Strengthening partnerships for sustainable agrifood system development in Africa

Summary

Executive summary

African economies have recorded notable progress in food production, processing and distribution. However, significant challenges and failures persist in its agrifood systems, leading to an alarmingly poor state of food and nutrition security across the continent.^{1 2}The continent’s agrifood systems remain susceptible to various shocks and stressors owing to climate variability, economic volatility, political instability and public health threats, factors which have continued to pose significant risks and challenges to African agrifood systems. Relatedly, there has been growing concern over Africa’s slow progress towards achieving targets set under key continental policy frameworks, such as the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

In recognition of Africa’s latent agricultural potential, implementation challenges and funding difficulties, international cooperating partners (ICPs) continue to support the sector through aid and foreign direct investment (FDI), with endeavours focusing on research, capacity building, technology transfer and facilitating market access. Germany, one such ICP, has expressed its commitment to making African agrifood systems crisis-resilient through its different institutions. For instance, Germany supported the CAADP strategy development and the participation of African civil society in this process. Additionally, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) have expressed their commitment to ensuring that Africa becomes food secure and experiences growth in its agricultural sector (BMEL, 2021; BMZ, 2023).

Additionally, since 2004, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has been a reliable and trusted partner across selected African Union (AU) member states, supporting the promotion of inclusive growth and sustainable development on the continent in line with the AU’s Agenda 2063. The GIZ-AU partnership cooperates with the AU Commission at continental, regional and national levels, with footprints in more than 35 member states (GIZ, 2020). The partnership collaborates with the AU’s specialised institutions and agencies to promote development in key areas, including agrifood systems transformation.³

While these commitments are commendable, the policy, focus, scale and engagement approach of Germany towards Africa’s agrifood system is still unclear: Data on this is not coherently available online. Consequently, through a desk review as well as key informant interviews (KIIs) with key stakeholders, this study identifies key actors, policy frameworks and their roles in Germany’s partnership with Africa in the area of agrifood systems transformation. It goes on to explore the focus and scale of the partnerships and concludes by proposing mechanisms for strengthening any new partnerships that may evolve, particularly under the new CAADP Kampala Declaration and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Findings show that Germany's commitment to African agrifood systems is embedded in global (e.g., UN SDGs), regional (EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS and SADC) and national policies that guide, govern and shape the partnerships. Germany engages with Africa mostly through aid: The role of the private sector in agrifood systems transformation has not been adequately promoted and supported under the German-AU engagements. Germany spends an estimated EUR 2 billion each year on global food security and rural development programmes, which are priority areas for bilateral cooperation across the African continent under the Special Initiative on Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems.⁴ However, these financial resources remain inadequate in relation to the scale of what is needed to meet the requirements for effective transformation of the continent’s agrifood systems.

As a way forward, this study recommends that current collaborative efforts between German and AU member states should be deepened to scale mutually beneficial initiatives aimed at addressing limited investments in the continent’s agrifood systems, particularly in aspects of local value addition, agricultural research and development (R&D), knowledge exchange and climate-resilient infrastructure. Co-funding for these initiatives can come from the AU member states meeting their commitment to contribute at least 10% of their national budgets to agriculture, as already agreed under the CAADP Agenda. As the AU gears up to implement the new CAADP Agenda under the Kampala Declaration, a 10-year strategy and action plan for the period 2026-2035, there is a need for a comprehensive partnership agreement to be crafted and signed with development partners, including Germany. German actors (e.g., BMEL, BMZ and GIZ) should also collaborate with other donors and ICPs to support the implementation of the new CAADP Kampala Agenda by the AU and its agencies, RECs and member states. Coordination among these actors should take place within the CAADP Development Partner Coordination Group (CAADP DPCG).

Secondly, the new partnership approach between Germany and African countries should focus more on scaling private sector engagement along the entire agrifood value chains to ensure that agrifood systems are private-sector-led, and market- and export-oriented. The partnership should also be refocused from aid provision to investment in value addition and trade.

Finally, African stakeholders should harmonise the various national and regional policies and provide incentives for RECs and member states to accelerate the transformation of national value chains into regional agricultural value chains under the AfCFTA. The incentives could be in the form of supporting the private sector to establish and operationalise agro-industrial parks, which are critical in agro-processing, and diversify and export value-added agricultural and food commodities.

