Forum Programme

AFS Forum offers space for in-depth engagement on emerging topics and partners joint work, new partnerships, and sector-specific innovations.

Hosted by thematic platforms as well as partners across government, business, academia, and civil society, these sessions enable targeted exchanges that contribute to the broader agenda while offering practical insights, launches, and collaborative opportunities.

Connecting dialogue with real-world impact, curated field visits allow delegates, particularly investors and development partners, to experience firsthand the country’s progress in advancing agri-food systems transformation, exploring innovative startups, farmer cooperatives, agro-processing hubs, and scalable agritech solutions that reflect Rwanda’s leadership in delivery and investment-driven growth.

Field Visit 1 – Rwanda Fertilizer Company and the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA)

Eastern Province, Bugesera District – approximately 2 hours' drive from Kigali

This visit pairs two flagship investments that capture both ends of Rwanda's agricultural transformation agenda; modern input manufacturing and next-generation agricultural education.

At the Rwanda Fertilizer Company (RFC), a joint venture between OCP Africa and the Government of Rwanda, delegates will tour one of East Africa's most modern fertilizer blending plants, with an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes.

Rather than importing generic products, the plant produces customized fertilizer blends formulated to match Rwanda's specific crops, soils and agroecological zones, informed by national soil mapping.

Delegates will see how localized blending, coupled with farmer outreach through agro-dealer networks and partnerships reaching over 180,000 smallholder farmers, is improving input affordability, availability and appropriateness, a critical lever for raising productivity across the country's smallholder-dominated farming systems.

A short drive away, on a 1,400-hectare peninsula overlooking Lake Kilimbi, the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA) is redefining how Africa trains its agricultural leaders.

RICA is an accredited, English-language higher education institution whose entire campus doubles as a living laboratory; students spend much of their degree in the field, managing crop, livestock and mechanization enterprises under a conservation agriculture and One Health philosophy.

The award-winning campus, largely solar-powered and built as an ecological restoration project, embodies the sustainability principles taught in its classrooms.

Delegates will interact with students and faculty, visit the teaching farms and enterprise sites, and explore a compelling model for experiential, entrepreneurship-focused agricultural education that other countries are watching closely.

Field Visit 2 – Solid'Africa Initiative: School Feeding and Hospital Feeding

Eastern Province, Rwamagana District – approximately 1 hour's drive from Kigali

Solid'Africa is one of Rwanda's most inspiring home-grown social enterprises, tackling nutrition insecurity through a comprehensive farm-to-fork model that links regenerative agriculture directly to the plates of the people who need it most.

Since 2010, the organization has delivered more than 9.5 million meals to over 770,000 patients and students, sourcing from a network of more than 6,000 smallholder farmers.

Its hospital feeding program provides free, medically tailored meals to vulnerable patients in public hospitals, an intervention shown to shorten hospital stays and improve treatment outcomes, while its school feeding program delivers affordable, nutritious meals to tens of thousands of students in public schools, working within existing government school feeding budgets at a cost as low as a few hundred francs per meal.

In Rwamagana, delegates will visit Solid'Africa's school feeding kitchen and kitchen gardens, which supply nearby public schools, and see how the organization integrates local sourcing, clean and green cooking technologies, food safety standards and nutrition education into a single, scalable operating model.

The visit offers a practical demonstration of how nutrition-sensitive value chains can connect smallholder production, institutional demand and public health objectives, and a rich discussion on the economics and partnerships required to sustain school and hospital feeding at national scale.

Field Visit 3 – Gabiro Agribusiness Hub

Eastern Province, Nyagatare District – approximately 4 hours' drive from Kigali

The Gabiro Agribusiness Hub (GAH) is Rwanda's boldest bet on large-scale, climate-resilient commercial agriculture. A joint venture between the Government of Rwanda and irrigation leader Netafim, the project is transforming some 16,000 hectares of semi-arid savannah in Nyagatare District into fully serviced, irrigated farmland.

At its heart lies an extensive precision drip and pivot irrigation network fed by bulk water infrastructure, delivering ready-to-farm plots with full access to water and energy to a mix of international investors, domestic agribusinesses and organized local farmers.

By de-risking land, water and infrastructure, the classic barriers to agricultural investment in Africa, Gabiro is designed to crowd in commercial capital for high-value crop production, processing and export.

The longer journey rewards delegates with a rare, at-scale view of what public-private partnership in irrigation-led transformation looks like in practice.

The visit will showcase the bulk water and irrigation infrastructure, commercial farm operations and outgrower arrangements that link surrounding communities to the hub, and will open a frank conversation about the investment model, land consolidation, water governance and the lessons Gabiro offers for replicating serviced agro-industrial zones elsewhere on the continent.

Field Visit 4 – Songa and Rubona Research Stations: Livestock and Crops Research

Southern Province, Huye District – approximately 3 hours' drive from Kigali

This visit takes delegates to the scientific engine room of Rwanda's agriculture, exploring two of the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board's (RAB) principal research stations in Huye District.

At Songa Station, a 393-hectare site dedicated to cattle and recently revitalized as Rwanda's Centre of Excellence in Bovine Genetics, delegates will see how the country is upgrading its national herd through artificial insemination, embryo transfer and the introduction of elite dairy genetics.

The station anchors Rwanda's ambition to raise milk productivity and rural incomes through science-driven livestock improvement, and offers insight into the practical challenges of delivering genetic gain to smallholder producers.

At nearby Rubona Station, one of RAB's oldest and most important research campuses, the focus shifts to crops. Rubona hosts research programs spanning horticulture, crop protection, post-harvest processing and food quality, and traditional export crops such as coffee, and is home to Rwanda's national gene bank safeguarding the country's plant and animal genetic resources.

Delegates will tour trial plots, laboratories and seed multiplication facilities, and engage researchers on how national research systems translate breeding and agronomy into varieties, technologies and extension packages that reach farmers' fields, an essential complement to the input, investment and market innovations featured in the other field visits.

Field Visit 5 – Potato Seed Research Station and Farmer Organisations in the Potato Value Chain

Northern Province, Musanze District – approximately 2.5 hours' drive from Kigali

Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Virunga volcanoes, Musanze District is the heartland of Rwanda's Irish potato industry, one of the country's most important food security and cash crops.

Delegates will visit RAB's Musanze research station, the historic home of Rwanda's national potato improvement program, where scientists work on variety development, disease management and, critically, the production of early-generation seed.

Clean, high-quality seed is the potato sector's binding constraint across the region, and the station demonstrates how tissue culture, screenhouse mini-tuber production and decentralized seed multiplication are being deployed to break the bottleneck and lift yields on the volcanic soils of the Northern Province.

The visit then moves from research to practice, connecting delegates with farmer organisations and cooperatives operating along the potato value chain.

Delegates will meet seed multipliers and ware potato producers, and see how organized farmers are engaging in collective input access, good agricultural practices, storage and aggregation, and structured market linkages to processors and urban buyers.

The conversation will explore how research institutions, cooperatives and private off-takers interact within a single value chain, offering a grounded, farmer-level perspective on seed systems, professionalization of producer organisations and the economics of one of East Africa's fastest-growing food crops.

Breakthrough Events are high-visibility, partner-led sessions designed to spotlight flagship initiatives, major announcements, and impactful solutions aligned with AFSF’s vision.

Convened by AFSF partners across sectors, these sessions highlight innovative approaches to unlocking investment, scaling solutions, and accelerating collaboration–contributing directly to the Forum’s priorities while creating opportunities for new partnerships and action.

AFS Forum will come alive with a joyful food festival experience in Kigali, offering delegates a vibrant celebration of Rwanda’s rich food culture and innovation.

This immersive moment will connect discussion with lived realities as participants explore exciting investable and scalable startups, farmer cooperatives, agro-processing hubs, and agritech innovations, while experiencing firsthand the energy and creativity driving food systems transformation at the grassroots level.

Partner-hosted side events run in parallel throughout the day, see the Side Events tab above for the full listing.

The inaugural Africa Food Festival (AFF) co-hosted by African Food Fellowship, AFSF, and the City of Kigali, will take place alongside the 2026 AFSF Summit. As a flagship public event, it will feature a Culinary Village, bringing the Summit to life through African food, culture, music, crafts, and food business and investment.

The main objectives are: a) Celebrate Africa's diverse culinary heritage and culture, b) Showcase live cooking, competitions, and culinary dialogues c) Promote African cuisine as a driver of investment, tourism, and economic growth d) Connect food with agriculture, nutrition, and agri-food value chains through a vibrant street food experience e) Promote Made in Africa food products and local consumption f) Provide a platform for African chefs, youth entrepreneurs, and innovators g) Foster partnerships, investment, and food business opportunities h) Celebrate African music and culture to enhance the Festival experience and AFSF's visibility.

Location: Auditorium

Agrifood systems in Africa face several barriers to attracting investment: high climate and weather risks, smallholder farmer fragmentation, limited collateral, long investment horizons, and underdeveloped rural financial markets.

Blended finance combines concessional capital (from governments, donors, and development finance institutions) with commercial capital (from banks, institutional investors, private equity, and agribusinesses) to make investments in agriculture more attractive and less risky.

This session will examine how targeted blended finance for both government and MSMEs, combining catalytic capital with technical assistance, can de‑risk enterprises and mobilize private capital to unlock the financing needed to scale and transform agrifood systems value chains.

Location: AD12

Recent “big bets” in agrifood systems are increasingly centred on climate resilience, digital advisory networks, and synthetic biology but more importantly on African youth.

To guide where the continent directs scarce investment and finance, the research sector must act as a critical filter for AgTech and other innovations, distinguishing scientifically robust solutions from overhyped concepts that can be pioneered and implemented by African youth.

In an investment climate that demands strict validation, formal research roles are essential for identifying and de-risking the true big bets on people in agrifood systems.

This session will explore the evidence-based pathways needed to support the identification of such big bets for governments, investors, philanthropies and other decision-makers, and to ensure that these investments deliver measurable, system-wide impact particularly on youth.

The core premise is that research must now power immediate, high-impact continental “Big Bets” that can unlock transformative investment on youth to accelerate Africa’s agrifood systems transformation.

Location: MH1- Investment Room Main Stage

MSMEs and startups are central to the growth and transformation of Africa’s agri-food systems, yet many continue to face major barriers in accessing finance, business support, and investment opportunities.

This session will explore how stronger financial ecosystems can better support emerging enterprises through innovative financing mechanisms, supportive policies, ecosystem partnerships, and investment-ready business environments.

Discussions will focus on how financial institutions, investors, governments, and ecosystem actors can work together to unlock sustainable growth for agri-food entrepreneurs and startups across the continent.

Location: Youth Dome Tent

The GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize Competition, led by the Generation Africa, AGRA’s youth platform, alongside other partners is a leading platform celebrating young African innovators driving solutions across agrifood systems. Focused on innovation, sustainability, and impact, it recognizes and supports youth-led ventures with over $160,000 in prizes.

This live final pitch session will feature top agripreneurs from across the continent presenting their ventures to expert judges and a global audience. The session will culminate in the selection of Grand Prize and Impact Award winners, to be announced at the closing ceremony.

Location: Innovation Hub Tent

Africa’s agricultural resilience, nutrition outcomes, and market competitiveness depend on diversifying production systems beyond a limited number of staple crops.

Shifting the agricultural narrative away from dependence on monocultures such as maize, wheat, and rice toward climate-resilient, high-nutrient alternative crops can help attract greater capital and investment into agrifood systems.

This session will explore investment opportunities in underutilized, climate-resilient, indigenous, and high-value crops that can strengthen food security, food and income diversification, biodiversity, and regional and international trade.

Discussions will examine financing needs on high value diversified crops, market development, research and innovation, value addition, and policies required to scale diversified agricultural systems across the continent.

Location: AD10 - Breakout room 1 (the Table)

Across the continent, mechanisms already exist to make cross-border trade cheaper, safer, and more predictable, including NTB reporting systems, the Tripartite Simplified Trade Regime across COMESA, EAC and SADC, and ECOWAS’s ETLS.

However, many youth and women traders, who form a significant share of small-scale cross-border traders, are either unaware of these tools, do not trust them, or are unable to use them effectively because implementation remains uneven. This session is about closing an information gap and building a shared accountability agenda.

Young traders must be encouraged and supported to seek information, use available reporting tools, formalize where possible, and proactively claim their rights in regional markets.

At the same time, institutions, governments, border agencies, and regional leaders must deliver on their obligations to address non-tariff barriers, make simplified trade regimes work efficiently, and ensure that youth traders can access predictable, transparent, and youth-friendly trade systems.

This session connects young traders directly with responsible institutions to identify why this gap persists and agree on practical, fundable solutions. Expect real trader experiences, direct institutional responses and clear, publicly tracked commitments, not general encouragement.

Location: Auditorium

Africa secures less than 3% of total global climate finance flows despite contributing less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions and containing 9 of the 10 world’s most climate-vulnerable nations.

To bridge this gap and shield vulnerable populations from climate volatility, international and regional actors are transitioning from isolated, short-term projects to structured, systemic financing mechanisms.

Africa’s climate resilience depends on nexus solutions that boost productivity, strengthen agrifood competitiveness, and improve rural livelihoods–not only environmental gains.

This session explores how integrated agriculture, energy, and climate investments, such as renewable-powered irrigation, processing, and cooling, can keep people at the center of climate action and finance.

The discussion will examine why many mechanisms to build skills and capabilities on adaptation, mitigation, and regreening efforts fall short, highlighting integration, prioritizing policies, and short- and long-term investments towards building for resilient, inclusive, and economically vibrant rural economies across the continent.

Location: AD12

In the context of the International Year of Women Farmers, this dialogue recognizes the indispensable role that women and smallholder farmers play as the backbone of Africa’s agri-food systems, while also acknowledging that they remain among the most vulnerable actors in agricultural value chains.

Investing in the human capital of African agrifood value chains is one of the most effective ways to unlock the continent’s projected 1 trillion dollar agribusiness market by 2030.

Upstream and midstream labour–farmers, aggregators, processors, and logistics providers–accounts for a substantial share of employment in Sub-Saharan Africa, and directing capital toward this workforce, particularly youth and women, can rapidly boost productivity, reduce losses, and strengthen climate resilience.

