. You can do whatever

6:41

you want. You know, if we want to

6:43

pray, there is no one to pray to, and

6:45

there is no one to cook. That's the

6:47

story of Portia Muevezi that you heard,

6:49

Ed. I'm interested in border management. Is

6:52

there such a thing, given that this

6:54

is happening to people there and there's

6:56

an official border and a well-established border?

6:58

Are there any controls on what happens

7:00

to people? Yeah, well, this is an interesting part

7:02

of the story as well. So last year, the South African

7:05

government launched what it calls Border

7:08

Management Authority. This was a new

7:10

government department managing the borders. Now,

7:13

obviously South Africa has borders with

7:15

Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia,

7:17

and also Lesotho and Eswatini. It has a

7:20

lot of borders to manage. Previously, I think

7:22

there were five government departments all charged

7:24

with looking after the borders together, and clearly

7:26

that was proving too chaotic. So this was

7:29

launched in April last year and then

7:31

officially unveiled in October. So it's a

7:33

very new authority. And we met with

7:35

the head of this new group, Mike

7:37

Maciaparte. We actually went to a passing

7:39

out ceremony in Johannesburg a couple of

7:41

weeks ago for 400 border

7:44

guards who were after the parade jumping on

7:46

buses and heading to the borders to start

7:48

their new jobs. Since the first of April,

7:50

2023, when we officially

7:52

started as the border management authority,

7:55

I can indicate that we actually

7:57

inherited a very complex environment. complex

8:00

environment where there has been a

8:02

multiple government department that were deployed

8:04

at the ports for them to

8:06

be able to discharge more than

8:08

50 pieces of legislation in a

8:10

fairly fragmented and silo-based manner. So

8:12

on that basis it was very

8:14

difficult. So what we had to

8:16

then start doing was to start

8:18

the processes of integration through which

8:20

we had to then infuse all

8:22

of those various departmental officials into

8:24

a single authority, border management authority

8:26

and actually started synchronizing various operational

8:28

procedures so that we can have

8:30

a single command and control environment.

8:34

And after we have done all of those I could say that

8:36

if you look at the past 11 months, we

8:38

can say we have fairly stabilized the environment. We

8:41

have started to deal with some elements of porous

8:43

borders which has always been problematic and

8:45

that includes in the port of entry as well

8:47

as in what we described as the vulnerable segments

8:50

on the border line. That

8:52

was the head of South Africa's border management authority,

8:54

Mike Maciopata, ending that report

8:56

by Ed Habershawn in South Africa.

9:04

Ghana has a new health minister. Before

9:06

now, Dr. Bernard Okwe Booye was

9:08

the deputy minister of health, which

9:10

gave him the perfect vantage point

9:12

from which to participate in and

9:15

observe Ghana's response to the COVID

9:17

pandemic. He's done so

9:19

in a book called Fellow Ghanaians

9:21

Telling Ghana's COVID-19 Story, a

9:25

Journey of Fear, Fact, Faith

9:27

and Fortune. Now for

9:29

some COVID stats, before we hear directly from

9:31

the minister, Ghana had around

9:33

172,000 confirmed cases according to the World Health

9:35

Organization. Of

9:39

those, around 1,500 died. Ghana

9:43

had lockdowns and the subsequent economic struggles

9:45

to deal with like so many parts

9:48

of the world, but

9:50

I was intrigued by the title of the book. So

9:53

I began our conversation by asking

9:55

why Dr. Booye had called it

9:57

Fellow Ghanaians, a journey of fear,

9:59

faith and fortune. fact, faith and fortune.

10:02

I was a member of Ghana's parliament

10:04

when COVID broke. I was also a

10:06

member of the Health Committee. I took

10:08

a keen interest when the

10:10

pandemic broke from

10:12

Wuhan all the way to West Africa.

10:15

And I was also

10:18

privy to the addresses that the

10:20

president of the republic, his excellency

10:23

Nana Rudanko-Ekofaro gave to

10:25

keep Ghanaians abreast on what was

10:27

happening. And almost

10:29

all those addresses started with the

10:32

phrase fellow Ghanaians. And

10:34

fellow Ghanaians became very popular for

10:38

news on the pandemic. So I chose

10:41

the sub team, fear, fact, faith and

10:43

fortune. Because really when the pandemic

10:45

broke, there was a lot of apprehension. People

10:47

didn't know what was happening. Some

10:50

didn't understand the science. And they

10:52

were amazed at how an

10:54

invisible pathogen or

10:56

virus could be causing so much

10:58

havoc. And I also said

11:00

facts because Ghana is one of

11:02

those countries that stuck to

11:04

the science, listened to the

11:07

experts and followed

11:10

figures on how many were getting infected,

11:12

dates, what to do and all that.

