加纳 Kantamanto 市场要重建：集装箱多层结构，一期 2500 万美元

November 5, 2026

Photo: Tonia-Marie Parker

In January 2025, a devastating fire broke out at Ghana’s Kantamanto Market, burning around 60% of the market to ashes and wiping out thousands of livelihoods in the process. It wasn’t the first fire at Kantamanto Market, and it might not be the last.

One of the world’s largest circular fashion ecosystems, Kantamanto Market is a vibrant tangle of upcyclers, secondhand retailers, and other market traders, bursting with creativity. But it’s also an informal economy with limited guardrails around safety. Food is prepared on open fires right next door to where highly flammable, polyester textile waste is sorted, all the while some of the market’s fashion traders still use coal-fired irons, because they can’t afford electricity. Despite an extensive electrification project as part of the rebuilding efforts, 40% of the market is still supplied with unsafe, bare-wire electrical connections, turning even the most basic fans and lighting into fire hazards. Plus, the lanes between stalls are so narrow that bales of used clothing is transported via headcarrying rather than trolleys — firefighters have no hope of fitting fire engines inside, and without access to running water, even fire hoses are a logistical no.

“For many customers, the market is not a safe or attractive place to shop,” says Branson Skinner, co-founder and executive producer of The Or Foundation, a US-Ghanaian non-profit that operates in and around Kantamanto Market. “We have made some progress — at least five fires have been stopped thanks to the unified security force and fire extinguishers integrated across the market — but until the underlying issues of fire lanes, up-to-code electricity, fire-resistant building materials and water access are addressed, the market remains vulnerable.”

This week, The Or Foundation unveiled plans to overhaul Kantamanto Market, taking it from a sprawling series of stalls to a multi-story structure made from repurposed shipping containers, mirroring the recent trend for independent food and makers markets across East Africa, Europe and the UK. The so-called upfit has been designed to maximize safety while minimizing costs as well as the amount of disruption caused by construction, says architect Nana Ayensua Amonoo, who is leading the project.

Within each shipping container, there will be a lightbulb, safe and standardized electrical outlets, and a fan to keep air flowing. No two containers touch, shade is integrated throughout, and the partitions between containers have slats in them, to create a passive cooling effect and lower the risk of fires spreading. Stalls will also have lockable, roll-gate doors and security cameras, so retailers can leave their products overnight, while a dedicated food hall ensures a safe and hygienic distance between food preparation and other market activities. The soon-to-be roof and paving stones have been designed to reduce flood risks by capturing rainwater, which can then be stored underground and used for putting out flames. Aisles between stalls will be wide enough for trolleys, and the market will be fitted with waste chutes to aid upcycling and reuse.

As well as improving fire safety, one of the main motivations for the upfit is creating a physical space in which Kantamanto Market can feasibly phase out headcarrying, which is precarious and dangerous work often carried out by women and girls as young as six. It will also create better infrastructure for waste management, while giving upcyclists the environment they need to thrive.

“When I first visited the demonstration site, I was excited to see the upcycling section given such a prominent position,” says Ruth Odoom, an upcycler at Kantamanto Market and a member of the Kantamanto Women’s Association. “They have really thought about the things we need to make our work easier. I especially love the glass windows that allow for customers to watch the creative process and see our upcycled products on display. This is the future Kantamanto that I want to see.”

The Or Foundation has been operating in and around the market since 2011, playing a significant role in shaping the fashion industry’s understanding of the global textile waste trade, and how it impacts countries like Ghana. Securing funding from the international brands contributing to Ghana’s waste crisis has been central to that work. The upfit demonstration site, for example, has been funded by the controversial Shein Global EPR Fund, via a $15 million cash injection from the ultra-fast fashion retailer in 2023, with additional in-kind support from the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, which provided the land. Moving forward, The Or Foundation is hoping to combine government-led special levies, public fundraising and private philanthropic support with globally accountable extended producer responsibility (EPR), the subject of its new exploratory coalition with H&M Group, Adidas, Inditex and Bestseller.

“We hope the project attracts funders who see the urgency of, not only the waste management challenges, but also the human rights and women’s health implications of the existing market infrastructure,” says The Or Foundation co-founder and executive director Liz Ricketts. “Over 65% of Kantamanto Market members are female. Over 1,300 women and girls work as kayayei, headcarrying dangerously heavy loads of cast-off clothing in the market. As we see it, market infrastructure is a women’s issue.”

From architecture to behavior change

Redesigning the architecture of Kantamanto Market is one thing, but changing the way people act and operate within it is another challenge entirely.

