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.
The demonstration site in Jamestown, Accra, has been funded by the Shein Global EPR Fund, on land provided by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly. The full-scale upfit would cost around $70 million.Photo: Julius Tornyi