The Farmers’ Roundtable Dialogue will explore how farmers can collectively build resilience beyond aid dependency while advancing the CAADP agenda and post-Malabo commitments for inclusive and sustainable African food systems.

The discussion will highlight practical opportunities to invest in and strengthen human capital along food systems value chains, in order to accelerate CAADP implementation and turn investments into tangible, scalable impacts on the ground.

Location: Youth Dome Tent

Youth Food Systems Leadership is the single most critical lever for transforming African agriculture from a sector of necessity into a high-tech, highly profitable engine of economic growth. Africa’s agrifood systems are central to its economic future and its predominantly young population, yet face persistent challenges, including climate pressures, and limited market access.

While youth make up over 60% of the population and play a vital role in the sector, their participation and leadership are constrained by barriers to finance, skills development, and decision-making. However, the average age of an African farmer is 60 years old. Limited investment in leadership capacity and weak networks further hinder progress.

This session builds on the strategic vision that young people not merely as beneficiaries of agricultural development, but as entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, and leaders driving the transformation of Africa’s agrifood systems. The session will explore scalable solutions to strengthen youth leadership.

To bridge this generational gap, modern climate and agribusiness capital is shifting toward programs that position young professionals not just as laborers, but as executives, amplify their voice, and accelerate their inclusion, tech innovators, and policy leaders who can modernize food systems.

Location: Innovation Hub Tent

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how agricultural knowledge, advisory services, market intelligence, and climate information are delivered across food systems.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in African agriculture is creating a leapfrog opportunity, enabling the continent to bypass costly and often missing physical infrastructure, such as dense networks of weather stations and soil laboratories, through advanced software models and data-driven tools.

Realising this potential requires a broad coalition of farmers, governments, technology companies, research institutions, financial partners, telecom operators, and agribusinesses working together to turn data into productivity, resilience, profitability, and food security at scale across Africa.

This session will explore how AI-powered solutions investments needed to support more productive, efficient, and resilient agriculture at scale while addressing barriers related to infrastructure, affordability, digital inclusion, language accessibility, and farmer adoption.

Discussions will focus on investments financing mechanisms for practical applications, enabling ecosystems, investment needs, and partnerships required to accelerate responsible AI deployment across African agri-food systems.

Location: AD10 - Breakout room 1 (the Table)

Location: Auditorium

As African countries advance the implementation and domestication of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), delivery will require a stronger alignment between political commitments, national priorities, and investment flows.

Though there has been progress across agriculture, infrastructure, climate resilience, youth employment, trade, and value addition, financing often remains fragmented and incoherent with continental and development objectives.

Effective implementation is essential and achieving CAADP goals requires mobilizing strategic investments and financing instruments while strengthening leadership and accountability.

This session will explore how governments, investors, development partners, and regional institutions can jointly deploy blended finance to fast-track CAADP priorities and transform Africa’s food systems beyond the 10% national budget allocation outlined in the previous CAADP.

Location: AD12

Parliaments play a pivotal role in mobilizing domestic finance for agri-food systems by shaping policy, approving budgets, strengthening oversight, and creating the conditions for public and private investment to drive Africa's agricultural transformation.

The transition from the Malabo Declaration cycle into the next decade of the post-Malabo CAADP (Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme) framework requires a radical governance pivot.

While heads of state sign international agreements and ministries draft national agricultural investment plans, the key role to fund these commitments rests squarely with African parliaments.

Convened by the African Food Systems Parliamentary Network (AFSPaN), this high-level roundtable brings together Speakers of Parliaments, Chairs of Committees on Agriculture, Finance, and Budget, and regional legislative bodies (such as the Pan-African Parliament and ECOWAS/EAC Parliaments).

Parliamentarians will deliberate on how to aggressively expand domestic fiscal space for food systems, ring-fence agricultural budgets from executive reallocation, eliminate trade-stifling non-tariff barriers through legislative harmonization, and enforce strict institutional accountability to ensure every allocated dollar delivers measurable, climate-resilient field results.

Location: MH1- Investment Room Main Stage

Women-led SMEs are critical contributors to Africa’s agri-food economy but continue to face disproportionate challenges in accessing finance, investment networks, and growth opportunities.

This session will explore practical solutions to improve access to capital for women entrepreneurs, including gender-responsive financing, blended finance models, guarantee mechanisms, and investment partnerships.

Participants will discuss how financial institutions, investors, and policymakers can better support women-led businesses and create more inclusive investment ecosystems.

Location: Youth Dome Tent

Anchored in the CAADP Strategy and Action Plan 2026–2035, this session explores how targeted investments are driving inclusive agrifood systems transformation across Africa. Focusing on empowering youth and women in agriculture, this session will highlight scalable models such as YEFFA and its impact in expanding access to finance, skills, markets, and innovation.

Drawing on experiences from Impact Partner Organizations, the session will share practical lessons and proven investment approaches, showcase impact, and examine how partnerships can overcome systemic barriers, strengthen youth and women’s participation and accelerate decent job creation, resilience, and sustainable growth in agrifood systems.

Location: Innovation Hub Tent

The global energy crisis has transformed energy from a predictable operating expense into the primary bottleneck for food security. By directly choking off one-third of the global fertilizer trade alongside 20% of global oil and LNG volumes, the conflict has reshaped the economics of agrifood survival.

Reliable and affordable energy is essential for transforming Africa’s agri-food systems, from irrigation and cold chains to processing, logistics, transportation, or digital services. At the same time, renewable energy technologies are rapidly evolving and becoming more accessible. Yet, agrifood and renewable energy actors still largely operate in silos.

As global energy markets face increasing volatility, this session will explore how African countries can strengthen energy resilience across agricultural value chains through renewable energy, decentralized systems, innovative technologies, and strategic investment partnerships.

This interactive session brings together agrifood leaders, policymakers, renewable energy experts, innovative companies, investors and practitioners to explore how renewable energy can move from the margins to an enabler of African food systems transformation.

Location: AD10 - Breakout room 1 (the Table)

African leaders have made ambitious commitments to improve soil health, increase fertilizer use and improved fertilizer use efficiency, and achieve agricultural transformation through the Nairobi Declaration on Fertilizer and Soil Health and the CAADP Kampala Strategy.

As these frameworks move from commitment to implementation, a critical question emerges: How can Africa accelerate delivery at scale in a context of declining ODA, increasing investment needs, and growing pressure to build more resilient food systems?

This session will bring together leaders from business, government, finance, research, and development to explore practical solutions for translating continental ambitions into measurable results.

The discussion will focus on three interconnected pillars that are increasingly shaping the future of agricultural transformation: private sector leadership, collaborative delivery models, and digital infrastructure.

This networking cocktail event will provide an informal platform for young leaders, agripreneurs, innovators, investors, policymakers, and partners to connect, share ideas, and build relationships within Africa’s food systems. Designed to promote peer learning and collaboration, this session will allow youth to engage with various ecosystem actors.

Participants will have the opportunity to showcase their aspirations and identify potential partnerships, mentorships, and investments that can accelerate youth-led solutions for more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable food systems.

VALUE4HER is a continental AGRA initiative that empowers and strengthens women’s agribusiness enterprises while amplifying their voice and advocacy across Africa.

Under this initiative, AGRA launched the Women Agripreneurs of the Year Awards (WAYA) in 2021 to recognize women who demonstrate outstanding innovation, leadership and impact in agriculture and agribusiness, significantly contributing to food security in their communities and countries.

The awards are presented at the Africa Food Systems Forum, leveraging its influential platform and diverse gathering of stakeholders to showcase and celebrate women agripreneurs on a continental stage.

The 2026 WAYA Awards coincide with AGRA’s twentieth anniversary and the United Nations’ International Year of the Woman Farmer, a rare convergence that sharpens the focus on who truly feeds Africa and who receives investment.

Over the past five years, WAYA has helped answer this question by surfacing high-growth women agripreneurs whose enterprises are already delivering the nourishment, jobs and resilience needed for the next phase of African food systems transformation.

Partner-hosted side events run in parallel throughout the day, see the Side Events tab above for the full listing.

The inaugural Africa Food Festival (AFF) co-hosted by African Food Fellowship, AFSF, and the City of Kigali, will take place alongside the 2026 AFSF Summit. As a flagship public event, it will feature a Culinary Village, bringing the Summit to life through African food, culture, music, crafts, and food business and investment.

The main objectives are: a) Celebrate Africa's diverse culinary heritage and culture, b) Showcase live cooking, competitions, and culinary dialogues c) Promote African cuisine as a driver of investment, tourism, and economic growth d) Connect food with agriculture, nutrition, and agri-food value chains through a vibrant street food experience e) Promote Made in Africa food products and local consumption f) Provide a platform for African chefs, youth entrepreneurs, and innovators g) Foster partnerships, investment, and food business opportunities h) Celebrate African music and culture to enhance the Festival experience and AFSF's visibility.

Location: Auditorium

The Opening Ceremony of the Africa Food Systems Forum officially launches the event, bringing together Africa’s most influential business leaders, policymakers, investors, and development partners.

The session sets the strategic tone for the 2026 Forum by highlighting the continent’s food and nutrition security priorities, key investment opportunities, and the vital role of collaboration between public, private, philanthropic, and producer actors in driving sustainable growth.

Marking 20 years of policy and business dialogue, the opening will also reflect on the Forum’s legacy and evolution.

Through keynote addresses from distinguished leaders and special guests, the ceremony will present a forward-looking vision for Africa’s agrifood systems transformation, food security, energy transition, job creation, and resilience-building agenda, while inspiring participants to forge partnerships that accelerate the continent’s development.

Location: AD12

Countries that transformed did not rely on scattered projects; they built disciplined systems linking smallholder productivity, manufacturing capability, export competitiveness and finance that served productive investment.

These insights can help African leaders ask the hard question: what would it take for African food systems to become the foundation of industrialisation, jobs, sovereignty and regional trade by 2046? That questions need to be answered now.

Location: MH1- Investment Room Main Stage

Triangular Cooperation is becoming an increasingly important driver of agricultural investment, innovation, and knowledge exchange across developing economies. This session will explore how African countries and partners globally can strengthen collaboration to mobilize investment, scale technologies, and accelerate food systems transformation.

Discussions will highlight successful cooperation models, investment partnerships, technology transfer, and opportunities to strengthen trade and agricultural development through triangular cooperation.

Location: Youth Dome Tent

Young people living with disabilities and those affected by conflict remain among the most underserved groups in agrifood systems despite their significant contributions as farmers, entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders.

This integrated session explores how agrifood systems can become more inclusive, resilient and responsive to young people facing multiple and intersecting barriers.

The session will focus on lived experiences while engaging various ecosystem actors, including government representatives, private sector stakeholders, development partners, organizations working with persons with disabilities and humanitarian stakeholders.

Through lived experiences, youth-led testimonies and dialogue with governments, development partners, private sector actors, organizations of persons with disabilities and humanitarian stakeholders, participants will examine practical solutions that strengthen resilience, expand economic opportunities, promote social inclusion and support recovery and peacebuilding.

The session will identify concrete actions, partnerships, investments, policy reforms and systemic changes needed to ensure all young people can access opportunities and shape agrifood systems transformation.

Location: Innovation Hub Tent

Africa has no shortage of agricultural innovations, but many proven solutions remain confined to small, fragmented pilot projects rather than reaching the millions of farmers who could benefit.

This session will explore how AIM for Scale and C4Impact Advisory Group are supporting governments, multilateral development banks, academia, and technical partners to integrate evidence-backed innovations into national systems that can improve livelihoods, productivity, resilience to climate shocks, and returns on agricultural investment.

Drawing on experiences from Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Senegal, the discussion will examine efforts to scale AI-powered weather forecasting and digital advisory services through government systems.

Speakers will consider the partnerships, financing, institutional coordination, and technical infrastructure needed to bring these tools to farmers at scale, including the roles of national meteorological services, extension systems, artificial intelligence, and MDB-supported investment programmes.

Location: AD10 - Breakout room 1 (the Table)

Digital market systems are the ecosystem of digital technologies, platforms, information services, payment solutions, logistics, institutions and governance mechanisms that connect actors across agrifood value chains, facilitate market transactions and improve market efficiency, inclusion and resilience.

This interactive session will discuss how digital marketplaces and market systems can move from promising pilots to trusted, viable and inclusive market infrastructure for African agrifood systems. It will also explore how stronger digital market systems can create opportunities for youth-led market solutions and for young producers, traders, service providers, etc.

participating in and benefiting from more efficient, inclusive and competitive agrifood markets.

Location: Auditorium

This plenary session will explore how reaching equality is at the advantage of all food system actors, and that achieving it must come through transformational actions addressing harmful gender norms, fostering inclusive decision-making and enabling equitable access to resources.

Aligned with the UN International Year of Women Farmers, women farmers’ experiences will be highlighted and used as examples of successes and gaps.

Panelists will discuss how policy and financial changes can reduce power imbalances, enable better access to resources, ensure decent and safe employment, and address the unpaid care work issues that hinder food system’s transformation and growth.

Location: AD12

The 2026 Africa Food Systems Forum marks two decades of driving agricultural transformation, yet today’s geopolitical landscape presents unprecedented, compounded shocks.

Ongoing global conflicts, the climate crisis, and energy market disruptions are reshaping agricultural production, trade, input costs, and food security, exposing the deep vulnerabilities of Africa’s agri-food systems.

These conflicts have disrupted international fertilizer and grain supply chains, while a volatile global energy market has sharply increased the costs of domestic production, processing, and distribution. For many African countries, these external shocks are no longer short-term disruptions; they now represent structural threats to national security and food sovereignty.

This session will examine how governments, the private sector, and development partners can strengthen food systems resilience in an increasingly uncertain global environment.

This high-level, closed-door dialogue will bring together AU leadership; ministers of agriculture, energy and climate, and finance; investors; multilateral and bilateral development agencies; heads of international organizations; and leaders from the private sector and investment community.

Participants will explore strategies to diversify supply chains, accelerate renewable energy solutions for agriculture, enhance regional trade, and mobilize investments that reduce vulnerability to external shocks.

The session will focus on identifying practical actions to build more resilient, competitive, and sustainable food systems that can withstand future geopolitical and energy-related crises.

