Africa is the second highly populated continent after Asia. It is now a home for over a billion people, half of whom are poor. The continent is endowed with climatic conditions that allow a variety of crops to grow well. Africa is also blessed with amazing natural resources like wildlife, forests, minerals, and large fresh water bodies. In fact Africa has over 600 natural lakes and over 300 permanent rivers. Honestly, the list is longer.

Among its major resources, Africa has a billion people, vast land and plenty of livestock. Studies show Africa’s population as now the youngest in the world, and its livestock herd as one of the largest. In fact, FAO reports that, the cattle per caput ratio in Africa exceeds by far the world average. And that it’s ratio for small ruminants is the highest in the world. Questions therefore remain, why is Africa not producing shoes enough for all her children? And why is Africa importing shoes, both new and used? 

Apparently, leather processing and leather accessory making is not rocket science. Tanneries are simple and easy to manage especially now with so much advanced technology around. Afterall, Ethiopia and South Africa are already doing the magic thus every other country, especially those rich in livestock should follow suit. Then, others should buy African leather products to support growth.

According to Dr. Mwinyikione Mwinyihija (2014) of the COMESA/LLPI (Leather and Leather Products Institute), the leather sector in the world has grown tremendously in recent times and a major shift is observed towards Asia, from Europe. That, total global production of leather is now estimated at 6.3 billion Sqft for Europe (e.g. Italy, France, United Kingdom etc) and 12.1 billion Sqft for Asian countries (e.g. China, India, Vietnam, Korea, Japan etc). While other countries produce various levels of leather footwear, for example, South America produces about 0.83 billion, 0.30 billion in North America and about 0.14 billion in Oceania. According to him, there are about 0.68 billion pairs of footwear (including synthetics) in Europe and 9.98 billion in Asia. No data is given for Africa.

In a paper prepared in 1979 for the 3rd UNIDO Leather Panel, low tunning capacity to efficiently process raw hides and skins, and poor marketing and distribution systems are highlighted as the main problems which faced the leather industry in most developing countries at that time. However, and surprisingly, 31 years later UNIDO writes another paper for the 16th meeting of the same Panel in 2010, highlighting the same problems in most African countries but with tremendous advancements in Asia especially in China, Vietnam and India. The paper reads “[….] the main problems (in Africa) are poor flaying and preservation practices and inadequate collection infrastructure. “. The report then calls for development agencies, policy makers, industrialists, financiers, investors, traders and farmers to open up new opportunities for better utilization of hide & skins resources and increasing the added value along the processing chain. (You can visit http://leatherpanel.org/publications-categories/trends for further reading).

Conclusively, Dr. Mwinyihija explains that, the African leather industry is not performing favorably because of weak legal and policy framework, poor infrastructure and lack of Government goodwill. Never the less, the author is optimistic of what he calls ‘a very promising future, where the continent will play a major role in leather and leather products development by 2030 and beyond. However, his optimism depends on if at all African governments would implement strategies for appropriate leather policies, capacity building, technology transfers, transformation of the sector towards competitiveness, and in rejuvenating awareness in leather utility and associated benefits. He basically clarifies that, the future of the African leather industry highly depends on its revitalization to become more competitive by producing more appealing products to comfortably dislodge the synthetics.

This means, Africa can produce her own shoes after all!… That she can have her own school bags, belts, wallets, purses, designer leather jackets and stuff like that!… We just have to get serious and organize ourselves because we have livestock, labour, and technology is around; and more importantly, we have over 2.4 billion feet as the market… Therefore, there is no explanation whatsoever, as to why we still have Africans walking barefoot, or own just one pair kept for Sundays and for that special day.

We should therefore fail to imagine, and therefore refuse to accept to have barefoot Africans in this era of advanced science and technology, and given such a large and young African labour force, coupled with the huge livestock resource endowed to Africa. It should break our hearts because wearing shoes is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Thus we all deserve pairs of shoes and I therefore call for all elites to do something to ensure walking barefoot becomes a thing of the past in Africa. Moreover, Africa does not have to rely on neither imported 1st hand nor 2nd hand footwear because she has all it takes to produce shoes for everyone.

It is shocking how seeing an African walking barefoot seems normal!….. IT IS NOT NORMAL!.. IT ISN’T! Worse, adults would wear shoes and let children without!… And these will do the same selfish gesture to the next generation, and we wonder what is wrong?