For decades, moving Benin’s cotton harvest from the north of the country to its southern ports was a slow, difficult journey along unpaved roads. Benin is Africa’s largest cotton producer, but it lacked the infrastructure needed to connect its northern cotton-growing belt to the coast and processing plants in the Glo-Djigbé Industrial Zone (GDIZ) near Cotonou, the country’s largest city and economic capital. The GDIZ – part of the government’s efforts to end raw cotton exports – now processes a...