How country priorities shaped the Hub’s engagement at Africa Food Systems Forum 2026
Kigali, Rwanda | 31 August- 4 September 2026
More than 5,000 participants from over 50 countries gathered in Kigali for the 20th Africa Food Systems Forum, held under the theme Investing in Africa’s Agri-Food Systems: Nourishing Nations, Growing Jobs, Building Resilience. Across the week, discussions focused on how countries can connect their food systems priorities with the policies, institutions and investment needed to deliver them.
Ahead of the Forum, the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub published key messages for AFSF 2026, drawing on the UNFSS+4 Call to Action, the 4th Africa Regional Food Systems Transformation Meeting and its work with National Food Systems Convenors. The messages highlighted priorities including stronger policy coherence, country-led financing and investment, climate resilience, youth leadership, science and innovation.
These priorities shaped the Hub’s engagement in Kigali. The Hub organized or co-organized five events and contributed to seven further programme sessions, including four on the main programme, alongside bilateral meetings with country representatives and partners. Across these engagements, the Hub kept country priorities and the role of National Food Systems Convenors at the center.
Connecting national pathways with the CAADP Kampala agenda
A central theme in Kigali was the relationship between countries’ national food systems pathways and the new decade of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme under the Kampala Declaration and Action Plan.
In a Hub and AUDA-NEPAD session on coherent CAADP-Kampala-based food systems policies, National Convenors and stakeholders from Algeria, Botswana, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia shared how their countries are tackling coordination, financing and accountability. Across the country examples, common needs included stronger coordination across ministries, sustained financing and closer links between food systems, climate, trade and national development priorities.
The discussion also reflected the Hub’s AFSF 2026 emphasis on closer alignment between national food systems pathways, CAADP Kampala and global commitments, alongside stronger collaboration between National Convenors, CAADP focal points and sector ministries.
The Hub also brought National Convenors and CAADP focal persons together for an informal exchange with colleagues from AUDA-NEPAD and FAO, focused on current country priorities and support needs. Convenors highlighted the value of stronger alignment between food systems monitoring and the CAADP Biennial Review and clearer links between its indicators and other reporting frameworks. Country representatives invited by the Hub also used the Forum to bring national experience directly into plenaries, side events and technical discussions.
Financing country-led action
With investment at the heart of the Forum, several Hub engagements focused on how countries can build well-structured programmes and investment plans around national priorities.
At a masterclass on financing National Agrifood Systems Investment Plans (NASIPs), the Hub highlighted its partnership with AUDA-NEPAD and the complementary support available through several Hub initiatives. The Food Systems and Climate Action Convergence Initiative, supported by the Netherlands and active in eight African countries, strengthens coordination across food systems, climate and related national priorities. The EU-supported Scalable Success Model provides targeted support to countries while strengthening links with regional frameworks such as CAADP. The Joint SDG Fund Food Systems Transformation Window adds a financing mechanism, with 29 joint UN programmes activated across 26 countries under Resident Coordinator leadership. Together, these initiatives combine coordination, technical support, and financing around national priorities, working through existing institutions and structures.
The Hub also joined partners for a side event organized with the Agrifood Systems Accelerator on Turning Food Systems Plans into Action, which examined practical obstacles governments face when financing and carrying out national plans. The Accelerator supports the Hub’s country-level mandate by bringing technical partners and financing actors around national priorities, with a focus on the institutional capacity and sequencing needed to move investment forward.
Climate resilience and locally adapted solutions
Climate action featured in many of the week’s discussions. In the Forum’s climate resilience plenary, Hub Senior Programme Coordinator Khaled Eltaweel stressed the importance of aligning national food systems pathways with Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans so countries can develop clearer, country-owned investment priorities.
In eight African countries, the Convergence Initiative is already supporting stronger coordination between food systems and climate institutions and policies, using existing national structures rather than creating parallel ones.
A Hub event with the Government of Brazil offered a different example. Brazil’s Cisterns Program showed how relatively low-cost rainwater harvesting and storage can strengthen food production, livelihoods and climate resilience in semi-arid communities. The discussion looked at what countries can learn from such experiences while adapting solutions to their own circumstances.
That same principle came through in a Forum discussion on South-South and Triangular Cooperation. As Eltaweel noted, “The emphasis should be on adaptation rather than simply transferring models.” The Hub’s regional meetings and country exchanges provide spaces for governments to compare experience and assess what can work in their own institutional, economic and environmental context.
Bringing youth and evidence into national decisions
Youth leadership had a particularly visible place in the Hub’s programme in Kigali. Through its Youth Leadership Programme (YLP), the Hub organized a Science-Policy-Society Interface session with the African Food Fellowship, bringing young leaders, researchers, policymakers and National Convenors into discussion about how evidence and lived experience can inform national food systems decisions. In line with the CAADP 2026-2035 vision for science-based, inclusive transformation, the approach pairs each interface with a national mechanism to continue the work, and a new cohort of young leaders who can help set priorities and follow-up at country level.
AFSF also offered participants a first look at the new Youth Leadership Programme Toolkit. The self-paced online resource includes seven modules and 83 lessons on systems thinking, foresight, collaboration, partnership-building, advocacy, and strategic action. Members of the Programme's first cohort contributed directly to its development, drawing on their own experience of the YLP. Developed with support from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and Foresight4Food, the Toolkit will be officially launched on 30 September.
Science also anchored a broader discussion on the future of Africa’s food systems. In collaboration with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the African Union, the Hub supported a stakeholder consultation for a strategic foresight study – exploring what it will take for Africa to sustainably feed and nourish an estimated 2.5 billion people by 2050. Participants examined demographic and settlement changes, cross-border mobility, and other emerging trends that could influence policy and investment choices in the years ahead.
Keeping country experience connected to regional action
Much of the Hub’s work in Kigali also happened outside formal sessions. Bilateral meetings brought the Hub together with National Convenors, AUDA-NEPAD, the African Food Systems Parliamentary Network, FARA, the Netherlands Food Partnership, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Agrifood Systems Accelerator and other partners. These exchanges strengthened collaboration across the wider Ecosystem of Support and gave the Hub a stronger basis for bringing relevant partners around country priorities.
A meeting with Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, African Union Special Envoy for Food Systems, focused on an ambitious food systems agenda for Africa, including governance, science, closer alignment with CAADP Kampala and continued support for national food systems pathways.
The Forum also built on the 4th Africa Regional Food Systems Transformation Meeting, convened in Accra in May, where National Convenors had highlighted many of the same priorities – stronger institutional coordination, policy coherence, financing and investment, resilient food systems, youth leadership and greater regional exchange. In Kigali, those themes were taken up in wider conversations with governments, investors, regional institutions, researchers and the private sector.
The work now continues at country level, where national institutions, Convenors and partners will use these discussions to shape budgets, investment plans and the next phase of country-led work.
