ABSTRACT

For the first time, in 2001, Francophone African countries were globally ranking second in the world in exporting cotton. These countries are however engaged into a period of uncertain and unstable evolution of the institutional frameworks of their cotton productions whose outcome could be a consolidation of this new exporting position or in the opposite a total collapse. Drastic changes are observed in pricing mechanisms, provision of inputs and credit to farmers, orientation and financing of research activities, diffusion of technical messages to farmers. These changes imply modifications in responsibilities sharing between stakeholders and they are not always welcomed, either by part of them or by all of them. They are still too recent to predict properly what future will be.