Background

Agriculture remains the backbone of most African countries’ food systems. Over half of the continent’s population derive livelihoods from agriculture, which remains the largest contributor to the gross domestic products (GDPs) of the majority of member states. If existing resources are optimally utilised, there is great potential for agricultural growth. However, Africa’s agrifood sector continues to be plagued by challenges of climate change, food insecurity, post-harvest losses and limited investment (AGRA, 2024). Agricultural productivity levels have broadly remained very low and stagnant for over four decades despite recent efforts aimed at promoting increased investments in the sector (AGRA, 2018). The vulnerability of the continent’s agrifood system has been compounded by the conflicts in Eastern Europe (Russian-Ukraine) and the Middle East (Israel-Gaza), and the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Policy-wise, African states have agreed to implement the AU’s Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), through which member states are seeking to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty by raising economic growth through agriculture-led development. However, there has been concern around Africa’s slow progress towards achieving targets set under the framework of the CAADP, coupled with emerging threats to the continent’s agrifood systems (AGRA, 2023). This led to the development of a post-Malabo CAADP agenda endorsed by heads of states at an AU Summit held in January 2025 in Kampala, Uganda (AU, 2024).

The new CAADP agenda, dubbed the ‘Kampala Declaration’, is a 10-year strategy and action plan for the period 2026-2035 which will focus on incorporating lessons learnt over two decades of CAADP implementation to address existing and emerging challenges and build resilient and sustainable agrifood systems. The Kampala Agenda will be implemented within the AU's continental policy and strategy framework for transforming the continent's agriculture. The CAADP is being implemented primarily at the country level as well as at the level of the regional economic communities (RECs). The effectiveness of this continental flagship initiative will depend largely on the extent to which it succeeds in closing the implementation gap between continental policymaking and implementation processes at the country level. The extent to which the CAADP goals are integrated into national policy processes will be especially critical. At the beginning of the Malabo Decade⁵, the so-called Country Agribusiness Partnership Framework (CAPF) was created to mobilise private sector investments into the National Agriculture Investment Plans (NAIPs) of the CAADP country processes. Globally, the continent also subscribes to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which seek to end poverty in all its forms and eliminate hunger everywhere by 2030 through inclusive agricultural growth and transformation.

However, despite the above policy and project interventions, the continent’s agricultural sector has been growing at a pace marginally lower than the global figure: 2.6% per year against 2.7% (AUC, 2020). Thus, the growth of the continent’s agricultural sector has remained far below the targeted 6% per annum set under the CAADP Agenda. A closer look into the RECs reveals that only the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region has managed to surpass the 6% growth target set under the CAADP (8.23% as of 2022), with the other RECs only achieving annual growth rates of between 1% and 2.6% (AGRA, 2022). From a trade perspective, African countries have continued to rely significantly on food imports from outside the continent. According to the 2024 Africa Agricultural Trade Monitor Report (AATM, 2024), the continent has yet to attain its target of tripling the share of cross-border trade among member states (ReSAKSS et al., 2024). It is estimated that African countries obtain less than a quarter (22.9%) of their import demand for food from other African countries, far below the likes of the EU, Asia and Latin America, which obtain over 50% of their import demand from intra-regional trade (UNECA, 2022).

In the context of the above-mentioned challenges and in recognition of Africa’s latent agricultural potential, ICPs continue to support the sector through aid and foreign direct investment (FDI), with endeavours focusing on research, capacity building, technology transfer and facilitating market access. Germany, one such ICP, has expressed its commitment to making African agrifood systems crisis-resilient through its different institutions. Accessible information sources show that, in terms of post-colonial cooperation, the earliest recorded development partnerships happened during the 1950s and 1960s, when newly independent African countries established formal diplomatic and economic relations with West Germany.⁶ The source indicates that the focus of these early partnerships was on development aid, technical assistance and trade. Since then, the partnerships have evolved to include security, strengthening the policy framework for effective implementation of the right to nutritious food, the role of women and youth, sustainable agricultural production, adaptation to climate change, and nutrition-sensitive solutions for food loss and food waste reduction. For example, Germany supported the development of the strategy towards the Kampala Declaration and the participation of African civil society in this process.

