The growing global demand for African fashion is creating fresh economic opportunities for traditional craft communities, supporting employment and helping preserve indigenous skills passed down through generations, Aisha Adamu-Augie, director-general of the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC), has said.
Adamu-Augie said the increasing international popularity of African fabrics and fashion was helping to reconnect traditional producers with economic opportunities, particularly communities whose craftsmanship had existed for hundreds of years but had not translated into significant economic benefits.
She made this known on the sidelines of the Afreximbank Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) WKND 2026, where she highlighted the need to ensure that Africans benefit economically from the growing global appreciation of their cultural heritage.
According to her, African creativity has long enjoyed international recognition, with museums and cultural institutions across the world showcasing African art and heritage. However, the priority should now be to ensure that the economic value generated from these cultural assets reaches the communities responsible for preserving them.
She said the objective was not merely to commercialise African culture but to use creativity and cultural heritage to stimulate economic activities, create jobs and support livelihoods across the continent.
Using the traditional dye pits in Kano as an example, Adamu-Augie said some communities had preserved their craft for about 400 years, passing down knowledge and techniques through successive generations, despite receiving limited economic benefits from their work.
The growing demand for authentic African fashion, however, is helping to bring renewed attention and economic value to these traditional skills.
She noted that the same opportunities were emerging for people involved in weaving and fabric production, as the increasing preference for authentic African materials was creating demand across the value chain.
According to her, this is enabling traditional producers to earn livelihoods while preserving their cultural identity, telling their stories and introducing younger generations to their heritage and traditions.
Adamu-Augie also stressed that the economic value of Africa’s creative industries extends beyond fashion to music and other cultural expressions, which provide opportunities to preserve and promote the continent’s identity.
However, she warned that Africa was losing important aspects of its cultural heritage, including indigenous languages and traditional knowledge, with some languages already extinct and others spoken by only a handful of people.
She attributed much of the erosion of African identity to historical colonial influences, which discouraged the use of indigenous languages, traditional clothing and other cultural expressions.
She said there was a need to document, revive and preserve these cultural assets while ensuring that younger generations could utilise them as sources of identity, confidence and economic opportunity.
Adamu-Augie urged Africans to recognise the value of their cultural heritage rather than depend on external validation, noting that the global appreciation of African creativity should encourage greater confidence in the continent’s identity and capabilities.
She said CBAAC was working to strengthen existing cultural platforms and international partnerships to promote African history and heritage, including preparations for activities around the 50th anniversary of FESTAC ’77.
The centre is also engaging international partners and existing festivals to incorporate the FESTAC 77 theme into their programmes, providing technical support, historical materials and publications to deepen awareness of African culture.
Adamu-Augie said the initiative would help connect African cultural practitioners with international audiences while creating opportunities for exchanges between the continent and the diaspora.
Hope Moses-Ashike is an Associate Editor, Banking and Finance, with more than a decade of experience reporting on Nigeria’s financial system and broader economy. She closely tracks market movements, monetary policy decisions, company disclosures, regulatory actions, economic indicators, and global developments, and interprets what they mean for businesses, investors, policymakers, and households. Her reporting helps readers understand complex issues such as inflation trends, foreign exchange market dynamics, interest rate decisions, bank performance, and investment risks. She also covers major international events and periodically travels to Washington, D.C., to report on the World Bank/IMF Spring and Annual Meetings. Her dedication to financial journalism has earned her multiple recognitions and invitations to high-level professional development programmes. She is an alumna of the International Visitors Leadership Programme (IVLP) in the United States and holds an Advanced Financial Journalism Certificate from the Press Association Training in London, UK. Her other notable achievements include completing the Lagos Business School CMC Programme, the Bloomberg Media Africa Initiative Programme, and a Master Class in Journalism at Rhodes University in South Africa.
