Ethical Apparel Africa, Ghana
“Ethical Apparel Africa is a sourcing company that provides international apparel brands with ethical, cost competitive and quality manufacturing solutions in West Africa. Our vision is to demonstrate that ethical manufacturing can and should be done at scale, not just associated with luxury or expensive products. Based in Ghana and Benin, EAA has a dynamic team bringing decades of experience from around the world in product development, quality assurance, account management, social impact, operations and finance.
EAA is working to unlock the tremendous potential of the West Africa apparel industry, supporting African-owned factories to grow exports to the US, UK, and Europe. EAA focuses on developing factories in a lean, sustainable, and ethical way that sets the standard for garment manufacturing in a West African context. We work closely with government and development agencies to develop an ecosystem for industrial growth - including the launch of a Center of Excellence for local skill development and efforts to catalyse investment in an integrated cotton value chain. By 2023 we aim to create 2,500 worthwhile jobs in the apparel sector in West Africa.
In 2018, we had the pleasure of working with Rosie and Ian on structuring the purpose, vision and strategic plan for the Foundation. It was a delight to work with them and we are still benefitting from this first successful collaboration. Our Foundation has grown and is an extremely solid entity.
Following a needs assessment conducted at our partner factories based in Ghana (West Africa) we realised that a leadership training would be extremely beneficial to build local managers’ capacity. Rosie and Ian had already been working in Ghana and contributed to improve organisational-change-management support. Their first exposure to the country and its culture in addition to Rosie and Ian’s expertise in leadership training made this new collaboration obvious.
As expected, it has been a very fruitful experience for us and for our partners. Though Ian and Rosie know what they are talking about, they still adopt an extremely respectful and pragmatic approach when assessing people’s specific needs and adjusting their training curriculum to the on-the-ground reality and the context they work in.
We had very efficient and thorough preparation sessions to discuss the training curriculum, the monitoring and evaluation and making sure they adopted the right fit evidence approach. They also took the time to connect with each partner factory remotely and in person to build the relationship and understand their needs.
Rosie and Ian were supposed to stay one month in Ghana to train the executive and middle managers of four different factories. Unfortunately, because of COVID and movement restrictions they have not been able to train all of them. They have been able to deliver the initial trainings very successfully and adjusted with benevolence and energy to the new context. Given the extremely positive feedback we have received from partners whose teams still refer to this life change training, we cannot wait to continue the training in the coming months.
I cannot say enough about Rosie and Ian but their expertise, professionalism, rigour, humour and flexibility will make any collaboration a memorable and fruitful experience.”
Pauline Watine, Social Impact and HR Director, Ethical Apparel Africa, West Africa