11:14

And then I mentioned faith because there was

11:16

a lot of also faith

11:20

aspects to the management of

11:22

the pandemic. The president, for example, always

11:25

ended his address by saying that these two

11:27

shall pass. And that

11:29

hope and faith kept people

11:31

strong, even as we

11:34

wrestled our way through the pandemic. And

11:36

the fortune had to do with some

11:38

of the good aspects of the pandemic.

11:40

As a country, we

11:42

invested a lot into

11:45

laboratory medical science.

11:48

We had only two national laboratories

11:50

that could do genomic studies, that

11:53

could do polymers, chain reactions,

11:55

that's PCR. By the time

11:57

the pandemic was over, as described by

11:59

the... the population in 2023, we had invested

12:02

and built over 50 national

12:05

laboratories. You've spelt out for

12:07

us what Ghana did in response

12:09

to the pandemic, the responses

12:12

that can be carried forward. But

12:15

one of the many things that

12:17

COVID did expose within

12:19

countries was the layers of inequality

12:22

that everyone knew about, but chose

12:24

to ignore. So what did the

12:27

pandemic teach Ghana actually in terms

12:29

of health delivery? One essential

12:31

program which is to address the

12:34

inequality has to do with the

12:36

agenda one-on-one, which

12:38

involves building about

12:40

101 district

12:42

hospitals, that is primary care

12:45

facilities that can handle visits

12:47

like isolation, treatment of infections,

12:50

admission and all that. The plan

12:53

is to ensure that every district

12:55

has a district hospital, a primary

12:57

facility that can contain, take care

12:59

of infections and outbreaks

13:02

on their own without pushing cases

13:04

to, how do you

13:06

call it, a different facility in the big

13:08

cities. I think what we also did was

13:10

to accelerate our employment

13:12

of health workers. The finance ministry

13:14

gave clearance to the Minister of

13:16

Health to employ thousands of health

13:19

workers who had to be pushed

13:21

or sent to rare areas so

13:23

they could help take care

13:25

of health needs in those areas.

13:27

And I'm happy to mention that

13:29

we now have a cold chain

13:32

infrastructure which is spread across

13:34

the country. Every region

13:36

out of the 16 regions of

13:38

Ghana, we invested into cold chain.

13:41

And the cold chain basically handles

13:43

vaccines that are meant for vaccination

13:46

of the population, not only

13:48

for COVID, but for childhood

13:50

programs, for other critical diseases

13:52

that are mitigated

13:55

or handled through vaccine

13:57

deployment. Let's talk about vaccine

13:59

deployment. vaccines in general as

14:01

one of the main issues that came

14:03

out of COVID and

14:06

COVID responses. The

14:08

South African government president,

14:11

my president, several drama posts are

14:13

called the unequal access to vaccines

14:15

during COVID vaccine

14:17

apartheid. What I was

14:19

wondering was have African countries taken that

14:22

on board? Have

14:24

they realized that there were

14:26

vaccine making, producing facilities in

14:28

Africa that needed money to

14:31

be scaled up so that they could provide

14:33

vaccines? Because this is not just a

14:36

COVID issue. So built

14:38

into Ghana's response, but that you were just telling us

14:40

about now, does that come

14:43

into it to be able to provide medicines

14:45

and vaccines for Ghana that

14:48

doesn't depend on international supply

14:50

chains? Ghana actually passed a

14:52

vaccine law, a vaccine production law,

14:55

as a consequence of some of the challenges

14:57

we had when it came to vaccine access.

15:00

We actually also gave

15:02

birth to a national vaccine institute.

15:05

So Ghana now has a national

15:07

vaccine institute. Ghana also had

15:10

some pharmaceutical companies

15:13

supported to start processes to,

15:15

in the short to medium

15:17

term, look at how to

15:19

participate in vaccine production. We

15:21

are empowering some of our

15:23

pharmaceuticals to at least start

15:25

to bottle what we call fill

15:28

and finish. It means to get

15:30

the pharmaceutical chemical products and do

15:32

the bottling here, like India does.

15:34

I think South Africa is also

15:37

involved, and Rwanda is also involved.