Leadership and Co-Chairing

H.E Hailemariam Dessalegn Boshe, Chair of the AGRA Board & Chair of the Africa Food Systems Forum – Co-Chair

Hon. Dr. Telesphore Ndabamenye, Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI), Republic of Rwanda – Co-Chair

Location: MH1- Investment Room Main Stage

Livestock and aquatic food systems play a critical role in Africa’s food systems, contributing to economic growth, employment, nutrition, and trade. Across the continent, businesses, investors, governments, and development partners are developing innovative approaches to commercialization, market development, and investment mobilization.

Through a series of interactive investment conversations, this session will explore what is working, what attracts investment, and what is needed to scale successful models across Africa.

Location: Youth Dome Tent

Based on the priorities outlined in the AU CAADP Strategy (2026–2035) and the Africa Youth Climate Action Plan, along with other youth position statements on ‘Climate, Youth, and Agriculture,’ this session will focus on how to consolidate and scale African youth-led climate action within agrifood systems.

Across Africa, youth, especially young women, are leading innovations in climate-smart agriculture. However, they face challenges such as fragmented platforms, limited access to production resources and finance, and weak policy integration.

As Africa prepares for COP31 and COP32, there is an urgent need to align continental frameworks, youth movements, advocacy efforts, and investment pipelines to enhance impact. This session will bring together organizations, policymakers, philanthropic leaders, financiers, and youth leaders to explore how strengthened youth involvement will shape future agrifood system.

We will highlight evidence from regional strategies and youth coalitions that demonstrate the importance of interconnected actions, such as strengthening young Africans’ movements on climate, improving access to climate finance, and incorporating youth leadership into decision-making processes.

The discussion will culminate in actionable pathways to unify youth engagement mechanisms, mobilize investments, and amplify the voices of African youth in global climate negotiations.

Location: Innovation Hub Tent

National climate funds and innovative investment mechanisms are becoming increasingly important tools for financing climate action and accelerating resilient agri-food systems across Africa.

This session will explore how governments, development partners, financial institutions, the private sector, and philanthropic partners can strengthen national climate finance architecture to mobilize and channel greater investment into adaptation, mitigation, and sustainable agricultural development.

Discussions will examine financing instruments, governance models, and partnership approaches that improve access to climate finance for farmers, businesses, local communities, and young innovators and entrepreneurs, while strengthening inclusive, climate-resilient growth across Africa.

Location: AD10 - Breakout room 1 (the Table)

Location: Auditorium

Healthy soils are the foundation of productive agriculture, resilient food systems, and sustainable economic growth, yet more than 65% of Africa’s productive land is degraded, with erosion the most widespread form of land degradation. Widespread soil degradation demands greater investment in sustainable land management and soil restoration.

This high-level plenary will convene policymakers, investors, research institutions, development partners, farmers' organizations, and the private sector to explore innovative financing, technologies, and policies that promote soil health.

The discussion will confront the collapse of Overseas Development Assistance and rising costs of fertilizer imports linked to geopolitical shocks. Industry leaders will emphasize agroecology and regenerative agriculture while sharing progress on the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan and Soil Initiative for Africa.

Location: AD12

The 2025 AFSF in Dakar hosted the first-ever Livestock Ministerial Deep Dive, bringing together ministers from nine African countries. The discussion confirmed both the importance of livestock in Africa’s development agenda and the demand for a dedicated ministerial platform. Ministers called for the conversation to continue and to move from dialogue to action.

The 2026 session is an opportunity to deliver on that request. It will take a systems-wide view of Africa’s livestock sector, focusing on how integrated regional value chains, strategic partnerships and targeted public and private investment can translate livestock’s potential into food security, jobs, trade and investment.

Location: MH1- Investment Room Main Stage

Mobilizing greater investment is essential to unlocking the potential of Africa's agri-food systems. Financial centres can play a catalytic role by connecting capital with bankable agricultural opportunities, fostering innovative financing solutions, and creating an enabling environment for domestic and international investors.

Financial centers also play a critical role in mobilizing capital, structuring financial products, and connecting investment opportunities with regional and international markets.

This session will explore how African financial centers can strengthen their role in attracting investment into agri-food systems through enabling policies, innovative financing solutions, and stronger investment ecosystems.

Discussions will focus on competitiveness, investor confidence, regulatory frameworks, and opportunities to position Africa as a leading destination for sustainable agri-food investment.

Location: Youth Dome Tent

Africa's CAADP Strategy and Action Plan aims to develop resilient and sustainable agrifood systems that can increase agrifood output by 45% by 2035, enhance food and nutrition security, promote inclusive livelihoods, and empower women and youth.

In this context, sports provide a powerful platform to engage young people in discussions and actions related to healthy diets, food systems, entrepreneurship, and community wellbeing.

The Basketball Africa League (BAL) continues to leverage basketball as a social connector through initiatives such as BAL4HER, BAL Future Pros, BAL Advance, and BAL Community. These programs focus on youth development, gender equality, employability, nutrition, financial literacy, and community impact.

This special session hosted by the BAL will explore how the growing BAL ecosystem–and the wider sports sector–can act as a catalyst for Africa’s agrifood transformation. Around the world, successful sports franchises often help stimulate economic activity beyond the court, supporting a network of local suppliers, service providers and entrepreneurs.

Over time, BAL franchises could contribute to similar ecosystems, where businesses ranging from agrifood companies and caterers to logistics providers and hospitality operators participate in the commercial activity generated around clubs, games and fan activations.

Location: Innovation Hub Tent

Transforming Africa’s agri-food systems will require a new generation of leaders capable of navigating complex challenges across investment, climate, governance, technology, trade, and food security and global market volatility. Building the capacity of current and emerging leaders is therefore critical to accelerating sustainable and inclusive transformation.

This session will explore how leadership development, institutional capacity building, mentorship, and strategic partnerships can strengthen Africa’s ability to drive food systems transformation at scale.

Discussions will focus on the role of political, private sector, youth, and community leadership in creating enabling environments for innovation, investment, and long-term resilience.

Leveraging Climate and Nature Finance for Food Systems Transformation in Africa

Location: AD10 - Breakout room 1 (the Table)

This special closed roundtable will bring together the officials and market actors who rarely meet in one room but whose decisions must now converge: ministers of finance or their representatives, ministers of agriculture, ministers of environment, senior technical experts, implementing agencies, climate and environment funds, development partners, development finance institutions and private sector actors.

The session will focus on practical models that are already demonstrating synergies between finance, food systems and environmental outcomes, and on how African countries can use AFSF 2026 as a platform to position strong, green-fund-ready investment pathways that attract diverse sources of finance and deliver results for people, nature and economies.

This informal networking event will celebrate the richness and diversity of African culture, creating a welcoming environment for delegates to connect through conversation, creativity, and shared heritage.

Focusing on Indigenous peoples and youth, the event will highlight the importance of culture, identity, and intergenerational knowledge in shaping inclusive and resilient food systems across Africa.

Delegates are encouraged to wear and showcase African attire and cultural expressions while engaging with youth, Indigenous representatives, agripreneurs, partners, and stakeholders. The relaxed atmosphere will be designed to foster relationship-building, idea exchange and collaboration.

Partner-hosted side events run in parallel throughout the day, see the Side Events tab above for the full listing.

The inaugural Africa Food Festival (AFF) co-hosted by African Food Fellowship, AFSF, and the City of Kigali, will take place alongside the 2026 AFSF Summit. As a flagship public event, it will feature a Culinary Village, bringing the Summit to life through African food, culture, music, crafts, and food business and investment.

The main objectives are: a) Celebrate Africa's diverse culinary heritage and culture, b) Showcase live cooking, competitions, and culinary dialogues c) Promote African cuisine as a driver of investment, tourism, and economic growth d) Connect food with agriculture, nutrition, and agri-food value chains through a vibrant street food experience e) Promote Made in Africa food products and local consumption f) Provide a platform for African chefs, youth entrepreneurs, and innovators g) Foster partnerships, investment, and food business opportunities h) Celebrate African music and culture to enhance the Festival experience and AFSF's visibility.

Location: Auditorium

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly reshaping African agriculture, with generative AI offering personalized, real‑time advisory across crops, livestock, weather, and markets at a fraction of traditional extension costs.

Yet unlocking this potential for smallholder farmers requires financing to move beyond pilots and building shared data and digital public infrastructure that ensures accuracy, trust, and accountability.

This plenary will bring both challenges into a single dialogue, drawing on the work of the Institute for Agriculture and AI, launched through a partnership between the Gates Foundation and United Arab Emirates.

Discussions will explore coordinated investments and governance frameworks to deliver AI solutions that reflect African realities and serve farmers, women, youth, and agribusinesses.

Location: AD12

As Official Development Assistance (ODA) declines, the private sector is no longer just a participant–it is the primary engine of Africa’s food system transformation.

This private sector roundtable brings together CEOs, Chief Risk Officers (CROs), and heads of agribusiness from Africa’s leading private commercial banks, alongside tier-1 agri-corporate leaders and fintech innovators. The dialogue moves past traditional, concessional development finance to address the hard economics of commercial lending.

The goal is to move commercial banks from passive observers to active drivers of continental agri-food transformation.

Location: MH1- Investment Room Main Stage

Africa is home to a wide range of continental, regional, financial, research, private sector, farmer, and development institutions that play critical roles in advancing agricultural transformation. While these institutions share many common objectives, greater coordination and structured collaboration could significantly enhance their collective impact.

This session will explore the vision for an African platform that brings together key institutions to strengthen strategic alignment, improve coordination around shared priorities, and foster more effective collaboration.

Discussions will focus on potential governance models, coordination mechanisms, and opportunities to build stronger institutional partnerships that can mobilize investment, facilitate knowledge exchange, and accelerate implementation of Africa's agri-food systems agenda.

Location: Youth Dome Tent

Africa’s agrifood transformation depends on unlocking the potential of its youth. Young agri-entrepreneurs are reshaping value chains through innovation, value addition, and digital solutions that connect farmers to markets, finance, and knowledge.

However, barriers such as limited access to patient capital, weak ecosystems, fragmented markets, and policy gaps continue to constrain their growth.

This session will showcase successful youth-led enterprises and explore how targeted investments, enabling support systems, and strong partnerships can scale impact, driving job creation, improved incomes, and more resilient and inclusive agrifood systems.

Segment 1: Backing Youth-Led Agro-Businesses

Location: Innovation Hub Tent

Public-Private-Producer Partnerships (4P models) are emerging as an important mechanism for strengthening investment, inclusion, and coordination across agri-food value chains.

By connecting governments, private sector actors, producers, and development partners, 4P approaches can help reduce risk, improve market access, mobilize financing, and create more inclusive and resilient agricultural systems.

This session will explore successful 4P models, investment opportunities, governance approaches, and partnership structures that can support sustainable agri-value chain development across Africa.

Location: Auditorium

This thematic plenary explores how consumer demand for healthy and nutrient-dense foods shapes, and is shaped, by Africa’s food environments and informal and formal markets. High food prices, weak purchasing power, and climate-related disruptions continue to limit access to nutritious foods across the continent.

Discussions will examine how food environments influence trust, affordability, and desirability and how private sector strategies can be leveraged to generate demand and aspiration for healthy diets.

By linking demand and supply-side dynamics, the plenary demonstrates how targeted policies and public and private investment into nutrient-dense foods can accelerate healthy diets, unleash market growth, and create jobs for women and youth.

Location: AD12

Modern, resilient infrastructure is fundamental to transforming Africa’s agri-food systems and unlocking private investment.

Strategic investments in transport corridors and logistics, irrigation, energy, storage, digital connectivity, and market infrastructure can significantly reduce post-harvest losses, improve market access, deepen regional trade, and enhance the competitiveness of agricultural value chains.

The Infrastructure Roundtable Dialogue will provide a strategic platform to accelerate targeted capital into these critical areas, ensuring that food moves efficiently from African farms to regional and global markets.

It will bring together investors, development finance institutions, sovereign wealth funds, commercial banks, infrastructure developers, policymakers, and agribusiness leaders who can mobilize, finance, build, and operate infrastructure that supports economic growth, regional integration, trade, energy access, digital transformation, and agri-food systems development across the continent.

Location: Youth Dome Tent

This dedicated session, building on the "Backing Youth-Led Agro-businesses" morning session, serves as an open marketplace for young agripreneurs and food innovators to showcase their value-added products. It provides an opportunity for delegates to interact with these young entrepreneurs and offers a space for them to sell their products.

Location: Innovation Hub Tent

Innovation will be central to building resilient, competitive, and future-ready agri-food systems across Africa. This session will explore how investments in research, technology, innovation ecosystems, startups, incubators, and talent development can strengthen agricultural transformation and unlock new economic opportunities.

Discussions will focus on the systems and partnerships required to support innovation excellence, accelerate commercialization, connect innovators with capital, and scale practical solutions across African food systems.

The closing ceremony of the Africa Food Systems Forum 2026 will take place in the Food Festival arena, celebrating transformation in the heart of Africa’s food culture.

Anchored in the Forum’s theme, Investing in Africa’s Agri‑Food Systems: Growing Jobs, Nourishing Nations, Building Resilience, the ceremony will blend cultural performances, shared food experiences, and a brief communique summarizing the Forum’s outcomes.

This communique will highlight how governments, private sector, and civil society are advancing the Kampala CAADP Declaration, ensuring that commitments made during the Forum translate into real impact. The open‑air format symbolizes that food systems transformation belongs to the people, and ensures the Forum ends with energy, unity, and hope.

African countries are increasingly investing in evidence-based approaches to guide food systems transformation.

The Food Systems Country Countdowns - adapted from the global Food Systems Countdown Initiative (FSCI), led by GAIN, FAO, Johns Hopkins and Cornell - have emerged as a promising mechanism to strengthen accountability, improve cross-sector coordination, and support data-informed policymaking and investments.

By integrating indicators across nutrition, environment, livelihoods, governance and resilience, and aligning with frameworks such as CAADP and SDGs, they also contribute to more coherent food systems monitoring.

This side event will bring together governments, technical partners, researchers, and development organizations to reflect on country experiences with the framework and discuss how these can be scaled to strengthen implementation and accountability for food systems transformation across Africa.

