By Jeff Kapembwa
The 20th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), summit opened for deliberations in Kampala capital, Kigali, with former Nigerian Head of State, Geoduck Jonathan reminding Africa to maximize its food security potential and improve its food system.
The summit dubbed: “Investing in Africa’s Agri-Food Systems: Nourishing Nations, Growing Jobs, Building Resilience” the former Nigerian leader, who served as an ambassador for agricultural technology, noted that Africa’s long-term stability and economic growth is dependent on transforming its vast natural wealth and arable land into competitive, productive agrifood industries.
Jonathan reminded African nations to devise sustained and bankable projects and policies aimed at ensuring agriculture is supported to remain each country’s economic mainstay amid El Nino driven drought and other headwinds, lying in waiting.
President Jonathan has during the forum been joined by four other former African heads of state on the newly formed Council of the Wise, a flagship platform designed to guide leadership, resilience, and the strategic direction of Africa’s food systems.
Serving as an ambassador for agricultural technology, Jonathan emphasized that Africa’s long-term stability and economic growth depend on transforming its vast natural wealth and arable land into competitive, productive agrifood industries.
The meeting is seeking consensus on the need to De-risk agricultural lending to grant smallholder farmers easier access to affordable credit.
There are calls too, on the need to utilize agricultural innovations and technology to combat climate shocks, pests, and food insecurity.
Engaging the youth demographic to treat agriculture as a profitable business rather than a subsistence struggle.
The landmark meeting expected to moot Africa’s food security destiny has incorporated key continental discussions on the CAADP, specifically focusing on the newly structured Kampala CAADP Strategy and Action Plan (2026–2035).
Since inception in 2003, architects of CAADP has persistently called for Africa’s food sovereignty and sustained availability to meet the needs of the over 3 billion inhabitants with a call for each country to set aside 10 percent of their annual budgets into support the growth the agriculture sector.
However, despite repeated call for countries to commit their annual budgets with 10 percent support to promoting agriculture, a measure of averting food scarcity, most countries have hovered around 0.4-07 percent allocation towards agriculture, which has continued leaving gaps for food security, data shows.
Other leaders stressed the call for embracing digital technology, climate-smart innovations, and strong public-private partnerships, Africa must transition from a net food importer to a self-sufficient, producing continent.
The Leaders urged cooperating partners and governments to bridge the financing gap to make national agrifood investment plans succeed.
There was sustained call for structurally bringing young agripreneurs and women into the primary value chain. Recalling the “Kampala Decade”, the meeting unanimously sought to uphold its objective of ensuring it is attained by scaling youth-led agritech innovations and removing the strict financial barriers that limit their growth
Leaders had during the forum explicitly noted that the continent has spent 20 years formulating blueprints. With the transition from the previous Malabo targets toward the new Kampala CAADP Strategy and Action Plan (2026–2035).
The speakers declared that the upcoming decade will be measured solely by concrete results—such as hectares of land restored, markets expanded, and agro-processing industries built.
other speakers from the African Union Commission and AUDA-NEPAD roundly called for the continent to tap into the continent’s potential ensure raw materials and transformed into finished products before exporting to ensure there are real returns.
Nations, the meeting sought should prioritize agro-industrialization to process food locally, capture maximum value, and generate vital rural jobs. To explicitly realize this potential, the framework targets a 45% increase in total agrifood output across the continent by 2035.
Another key consensus among continental leadership was the need to unlock agricultural potential which is structurally tied to open borders and major capital injections. Various speakers called for support towards the continent’s flagship- African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
There is unwavering call for an aggressive alignment of agricultural trade with the AfCFTA. They noted that Africa cannot be “aggressively tapping its potential” if internal trade barriers remain.