African Fashion & Arts Award (AFAA) Stakeholders Encourage Intra-African Trade In The Fashion Industry

A better intra-African trade and economic partnership between African entrepreneurs in the fashion and arts sectors is being urged by stakeholders in the industry.

The African Fashion & Arts Award (AFAA) emphasizes the requirement that fashion and art creatives be empowered, honored, and recognized.
Over 65% of the 1.4 billion people in Africa are young people between the ages of 12 and 35, according to Mr. Kingsley Amako, founder and president of AFAA.
He also noted that fashion and the arts continue to be the most viable and possibly the creative industry vertical that generates the most revenue, which could significantly affect the GDP of the continent.

At a recent news conference in Abuja, Amako stated that the textile and clothing business continues to be the second largest revenue-generating sector in the world’s emerging nations, after agriculture, despite the continent’s priority shifting from oil to tech.
Speaking on the upcoming third anniversary of AFAA, which will take place in Abuja later in the year, Amako stated that focusing on fashion and art creatives is the best course of action.
The third anniversary of the AFAA is planned for the first three days of December 2023 at the Abuja Continental Hotel, while the East African Media Tour is slated for the sixth, tenth, and thirteenth days of October 2023, respectively, in Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda.

When questioned why the tour was taking place, Amako responded that it had been customary for the organization since 2021 in South Africa, 2022 in Cairo, Egypt, and 2023 in three (3) East African nations.
Amako expressed her gratitude to the sponsors of the AFAA 2023 and stated that the organization’s aim, vision, and motto are to empower people and celebrate their creativity.
“The appropriate level of knowledge and sensitization must be created for the necessary government, public, and private sector organizations to consider for investment in order to realize the Africa we envision.

The African Union, African Development Bank, AfCFTA, AFREXIMBANK, Bank of Industry, and a large number of other institutions have all expressed a strong interest in the creative industry. However, young businesspeople in the fashion and arts sectors appear to believe that this interest primarily applies to the music and film industries.
With “these Press conferences across Africa and the Award ceremony in December to encourage achievers in the fashion and arts industries and as a platform for utilizing the inherent talents among the millions of African creative youths,” he continued, the AFAA will change this narrative.

He listed the advantages of AFAA’s mission in Africa as encouraging talent development and skill acquisition for self-reliance, creating employment opportunities for the more than 13 million African graduates each year, boosting the continent’s GDP, luring foreign direct investments (FDIs), and fostering intra-African trade and business ties.

The organization also aims to influence changes in trade and distribution policies, aid in the empowerment of women and young people, advance world peace, persuade African youths to live in areas with little to no security threat, aid in the eradication of poverty by providing capacity-building training sessions through the AFAA masterclass and mentorship symposium, and promote export for foreign exchange.
In his summation, Amako noted that the fashion and arts sectors had been selected as the ones on the continent that employed the most women and young people and that finished the value chain from farms to finished garments.

In the next ten years, the global fashion market is predicted to triple, producing up to US$ 5 trillion yearly. Through the purchase of 19 billion items, the USA spends 284 billion dollars annually on fashion retail. At different points along the value chain, from design to production to marketing, the fashion sector presents a huge opportunity for Africa. The fashion and arts sectors have a great deal of potential to inspire and effect change in some of the most marginalized groups, particularly women and young people, and to advance structural change.
Recognizing the importance of contemporary technology, AFAA 2023 has thought about topics for the AFAA masterclass and mentoring symposia that involve integrating technology into the fashion and arts industries.

Content courtesy Voice Of Nigeria & NFH