Africa cannot feed itself without water. With 90% of Sub-Saharan agriculture rainfed and irrigation covering under 5% of cultivated land, water security is a binding constraint on food systems transformation.

This session brings together ministers, investors, researchers and private sector leaders to build the case for scaling irrigation and water investment, covering regional programs, such as Africa RISE, as well as government, private sector and farmer insights with irrigation investment opportunities.

Speakers will share evidence, financing innovations and country experience from Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria and beyond, launch new knowledge products, and generate actionable messages for the AFS Forum Ministerial Dialogue.

Africa’s aquatic food systems have an enormous potential to fuel local economies and create jobs for women and youth, while also strengthening resilience, nutrition and public health. This session will explore how investing in sustainable fisheries and aquaculture can accelerate sustainable transformation of Africa’s food systems.

Bringing together perspectives from nutrition, farming, research, policy and private sector, it will examine how aquatic food systems can create thriving value chains and resilient livelihoods, while promoting human and environment health.

Drawing on practical examples from across Africa, including women-led enterprises, rice-fish systems, school meal programs, climate-smart aquaculture and scalable business models, the session will explore what is needed to unlock investment, strengthen partnerships and scale successful approaches, while highlighting women’s contributions across aquatic food systems during the International Year of the Woman Farmer.

Remote rural communities, the extreme poor and displaced people, are neglected by investments that support the provision of productive use energy (PUE) for agriculture. Yet, this neglect can obscure a major opportunity: affordable, reliable energy access can develop climate resilient food systems and unlock real economic agency for marginalised women and youth.

This session takes a cross-sector, systems lens to the constraints blocking finance and its equitable use – with an eye firmly on solutions. Drawing on concrete examples from underserved communities, energy solution providers, and financial actors, it maps integrated pathways to outcomes that are both commercially bankable and transformative for those left behind.

Participants will leave seeing underserved communities not as a risk to be managed, but as an undervalued frontier for productive use energy investment – and understanding that cross-sector collaboration is what makes getting there achievable.

The next shock is already here. Africa's agrifood systems face mounting pressures from climate shocks, humanitarian crises, market disruptions, and geopolitical instability. These interconnected challenges threaten food security, nutrition, livelihoods, and economic growth, exposing deep structural vulnerabilities.

We explore how Africa can move toward a systems approach that delivers food security, better nutrition, inclusive economic opportunities, and long-term transformation.

Through evidence, field experiences, and partner perspectives, participants will examine how investments in innovation, market systems, local enterprises, and community capacity help countries respond to shocks while building resilience. Focusing on 3 questions: What is the crisis now? What actions are needed in the next 12 months? And how do we prevent future crises?

The session will identify practical pathways that connect response, recovery, and transformation, in climate-vulnerable, fragile contexts.

The aim is to promote the exchange of experiences and foster initiatives that advance Regenerative Tropical Agriculture. Most of the world's soil biodiversity is found in tropical regions.

Rather than destroying this living wealth through chemical and synthetic approaches associated with the simplification and monotony of crop and livestock systems, the objective is to make this abundance the foundation for increasing agricultural production while expanding the supply of healthy foods capable of addressing the alarming rise in the consumption of ultra-processed products and obesity, which in both Brazil and Africa are increasing alongside hunger.

The Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) provides a particularly important opportunity to strengthen the links between research and field-based experiences dedicated to the emergence of Regenerative Tropical Agriculture on both sides of the Atlantic.

Africa must produce and consume twice as many vegetables to achieve healthy diets. Despite their importance for nutrition, health, economic growth, and climate resilience, vegetables are becoming less affordable due to energy constraints, post-harvest losses, and value-chain barriers.

Power the Plate brings together leaders from business, innovation, government, finance, and development to explore how productive renewable energy can make vegetables more abundant, affordable, and appealing across Africa.

Through evidence, high-level reflections, and showcases of women-led innovations, participants will discover solutions improving irrigation, cooling, storage, logistics, market development, and consumer appeal. Interactive audience engagement will explore how to scale innovations, strengthen partnerships, and put more vegetables on more plates.

The session concludes with the launch of the Africa Vegetable Innovation Platform, a bold new partnership to advance #DoubleTheVeg across Africa

Africa's agri-food systems depend on a critical workforce of agricultural extension workers, many of them women, who travel door-to-door connecting smallholder farmers to seeds, fertilizer, training, and markets. Most travel long distances on foot, limiting their reach and effectiveness.

World Bicycle Relief addresses this through a market-based model: a purpose-designed Buffalo Bicycle backed by a social enterprise enabling access to trained mechanics, spare parts, and repair services. Early field evidence suggests agents with bicycles reach more farmers, travel farther, and spend less on transport.

At 14.7x return on investment, the model drives inclusive economic growth; a two-year randomized controlled trial confirms women with bicycles achieve higher income, savings, food security, and dietary diversity. Co-hosted with agricultural extension organizations, this session makes the investment case for bicycle mobility as necessary infrastructure for Africa's food systems.

What do women-centered and inclusive food systems look like? This session will explore practical pathways for building food systems that pay attention to the priorities and needs of women and men in agrifood systems.

The discussions will spotlight women-centered approaches that strengthen leadership within farmers’ organizations, promote economic empowerment models tailored to rural contexts, and expand access to decent jobs and employment opportunities for young women.

The session will also highlight evidence-based insights and advance equitable policies that address the distinct needs of men and women across agricultural value chains.

Additionally, the session will explore strategies and inclusive climate adaptation and risk-management mechanisms, such as insurance schemes, financing models in place, policies, which help youth and women farmers better adapt to climate change and promote resilient food systems.”

AfricaVeg is a new public–private initiative led by the World Vegetable Center to strengthen Africa’s vegetable breeding and seed innovation ecosystem.

The session will explore how African seed companies, public breeding programs, universities, and regional partners can work together to accelerate the development and delivery of locally adapted, climate-resilient vegetable varieties that better serve farmers and markets across the continent.

Many vegetable farmers in Africa continue to rely on imported or poorly adapted seed, while local seed companies often lack access to advanced breeding tools, elite genetics, and product development partnerships.

AfricaVeg aims to bridge this gap by equipping African seed enterprises with the genetics, technical capacity, market intelligence, and collaborative breeding networks needed to become stronger innovation partners.

This event showcases scalable innovations in policy design and implementation tools that foster alignment across programmes and policies in support of the National Agrifood Systems Investment Plans under CAADP’s Kampala Declaration.

In addition to insights into the 'How-To' of a systems approach for policymakers; government representatives will share innovative tools that contribute to the alignment of policy objectives with private sector needs and increased investment in order to generate jobs for young people in agrifood systems that sustainably produce affordable and healthy food for all.

The panel brings together national policymakers, practitioners, and leading academics, with practical examples from Rwanda, South Sudan, Zambia, Ireland, and AUDA-NEPAD on aligning priorities, mobilizing investments, and strengthening governance to enable resilience and accelerate agrifood systems transformation.

Transforming Africa's agrifood systems in an increasingly uncertain global context demands smart and inclusive financing. Yet, public funds are stretched thin, private capital tends to underinvest in agriculture, while smallholders, pastoralists, SMEs, and women are too often left out of the financing equation.

Organized by AgriBridge, an African-German Policy Network for Sustainable Agrifood Systems, this session will explore key questions around agrifood systems financing. It will highlight innovative financing approaches, including blended finance and de-risking instruments such as trade credit guarantees for women entrepreneurs or a central livestock feed purchasing agency.

It will also provide a space for constructive, interactive dialogue on strengthening more self-reliant financing models while considering the catalytic role of official development assistance (ODA).

This side event explores how investment, innovation, and partnerships can strengthen the resilience of Africa’s agrifood systems through China–Africa cooperation.

Bringing together policymakers, researchers, development partners, and practitioners, the session will highlight experiences and practical solutions in agricultural technology transfer, climate-smart agriculture, capacity building, and inclusive value-chain development.

Discussions will focus on how strategic investments and cross-regional collaboration can enhance food security, empower youth and women, and support sustainable transformation of agrifood systems in Africa and worldwide.

Africa is making significant investments in transforming its food systems, yet millions of people, particularly women and children, continue to experience poor diets and malnutrition.

This interactive side event brings together policymakers, researchers, development partners, private sector actors and community organizations to explore how food systems can better deliver healthy diets.

Drawing on evidence from CAADP implementation, food systems research, school feeding innovations and community-led action, participants will identify practical strategies to strengthen nutrition outcomes across policy, investment and implementation.

The session will generate recommendations for building food systems and ringfencing related nutrition investments that truly nourish Africa.

Healthy soils and resilient food systems cannot be achieved at scale without changing how public finance supports agriculture. The recent fertilizer price and supply shocks have further exposed the vulnerability of input-dependent production systems and the need to improve nutrient use efficiency and diversify nutrient resources.

Too little investment reaches the farmers and communities restoring ecosystems and building long-term resilience. By linking soil information to public agricultural spending, governments can target support where it is most needed.

This session explores how robust soil evidence, perspectives from the field, and repurposed public agricultural support can inform policy, finance, and practice while advancing inclusive outcomes for all.

Particular attention will be given to practical agronomic responses to Africa’s fertilizer crisis, including integrated soil fertility management, that strengthen resilience while reducing dependence on imported fertilizers.

The side event will showcase initiatives focused on rainwater harvesting and storage, sustainable food production, income generation, and the strengthening of local capacities, demonstrating how integrated approaches can simultaneously advance food and nutrition security, health, productive inclusion, women’s empowerment, and climate adaptation, thus enhancing the resilience of food systems.

The event will address the Cisterns Program, developed by the Brazilian government and civil society for over 20 years. Today, it is a global benchmark in climate adaptation and promoting food security for vulnerable communities in semi-arid regions, developing low-cost, high-impact social technologies.

Africa’s adapted crops–including sorghum, millet, cowpea, cassava, teff, bambara groundnut, and indigenous vegetables–offer strong potential for climate resilience, better nutrition, and green jobs. Yet, weak seed systems, low productivity, fragmented markets, limited processing, and insufficient private investment continue to constrain their growth and commercialization.

This side event will convene governments, private sector actors, farmer organizations, youth enterprises, researchers, financiers, and development partners to explore how to unlock the full value of these crops from production to markets and value addition.

Discussions will focus on boosting productivity, expanding structured markets, strengthening processing and food innovation, and increasing investment across value chains. Participants will engage on partnerships, finance, market opportunities, and policy actions needed to scale inclusive, climate-resilient and job-creating food systems in Africa.

Coherent CAADP-Driven Food Systems Policies: Aligning National, Regional and Global Frameworks for Investment in Africa The session examines how aligning national, continental and global policy frameworks mobilize investment for food systems transformation.

It focuses on integrating National Food Systems Pathways and NASIPs with global frameworks like the UN Secretary General Call to Action, the UNFCCC and UNCBD to reduce regulatory complexity, increase investor predictability, reveal cross‑sector synergies, and produce bankable investment plans to de‑risk and scale public, private and blended finance.

Participants can expect a country‑focused panel demonstrating how alignment has been used to convert policy into investment‑ready actions, and an open discussion to identify solutions, barriers, de‑risking instruments and partner support needs.

The session will generate actionable recommendations to strengthen policy coherence and accelerate investment in food systems transformation.

Small-scale farmer productivity and profitability, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, remain stagnant despite substantial public investment. Many agricultural programs target a single constraint–such as access to inputs or information–but often fail to generate meaningful impacts.

Drawing on research from the Digital Agricultural Innovations and Services Initiative (DAISI), led by J-PAL and CEGA, this session explores evidence on bundling multiple agricultural services and why integrated approaches may outperform standalone interventions.

The session will highlight One Acre Fund’s bundled service model and feature perspectives from researchers, implementers, government, and farmers. Together, panelists will discuss how bundled programs can be designed for maximum impact and what it takes to scale them effectively.

Participants will leave with evidence-based insights on what works, what doesn’t, and the implications for program design and scale.

As the world prepares for the 2026 UN Water Conference, the United Arab Emirates, in collaboration with leading international research and technology partners, will present MaiWater AI, a new international initiative developing the world's first AI-powered hydrology model for an African river basin.

Using the Limpopo River Basin as its pilot, the session will feature the first public preview of the dashboard and Digital Twin, demonstrating how AI-driven water intelligence can strengthen climate-resilient agriculture, support investment in resilient agri-food systems, enhance food security, and foster regional cooperation across Africa

The International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026 event in Rwanda will celebrate the vital role of women farmers in food security, climate resilience, environmental restoration, and sustainable agriculture. Organized by FAO and UNDP, the session will highlight how women are driving climate-smart farming, natural resource stewardship, and rural economic development.

Participants will hear from government and UN leaders, women farmers, and experts through keynote remarks, testimonies, and an interactive panel. The event will also feature a documentary and exhibition showcasing women-led enterprises.

Discussions will address barriers to land, finance, technology, and markets while highlighting solutions, partnerships, and investments that advance women’s empowerment and leadership in agrifood systems.

The Government of Rwanda recognizes irrigation as a critical driver of the country's economic and social development, with increased agricultural productivity serving as a key strategy for poverty reduction.

In line with Rwanda's development agenda and the targets outlined in the EDPRS and the Irrigation Policy and Action Plan (2014), the Government has continued to invest in the development of irrigation schemes across both hillside and marshland areas (Irrigation Master Plan, 2020).

To address this gap, the FAO, in collaboration with MINAGRI, to reassess Rwanda's irrigation potential through a comprehensive evaluation of water resources and irrigable land, with the aim to aimed to identify and map irrigation opportunities across sites throughout the country.

The resulting report provides a valuable decision-making tool for policymakers, development partners, investors, and practitioners engaged in agricultural transformation and water resources management.

Fragile contexts are often viewed as too risky for investment, yet they are home to resilient entrepreneurs, functioning markets, and promising agribusinesses. This interactive side event will explore how to unlock these opportunities by building a pipeline of bankable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that can attract investment and drive food systems transformation.

Drawing on experiences from WFP, the African Development Bank, Mastercard Foundation, IFPRI, and entrepreneurs from fragile settings, the discussion will examine how market intelligence, business development support, blended finance, and targeted initiatives for women-led businesses can reduce risk and crowd in private capital.