Right now, headcarrying is deemed necessary because the lanes between market stalls are too narrow to accommodate trolleys, leaving many kayayei (headporters) struggling with severe physical pain along their spines (for some, the work is even fatal). At the demonstration site, passages are wide enough for a push cart to move in one direction while an individual walks past in the other. “We had to broaden the lanes, without taking up so much space that people started to fill it with stalls,” explains Ayensua Amonoo. “At Kantamanto Market, people put up stalls in the smallest of spaces.”

This is just one of the limitations of architecture, and why behavior change is needed to make the upfit a meaningful solution, says Ricketts. “Ending dangerous headcarrying is made possible by widening the market’s aisles, but infrastructure alone cannot deliver this change. It also requires a shift in practices, relationships and the way goods move through the market.”

She points to The Or Foundation’s Mabilgu program, which retrains kayayei and offers them safe housing, as well as the feature film it premiered at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last month, Zjili, which seeks to build empathy for these workers and create a dialog about their role within the wider Kantamanto community. Through the newly created Mabilgu Association, kayayei will be able to shape the upfit plans as they roll out.

Another example is waste management. Since 2024, the Kanta Keepers cooperative has become integral to transporting waste between retailers and upcyclers, to maximize value and profit on every front, while improving flood resilience by keeping aisles and drains clear of waste. Over the past four months, The Or Foundation has been working with Kanta Keepers to road-test a new system in line with the upfit.

Retailers will be able to deposit waste with no potential for reuse into dedicated waste chutes, and will play a more active role in pre-sorting waste with the potential to be upcycled. This waste will be separated into bags, rather than leaving it loose in the aisles, where it often gets contaminated before it can be collected. “This approach reflects a principle we embedded in the upfit: separating materials at source, including by garment type and fiber composition, so that they retain greater value and can be directed toward appropriate next uses,” says Ricketts.

Since planning began, The Or Foundation says it has supported the formation of four new market associations and three waste groups, all of which have since registered as independent community cooperatives. “Ultimately, the upfit’s success will depend not only on the infrastructure itself,” says Ricketts, “but on community ownership and the systems of stewardship that sustain it.”

The vision for Kantamanto 2.0 has been shaped by continuous community feedback, dating back to 2021, says Skinner, and the community will play an active role in bringing the upfit to life, offering feedback on everything from the architectural plans to the stall layout and which sections of the market are overhauled first. But asking people on the poverty line to imagine a better future can be complex, adds Ricketts. “One fundamental challenge throughout this process was the tension inherent in asking people to imagine five years into the future when they were struggling to get through the day,” she says. “This is why we continue to invest significant resources in microgrants and relief funding, to do what we can to create the security people need to imagine and dream.”

What next?

The Or Foundation isn’t stopping at the demonstration site; it has plans to overhaul the entire market. Phase one, which will cost $25 million to realize, involves building a new site within the existing market, which is 10 times bigger than the demonstration site. It will house 800 stalls and an upcycling workshop that can accommodate 150 people, on a piece of land that can only host 400 stalls right now. Phase two will expand even further, accommodating all 8,500 stalls currently operating at Kantamanto Market. In total, this is expected to cost around $70 million.

Some features will only come into play once the broader upfit starts, including sewage infrastructure, dignified restroom facilities, and a community health post, as well as a fire service outpost equipped for 24-7 operations. It will also include underground water cisterns and water treatment systems for both fire safety and sanitation purposes (right now, Kantamanto only has three functional bathrooms, despite more than 26,000 people working there, and tens of thousands more passing through as customers each day).

While the demonstration site — located in Jamestown, a short walk from Kantamanto Market — is a hybrid system that can switch between the grid and onsite solar power with battery backup, The Or Foundation says the full market upfit could provide enough solar power to meet all the electrical demands of market members for free, and even sell some electricity back to the grid. The final design also features ramps connecting the higher floors, allowing heavy loads to be transported by trolleys instead of dangerous headcarrying (Ghana is prone to power cuts, so a lift would not be practical).

Over time, Ricketts hopes the upfit will change how Ghanaians — and the rest of the world — see Kantamanto Market. “With improved infrastructure, we want Ghanaian citizens to feel encouraged to bring their own clothes to the market for reuse, rental, repair, upcycling and recycling,” she says. The upfit could also help bridge the gap between everyday upcycling and reuse in the market, and the online thrifters who sell wares from the same used clothing bales in more affluent areas of Accra. “These groups are already part of an interconnected economy, but they do not always share the same spaces, networks or opportunities. The upfit could change this.”

Bella Webb is the sustainability editor at Vogue Business and an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins. Her coverage spans from raw materials and regulation to supply chain transformation and systems change. Bella regularly moderates panels for agenda-setting organisations, including the British Fashion Council, European Delegation, Global Fashion Summit and ... Read More

Read More