The German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) have expressed their commitment to ensuring that Africa becomes food secure and experiences growth in its agricultural sector (BMEL, 2023; BMZ, 2023). While this is commendable, it is still unclear what the policy, focus, scale and engagement approach of Germany towards Africa’s agrifood system is, since data on this is not coherently available online. Against this background, this study explores actors, current partnership approaches and the focus and scale of Germany’s engagement in the agrifood systems of African economies. It goes on to recommend pathways to a new approach that is mutually beneficial for both parties.

Methodologically, the study achieves this by conducting a desk analysis. By focusing merely on partnership in agrifood systems, the analysis is limited to projects supported and/or implemented by three German institutions: the BMEL, BMZ and GIZ. Thus, the projects were selected for analysis because of their focus on agrifood systems in Africa. The data gathered were critically analysed through qualitative analytical techniques for authenticity and selected for incorporation into the study report. A meta-aggregation technique was utilised to synthesise the study findings and avoid unnecessary repetitions. To provide a comprehensive review and presentation of the compiled findings, the meta-aggregation technique encompassed synthesis of relevant themes drawn from all studies included in the review (Mensah et al., 2025)

This methodological approach presented some challenges. Firstly, some key data and information sources were only available in German; they required translation to English using online translation services. Secondly, some of the 32 targeted key institutions and organisations did not respond to the request for online interviews, thereby limiting the number of interviews to only 15. Of these, none could provide adequate data to comprehensively answer the study questions. Furthermore, no responses were received from the key German institutions (the BMEL, BMZ and GIZ), despite efforts to contact them through the German embassy in Harare and the African Policy Research Institute (APRI).

The third challenge pertains to the accessibility of data and information sources on the subject matter, which were not readily available online. In the absence of data banks, particularly those on the amount and scale of financial resources involved in the German-Africa partnership, the study relied on reports published by the BMEL, BMZ and GIZ. The mixed methods approach (triangulation of data and information sources) helped to mitigate this challenge, but some details of spatial, temporal and amount dimensions of events and investments of the partnership approaches remain scant. Additionally, historical data regarding the involvement of Germany in the African continent’s agrifood systems were found to be scant and fragmented, a situation that made it very challenging to put together a coherent story along the thematic areas of the research study. The challenge could have been mitigated through consulting the three German institutions but, unfortunately, as mentioned above, no responses were received to our inquiries.

There are many German actors involved in agriculture development cooperation with Africa.⁷ However, this research paper only focuses on the activities of the BMEL⁸, the BMZ⁹ and the GIZ. The major challenge in analysing the focus, scale and partnership approaches used by these three entities is that there is a multiplicity of ways through which they cooperate with Africa in agrifood systems, including individually through bilateral cooperation with selected AU member states/governments, collaboration (joint cooperation) with each other in implementing certain initiatives and multilateral partnerships with international organisations like the UN, EU, IFAD, etc. In some instances they just provide funding; in others they also partner/cooperate through direct involvement in the implementation of projects (e.g., the GIZ). These kinds of partnership arrangements made it difficult to decipher the contribution of and outcomes attributable to German actors. The limited availability of data and information on the details of the agreements and partnerships also made it challenging to authoritatively attribute certain processes and outcomes to the contribution of the German actors. Finally, although numerous other German actors play roles in EU countries’ cooperation with Africa, these were not considered for analysis because their foci are neither primarily nor directly concerned with agrifood systems.

Actors and policy framework in Germany’s partnership with Africa on agrifood systems transformation

As already mentioned, while many German actors are involved in agriculture development cooperation with Africa, this research paper only focuses on the activities of the Ministries of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), since the focus of these other actors is not primarily on agrifood systems. In the area of agrifood system transformation, the German government mainly cooperates with Africa through the Bilateral Trust Fund (BTF), the Bilateral Cooperation Programme (BCP) and research cooperation in the field of global food security. On the African side, the actors include the African Union (AU), its agencies, regional economic communities (RECs), member states, civil society organisations (CSOs), research and development organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), ICPs and locally-based organisations.