15:39

Now, corruption was also a feature of

15:42

the COVID response. Ghana had issues with

15:44

that, as well as countries like here

15:46

in the UK, for instance, contracts were

15:48

assigned without proper permissions. The

15:51

book that you wrote addressed those issues as well,

15:53

because right now in this country, it is

15:56

part of investigations, but people are deeply

15:58

dissatisfied with the way in which it's

16:00

being addressed. Was that a feature

16:02

that you feel strongly enough needs to be

16:05

addressed that Ghanaian people need to know

16:07

about? Well, I think fortunately

16:09

for Ghana, we

16:11

had an audit conducted

16:14

into COVID-19 expenditure as in all

16:16

funds that were dispersed in

16:19

relation to COVID-19. The

16:23

report actually indicated that a lot of

16:26

activities were done in

16:28

according to law. The report cited a

16:30

few activities that fell short of some

16:32

of the provisions and indicated the way

16:35

forward. Look, the bottom line is that

16:37

it is part of human nature. When

16:39

you undertake 100 activities to

16:41

save lives and one goes wrong, the

16:43

one that was not, how

16:46

do you call it, above board, is

16:48

likely to receive attention. Bottom line is

16:50

that whatever was not proper, our national

16:52

laws would give the opportunity to handle

16:54

them. So is your

16:56

book an official response to Ghana's

16:58

reaction to the pandemic or is

17:01

it a personal take on the

17:03

pandemic? Because you must be the

17:05

only health minister-designate who's written a

17:07

book. Other countries have done commissions

17:10

of inquiry and people conduct their

17:12

thoughts on Facebook and Twitter, X

17:15

Twitter is what I call it. That's

17:18

where people are thrashing out issues

17:20

around COVID-19. You've written a

17:22

book. Is this official? I wrote this book

17:24

because of very unique factors. First of all,

17:26

I was made a deputy minister of health

17:29

somewhere in April when the pandemic

17:31

started or had started. I was

17:33

also a member of the Health

17:36

Committee of Ghana's parliament that was

17:38

doing oversight of the minister of

17:40

health. I also am a

17:42

physician and a public health person. And

17:44

I was also a member of the

17:46

task force that has the highest government

17:49

body that was discussing COVID and dictating

17:51

the response. So I put this together

17:53

as someone who was privileged to be

17:55

involved from many angles. Yes,

17:57

it is not a document that came.

18:00

from the Ministry of Health, but it

18:02

is one that has been reviewed

18:04

and attested to or confirmed as

18:06

a very comprehensive of

18:08

what we did when COVID struck. And

18:11

that was Ghana's new Minister

18:13

of Health, Dr. Bernard Okoyebouye.

18:31

Welcome to the last

18:33

story of today's podcast and

18:35

it's all about African designers

18:37

and fashionistas strutting their stuff,

18:40

not just locally, but on

18:42

the global runway. Because

18:44

if industry leaders Edgy Benson and

18:46

Laureen Kwasi-Offsen have anything to do

18:48

with it, African fashion is

18:51

about to explode internationally, not just

18:53

as an art form, but

18:56

as an industry. Edgy

18:58

is a designer, manufacturer and founder

19:00

of Anhui New York, Inc. Laureen

19:03

is the founder and CEO

19:05

of Birimian Ventures. They

19:07

are from Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire

19:09

respectively. Edgy and Laureen met at

19:11

a conference in New York last year. That

19:14

conference was organized by Fashion Innovation,

19:16

a global platform that connects people

19:19

in the fashion industry worldwide. One

19:22

of the people behind Fashion Innovation is

19:24

Jordana Guimarayes. She kicked

19:26

off the conversation about an industry that

19:28

brings in around $15.15 billion worth

19:32

of exports, according to UNESCO.

19:35

So is this the tipping point for

19:37

the fashion industry in Africa? It's

19:40

super important to bring global to local

19:42

and local to global in order for

19:44

the industry to move forward in the

19:46

right direction. And in many

19:48

countries around the world, there is a

19:50

very strong African culture. As

19:52

an example, actually, me being the co-founder

19:54

of Fashion Innovation and my husband and

19:56

our entire team are all from Brazil.

19:59

And Brazil has a very strong culture. very strong African

20:01

culture in everything. Of

20:03

course, Africa, like the culture,

20:05

the heritage, the weaving, the textiles, like

20:07

so much that comes out of there.

