Four New Members Join the Board of Trustees of the Aid by Trade Foundation
The Aid by Trade Foundation is pleased to welcome four new members to its board of trustees. In addition to the immediate benefits the foundation will gain from their expertise, they have significantly raised the percentage of women on the board.
Johanna Adotevi has worked in the cotton industry since 2003 and is currently the commercial director of two cotton companies, Ivoire Coton and Faso Coton, both of which are AbTF partners. As a member of the executive boards of cotton and ginnery associations in Côte d’Ivoire, she is well placed to speak to the work being done by AbTF’s Cotton made in Africa standard. She states, “CmiA gives our cotton an identity and fits with our vision of promoting sustainable cotton from Africa. The initiative offers African producers the opportunity to publicise their good cultivation practices and to raise awareness of the conditions under which cotton is grown in Africa.”
Ingrid-Gabriela Hoven has several decades of experience in the field of international co-operation, including at the World Bank and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). As a member of the management board of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, she is well acquainted with the significance of cotton for people living in Sub-Saharan Africa. “Cotton is a key source of income for many small-scale farmers,” states Ms Hoven. “To increase their earnings, they work with GIZ to improve their cultivation practices, for instance. The CmiA standard plays a crucial role in these efforts, for example by creating transparency throughout the supply chain.”
Stephanie Silber also knows how important CmiA is for African cotton. She was the president of the Bremen Cotton Exchange until June 2023 (as the first woman to hold that position) and remains on its executive committee as a vice president. In addition, she has worked for Otto Stadtlander GmbH, a cotton trading company and long-term CmiA partner, since 1999 and served as its managing director since 2012. “It is a great honour for me to be on the AbTF board of trustees and to contribute my perspective as a cotton trader and executive member of the Bremer Baumwollbörse.” Ms Silber sees Cotton made in Africa as one of the sustainability programmes with the greatest socio-ecological impact in the cotton sector.
Torsten Stau, who is the member of executive board non food / indirect spend, REWE Group Buying, successfully worked with CmiA to shift the production of 100 percent of REWE Group branded textile products to sustainable cotton. The target deadline was 2025. “The fact that we already reached this goal in 2022 speaks for itself,” says Torsten Stau, attributing this success to sustainable cotton becoming established in the mass market and CmiA cotton being priced competitively with conventional cotton. He adds that close communication between all stakeholders is essential, concluding, “That is why I am proud of this partnership.”
About the Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF) & Cotton made in Africa (CmiA)
Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) was founded in 2005 under the umbrella of the Hamburg-based Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF). CmiA is an internationally recognised standard for sustainably produced cotton from Africa, connecting African small-scale farmers with trading companies and fashion brands throughout the global textile value chain. The initiative’s objective is to employ trade rather than donations to protect nature and improve the living conditions of around one million cotton farmers and their families in Sub-Saharan Africa. Small-scale farmers and ginnery workers benefit from better working conditions. Additional projects in the fields of school education, environmental protection, health, and women’s empowerment support farming communities in improving their living conditions.
Learn more at: cottonmadeinafrica.org
Press Contact:
Holger Diedrich
Aid by Trade Foundation | Gurlittstraße 14 | 20099 Hamburg | Germany
Email: holger.diedrich@abt-foundation.org
www.cottonmadeinafrica.org