Germany has adopted a deliberate development policy that prioritises agriculture and sustainable development.¹⁰ This commitment is embedded in global, regional, and national policy frameworks as follows:

Focus and scale of Germany-Africa partnerships in agrifood systems

Germany's partnership with Africa in agrifood systems transformation aims to address various barriers to mutual growth and development (BMEL, 2025).¹¹ For instance, the BMEL’s German Agriculture and Food Strategy for Africa 2025 emphasises reducing unnecessary dependencies and fostering mutually beneficial partnerships, empowerment and agro-ecology (GermanWatch, 2025). The focus of these partnerships has expanded over the years, from merely focusing on promoting food security to aspects of sustainable agriculture, policy dialogue, women and youth empowerment, knowledge sharing, and climate-smart agriculture (BMEL, 2024). The BMEL’s (2024) partnership focuses on several key areas, including but not limited to the following:

The exact levels (total value) of Germany's funding towards African agrifood systems is not explicitly mentioned in any available sources. Not all regions and countries of the African continent are covered by the support from Germany; what limited support exists is channelled through various initiatives and programmes supported particularly by the BMEL, BMZ and GIZ (GermanWatch, 2025). One such initiative is the Agricultural Policy Dialogue (APD) between the BMEL and the AU, which aims to accelerate the transformation of African agrifood systems by strengthening policy frameworks and implementation guidelines (BMEL, 2024). The APD initiative has seen increased funding over the years to address the growing challenges in African agrifood systems (Rural 21, 2023).

Additionally, Germany has been actively involved in providing climate-related development finance for agrifood systems. One such initiative is the Food Systems Development Program (FSDP), which is funded by the BMEL under the ‘One World without Hunger’ initiative to the tune of EUR 21 million (IFC, 2024).¹² The FSDP contributes towards sustainable rural transformation in Africa by targeting smallholder producers, farmer organisations and rural agri-SMEs, focusing on agricultural value chain development and enhanced access to finance. This includes supporting climate-resilient farming practices and promoting sustainable agriculture. Although the specific funding details are not explicitly outlined in the available sources, it is clear that the level of financial support in this area has increased over the years, reflecting Germany's commitment to addressing climate change and its impact on agrifood systems (IFAD, 2022).¹³ For instance, IFAD (2022) reports that Germany, through the BMZ, contributed EUR 30 million in support of the IFAD’s response to the global food and energy crisis. Furthermore, the BMZ invested EUR 22 million in financial services and products designed to strengthen the agricultural business sector in poor communities, particularly in Africa (Ibid). The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD, 2024) also reports that the establishment of the African-German Centre for Sustainable Food Systems and Agricultural Data Science was supported by the BMZ, with funding of up to EUR 6.5 million allocated until 2029. Overall, Germany's financial support to African agrifood systems has grown significantly, with a focus on promoting sustainability, resilience and inclusivity (GermanWatch, 2025).

Selected BMEL interventions in African agrifood systems

This section outlines projects and partnership interventions of the three German key actors in African agrifood systems: the BMEL, BMZ and GIZ. The projects and partnerships reviewed were selected using the meta-aggregation technique. Keywords related to the study's topic and thematic areas were searched for on Google, and the results were assessed and selected for critical appraisal. The review and synthesis of the selected online literature constituted the interventions categorised by the key actor, as outlined below.

In recent years, the BMEL has made cooperation with Africa a priority of its international work (BMEL, 2024). The ministry seeks to help bring the Federal Government's updated Africa Policy Guidelines to life and make a contribution to implementing the recommendations of the EU Rural Africa Task Force and the resolutions of the EU-AU Agriculture Ministers, and so contribute to achieving Agenda 2030’s sustainability goals through coherent cooperation between all stakeholders (BMEL, 2025). The main foci of BMEL projects in agrifood systems are: enhancing Africa’s participation in international trade, achieving the SDGs and attaining food and nutrition security. In the area of enhancing Africa’s participation in international trade, the BMEL supports interventions that enhance the productivity, quality and sustainability of the partner African country's agrifood systems (BMEL, 2023). It is actively involved in supporting 28 reform-oriented African countries, including reform partner countries, where Germany is implementing the G20 Compact with Africa initiative (BMEL, 2021).

In the area of food and nutrition security, projects are designed to ensure increased agricultural production and productivity for the attainment of food and nutrition security. Since these African states have shown particular enthusiasm for reforming their policy frameworks, they technically support them to improve their policies for engagement with the private sector, with the ultimate goal of creating more decent jobs (BMEL, 2024). The BMEL also supports the creation of suitable policy framework conditions as well as training and capacity building through demonstration projects. In addition, the BMEL ‘promotes and maintains intensive research cooperation and a practice-oriented exchange of knowledge with African partner organisations, including in the areas of food safety, [and] animal and plant health’ (Ibid). This technical cooperation is particularly strong with Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa and Zambia. In the area of enhancing Africa’s participation in international trade, the BMEL supports interventions that enhance the productivity, quality and sustainability of the partner African country's agrifood systems (BMEL, 2025). Here, the BMEL supports ‘strengthening the structural conditions required for the market-based development of a modern agrifood sector, thereby creating employment and prospects for Africa’s young men and women in both rural and urban areas’ (BMEL, 2020).