20:10

I don't feel as a co-founder of

20:12

a global platform that Africa has the

20:14

recognition it deserves globally when it comes

20:17

to the big platform. And so for

20:19

us, it was super important from the

20:21

beginning to always integrate these conversations and

20:23

not only bring the big names, but

20:26

also bring the supply chain workers because

20:28

without them, the brand doesn't exist. And

20:30

your reaction to what Jodana was saying

20:32

there? She's right on point. I mean,

20:35

for us, we're like purveyors in a sense.

20:37

Like all these people come in with all

20:39

their ideas, and we see

20:41

them trying to capture Africa in different

20:43

ways. And I always say to myself,

20:46

Africa is just about our imagery. It's

20:48

not just about our colors. Africa is

20:50

about our shapes, our socialities, our passions.

20:53

For me, I know from what I

20:55

do with brands that in the next

20:57

10, 50 years, even

21:00

Africa's web brands would want to be produced and

21:02

would want to sell. Laureen, what

21:04

do you make of what you were

21:06

saying? What Jodana is describing is actually

21:09

what I call an African creative infusion,

21:11

in a sense that African creatives and

21:13

designers are pushing boundaries. They have

21:15

never been that visible, but also

21:17

that vocal on the necessity to

21:20

not only have their talent being

21:22

recognized internationally, but there is a

21:24

strong goal. And I think it's

21:27

also a goal to look at

21:29

the continent with its reality. There

21:31

are production issues, infrastructure issues, access

21:34

to finance issues, capacity building issues.

21:36

All of those things need to

21:39

be addressed so that we

21:41

can take part at a

21:43

global scale to the international

21:45

fashion. We also have to

21:47

be cautious on the fact

21:49

that African creativity is recognized,

21:51

yes. But it's also part

21:54

of a global inspiration that

21:56

the world is also yearning

21:58

for. Laureen, we'll stay with you. for

22:00

a moment. UNESCO put out a report last

22:02

year saying that the African fashion industry is

22:04

valued at $15.5 billion and that's export annually.

22:06

$15.5 billion sounds like a lot. Is

22:13

it a lot? Well, it is

22:15

when you look at the GDP

22:17

contribution of the different kind of

22:19

countries and their role

22:22

when it comes to exporting

22:24

coats and fibers and so

22:26

on and so forth. But

22:28

it's actually not and this

22:30

is the creative paradox because

22:33

when we accept or integrate

22:35

the fact that most of

22:37

the word cotton producers are

22:39

on the continent, we would

22:41

expect much more exports to

22:43

be driven from our continent.

22:45

And actually that number also

22:47

shows that there is not

22:49

sufficient local transformation from raw

22:51

materials to ends products such

22:53

as garments on the continent. So that

22:55

number to answer simple your question is

22:58

it's a low number compared to the

23:00

rest of the world and much more

23:02

needs to be done when it comes

23:05

to local transformation and production capacities

23:07

on the continent. We have so

23:09

much to give just like Lorraine

23:11

was saying, $15 billion is

23:13

so little. We should be talking

23:15

$3 trillion. Actually, let me ask you

23:18

a slightly different question here. When we're talking

23:20

about African fashion, are

23:22

we talking about cloth

23:24

that is made in Africa, sort of made

23:26

with, I don't want to say stereotypical, but

23:28

I mean, identifiably not from here

23:30

as it were or from the West and

23:32

styles that are different as well. Or are

23:35

we talking about a whole range of different

23:37

kinds of ways in which people make clothing

23:39

and the kinds of clothes that they want

23:41

to wear? I think we

23:43

have to talk about the overall supply

23:45

chain, the whole volume chain from

23:47

the cloth to the designers to the

23:49

infrastructure that empowers the industry. A lot

23:51

of African designers are luxury brands. The

23:54

only reason they are not luxury is

23:56

because they're not outside here in the

23:58

world. Right. So it's about. creating

24:00

the right infrastructure around them, creating

24:02

the right processes and how we

24:04

can facilitate those processes. But you have

24:06

to look at it from the

24:08

cloth. We have to look at African

24:11

shapes. Those are our contributions to fashion.

24:13

How do we implement, how are

24:15

we creating fashion locally at

24:17

home, how are we exporting fashion

24:20

outside? Who will be wearing it and

24:22

who are they designing for in their heads?

24:24

You, for instance, see somebody designing a three-piece

24:26

suit and somewhere in Africa where people tend

24:28

not to wear three-piece suits. Now, I'm not

24:30

saying that they shouldn't or they couldn't, but

24:32

what do you say? Well, fashion is

24:34

such a universal language, right? I don't think

24:36

because you're in Africa you don't do the

24:38

three-piece suits. You're going to do the three-piece

24:40

suits. But do you need to add a

24:42

little something something that says, oh, this is

24:44

that designer from an African country. And the

24:47

reason why I know that is because this

24:49

is what that person is bringing to it.

