The success of Africa's textile and apparel industry under the United States' African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is something of a double-edged sword.
Since its introduction in 2000, duty-free access to the vast US market enabled by AGOA has attracted significant foreign investment, most of it from Asian manufacturers, into countries across the continent.
New factories have been established, export industries have flourished and hundreds of thousands of jobs, many of them for women, have been created. Modern production facilities now supply some of the world's largest clothing retailers and brands, transforming several African economies into important apparel exporters.
Yet while AGOA has stimulated investment, employment and exports, it has largely failed to build the vertically integrated textile industries that many African governments had hoped would emerge.
Originally published by African Business.