Unravelling the magnitude of sub-saharan Africa cotton quality in sector reform outcomes

Productivity and profitability of cotton production and processing are key determinants of growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) cotton producing countries. The SSA cotton sector has partly been reformed and outcomes have notoriously been blurry, the cause generally being ascribed to the collapse of the input credit scheme. In this paper I analyse one particular feature, other than input credit, I recognise as a design-sensitive feature of central importance in the SSA cotton sector, i.e. cotton quality. After setting the context, I tackle the origin of demand of quality in cotton and explain how the price of cotton is made and the variables that influence it. I thus present the results of an empirical investigation into the effects of market reform programmes on the quality performance of the cotton sector in SSA. Finally I discuss critically the implementation of a liberalization of the cotton sector in SSA and conclude.