The session will highlight practical pathways to strengthen local value chains, create jobs, and foster more resilient and inclusive food systems in fragile and frontier markets.

Climate-adaptive water economies offer significant opportunities to create jobs, stimulate local enterprise dev., and strengthen economic resilience across Africa. Yet investments in water infrastructure, climate adaptation, skills dev., entrepreneurship, and MSME growth are often planned and financed separately, limiting their potential to generate sustainable employment.

This session will explore how governments, investors, dev. partners, and the private sector can better align public investment, private capital, climate finance, and workforce dev. to unlock the job creation potential of water-related systems.

Drawing on evidence and practice, participants will examine how linking water investments with skills, entrepreneurship, service economies, and market dev. can create economic opportunities while contributing to resilient and inclusive food systems. The discussion will highlight financing and partnership approaches needed to scale climate-adaptive water economies across Africa.

The side event “From Malabo to Kampala: Inclusive Governance and Accountability for Investment, Jobs and Resilience in African Agri-Food Systems” will examine how countries can turn CAADP Kampala commitments into practical delivery systems.

It will bring together government, parliament, youth, civil society, research, private sector and development partner voices to identify how inclusive governance and accountability can unlock investment, improve nutrition outcomes, support jobs for young people and women, and build resilience.

The discussion will focus on concrete mechanisms, including NASIP alignment, Joint Sector Reviews, Biennial Review readiness, public expenditure tracking, non-state actor evidence, citizen accountability and country-to-country learning.

Livestock is central to West African economies, yet receives less than 1% of global climate finance. This side event will discuss how to close this gap, drawing on new OECD/SWAC analysis on intra-regional livestock trade, food trade corridors, climate exposure and greenhouse gas emissions.

The session will focus on practical solutions to mobilise climate finance and blended investment for climate-resilient transport, cold chains, cross-border markets and digital data systems. These investments can reduce losses, lower emissions and strengthen resilience.

Bringing together policymakers, regional organisations, investors, development banks and climate funds, the event aims to turn evidence into actionable policies and investment opportunities for sustainable livestock systems and resilient regional food trade corridors in Africa.

The Kampala CAADP Declaration’s commitment to mobilize US$100 billion for Africa’s agrifood systems presents a major opportunity but faces challenges from fiscal constraints, rising debt, declining ODA, and limited private investment.

National Agrifood Systems Investment Plans (NASIPs) provide the primary mechanism for translating these commitments into action through innovative financing and strategic investment.

This side event will convene policymakers, development partners, the private sector, and youth representatives to explore practical innovative financing for NASIP implementation and introduce the Food System Financing Intelligence Platform, an analytical tool that helps to identify financing gaps and vulnerabilities, prioritize investments, and strengthen evidence-based decision-making.

Africa's digital agriculture is growing fast, but fragmented systems, weak governance, and inconsistent standards limit impact. This side event argues for shifting focus from isolated tools to a shared digital backbone–governance, interoperability, and trust mechanisms that make digital services scalable and trustworthy for smallholders.

Building on AU frameworks and country efforts like Kenya’s, the session explores: - Governance & rights – fair, transparent data stewardship. - Interoperability – standards and shared services to connect systems. - Security & trust – balancing openness with protection against misuse and cyber risks.

Designed for policymakers, donors, agritech, and farmers, it offers a practical governance agenda and action steps. The core message: Africa’s food systems will go digital–the question is whether they’ll be governed inclusively, securely, and accountably. Time to move from pilots to coherent infrastructure and lasting public value.

Food Loss and Waste (FLW) is estimated to contribute approximately 10% to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Yet, around 30% of food produced is never harvested, sold or consumed, leading to climate impacts, environmental degradation and economic losses.

Addressing FLW contributes to food and nutritional security, job creation and supports more resilient and sustainable livelihoods. Solutions to address this problem already exist. By reducing FLW, countries can advance a more circular economy that is less dependent on imports of food and agricultural inputs.

At this event, IKEA Foundation and partners will share lessons learned from supporting innovations, policy and investments to reduce FLW and call upon other funders to step up their investments in this important field of work.

Recent shocks–from the Russia–Ukraine war to the Red Sea crisis–show that African food systems remain exposed to volatile grain, fuel and fertilizer markets. These disruptions have raised prices, worsened poverty and hunger risks, and renewed calls for self-sufficiency (Arndt et al., 2023; Mwakiwa et al., 2025).

Maritime chokepoints such as the Red Sea/Suez corridor are systemic pressure points where rerouting cascades across trade networks (Pratson, 2023). For import-dependent African economies, this increases vulnerability but also strengthens the case for diversified sourcing, regional integration and value addition.

Resilience alone is insufficient: agency, sustainability and systemic governance are needed to address policy incoherence and power asymmetries. AfCFTA and CAADP can drive structural transformation. The challenge is balancing autonomy with integration, affordability with domestic production, national politics with regional markets, and capital with sovereign priorities.

This Finance Day side event will show how GEF-8 Food Systems Integrated Program helps countries turn food systems transformation ambitions into investment-ready opportunities with climate, biodiversity, land restoration and livelihood benefits.

With climate finance institutions, multilaterals, public development banks and partners, the session will explore how to mobilize and scale finance for integrated food systems. Participants will hear from FSIP teams in Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda on investment pipelines, financing solutions and private sector engagement.

The discussion will highlight lessons from GEF, IFAD, FAO and partners on de-risking, enabling environments and aligning food systems finance with climate and nature priorities. Participants can expect insights, partnerships and pathways to boost investment readiness and impact across Africa. Inclusive growth for all people.

The success of the African Development Bank's African Emergency Food Production Facility (AEFPF) has largely been driven by its emphasis on adaptive management and the continuous adjustment of implementation strategies based on real-time monitoring data, field feedback, and evolving operational conditions.

This flexible approach enabled the AEFPF to respond rapidly to the food crisis while ensuring that implementation challenges were addressed in a timely manner. Given the scale of results achieved across participating countries, the AEFPF represents an important operational model for emergency agricultural response programs aimed at addressing food insecurity.

Capturing and disseminating the knowledge generated during implementation is therefore critical to inform future crisis response operations and strengthen the design of similar interventions in other regions.

Africa faces a paradox. The continent's population is projected to double by 2050, urbanisation is reshaping diets toward higher protein consumption, and the FAO projects that aquatic food production must rise by 74% to meet demand.

Yet aquaculture remains under-prioritised in national policy frameworks and absent from continental conversations about food systems transformation. This panel, convened by African Aquaculture Business Leaders Network (AABLN), brings that paradox into the centre of the AFS Forum 2026 agenda.

The session will make the case that aquaculture is one of the highest-leverage investments African governments, development finance institutions and private investors can make this decade, and will set out what is needed to unlock it. Attendees will hear what is working today and engage directly with sector leaders on partnerships that can accelerate growth.

We invite others to partner with AABLN – translating AFSF conversations into measurable sector advancement.

Africa’s food systems face pressure from climate change, environmental degradation, economic shocks, and rising demand, reducing productivity and threatening livelihoods.

This requires investment in climate-resilient agriculture, sustainable landscapes, energy transitions, agrobiodiversity and ecosystem restoration, recognizing that mitigation can generate adaptation benefits and viable business opportunities. Yet finance remains skewed towards mitigation.

Fragmented frameworks, weak risk-sharing and gaps between policy and practice persist, while smallholders, local institutions, women and youth remain excluded. This calls for scaled, investment-ready, partnership-driven approaches that better align mitigation finance with adaptation outcomes.

This event will convene key actors to identify practical pathways to mobilize finance, scale locally led solutions and strengthen implementation, including through improved financial instruments responding to CAADP’s implementation.

This event will bring together youth agripreneurship accelerator labs and innovation challenge initiatives across Africa i.e.Youth Food Lab, Go Gettaz Agri-preneurship Prize Competition, to join forces to build a robust ecosystem alliance to meaningfully support youth-led enterprises to move from incubation to scale.

By bundling forces, identifying complementarities, and exchanging best practices among partners, we aim to break siloes and duplication of efforts, and to create a platform that facilitates scale of challenge-based learning approaches that have proven successful in various contexts to stimulate entrepreneurial mindsets among students and move youth-led enterprises from incubation to scale.

Together, we can unlock each other’s platforms, build bankable youth-led agribusiness pipelines and leverage pooled funding to unlock catalytic finance for youth-led agripreneurs from early-stage to scale for Africa’s food systems transformation.

The 2026 report on the Status of Women in Agrifood Systems in sub-Saharan Africa presents the trends of gender gaps and highlights policies and strategies that need increased attention. What is clear is that sustainable change requires moving beyond participation and simply integrating women into existing structures, toward gender-transformative approaches (GTAs).

Yet despite growing recognition of their effectiveness, GTAs remain insufficiently integrated into food systems investments. In commemoration of the International Year of the Woman Famer, this session provides a critical platform to push for policy reforms that break down the systemic barriers and streamline these GTAs.

This event will explore practical pathways for catalyzing meaningfully systems transformation. The event will convene actors to catalyze action and partnerships for integrating GTAs into agrifood systems development, ensuring equitable participation, leadership, and benefits for women and men smallholders.

West Africa spends over $3.5 billion annually on rice imports despite strong production potential, due to weak, fragmented value chains. Millers and aggregators are central to the solution, as they anchor demand, organize supply, ensure quality, and connect farmers to markets.

However, they remain underfinanced, constrained by limited access to long-term capital, high working capital needs, and inadequate investment in aggregation, logistics, and processing. This session positions these actors as the drivers of transformation and presents the $500 million Rice Investment Vehicle as a targeted solution.

The Vehicle will mobilize blended finance, de-risk investments, and scale competitive rice businesses. Through a high-level, deal-focused dialogue, the event will showcase investable enterprises, engage investors, and catalyze commitments to accelerate private sector-led growth in West Africa’s rice sector.

Building on the AFCI plenary discussion, this invitation-only roundtable will bring together a select group of African financial institutions, development finance institutions, regional bodies, governments, private sector leaders and development partners to discuss what it will take to move priority food corridor opportunities from strategic ambition to implementation.

Rather than focusing on specific transactions, the discussion will explore the conditions required to strengthen investment readiness, improve coordination, validate emerging AFCI findings, and test potential governance and financing approaches for food corridor development.

The session will also help shape a practical roadmap beyond AFSF, including priorities for the AFCI Delivery Lab

Two important gaps must be bridged for CAADP Kampala public expenditure tracking to be realistically implementable. First, a definition of public expenditure in agrifood systems and a methodology to apply it with data are missing for proper tracking.

Second, the tracking should not be first about reaching a percentage of total expenditure but rather defining optimal allocations of current expenditure levels that allow to both increase the value for public money and set benchmarks against which countries could make the tracking going forward.

FAO is fully equipped with tools to bridge these two gaps to support the implementation of the CAADP Strategy and Action Plan 2025-2035.

The side event seeks to showcase these tools, in particular a new methodology to define and classify agrifood systems public expenditure and a tool to optimize its allocation and to hear from countries about their experience in working with FAO to use these tools to inform planning and budgeting.

This side event will launch the Africa Rural Climate Adaptation Finance Mechanism (ARCAFIM), a regional blended finance initiative supporting climate resilience in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. The session will focus on how private sector-led climate adaptation finance can expand affordable green financing for smallholder farmers, rural micro-enterprises and agri-MSMEs.

Participants will hear from IFAD, Equity Bank, co-financiers, governments and partners on ARCAFIM’s vision, delivery model, de-risking approach and technical assistance support. The event will also explore opportunities for regional cooperation and potential replication of the model beyond East Africa.

This side event will explore how Brazil’s experience in building inclusive and participatory food systems governance can contribute to strengthening agri-food systems transformation in Africa.

Drawing on lessons from the Brazilian National Food and Nutrition Security System (SISAN), the session will discuss governance mechanisms, social participation, intersectoral coordination, and public policies that support food security, nutrition, and sustainable food production.

The discussion will highlight opportunities for South-South cooperation and knowledge exchange between Brazil and African countries, particularly in advancing resilient, equitable, and people-centered food systems.

Participants can expect an interactive dialogue among policymakers, researchers, and civil society representatives focused on practical pathways for collaboration, innovation, and policy adaptation across different national contexts.

Beans are essential to food security and livelihoods across Africa. PABRA, a partnership involving the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, national agricultural research systems, and value chain actors, works to improve bean production, commercialization, and consumption.

Operating through a network of more than 934 partners in 31 countries, PABRA has developed and scaled innovations that have strengthened food security and livelihoods across sub-Saharan Africa.

Over the past three decades, more than 43.5 million farmers–58.1% of them women–have accessed improved bean varieties, increasing yields by an average of 36%, with yields doubling or tripling in countries such as Ethiopia and Tanzania.

These results have also created opportunities for more than 500 SMEs commercializing bean-based products and linking over four million farmers to markets. The event will celebrate PABRA’s 30-year legacy and call for renewed action as it enters its next phase of building resilient food systems.

Africa's agrifood systems receive barely 7 per cent of global climate finance – even as every dollar invested in adaptation returns more than ten in benefits.

This session convenes national climate finance experts, GCF National Designated Authorities and cooperating partners around a practical question: how can adaptation and mitigation finance be structured to catalyse agrifood market investment?

AGRA's USD 105 million GCF-financed RE-GAIN programme – the Fund's first dedicated food-loss-reduction investment, active in seven countries – anchors the exchange, alongside partners that have moved innovative food systems programmes to approved financing.

Aligned with the Kampala CAADP Declaration's targets to mobilise USD 100 billion and halve post-harvest losses by 2035, the session will distil what works and map the stakeholders and capital sources needed. Participants leave with lessons, a stakeholder map and the building blocks of a climate finance strategy for food systems

The AFSF AI Advisory Workshop brings together Gates Foundation-funded AI advisory teams from Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Ethiopia with global research and technical partners - including IAAI, AgriBench (UIUC), Chinese Agricultural University, and OpenAgriNet - for a highly interactive working session.

The day centers on shared problem-solving: aligning on technical challenges like data sovereignty, AI inference costs, and voice-first systems, and building consensus on impact measurement frameworks.