On the other hand, BMEL finances (a) bilateral cooperation projects within the framework of the Bilateral Cooperation Programme (EUR 20 million per year), (b) Food Security Projects of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (EUR 10 million Euros per year), and (c) international research cooperation projects (EUR 10 million per year) (BMEL, 2024). The interventions supported by the research cooperation focus on agriculture and nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa.

Since 2002, the BMEL has also been supporting the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) with projects promoting agriculture development and food security as well as overcoming hunger and malnutrition through the BTF (FAO, 2024). According to the FAO (2024), many BTF projects are being implemented on the African continent, with thematic priorities being to:

The major aim of these BTF projects is to support African partner countries to become food secure and to ensure quantitatively and qualitatively balanced diets for their citizenry.

At the multilateral level, the BMEL cooperates with African countries through the AU, EU, IFAD and FAO. The main objectives of the ministry’s cooperation with the AU are to enhance food security for the continent’s rapidly growing population as well as to support the development of a productive, entrepreneurial, modern and sustainable agriculture, food and forestry sector as an engine for economic growth and employment (BMEL, 2023).¹⁴ For instance, on the occasion of the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) in Berlin in January 2023, the Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture and the AU Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for close cooperation on key issues of agrifood systems transformation. To that end, the BMEL initiated an ‘Agricultural Policy Dialogue’ with the AU, whose aim is to make agriculture and food systems on the African continent more crisis-resilient and climate-smart by supporting the policy framework for a common continental climate policy for the transformation of agrifood systems. A policy dialogue platform is provided for effective engagement among experts from academia, the private sector, civil society and policymakers. The platform also promotes the exchange of scientific and technical knowledge and experience between Germany and the AU member states. At the centre of partnerships between the experts are climate-resilient seed systems, strengthening the role of women in agrifood systems, promoting the dissemination and adoption of agroecology principles, and measures to reduce post-harvest losses (Rural 21, 2023).

Recently, the FAO and the Federal German Government signed another six-month project to support the transition of African youth agribusinesses to more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems through the promotion of responsible investment by young people (FAO, 2024). The project is designed to scale up the already existing Agri-accelerator, which is focused on stimulating responsible investment in agrifood systems by young agri-entrepreneurs (Ibid). According to the FAO (2024), the Agri-accelerator initiative was piloted in Tunisia beginning in 2019 and is now being implemented in Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Senegal with the support of the German government. Based on its proven success, the project has begun scaling out and adapting the model to the Gambia by unpacking its main components related to the incubation and acceleration of agri-entrepreneurs. There is a need for continued expansion of the project to other regions of the continent as well as scaling of its activities to focus on strengthening the capacities of agribusiness mentors who work with the young agri-entrepreneurs to ensure the sustainability of the programme.

In June 2023, Germany partnered with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to scale up and accelerate private sector investment in inclusive and sustainable agrifood system business models in Africa. The partnership, being implemented under the Private Sector Financing Programme, seeks to complement IFAD’s private sector strategy (2019-2024), which is aimed at facilitating access to markets for smallholder farmers and increasing private sector investments towards strengthening agricultural value chains (IFAD, 2023). Germany has been partnering with IFAD in Burkina Faso to promote the rice value chain to become more inclusive by enhancing small-scale rice farmers’ access to markets and finance. Another Germany-IFAD partnership supports 87,500 marine and inland artisanal fisheries to produce and process fish for the market (Ibid).

Selected BMZ and GIZ interventions in African agrifood systems

Through the BMZ, Germany funds cooperation in African food systems by fostering sustainable development and supporting African economies to unlock their huge potential in agrifood systems and become more resilient (BMZ, 2023). It also cooperates closely with other federal ministries and aligns its Africa Strategy with the German government’s Policy Guidelines for Africa (BMZ, 2023). Guided by the BMZ Africa strategy, key areas of engagement include private sector development, capacity strengthening of civil society organisations (CSOs) and investment in research and innovation. For instance, through regional programmes such as the Agri-Business Facility (ABF) for Africa, the BMZ promotes business development and expansion via the implementation of tailor-made measures and facilitation of access to investments and partnerships for growth in the continent’s agrifood systems (BMZ, 2023).

