Mike Redwood
Columnist
International Leather Maker
Africa’s landmass is large enough to contain most of the other continents combined, with 54 of the world’s 195 countries and a population just over 1.5 billion. This is projected to rise to 2.5 billion by 2050 and perhaps 4 billion by the end of the century. By then, India’s population will be in decline, China will be down to 600 million, while Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are each expected to approach 450 million, with Ethiopia close to 400 million. Africa will not be ignored.
For the global leather industry, this scale matters twice over: as a huge reservoir of livestock and raw material, and as an emerging consumer base for footwear and leather goods. Yet the continent still sits largely at the commodity end of the value chain, exporting hides and skins and importing finished goods. This gap between potential and realised value is at the heart of Africa’s leather paradox.
My knowledge of Africa is limited, but I have begun reading Joe Studwell’s latest book, How Africa Works, which feels like essential reading for leather executives thinking beyond short‑term sourcing decisions. Studwell’s earlier book, How Asia Works, was recommended to me years ago by a member of the British Aid staff housed in a corner of the embassy compound in Addis Ababa, and it framed convincingly how policy and deliberate industrial strategy helped some Asian economies climb from exporting commodities to building competitive manufacturing. His new volume invites us to ask whether African countries can follow a similar path – and what that might mean for leather.
How Africa Works refers to the Botswana Meat Corporation (BMC), which has recently been in the news for moving, at last, towards what I had hoped they would do when I made a brief visit in the mid-1980s. At that time, the parastatal BMC complex at Lobatse was one of Botswana’s flagship export industries and a rare example of large‑scale agro‑processing in Southern Africa built on local livestock. The integrated abattoir and byproducts plant already included a modern wet‑blue tannery, designed to process BMC’s own hides and equipped with effluent treatment that, for the period, appeared both technically competent and forward‑looking.
What struck me was how firmly the operation stopped at semi‑processed wet-blue. The system was engineered to export intermediates rather than to anchor a domestic leather and footwear industry, effectively shipping away the higher‑value work of retanning, finishing and shoemaking. When the country had already organised cattle, slaughter and primary processing at scale, this seemed an odd place to stop.
From a leather point of view, the natural next step appeared obvious: move beyond wet‑blue exports into finished leather and, in time, footwear and leather goods, using the existing BMC platform as the centre of a typical hub and spoke cluster. With reliable hide supply, an operational tannery and effluent infrastructure already in place, it seemed entirely feasible to add retanning, finishing and a modest shoe industry aimed first at the local and regional market. The core fixed investment and technical risk had already been absorbed; what was missing was the policy push and long‑term commitment to build out the rest of the chain.
Africa’s growing population
This transition never happened. Through the 1990s and into the 2000s, the tannery languished, equipment aged, investment in waste treatment failed to keep pace with requirements and urban encroachment created additional problems. Eventually, the plant closed. For industry observers, it became a small but telling illustration of Africa’s broader struggle to convert raw material advantage into durable industrial capability.
Only recently has government strategy explicitly returned to the path that seemed so plausible in 1985. There are now plans for a Lobatse “Leather Park” and a Meat and Leather City built around a revitalised BMC tannery, a common effluent treatment plant and factory shells for wet‑blue, retanning, finished leather and footwear manufacture. The idea is to reposition Lobatse not just as an exporter of hides, but as the anchor of an integrated leather and footwear industry, capturing a much greater share of value inside Botswana.
The Lobatse story is more than a local curiosity. It encapsulates the strategic choices now facing a number of African countries with sizeable herds, existing abattoir capacity and often some form of tanning in place. Do they continue to export raw or specialise in semi‑processed exports, leaving others to develop brands, design and market access, or do they push deliberately to add finishing, product manufacture and eventually their own regional footwear and leather goods labels?
The answer will not be decided by the leather sector alone. It will depend on infrastructure, energy costs, trade policy, education, access to skills and the ability of governments to commit consistently across political cycles. But the Botswana example shows that where a strong livestock base has already been translated into an efficient slaughter and wet‑blue platform, the technical leap to finished leather and basic footwear is less daunting than it may appear from a distance. What is required is a willingness to move from thinking of hides as a byproduct to seeing leather as a strategic industry in its own right.
As Africa’s population grows and urbanises, domestic demand for footwear and leather goods will expand alongside export opportunities. If countries like Botswana can align livestock, tanning and manufacturing policy, and if industry players are prepared to invest in skills and long‑term partnerships, the continent’s leather story need not remain one of untapped potential and recurring paradox. For now, Lobatse offers a useful case study for the global leather industry which might help shape how Africa chooses to work.
While the hides I remember from 40 years ago were consistent in size and quality, and well flayed, this is unusual in Africa. Generally, a major problem is that the African leather industry is constrained by poor animal husbandry, disease, flaying and handling, and weak integration between livestock producers and industry. So far, there has been very limited success, but my hope is that the plans laid out for the use of climate funding will at last force reform and catalyse real change.
Nature-positive systems
Certainly, the African Union’s Agricultural Development Plan for 2026-35 have grasslands, rangelands and livestock at the heart of this “resilient nature-positive agrifood systems” agenda, with agro‑silvo‑pastoral systems that combine crops, trees and livestock to restore degraded land and sequester carbon involved. The introduction of more indigenous breeds suited to the changing climate, such as Red Maasai sheep, Galla goats and Boran cattle, make good sense. It might well make sense to introduce hide and skin improvement organisations which I remember as very successful when I started in the industry 60 years ago.
A plausible path forward for many countries to consider is a network of regional ecosystems—rooted in local agriculture but globally connected. In such a livestock system, farmers, abattoirs and tanneries are integrated with agro-industrial systems building on circularity, including waste-to-energy and hide traceability (particularly suited for nomadic herders). Regenerative grazing could mitigate climate risks and add value.
But the approaches must not enforce a single model and countries will need to experiment. Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda and Morocco are very different, but share the problems of Botswana and will require the same elements in whatever form.
For some years, I have been involved in the outstanding Real Leather. Stay Different (RLSD) Africa design competition, which demonstrates that Africa already has many fine young, eager designers and some outstanding schools and teachers. Nairobi, for example, appears to be a major creative centre and an obvious fashion hub for East Africa.
Africa has not failed—it has not yet reached the structural conditions for take-off, but now may be doing so. Those who achieve success will not simply catch up. They will define the new models for leather in the 21st century.
mike@internationalleathermaker.com
You can find Dr Mike Redwood across social media at @michaelredwood.
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