Africa’s population is projected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050, raising a fundamental question: can the continent feed and nourish its people within planetary boundaries? This high-level strategic foresight dialogue will explore the emerging drivers, uncertainties and plausible futures shaping Africa’s food systems.

Participants will stress-test key assumptions, examine regional perspectives and confront critical policy and investment trade-offs. The session will move beyond prediction to identify bold, actionable and low-regret choices that can help shape a resilient, sustainable and inclusive food future for Africa.

Insights from the dialogue will contribute to the Strategic Foresight Study commissioned by the AU Special Envoy for Food Systems and inform future policy and investment decisions.

Currently in Africa, more than 2 million people, majority of them women and youth, are deriving their livelihoods from an insect-based bioeconomy. This emerging and rapidly growing model is the result of efforts by icipe and partners to transform insects into investable assets.

This session will discuss the evidence, technologies and innovations underpinning insect-based enterprises. It will highlight the policy, enabling frameworks and environments that support insect-based enterprises and national and regional sustainable development agendas.

Ultimately, the session will explore opportunities and pathways for strategic engagement with communities, governments, regional bodies, development partners, financial institutions and the private sector.

The proposed two-hour side event, jointly organized by CORAF and GGGI, will comprise two one-hour sessions on climate finance and institutional capacity.

Session 1 – Youth Climate Finance: Explore innovative financing solutions that improve access to climate finance for youth-led climate-smart agribusinesses by combining CORAF's agricultural innovations with GGGI's green investment expertise to enhance investment readiness and scalability.

Session 2 – GCF Accreditation: Share CORAF's experience and lessons learned from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) accreditation process, providing practical insights on institutional readiness, accreditation requirements, and key success factors to strengthen African institutions' access to climate finance.

Africa does not lack agricultural innovations–it lacks the systems, markets, and investment needed to take proven solutions to scale.This high-level session at the AFS Summit will showcase proven scaling and commercialization models that have successfully accelerated the adoption of innovations such as nutrition-smart and nutrient-enriched crops, and demonstrate how these approaches can be replicated to scale improved seed varieties, climate-smart technologies, and other agricultural innovations.

The session will examine the misconceptions, challenges, and missed opportunities that have shaped food security outcomes across Africa.The session will demonstrate how catalytic investments can create sustainable demand for nutritious foods, crowd in private sector investment, transform agri-food systems, improve livelihoods, and deliver better nutrition and food security outcomes at scale.

Beans are essential to food security and livelihoods across Africa. PABRA, a partnership involving the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, national agricultural research systems, and value chain actors, works to improve bean production, commercialization, and consumption.

Operating through a network of more than 934 partners in 31 countries, PABRA has developed and scaled innovations that have strengthened food security and livelihoods across sub-Saharan Africa.

Over the past three decades, more than 43.5 million farmers–58.1% of them women–have accessed improved bean varieties, increasing yields by an average of 36%, with yields doubling or tripling in countries such as Ethiopia and Tanzania.

These results have also created opportunities for more than 500 SMEs commercializing bean-based products and linking over four million farmers to markets. The event will celebrate PABRA’s 30-year legacy and call for renewed action as it enters its next phase of building resilient food systems.

“From grassroots to grasstops: Enabling successful public-private-philanthropic partnerships” - A facilitated discussion on the successful conceptualisation, structural formation, and implementation of PPPs to enable success in challenging agricultural landscapes.

Learning from PepsiCo’s continued work in Ethiopia’s potato value chains and edible oils sectors, the discussion will be grounded in market realities and partners’ experiences from seed to store shelf.

Across Africa, advances in weather forecasting, climate science, artificial intelligence, and digital technologies are creating unprecedented opportunities to strengthen agricultural resilience. Yet millions of farmers still lack access to trusted, actionable advice to guide decisions on when to plant, fertilize, manage pests, or harvest.

Nationally owned Digital Climate Advisory Systems (DCAS) are emerging as a new model for transforming weather, climate, environmental, and agronomic science into trusted agromet intelligence delivered at scale.

This session will bring together government leaders, regional institutions, development partners, investors, and implementing organizations to share lessons from countries already deploying DCAS and explore the partnerships, investments, and institutional models needed to scale sustainable national systems across Africa.

Despite growing interest from investors, foundations, and corporates, finance for climate-resilient food systems has not kept pace with the scale of the challenge. Capital remains fragmented, measurement frameworks are inconsistent, and the gap between what is technically possible and what is financeable on the ground remains wide.

This roundtable, convened by Eurasia Group in partnership with Bayer, moves the conversation from diagnosis to action.

Anchored in two compelling case studies, it examines what it takes to structure, deploy, and scale investment in climate-resilient food systems to drive sustainable impact, and what foundations, investors, and corporate actors can do differently to unlock the finance the transition requires.

Regional Launch: Alliance Strategy 2026–2030 for Africa Africa's food systems face growing pressure from climate change, biodiversity loss, and persistent undernourishment – yet the continent holds extraordinary potential for transformation.

With 80% of land degradation in sub-Saharan Africa driven by soil erosion and agriculture accounting for 58% of the continent's greenhouse gas emissions, the urgency for science-based solutions has never been greater.

This side event marks the regional launch of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT's Strategy 2026–2030 for Africa, presenting a science-backed roadmap connecting biodiversity, climate action, nutrition, and inclusive markets.

Through partnerships with governments, farmers, and research institutions, participants will explore how research translates into real impact for farmers, communities, and ecosystems – and how science-based evidence can unlock investment at scale to nourish nations, grow jobs, and build resilience.

GPSEAP Africa Agroecology Innovations event brings together Agricultura Extension and Advisory Services (AEAS) stakeholders to showcase transformative agroecology solutions driving sustainable food systems transformation in Africa Farming Systems and Food Value Chains.

The sessions will amplify practical innovations, scalable models, policy experiences, and investment opportunities that provide transformative solutions -including climate resilience, soil health, biodiversity, farmer incomes, and food security.

Particular emphasis will be placed on Agroecology last-mile delivery systems, digital advisory services, youth and women inclusion, market-responsive agroecology, and partnerships for scaling agroecological impact.

Participants can expect high-level policy-oriented dialogue, Country experiences, innovation showcases, and actionable pathways for mainstreaming agroecology into national food systems, extension services, and agricultural investment agendas across Africa.

IFAD enters the IFAD14 replenishment period as a significantly strengthened institution. Successive reforms have reinforced its decentralized delivery model, strengthened its financial architecture, expanded its capacity to leverage core resources, and deepened private sector engagement. At the same time, the development landscape is becoming increasingly challenging.

Fiscal space is tightening, debt vulnerabilities are growing, climate and conflict-related shocks are intensifying, and official development assistance is under pressure. Against this backdrop, the IFAD14 Ministerial Session will convene as a closed-door, high-level peer dialogue.

The session will provide an opportunity for Ministers to engage in a candid exchange on priorities, financing needs, and the level of ambition required to address the evolving challenges facing rural communities and food systems.

Building on donor-supported programmes, there is a growing need to scale inclusive agribusiness ecosystems in a sustainable and investment-ready way. This session will explore practical approaches to moving beyond isolated projects toward market systems that unlock growth, resilience, and job creation, particularly for youth- and women-led enterprises.

Bringing together a donor, a private sector actor, an economist, and an entrepreneur, the discussion will examine what enables scaling, mobilizing investment, and building sustainable ecosystems. The session will generate practical insights on how different actors can address structural constraints and support more inclusive and scalable agri-food systems across Africa.

Africa’s agrifood systems cannot achieve sustainable transformation without tackling persistent gender inequalities and social exclusion. Progress has been made in integrating gender into agricultural R4D, yet institutional capacity, long‑term financing, and coordination remain fragmented.

Meanwhile, global backlash against gender equality and declining development assistance risk reversing hard‑won gains. A critical shortage of African researchers with advanced expertise in gender, social inclusion, and agrifood transformation further limits progress.

This event convenes policymakers, researchers, universities, development partners, women and youth organizations, and private sector actors to discuss establishing an African‑led Center of Excellence on Gender and Social Inclusion Research in Agriculture.

The session explores partnership pathways, capacity gaps, sustainability mechanisms, and strengthening inclusive, evidence‑informed agrifood systems transformation across Africa.

Soil degradation, climate change and underinvestment are putting growing pressure on smallholder food systems across Africa. Sustainable agriculture can restore soil health, strengthen resilience and improve food and nutrition security – but financing the transition at scale remains a major challenge.

This interactive Solutions Lab will explore how high-integrity carbon finance can help mobilise investment for sustainable agriculture while delivering real benefits for farmers, landscapes and climate. Moving beyond a traditional panel, the session will use a participatory roundtable format that puts participants at the centre of the discussion.

The session will examine what it takes to make carbon finance work for smallholder farmers – from transition costs, MRV and advisory systems to governance, farmer incentives and investment models – and identify practical pathways for collaboration across research, finance, policy, implementation and carbon markets.

This high-level roundtable lunch will bring together senior African business leaders, government representatives and FAO leadership to discuss investment and partnership opportunities for agrifood systems transformation in Africa.

The conversation will explore how closer public-private cooperation, enabling policies and targeted investment could support innovation, market development, job creation and the growth of African agrifood enterprises.

Participants will exchange practical perspectives on barriers to investment and identify opportunities for future engagement between FAO, governments, financial institutions and private sector actors.

Public food procurement represents a powerful public investment lever to improve nutrition, strengthen local food economies, create opportunities for farmers and SMEs, and contribute to more resilient food systems. Yet these outcomes do not happen automatically.

This interactive session will explore how governments and partners can move from ambitious commitments to procurement systems that deliver in practice.

Drawing on emerging evidence and perspectives from government, local businesses, youth, funders and food systems practitioners, the discussion will examine practical models and experiences, implementation barriers and trade-offs, and the enabling conditions needed for success.

Participants will be invited to share experiences from across Africa and identify practical changes that can strengthen public food procurement and school meal programmes.

Closing the Loop, Circular Opportunities brings entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and food-system leaders together to explore how circular business models can strengthen African food systems.

Through practical case studies from Rwanda and across the continent, the session will show how businesses turn overlooked resources into valuable products, reduce waste and operating costs, create jobs and open new revenue streams.

Speakers will share what it takes to move successful ideas beyond individual enterprises and into wider markets, including the partnerships and enabling conditions that support scale. Audience polls, open discussion, networking and a product showcase will give participants space to exchange ideas, ask questions and identify opportunities for collaboration.

Sight and Life (SAL) work on fermentation includes the first-of-its-kind Special Report on Fermentation, and a new programme –Foundations for Scaling Fermented Foods in Nigeria and Ethiopia– generating country-level evidence to guide safe, effective scaleup of fermented foods across Africa.

SAL proposes to launch the report and programme to spotlight fermentation's potential to combat malnutrition, improve livelihoods and reduce food's climate impact. This session is the flagship to position fermentation on the continental agenda and anchor the evidence base for Ethiopia's national roadmap.

Session objectives 1)Launch the Special Report on Fermentation to a high-level, continental audience. 2)Position fermentation on the African food-systems agenda as a climate-smart, nutrition-sensitive solution strengthening local livelihoods - especially for women producers.

3)Inspire collaboration: driving innovation, attracting investment, and supporting evidence-informed policy on fermented foods

Do Large Language Models (LLMs) reflect gender needs? Is AI use designed to serve women? How can models better ensure inclusivity? As digitalisation, AI, big data, and digital platforms rapidly transform African agrifood systems, a critical question remains: are these technologies being designed with women, or merely deployed around them?

This thought-provoking session will explore how digital innovations–from advisory services and learning platforms to data systems, finance, and AI-enabled tools–can be designed to drive more inclusive and resilient food systems.

It brings together women leaders, innovators, policymakers, and investors to examine whether current AI models and digital systems adequately reflect women’s needs, experiences, and priorities.

Participants can expect evidence-based insights, inspiring leadership stories, and practical discussions on how to embed gender equality into the design, governance, financing, and scaling of digital agriculture solutions.

The Kampala Declaration reaffirms Africa's commitment to transforming agrifood systems as a pathway to food security, resilience, economic growth & shared prosperity.

It recognizes that achieving this vision requires inclusive, climate-resilient & market-oriented food systems that create opportunities for all–particularly women & young people, who are central to Africa's demographic & economic future.

Realizing these commitments depends on whether food systems transformation deliberately addresses structural inequalities that prevent women & young people from participating fully in & benefiting from agrifood economies.

This event will mobilize political commitment, partnerships, & investments to support gender equality, women’s empowerment & the progressive realization of the critical importance of equitable food systems. Discussions will explore how to coordinate investments that expand economic opportunities for a diversity of women.

FOOD 2050 is a feature-length documentary narrated, and executive produced by EGOT winner Viola Davis. The film originated from The Rockefeller Foundation’s Food System Vision Prize, a first-of-its-kind global call inviting anyone, anywhere to propose a vision for a nourishing, regenerative, and equitable food system by 2050.

Do Large Language Models (LLMs) reflect gender needs? Is AI use designed to serve women? How can models better ensure inclusivity? As digitalisation, AI, big data, and digital platforms rapidly transform African agrifood systems, a critical question remains: are these technologies being designed with women, or merely deployed around them?

This thought-provoking session will explore how digital innovations–from advisory services and learning platforms to data systems, finance, and AI-enabled tools–can be designed to drive more inclusive and resilient food systems.

It brings together women leaders, innovators, policymakers, and investors to examine whether current AI models and digital systems adequately reflect women’s needs, experiences, and priorities.

Participants can expect evidence-based insights, inspiring leadership stories, and practical discussions on how to embed gender equality into the design, governance, financing, and scaling of digital agriculture solutions.

The Seed Project Academy hosts a cocktail at the Africa Food Systems conference. SEED connects elite African basketball talent and leadership, collaborating on youth camps and clinics in Rwanda, Senegal, and other development initiatives. To address youth talent, professionalization, and unemployment, SEED aims to develop more young African talent for global placement by 2030.

The cocktail brings donors, institutional partners, and high-level partners to discuss SEED’s accomplishments and ambitions from 2026 to 2030, highlighting the vital training provided by linking agriculture to the Academy and amplifying and placing African talent worldwide.