Under the framework of German and European policy on Africa, the BMZ implements its Africa Strategy to support the realisation of the development goals of the AU and its member states, including in the area of agrifood systems (Ibid). The Africa Strategy is part of the BMZ’s mandate to drive the 2030 Agenda’s 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The BMZ Special Initiative seeks to enhance the incomes of at least 3.2 million farming households across Africa (BMZ, 2023). Already, the initiative is collaborating with over 150 partners in agrifood systems drawn from the private sector, CSOs, academia, producer associations and research institutions (Rural 21, 2024).

In June 2021, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the BMZ launched a new programme to leverage private sector investments to support the development of food value chains across the African continent by enhancing accessibility of finance by farmers and agribusinesses.¹⁵ The EUR 21 million Food Systems Development Programme has its focus on providing enhanced opportunities to the value chain actors to improve their incomes. The technical assistance from the IFC is meant to bring comprehensive solutions for entire food value chains (from farm to market) and strengthen them by leveraging the IFC's strong relationships with commercial agribusinesses and financial institutions. The programme also supports the digitisation of financial transactions and payments, thereby helping to achieve financial inclusion by expanding access to a wide range of financial services.

It is estimated that some EUR 2 billion are invested each year by the BMZ in the areas of global food security and rural development programmes (GIZ, 2023). About one third of this investment is channeled through the One World without Hunger Special Initiative now known as the Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems Special Initiative, which was launched in 2014 by the BMZ.¹⁶ The initiative supports 25 African countries in agrifood systems aspects of food and nutrition security, fisheries and aquaculture, enhanced resilience, green innovation centres, agricultural finance, value addition, and sustainable land management (BMZ, 2021). These issues are priority areas for bilateral cooperation in the BMZ's partner countries across the African continent. Approximately one third of this funding is invested through the 25 participating countries in Africa. In Africa, the Special Initiative targets partnering with those countries that are severely affected by famine and malnutrition. Globally, the initiative encompasses about 300 projects, whose focus is on strengthening smallholder family farms, including those in Africa. By the end of 2023, the initiative had improved the nutritional status of over 7.5 million people, particularly women and children (GIZ, 2023).

Between 2014 and 2022, the BMZ achieved the following successes through the implementation of the Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems Special Initiative (BMZ, 2023):

In particular, it assisted over 2 million people in adapting to climate change, ensured restoration and sustainable management of 1.7 million hectares of degraded land and forests, and established secure land rights for at least 120,000 farming families across the African continent (GIZ, 2023).

Since 2022, the BMZ has been implementing a sector programme on food and nutrition security entitled ‘Food Systems in Transition: Ensuring Healthy Diets for All’. In 25 selected African countries, the programme’s thrust is to push their agrifood systems towards enhanced resilience, gender equality, better health and sustainability.¹⁷ The programme uses experiences, strategies and positions that draw on rights-based approaches to advise the BMZ on how to position itself and make sound decisions in the field of food and nutrition security. It also takes into account cross-cutting issues such as climate change, agro-ecology and gender equality. The programme is mostly active in the areas of agrifood systems transformation, fisheries for food and nutrition security, and responsible fishing and aquaculture development.

Worth mentioning here is the Digital Africa Initiative launched in 2015 to support projects that make use of digital technology to achieve development goals. According to the new BMZ 2030 Reform Strategy, digital technologies will continue to play a critical role in the institution’s value-based and forward-looking development cooperation (BMZ, 2023). One focus area is promoting home-grown start-up digital innovations that target the African agrifood systems across eight African countries.¹⁸ Although it has not yet reached significant scale, the digital innovations are already addressing some of the challenges related to service provision, agro-processing, logistics and market access (GIZ, 2021).

