Can Kenya Reimagine the Future of Apparel After AGOA?
Author: Teresa Lubano
Date: April 28, 2025
I’m sure you have all heard about the various new trade directives that the U.S. administration has imposed on most, if not all, nations.
This has startled many countries and, if not, will certainly affect the way we trade forever.
From a Kenyan fashion perspective, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA)—which allowed Kenya to export apparel duty-free—is set to expire this year and is now at risk of non-renewal.
The U.S. administration has imposed a 10 percent trade tariff on Kenya, which experts believe will affect Kenya’s trade with the world’s largest economy (Citizen Digital, 2025). This could impact the USD 737.3 million worth of goods Kenya exported to the U.S. in 2023 (Citizen Digital, 2025) with apparel being one of the sectors most at risk if AGOA is not renewed, affecting future projections for 2025 and beyond.
What does this imply for Kenya’s Textile, Apparel and Fashion (TAF) sector?
Unfortunately, the implications are just as significant.
First, several thousand jobs secured through this trade agreement may be lost, affecting not only directly employed Kenyans, but along with their incomes. According to Kenya’s Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industry, Kenya’s EPZ employ 75,598 workers.
Second, 6,000 Kenyan goods, which currently enjoy duty-free access to two-thirds of African nations—and, most importantly, the U.S. market—could face disruption (Anami, 2025). The new 10% tariff imposition could override the trade advantage that AGOA originally provided.
Clearly, Kenya needs to re-strategize its trade relationships and diversify its markets. Of particular interest is how Kenya will maintain its TAF market.
While this may paint a “doom and gloom” picture for Kenya’s apparel market, there could also be a silver lining—one that could bolster intra- and regional trade within Africa. Here are several ways Kenya can reorganize the TAF industry to mitigate the risks outlined:
1. Reduce dependency on the U.S. market and instead refocus on reviewing and increasing manufacturing potential and industrial performance to serve diversified markets. This would involve Kenya creating favorable incentives for textile manufacturers, apparel makers and cotton farmers while pushing for a more vibrant local or regional apparel market.
2. Reskill, retrain, and incentivize the EPZ workforce to serve an internal and intra-African market. Considering there has already been significant investment in the EPZs, their production and distribution hubs can be reworked strategically to cater to the Kenyan market and bolster intra-African trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
3. Facilitate robust amendments and possibly new regulations governing the production, marketing and distribution of textile, apparel, and fashion goods in ways that are sustainable (profitable) and beneficial to all stakeholders.
4. Abolish the importation of second-hand clothing, thereby enabling the local manufacturing of apparel goods to flourish. While this will not be an easy decision for Kenya, it is a necessary one—40% of these textile imports end up as waste, causing serious environmental pollution. Additionally, the cheap synthetics emit toxic greenhouse gases.
All these measures are driven by policy changes. Is Kenya ready to reimagine a future after AGOA? We think so!
Is Kenya ready to work with stakeholders capable of taking on a new vision for the greater good of her people? We hope so! There is no doubt that Kenya has a vibrant ecosystem of players—across the entire textile, apparel, and fashion (TAF) value chain—who are eager and ready to grow.
They say, “desperate times call for desperate measures.” Indeed, Kenya must rise to the challenge for the sake of this high-potential industry. The nation needs to re-strategize and implement meaningful regulatory policies that will revive the local manufacturing sector, harking back to the glory days before the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)—or, as Kenyans called them, the “Stomach Adjustment Programmes”—due to the economic hardships they caused (Odundo, 2023). Prior to the SAPs, state organizations controlled the cotton production-to-market chain, offering input subsidies, extension services, credit, and crop procurement systems (Poulton et al., 2004). Kenya must revisit some of these successful measures from the past, starting with revitalizing the cotton processing sector, which is key to ensuring the apparel industry’s long-term sustainability.
At UndaMeta, we recognize the potential and the unique new opportunities that would emerge from such an initiative. After all, our mission is to lead fashion in emerging markets toward a more sustainable and culturally responsive future. We can’t do it without a working local textile manufacturing sector.
We applaud the government for recognizing the need for practical, proactive, and strategic policies to future-proof the sector should the AGOA deal collapse. We have no doubt that a diversification strategy is on the horizon that will benefit the sector and encourage local trade.
Government policies are just the start. Fast-tracking these policy adjustments and ensuring their implementation is where the real challenge lies. However, through government goodwill and strong partnerships with public and private TAF industry players and allied stakeholders, we believe a future-proof model for the sector is possible.
References
Anami, L. (April 16, 2025). Kenya’s EPZs outlook bleak as job losses loom on AGOA uncertainty [Article]. AGOA. https://agoa.info/news/article/16561-kenya-s-epzs-outlook-bleak-as-job-losses-loom-on-agoa-uncertainty.html
Citizen Digital. (April 14, 2025). Kenya negotiating trade deal with US in wake of Trump tariffs: Cabinet Secretary [Article]. AGOA. https://agoa.info/news/article/16559-kenya-negotiating-trade-deal-with-us-in-wake-of-trump-tariffs-cabinet-secretary.html
Odundo, F., Lubano, T. (Ed). (March 1, 2023). The journey of cotton processing in Kenya [Article]. UndaMeta. https://undameta.com/the-journey-of-cotton-processing-in-kenya/
Poulton, C., Gibbon, P., Hanyani-Mlambo, B., Kydd, J., Maro, W., Larsen, M. N., Osorio, A., Tschirley, D., Zulu, B. (2004). Competition and Coordination in Liberalized African Cotton Market Systems. World Development (2004) 32(3) 519-536. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2003.10.003
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OpenAI. (November 18, 2024). DALL-E (Version 2) [Artificial intelligence system]. https://openai.com/dall-e-2