This RFIP Partners Breakfast will showcase the emerging Rwanda Food Innovation Ecosystem Strategy (RFIES) and convene partners with a critical role to play in delivering its vision for Rwanda to become Africa's leading food innovation ecosystem by 2035.

It will provide details to raise awareness of the Strategy's vision, flagship programs, and specialized delivery vehicle, the Rwanda Food Innovation Partnership (RFIP). Partners will have opportunity to raise questions and opportunities for advancing the vision together in the coming year.

The Breakfast will finally introduce the RFIP Partners Group as the principal platform for multi-stakeholder coordination and collaboration in delivering this strategic vision, with clarity on how existing and prospective partners can engage in support of Rwanda's Food Innovation Ecosystem Strategy to drive transformational results for food security and nutrition, jobs and livelihoods, and nature in Rwanda and across Africa.

This session presents research on the “price cliff” phenomenon in African agri-food systems, in which expanding agricultural production within constrained Structural Adjustment Markets causes sharp farmgate price declines that erode smallholder incomes and disincentivise future investment.

Drawing on econometric and qualitative evidence from Zambia, Tanzania, and Ghana, BFAP researchers present findings on price volatility, farmer supply response, and the feedback effects on input use and productivity.

Following the presentation, invited value chain practitioners including farmers, traders, processors, and policymakers offer structured responses before the discussion is opened to the full room.

This session convenes senior policymakers, researchers, investors and private-sector leaders from Africa and Saudi Arabia to test how a KAUST–Africa Food Systems Translation Platform can move Africa–GCC food relationships beyond commodity trade toward structured partnerships in sourcing, processing, and market development.

Framing remarks and a moderated panel will surface how GCC capital, research capacity, and market demand can support more resilient African agri-food corridors. Participants then join parallel working roundtables on AI and food systems intelligence, policy and investment, and soil health and agri-innovation, each producing concrete takeaways.

The session closes with a plenary readout identifying a pathway for continued dialogue on a broader KAUST–Africa food systems platform beyond AFSF.

The Next Ag Investment Frontier Session will bring together donors, investors, and strategic partners to explore opportunities for accelerating agricultural transformation in Africa through investment in proven agricultural innovation pipeline.

The session will showcase AATF's 20+ years of experience in transferring, commercializing, and scaling agricultural technologies that improve productivity, resilience, and livelihoods.

Participants will gain insights into AATF's unique value proposition, measurable impact, and strategic vision for the next decade, including scaling market-ready technologies and advancing next-generation innovations that address farmers' evolving needs.

The session will also present investable opportunities, strengthen existing partnerships, cultivate new financing relationships, and catalyse follow-up engagements that translate into strategic collaborations and sustainable investment.

Innovation is essential to transforming agriculture, but complex farming challenges require dedicated space for bold ideas. This AFSF session showcases Incubating Innovation in Sustainable Farming, a key pillar of the CGIAR Sustainable Farming Program (SFP) and home to its Competitive Innovation Fund.

The fund applies private-sector portfolio management to public R&D, supporting high-risk, high-reward innovations that fall outside conventional investment pathways. The session features next-gen solutions: AI tools to reduce greenhouse gases, pest early-warning systems, smart solar irrigation, climate finance tech, AI-driven crop design, and satellite fertilizer advisories.

Through a live pitch format, CGIAR scientists will connect with donors, investors, governments, and private partners to explore opportunities for co-funding, co-development, and strategic collaboration.

This Breakthrough session presents REWARD as a continental model for coordinated regional investment: it will highlight the innovative financing mechanisms mobilized through the African Development Fund, the multi-country governance arrangements, and early implementation results since the programme's launch in 2025.

The discussion will explore how structured partnerships among donors, governments, the private sector, and regional organizations can turn isolated national gains into genuinely regional rice resilience, while placing youth and women at the heart of job and value creation along the rice chain.

Recent disruptions in Iran have shown the vulnerability of fossil-fuel-dependent agrifood systems, creating urgency for African governments to accelerate renewable energy-powered agricultural value chains. Rising energy costs and supply shocks threaten productivity, increase post-harvest losses, reduce farmer incomes, and undermine climate resilience.

Regenerative agriculture, combined with renewable energy for irrigation, processing, storage and value addition, offers a pathway to build resilient, productive and competitive food systems.

While the CAADP Kampala Declaration calls for stronger cross-sector coordination, implementation remains constrained by fragmented policies, weak investment pipelines and limited evidence for scale.

Drawing on July 2026 policy dialogues convened by SNV, AGRA and GOGLA in Kenya and Uganda, and a synthesis by AKADEMIYA2063, this session explores pathways to strengthen policy coherence, mobilise investment and scale integrated food-energy solutions.

Africa's RTB sector could generate more than USD 140 billion in additional market value by 2050 but only if investment, policy, and innovation can scale fast enough.

This side event, co-organised by International Potato Center (CIP) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), brings together evidence from innovative seed system initiatives alongside national partnership models to chart a shared agenda for continental scale-up of root, tuber and banana (RTB) crops.

The session will catalyse named investment and policy commitments from governments, development finance institutions, and agribusiness to accelerate RTB transformation across Africa.

Rwanda has made remarkable progress toward universal school feeding while advancing ambitious climate and clean energy goals. As the country modernizes school meal preparation, clean cooking offers an opportunity to improve efficiency, strengthen food safety, reduce emissions, and create healthier working environments.

This roundtable will bring together government, researchers, development partners, investors, and practitioners to discuss emerging findings from a pre-feasibility study on centralized and hybrid clean kitchen models for Rwanda's national school feeding programme.

Participants will explore operational, financial, and policy pathways for scaling clean cooking infrastructure, including opportunities for blended finance, climate finance, and carbon markets. The session will identify practical partnerships and investment pathways to accelerate Rwanda's transition to cleaner, more resilient institutional cooking systems.

This invite-only roundtable will explore one of the biggest barriers to scaling climate and agrifood investment: the shortage of investment-ready pipeline. The session will present recent research showing that the key constraint is not the availability of capital, but the lack of investable opportunities.

Participants will discuss why pre-investment technical assistance remains chronically underfunded, and how fragmented approaches–where individual funds build separate TA facilities and donor programmes often operate independently of investor needs–create inefficiencies.

The roundtable will also explore a proposed shared investment-readiness facility that pools pre-investment support, strengthens feedback between investors and pipeline developers, and uses a returnable-grant model to recycle catalytic capital and accelerate investment-ready pipeline development.

Climate finance to build resilience and reduce emissions is creating an opportunity for soil health investments on smallholder farms, yet evidence on whether and how benefits reach farmers remains limited. This side event examines these questions through experience with Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW), the application of crushed silicate rock to farmland.

The evidence base is nascent but growing: field trials with smallholder farmers report yield gains, associated with improved soil pH and nutrient availability, alongside durable carbon removal that enables full financing through climate finance, including carbon markets. Deployments are underway in Zambia, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Cameroon.

By bringing together scientists, innovators, funders, national research partners and farmers, this side-event will interrogate the scientific, economic, and implementation challenges of scaling credible, farmer centered models, including the risks.

Through perspectives from research, investment, policy and practice, participants will identify the conditions needed to translate carbon markets into lasting improvements for African soils, resilient food systems and rural livelihoods.

Across Africa, climate shocks, environmental risks, and global health crises and regional conflicts strain food systems and undermine agricultural resilience. Drawing on climate risk evidence continent-wide, this session explores how countries can shift from crisis response to preparedness and food sovereignty.

Examples span Madagascar, where resilience depends on hazard exposure, risk perception, and institutional constraints; IFPRI's work with governments in Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, and Senegal on anticipatory action and risk financing; and the World Bank's Food Systems Resilience Program, showcasing climate-smart innovations like resilient crop varieties, seed systems, and farmer-led mechanization.

The session links national lessons to regional frameworks (COMESA, SADC), fostering dialogue and partnerships. Participants leave with practical strategies and a shared vision for resilient, sovereign African food systems built on country-led evidence and regional collaboration.

Agroecology is increasingly recognized as a pathway to more resilient, productive, and sustainable food systems. The African Union's CAADP Strategy and Action Plan 2026–2035 provides an important framework for advancing sustainable and inclusive agrifood system transformation.

This event will explore the evolving agroecology policy landscape across Africa, highlighting emerging National Agroecology Strategies and policy reforms. Participants will share experiences on integrating agroecological principles into agricultural, climate, biodiversity, and food systems policies.

Through a panel discussion of policymakers, researchers, and practitioners, the session will examine lessons learned, opportunities for scaling successful approaches, and pathways for creating enabling policies. The event aims to support countries developing National Agroecology Strategies and provide actionable recommendations.

This workshop will present the emerging CGIAR Africa Strategy to a wide range of African partners and stakeholders, inviting feedback, inputs and guidance to strengthen its relevance, ownership and impact.

The strategy will be shared as a draft framework for discussion, not a finalized institutional document, creating space for co-creation with governments, regional and subregional organizations, African research institutions, farmer organizations, private-sector actors, finance and development partners, and civil society.

Participants will reflect on how the strategy can better align with continental priorities, including the Kampala Declaration, CAADP implementation, climate resilience, food systems transformation and the lead-up to COP32 in Ethiopia.

Through facilitated discussion, the workshop will identify priority areas for collaboration, gaps to address, and practical ways CGIAR can work with African partners to support science-based delivery, investment and impact at scale.

This event will explore FASA’s innovative architecture as a multi-donor fund-of-funds advancing Africa’s agri-food systems. Through catalytic capital, capacity building and a learning agenda, FASA supports investment funds contributing to food security, improved livelihoods and climate-smart agriculture solutions, offering a practical illustration of this year’s AFSF themes.

The session will showcase current investments and how FASA drives impact on the ground. It will also highlight FASA’s support to investee funds in strengthening climate resilience and integrating climate risk assessments into fund operations and investment processes through targeted training and technical assistance.

The session will also present FASA’s learning agenda, including its science-driven approach to evidencing impact, and its first report, The Landscape of Agri-SME Funds in Africa, providing key insights on impact opportunities, success factors and funding gaps across the sector.

The AgriLLM Showcase is an interactive demonstration event that brings together researchers, developers, policymakers, development organizations, investors, and technology partners to experience the practical applications of AgriLLM through live demonstrations and discussions.

The event also serves as the official launch-pad for the upcoming AgriLLM Hackathon following the African Food System Forum and broader innovation activities of IAAI, inviting the community to contribute new use cases, applications, and partnerships.

This interactive workshop, facilitated by Dr. Juergen Hagmann (PICOTeam), convenes a diverse group of African stakeholders – farmers, youth, women leaders, scientists, private sector actors, civil society, and policymakers – to co-shape CGIAR's Strategy to 2040.

The Strategy will guide global agricultural research and innovation investments over the next 15 years with the global south at is core.

Through participatory dialogue, participants will explore CGIAR's future value proposition, identify priorities for climate resilience, food systems transformation, and inclusive innovation, and surface strategic choices anchored in African realities and ambitions.

Outcomes will feed directly into CGIAR's stakeholder engagement process and the Synthesis Report informing the 2040 Strategy.

Following the 2nd Livestock Ministerial Deep Dive, this high-level networking reception will bring together Ministers and senior government representatives, development partners, investors, private sector leaders, youth innovators, and regional institutions to strengthen partnerships for livestock transformation across Africa.

The reception will provide an informal platform to continue discussions initiated during the Ministerial session, identify opportunities for collaboration and investment, and foster connections that can accelerate regional livestock value chains, trade, food security, and resilient food systems.

Participants will engage directly with decision-makers and sector leaders committed to advancing livestock's contribution to Africa's agri-food systems transformation.

Nourishing Nations: Investing in Africa's Food Future: Agriculture remains one of Africa's largest economic sectors and one of its greatest opportunities for creating jobs, improving food security, and building resilience to climate change. Yet unlocking that potential will require continued investment in innovation and stronger partnerships across sectors.

The Gates Foundation Partner Reception will convene leaders from government, research, philanthropy, and the private sector to discuss the ideas and investments shaping the future of African food systems. The event will feature remarks from Gates Foundation leadership and explore how innovation can help drive economic growth and opportunity across the continent.

This invitation-only roundtable convenes DFIs, technical assistance providers, catalytic funders, and ecosystem practitioners to explore how to move beyond grants toward coordinated market creation in African agri-food systems.

Drawing on frontier evidence from markets including Kenya and Uganda, participants will examine how agricultural data stacks, digitized cooperatives, and AI-enabled lending tools unlock investment pipelines – especially for women-led agribusinesses.

Designed for candor and action, the session aligns participants around a shared investment thesis, reviews concrete co-investment cases, and produces coordinated next steps across donors, DFIs, and technical partners.

This session explores how strategic investments in youth, research, and inclusive markets are driving a sustainable rice sector across Africa. Combining the distinct insights of three major initiatives, the discussion focuses on empowering the next generation to lead food systems transformation, build climate resilience, and generate decent employment.

The event showcases the RIZAO program’s multi-country framework in West Africa, demonstrating how coordinated investments, private sector engagement, and financial inclusion create job opportunities for young people and women across the entire rice value chain.

Alongside market development, the session highlights the AS1000 initiative, a bold effort to bridge the continent’s scientific capacity gap by supporting 1,000 African doctoral fellows. Together, these initiatives position structured workforce training, policy innovation, and agricultural entrepreneurship as strategic investments to secure Africa's future food security.

Rwanda’s food systems can drive jobs, nutrition, resilience, and economic growth, but limited access to finance continues to constrain youth- and women-led agrifood enterprises.

This event will bring together policymakers, investors, financial institutions, development partners, and entrepreneurs to unlock investment opportunities for inclusive and climate-resilient food systems.

Discussions will focus on innovative financing, investment readiness, nutrition-sensitive and climate-resilient agribusiness, digital solutions, and partnerships that expand market access and employment.

The event aims to catalyze partnerships, strengthen investment readiness, improve access to finance, and showcase the One UN approach as a platform for scaling food systems transformation in Rwanda and across Africa.

As shifts in the global funding landscape accelerate interest in catalytic capital, blended finance, and private sector partnerships, critical questions remain about how these resources can drive inclusive food systems transformation, especially in fragile contexts.

Too often, innovative financing fails to reach smallholder producers, local enterprises, and rural retailers, or address the interconnected market barriers that limit systemic change in shock-prone contexts.