Another core theme under the 2030 Reform Strategy is Living without Hunger – Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems, which focuses on three fields of action: food security, rural development and agriculture (BMZ, 2023). According to the BMZ (2023), these three fields are strengthened through implementation of the Special Initiative on Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems to achieve the following:

Selected GIZ interventions in African agrifood systems

As a federal enterprise and a global service provider for the German Government, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) supports the BMZ in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development (GIZ, 2023). In over 120 countries, including Africa, the GIZ supports the BMZ and many other German – as well as non-German – public and private sector clients in achieving their objectives in international cooperation (Ibid). The main foci of the GIZ’s projects include enhancing the accessibility of agricultural finance by value chain actors, supporting the sustainability of African agricultural systems and providing support for enhanced policy implementation by AU member states (GIZ, 2023).

Since 2004, the GIZ has been supporting the AU at the multilateral level to promote inclusive growth and sustainable development on the continent in line with the AU’s Agenda 2063, dubbed ‘The Africa We Want’.¹⁹ The GIZ-African Union (GIZ-AU) partnership has more than 200 staff members, who support its cooperation with the AU Commission (AUC) at continental, regional and national levels. It has footprints in more than 35 member states and collaborates with the AU’s specialised institutions and agencies, such as the African Union Development Agency for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) (GIZ, 2023). The GIZ cooperates through the AUC but selects AU member states to benefit from its support.

The key areas for engagement under the GIZ-AU partnership include health and social development, peace building and conflict prevention, sustainable economic growth and employment, as well as governance and migration. However, agri-food systems transformation often features in its discourses (Ibid).

According to the GIZ (2023), some of the key areas of the GIZ’s financial support with a focus on agrifood systems include:

Besides providing financial support to African countries and institutions, the GIZ also provides technical assistance, capacity building, knowledge exchange and research in areas of sustainable agriculture. These efforts aim to promote sustainable, resilient and climate-friendly agriculture in Africa, while empowering smallholder farmers and rural enterprises to thrive (GIZ, 2023). On behalf of the German government, the GIZ-AU partnership has also been implementing agrifood-systems-related programmes and projects under the Sustainable Economic Growth and Employment initiative in a number of African countries, including the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya and Lesotho (BMEL, 2020). One of the objectives of the partnership is ‘to promote sustainable and healthy eating and prevent food losses in order to reduce the number of people who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition’ (Ibid).

Summary

To sum up discussions in this section, specific figures to help in systematically tracking the growth trajectory of the BMEL, BMZ and GIZ’s support over the years are not coherently available online. However, a study on announcements of new partnerships show that Germany's commitment to supporting African agrifood systems through the BMEL, BMZ and GIZ has been growing over the past two decades, with an increase in funding, new initiatives and active policy support. The focus and scale of the Africa-Germany partnership in agrifood systems are predominantly in the areas of agricultural finance, policy support and implementation of transformation strategies. While there are some initiatives targeting private sector participation and value addition, particularly in the area of investment in agro-industrial processes and trade promotion of value-added agricultural products, they remain inadequate. This is problematic, since value addition can significantly boost the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and SMEs by increasing their income, reducing post-harvest food losses and waste, improving market access, creating employment and enhancing food security. Overall, investment and trade have immense potential to transform the continent’s agrifood systems and economic development. According to the International Trade Centre (ITC) Trade Map, African-German trade in agrifood is currently estimated at USD 6,011,560 in exports per annum (based on 2024 figures). Almost all exports from Africa are in the form of raw materials, and they account for only 7.8% of German imports of agricultural products. Available estimates show that transitioning from raw materials exports can transform the livelihoods of smallholder farmers by raising productivity, increasing food and nutrition security, accelerating growth, increasing trade, reducing poverty and hunger, and enhancing resilience to climate variability.

Strengthening Germany’s partnerships for sustainable agrifood systems development in Africa

The first potential entry point for establishing a mutually beneficial partnership is strengthening the policy and partnership aspects of engagement. Crucial here is a deliberate paradigm and policy shift from aid provision to investment and trade promotion initiatives that can have higher multiplier effects on income generation and employment creation. Two potential initiatives are the new CAADP Kampala Declaration and the AfCFTA. Here, the focus should be on supporting and scaling private-sector-led, market-oriented and climate-proofed initiatives along the entire agrifood value chains, with national governments, RECs and AU institutions only playing facilitatory roles or working as joint partners under public private partnership arrangements. This is because, while there are significant business opportunities for the private sector to unlock the immense potential in the continent’s agrifood systems, the assessment above has shown that the new CAADP strategy (2026-2035) and the AfCFTA are going to be of paramount importance (AU, 2025).