24:52

As land marking as that sounds, we're

24:54

also trying to go away from there

24:56

because it pigeonholes Africa around color, around

24:58

shapes. I think we are better than

25:00

that. I think we can contemporarize African

25:03

fashion. Sometimes people love our shapes but

25:05

may not be brave enough to wear

25:07

our colors, you know? So we have

25:09

to be able to transcend perceptions that

25:12

people may have about African fashion. Laureen,

25:14

let's talk about cultural sensitivities. There's

25:16

a lot of conversation around appropriation.

25:18

So if somebody is wearing galette,

25:20

for instance, and you know, we're

25:22

not expecting that person seen wearing

25:25

that, where does that leave us

25:27

when we talk about fashion and

25:29

we talk about the universality of

25:31

fashion? The question you're addressing is

25:33

about the creative territories of African

25:35

fashion. And I will say the

25:38

heritage behind this. And I think

25:40

from a designer standpoint, it's a

25:42

question of creativity because we cannot

25:44

judge that creativity. We need to

25:46

accept that like brands in Europe, brands

25:48

from France will be different from the

25:51

creative territory than brands from Italy and

25:53

so on and so forth. So in

25:55

a nutshell, I wanted to say that

25:57

the diversity or African continent will cause

26:00

for diversity in terms of African

26:02

fashion, credit it is. Absolutely. Eiji,

26:04

I feel like we've been here before.

26:06

It feels to me like we keep

26:08

coming back to ground zero. Do you

26:11

think that this is the

26:13

kind of tipping point now that we had to

26:15

go around the block again and again, and here

26:17

we are now, and this is the tipping point,

26:20

this is the breakthrough? I think it's

26:22

not really bad that we go around and

26:24

around because fashion is an art, it revolves

26:26

a lot when you look at it from

26:28

the artistic point. And then of course, for

26:30

African designers, there's always that struggle that doesn't

26:32

allow you to blast off, right? So you

26:34

seem to be circling around, going

26:37

around in circles. So you may spend 10

26:39

years just trying to build a brand, and

26:41

yes, you look like you just started, but

26:43

you're old. You're really tenured in this space.

26:46

So I would say we're not running around

26:48

in circles, but it's a call for us

26:50

to challenge our leaders and to

26:52

challenge stakeholders to come together and to

26:55

create partnerships that would move us forward,

26:57

that would help us achieve maturities that

26:59

we need across the supply chain. But

27:01

it's not a bad thing that we're

27:04

looking around in circles. Some of those

27:06

circles lead us back to our heritage.

27:08

And sometimes we don't collaborate enough, but

27:10

I think collaborations are super important for

27:13

us in Africa, and we need to

27:15

just be intentional. Laureen, last

27:17

word to you, innovation. We are at

27:19

a moment where the internet, AIs in

27:22

conversation, social media platforms, do those benefit

27:24

for fashion in any way, do you

27:26

think? Absolutely, and I would say this

27:29

is the reason why the time is

27:31

now, and this is the reason why

27:33

we're not going into circles. And this

27:35

is the reason why things are different

27:37

from the 90s, for example. The digital

27:39

is playing a critical role in solving

27:41

the future of the African fashion industry.

27:44

I think the key challenge for us

27:46

is how are we going to transform

27:48

that adversity, being far from the

27:50

rest of the world, into an

27:52

amazing opportunity using digital to address

27:55

our main challenges and trips of

27:57

distribution. Excellent, thank you to you both.

27:59

I've enjoyed. our conversation. Thank you.

28:01

Thank you. I was talking to

28:04

Laureen Kwasi Olson from Cote d'Ivoire

28:06

and Edgy Benson from Nigeria. Focus

28:11

in Africa was put together by

28:13

Yvette Tuaguerra Maria, Stefania Okereke and

28:15

Victor Silver. Patricia Whitehorn was in

28:18

charge of quality control, among other

28:20

things. Our technical producer

28:22

was Chris Ablakwa. Our

28:24

editors are Andre Lombard and Alice Modenke.

28:27

I'm Audrey Brown and we'll talk again

28:29

next time. The

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information spaces we inhabit can

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resemble a whole of mirrors.

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It's called guided democracy or managed

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democracy. There are different parties, different

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going to win. The Global Jigsaw

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is the podcast helping you make

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