Southern African Development Community has emerged as Africa’s leading regional bloc in agricultural transformation after recording the continent’s highest performance score in the newly released 5th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Biennial Review Report. The report, launched by the African Union Commission’s Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment on May ...

Stellenbosch University is playing a leading role in a newly launched Africa-wide science-policy platform aimed at strengthening food systems, improving nutrition and accelerating evidence-based agricultural policy across the continent. The initiative, known as the Africa Regional Collaborative for Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (ANH-ARC), was officially launched at the University of Ghana in Accra on 30 ...

By Emeka Christian Umunnakwe Africa’s ambition to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 will remain out of reach unless young people are deliberately positioned at the centre of food system transformation—not as beneficiaries of agricultural programmes, but as leaders across the entire value chain. For more than two decades, Africa’s food security agenda has been shaped ...

By Brandon Moss Deforestation across sub-Saharan Africa is accelerating at an alarming rate, with roughly 72 million hectares of forest lost between 2001 and 2023 — an area nearly as large as Kenya. The main cause? Expansion of agricultural land as farmers struggle to produce enough food on existing plots. This challenge highlights a critical ...

The Kampala CAADP Declaration, adopted at the African Union Extraordinary Summit held in Kampala in January 2025, marks a decisive shift in Africa’s agricultural policy architecture. Rather than functioning as a continuation of previous Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) frameworks, the Declaration reframes CAADP into a 10-year Strategy and Action Plan (2026–2035) designed to ...

By Brandon Moss The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP) has made its first capital allocation under the Business Investment Financing Track (BIFT), committing $14 million to the African Development Bank (AfDB) as the start of a broader effort to unlock more than $200 million in private-sector finance for African smallholders. The allocation funds ...

Photo: FAO Mozambique /X Mozambique has officially launched the second phase of the Support to the Operationalization of the SADC Regional Agricultural Policy (STOSAR II), a strategic initiative aimed at transforming agriculture and agrifood systems across Southern Africa. The announcement was made on October 13 by the Ministry of Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries (MAAP), in ...

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has officially launched the Africa Food Systems Report 2025 at the Africa Food Systems Forum in Dakar, marking a turning point in how the continent approaches food and agriculture. For more than a decade, AGRA’s Africa Agriculture Status Report provided critical insights into the continent’s agricultural performance. This year, however, the organization ...

Guest Column by Dr. Lawrence Haddad (GAIN) and Ms. Estherine Fotabong (AUDA-NEPAD) Transforming agrifood systems lies at the heart of the revamped Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which aspires to build resilient, sustainable food systems across the continent. Every decision—what food is produced, when, how, by whom, and how it is processed, transported, marketed, ...

NAIROBI – African governments must increase public investment in agriculture to strengthen food security and unlock sustainable economic growth, officials said Tuesday at a high-level summit in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Held under the theme “Taking Ownership: Rethinking Sustainable Financing for Africa’s Food Systems”, the Financing Agri-food Systems Sustainably Summit 2025 brought together policymakers and sector ...