Interventions should also focus on derisking private sector engagement in agro-industrial processes and trade in value-added products and connecting these to the AfCFTA. A first but crucial step in this direction would be to support initiatives that facilitate harmonisation and implementation of regional policy strategies and regulatory frameworks that facilitate ease of doing business and incentivise private sector investments, particularly in regional agricultural value chain development. The implementation of the EU’s unified European market²⁰ and the common agricultural policy (CAP), which allows for a free movement of agricultural commodities based on common prices within the EU, can be a key lesson for AU member states, particularly regarding how financial support can be provided to farmers in member states. While the Federal Government of Germany and other EU member states have managed to significantly invest in agriculture and offer guaranteed minimum producer prices to their farmers, resulting in surplus production of agricultural commodities in which they have comparative advantage, in Africa this is not yet the case. Platforms such as the German African Business Association that promote the engagement of the private sector (agribusinesses) and other non-state actors are key in the envisaged Germany-Africa partnerships.²¹

Despite the growth in the focus and scale of the partnership, this study has noted that it remains inadequate to transform the African continent’s agrifood systems. While it is not Germany’s responsibility to fix, it is worth scaling existing initiatives by the BMEL, BMZ and GIZ if they want to have a transformative impact. For most AU member states, significant investments are still required in the areas of agricultural research, education and training, infrastructure development, and local value addition (agro-processing), particularly in the aspect of agro-industrial development. For example, the creation of the AfCFTA should go hand in hand with the development of regional agricultural value chains (RAVCs). The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in collaboration with the AUC and AU member states, institutions and development partners, developed the Guidelines for the Development of Regional Agricultural Value Chains in Africa document, which was endorsed at the Third Ordinary Session of the African Union Specialised Technical Committee (AU-STC) on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment, in October, 2019. The guidelines also support the implementation of the AU initiative on the policy framework for Boosting Intra-Africa Trade (BIAT) in agricultural goods and services, as endorsed by the AU-STC. The development of RAVCs is expected to contribute to improving intra-African trade in two major ways: (1) attain efficiency gains in production; and (2) help African enterprises move along global value chains while retaining more value at national and regional levels (UNECA, 2020). Germany’s partnership support can strengthen human capacity in key state institutions to deliver this mandate.

Another area of focus that needs to be scaled is Knowledge and Green Innovation Centres. Already established by the BMZ in 14 African countries,²² these centres are aimed at enhancing the productivity of millions of smallholder farmers as well as boosting employment and food and nutrition security in selected rural areas. Five knowledge centres for organic farming have been established in West, East, Southern, North and Central Africa, where good practices in agro-ecology and organic farming are being shared within relevant networks and organisations, with the strong participation of local state and non-state institutions. Additionally, the German institutions should promote systematic harmonisation of digitalisation initiatives in Africa under the Digitalisation for Africa (D4Ag) project to provide digital solutions in agrifood systems, particularly in the areas of agricultural value chain financing.

As mentioned above, there are key lessons to be learnt from Germany’s experience with the implementation of the EU CAP for the attainment of food and nutrition security, particularly in how to support farmers to attain high levels of agricultural productivity and ensure a stable production and supply of affordable and nutritious food. Relatedly, as African countries seek to prioritise key areas to accelerate the progress of implementation under the newly endorsed CAADP Kampala Declaration, German partnerships could support the building of adequate technical and institutional capacities to sustain the progress made under the CAADP process to date.

On the African side, there is a need for the timely implementation of policy and programmatic commitments by AU member states, RECs and the AU organs for the achievement of the CAADP targets and commitments. This can be achieved through capacity building of state, REC and AU institutions in policy and programme implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation. There is a need to provide incentives for RECs and member states to accelerate the transformation of food value chains in member states into regional agricultural value chains under the AfCFTA. The incentives could be in the form of supporting the private sector to establish and operationalise agro-industrial parks, which are critical in agro-processing and the diversification and export of value-added agricultural and food commodities.

Acknowledgements

A special thank you is extended to the key informants who participated in interviews to help provide further insight and lived experience to further substantiate this paper.

References

Endnotes

About the author

Kingstone Mujeyi

Kingstone is an agricultural development and policy research expert with over 15 years experience of working in the rural and agricultural sectors of African countries.