This session will explore evidence-based approaches to designing and deploying finance that delivers measurable outcomes in job creation, enterprise growth, climate resilience and food security.

Through practical examples and expert perspectives, participants will examine how financial instruments can better serve last-mile communities, how to build investable pipelines balancing social impact with investor returns, and how technical assistance can be effectively integrated and financed to maximize results.

As ODA declines, Africa’s agri-food systems face a critical financing gap despite growing investment needs for food security, employment, and resilience. This session will explore how development actors can catalyse partnership models that mobilise public and private, partnerships for scalable impact.

The Smallholder SustaiNability Upscaling Programme (SSNUP) provides an example of such partnership funded by Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, and managed by ADA in partnership with impact investors. By co-financing technical assistance and promoting investment across agricultural value chains.

SSNUP already reached 900,000 farmers and helped mobilise over EUR 600 M in private investment ssnup.org As another partnership model, the Path-to-growth framework regroups market key players around the objective of capacity building towards investment readiness. The framework not only supports SMEs but as well coordinates activities amongst the actors of the local ecosystem.

Agricultural extension and advisory services are fundamental to transforming Africa's food systems, yet they remain underfunded, fragmented, and unable to meet the needs of millions of farmers.

This session will bring together governments, farmer organizations, development partners, private sector actors, research institutions, and extension practitioners to accelerate collective action through the Africa Extension Coalition (AEC).

Participants will reflect on progress made since the Coalition's launch–including establishment of national coalitions, rollout of the Extension Systems Assessment Tool (Ext-SAT), digital community building, and government engagement–while identifying priorities for scaling impact across the continent.

The session will showcase practical country experiences, foster new partnerships, and mobilize commitments to strengthen farmer-centred extension systems that drive productivity, resilience, youth employment, and inclusive food systems transformation.

The session unveils Somalia's boldest food-systems initiative yet – 3 projects, 1 platform, a shared national vision.

Following an RF Catalytic Capital supported design, coordinated with the Government of Somalia, RFCC commits catalytic capital to 3 locally led initiatives: Nafaqo Kitchen, a school feeding programme led by Hormuud Salaama Foundation; Odoros, Somalia's first AI-powered national early warning platform; and a Somalia Nutrition & Food Security Alliance to be co-led by Somali Banks.

These nationally owned projects form Somalia's first integrated platform where food security, climate intelligence, and sustainable finance converge. Somalia is open and eager to attract investment. The session convenes a robust discussion on the way forward - from design to delivery. Above all, it signals that Somalia is building its own solutions.

Public, private and philanthropic partners and financiers are warmly welcome!

The keynote will establish the narrative for the four-day programme. It should present Rwanda’s food-system journey honestly recognising significant progress while acknowledging the challenges of climate change, limited land, population pressure, affordability of healthy diets, access to finance and the need to create better economic opportunities for young people and women.

It should also invite other countries to compare experiences and help identify practical lessons that can be applied across Africa. It will highlight the expected outcomes to move forward the Rwanda Agri-Food Transformation.

Format: Round table – Q&A

Lead institutions: MINAGRI, MOE, RGF, One Acre Fund, AGRA, FAO, CGIAR

Key highlights and recommendations: Christian Sangwa, GanzAfrica

Format: Panel discussion – Q&A

Lead institutions: Visit Rwanda, Rwanda Development Board, Ministry of Environment, Rwanda Green Fund, MINAGRI, GVTC, Rwanda Environment Management Authority

Key highlights and recommendations: GanzAfrica team

Format: Panel discussion – Q&A

Lead institutions: RAB, RICA, University of Rwanda, CGIAR centres/IITA, Green Climate Fund, Gates Foundation, Tony Blair Institute, NIRDA, NISR, Rwanda Space Agency, IFPRI, ACADEMIA 2063, OATH Africa

Key highlights and recommendations: GanzAfrica team

Format: Ministerial panel discussion – Q&A

Lead institutions: MINECOFIN, MINAGRI, Rwanda Green Fund/FONERWA, National Bank of Rwanda, financial institutions, World Bank, IFC and development-finance partners, Rwanda Banker’s Association, AFR, BRD

Key highlights and recommendations: GanzAfrica team

Format: High-level, invitations only – Rwanda-organized dinner for targeted invitees

Venue: TBD

Lead institution: MINAGRI and RGF

Format: Panel discussion – Q&A

Lead institutions: Rwanda Youth in Agribusiness Forum, Mastercard Foundation, AGRA, University of Rwanda, NIRDA, MINICT, TVET, GMO, UNDP, RISA, MOYA

Key highlights and recommendations: GanzAfrica team

Format: Panel discussion – Q&A

Lead institutions: MINAGRI and RAB, One Acre Fund, IFAD, FAO, World Bank, Heifer International, Ripple Effect, local NGOs, farmers’ organisations, financial institutions, AGRA

Key highlights and recommendations: GanzAfrica team

Format: Panel discussion – Q&A

Lead institutions: National Child Development Agency (NCDA), Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education

Contributing: UNICEF, GAIN, East Africa Exchange, financial institutions, Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority, Rwanda Standards Board, RICA, WFP

Organizers: AGRA Malawi, Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, Malawi

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 2

This session presents Malawi's Anchor Farm/Mega Farm Investment Program, a US$2.4 billion pipeline transforming underutilized arable land and irrigation potential into a commercially competitive agricultural platform. The program spans seven priority value chains: maize, rice, groundnuts, soybean, beef, aquaculture and honey anchored by commercial farms linked to structured outgrower networks across 408,000 hectares of irrigable land. Participants will hear from Malawi's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development on investment-ready district clusters, government de-risking measures (including guaranteed offtake, tax incentives and duty-free capital goods), and the pipeline's projected 389,476 direct jobs. The session is designed for investors exploring equity, debt and blended-finance opportunities in production, aggregation, processing and value-addition across Malawi's agri-food sector.

Organizers: AFSF

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 1

The Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) Deal Room is one of Africa’s longest running agribusiness investment matchmaking platforms, with almost ten years of experience connecting high potential SMEs, investors, governments, development partners, and business support organizations. The platform serves as a strategic space where investment-ready enterprises and countries meet capital providers, development partners, policy makers, and ecosystem actors to unlock financing, partnerships, innovation, and growth across Africa’s food systems.

Organizers: Welthungerhilfe (WHH)

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 1

The WHH Sustainable Food Systems Investment Deal Room at the Africa Food Systems Forum connects promising African SMEs with investors, policymakers, donors, ecosystem actors and strategic partners. Under the theme “Agroecology, productive-use energy and resilient food value chains”, the Deal Room showcases 31 locally rooted enterprises offering practical solutions across sustainable agriculture, clean energy, cold chain, irrigation, food processing, soil health and circular economy models. The companies have been sourced through Seeding The Future Global Food System Challenge, Innovation Portfolio, the Agri-Energy Coalition, and its partnership with Biovision Foundation and other ecosystem partners. The ambition is to help these enterprises access finance, technical assistance, market connections, partnerships and other beyond-finance support needed to scale their impact.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SiC2vrnTGl3buZ1XfR_HgaLwp6DQKLUN/view?usp=drive_link

Organizers: Ministry of Agriculture; Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, Agriculture Transformation Office (ATO)

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Main Stage

The session will present Tanzania’s National Agriculture, Livestock & Fisheries Investment Platform, showcasing how the country’s food, livestock and fisheries production base can be converted into bankable regional investment opportunities. It will focus on six priority value-chain platforms: maize, edible oils, avocado, red meat, dairy, and fisheries/blue economy. Participants can expect to explore flagship projects, investment entry points, financing requirements, enabling infrastructure, delivery institutions, and Tanzania’s access to EAC, SADC and AfCFTA markets. The session will also highlight the role of ATO, sector ministries, TISEZA and other institutions in facilitating investment and delivering AMP 2050 priorities.

Organizers: Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Government of Sierra Leone

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 2

Sierra Leone eats more rice per capita than nearly any nation on earth, yet imports roughly 30% of it, around $167 million a year – because local milling cannot match imported quality. This session presents a bankable solution: an integrated 80,000 MT/year rice milling facility, anchored in the government's Special Agro-Processing Zone in Kambia. Led by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security under President Bio's Feed Salone agenda, the session sets out the investment case – market, structure, returns, and impact – and the blended-finance approach designed to crowd in private capital alongside DFIs and impact investors. The facility is projected to grow to over $100 million in annual revenue by Year 10, create thousands of jobs across the value chain, and source paddy from thousands of smallholder farmers, most of them women. Investors, development partners, and financiers are invited to explore a de-risked, commercially viable entry point into West Africa's rice economy.

Organizers: Welthungerhilfe (WHH)

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 1

The WHH Sustainable Food Systems Investment Deal Room connects promising African SMEs with investors, donors, policymakers, ecosystem actors and strategic partners. Under the theme “Agroecology, productive-use energy and resilient food value chains,” 31 enterprises will pitch locally rooted solutions spanning sustainable agriculture, clean energy, irrigation, cold chain, soil health, food processing, digital agriculture and circular economy models. The companies have been sourced through Seeding The Future Global Food System Challenge, Innovation Portfolio, the Agri-Energy Coalition, Biovision Foundation partnership and other ecosystem partners. The Deal Room aims to help enterprises access finance, technical assistance, market connections and strategic partnerships needed to scale.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SiC2vrnTGl3buZ1XfR_HgaLwp6DQKLUN/view?usp=drive_link

Organizers: Welthungerhilfe (WHH)

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 1

The WHH Sustainable Food Systems Investment Deal Room connects promising African SMEs with investors, donors, policymakers, ecosystem actors and strategic partners. Under the theme “Agroecology, productive-use energy and resilient food value chains,” 31 enterprises will pitch locally rooted solutions spanning sustainable agriculture, clean energy, irrigation, cold chain, soil health, food processing, digital agriculture and circular economy models. The companies have been sourced through Seeding The Future Global Food System Challenge, Innovation Portfolio, the Agri-Energy Coalition, Biovision Foundation partnership and other ecosystem partners. The Deal Room aims to help enterprises access finance, technical assistance, market connections and strategic partnerships needed to scale.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SiC2vrnTGl3buZ1XfR_HgaLwp6DQKLUN/view?usp=drive_link

Organizers: International Trade Centre (ITC)

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 1

We are pleased to present a curated selection of agribusinesses from ITC's Alliances for Action initiative in Africa: enterprises that are not only commercially viable, but actively driving positive change across their value chains. From smallholder farmer networks, youth-focused initiatives, and women-led cooperatives to innovative processors and export-ready brands, each company in this catalogue represents a proven model of inclusive, sustainable growth. They are investment-ready, impact-driven, and primed for the partnerships that can take them further. We invite you to explore their stories and the opportunities they represent.

https://www.intracen.org/ · https://www.intracen.org/our-work/topics/food-and-agriculture/agribusiness-and-food-systems

Organizers: Ministry of Agriculture, Liberia

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 2

It is a US$1 billion agricultural transformation initiative to scale mechanized production, agro-processing and value addition across Liberia’s priority value chains of Maize, Cassava, Coffee, Oil palm and Rice

Organizers: Climate Policy Initiative (CPI)

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 1

CPI's ClimateShot Investor Coalition (CLIC) Connector invites you to its annual climate and nature deal room at AFSF. Join us for our flagship showcase with eight new agribusinesses from our 2026 sub-Saharan Africa cohort. We are pleased to present: - Afri-Farmers Market, strengthening market access and cold chains for Rwandan farmers; - Agri-Invest, advancing sustainable rice production in Cameroon; - CoolCatch, reducing aquaculture losses in Kenya and Uganda; - eSusFarm, expanding access to insurance and credit for smallholders; - Kodu Technology, transforming agricultural waste into biodegradable sanitary pads in Ghana; - Nimsy Agro Solar Concept, providing solar irrigation in Nigeria; - Pollen Patrollers, using IoT-enabled hives and precision pollination to support beekeepers in Kenya; and - Rada 360, delivering weather, early-warning and crop-monitoring tools to Tanzanian farmers.

https://climateshotinvestor.org/ · https://climateshotinvestor.org/agribusinesses

Organizers: Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 2

The Somalia Legacy Program is a US$1.38 billion program targeting six-value-chain investment package building production, irrigation, storage, processing and export infrastructure. It is anchored by US$503 million which is already mobilized by Government and its partners. The target value chains are Maize, Sorghum, fodder, lime, sesame and cowpeas

Organizers: Government of Nigeria

Location: MH3

This session introduces Irrigate Nigeria, a flagship programme turning underused irrigation infrastructure into a performance-driven national production system. Backed by the Federal Government of Nigeria, with AGRA as technical partner, the programme addresses the missing link between water, energy, farmer organization, financing and markets by enabling reliable dry-season production. An immediate US$210 million pilot will cover 30,000 hectares and 8,000 farmers across four states, with potential to scale to US$6 billion across 1 million hectares and 360,000 farmers. Participants will explore the completed programme design, cluster-based PPP delivery model, rollout plan, and opportunities for direct co-investment in Nigeria.

Organizers: Government of Rwanda

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Main Stage

This session showcases a replicable, scalable greenhouse-enabled horticulture investment in Rwanda, combining 5 hectares of greenhouse production, 40 hectares of on-farm production, and aggregation from roughly 250 smallholder farmers into a single hub with cold storage, grading and export packing. Focused on high-value crops – chillis, French beans and strawberries – the model responds to Rwanda's fast-growing horticulture export market (32% annual growth) and quality-constrained local supply. Participants will hear from Rwanda's Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI) on the investment case, including a target project IRR of 61%, projected 700+ direct jobs (over 70% suited for women), and a capital structure blending 80% debt and 20% equity. The session is aimed at debt and equity investors, development finance institutions and impact funders interested in Rwanda's horticulture value chain.

Organizers: Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF)

Location: MH1 – Investment Room Deal Room 2

The Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) Deal Room is one of Africa’s longest running agribusiness investment matchmaking platforms, with almost ten years of experience connecting high potential SMEs, investors, governments, development partners, and business support organizations. The platform serves as a strategic space where investment-ready enterprises and countries meet capital providers, development partners, policy makers, and ecosystem actors to unlock financing, partnerships, innovation, and growth across Africa’s food systems.