The Africa Food Systems Forum 2025(AFS Forum) has officially opened in Dakar, Senegal, with powerful calls from African leaders and agricultural champions to transform the continent's food systems urgently. The annual summit is taking place from August 31 to September 5, 2025, brings together heads of state, policymakers, researchers, development partners, and private sector actors under the theme: leading collaboration, innovation, and the implementation of Agri-food systems transformations.
With only five years left to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and one year away from the Malabo Declaration's deadline, leaders warned that Africa must act decisively to ensure food security, reduce poverty, and create opportunities for its youth and women.
In her keynote address, AGRA President Alice Ruhweza emphasized that Africa’s greatest asset lies in its young people and women.
"Let us empower our youth and women, not just as beneficiaries, but as key drivers of agribusiness and innovation. We must put our youth at the centre of our work and focus. The theme of the Africa Food Systems Forum 2025 calls us to do just that. Africa’s greatest asset is the vigour, energy, ambition, and innovation of its young entrepreneurs and farmers and the wisdom and knowledge of older generations. This is the dividend we must invest in and protect. Let us equip them with the skills, capital, and opportunities they need to lead".
H.E. Hailemariam Dessalegn, Board Chair of AGRA and Former Prime Minister of Ethiopia, in his remarks at Africa Food Systems Forum 2025, Highlighted Africa’s urgent food challenges. “Despite the continent’s abundance, Africa still imports $70 billion in food annually, loses 30-40% of its harvest post-farm, and produces only 60–70% of its food needs. “This cannot continue,” he said, calling for the CAADP3 strategy to be translated into concrete action to transform food systems for the 300 million Africans living in poverty, the youth seeking meaningful work, and the women who hold communities together.”
"We have to focus on young people who constitute the largest portion of our population, through education, through financing, through different partnerships so that all these young minds with their innovation and ideas in term of entrepreneurship can thrive. But there must be an obligation they feel also as young people. There is no sitting back and waiting until there is a problem and you expect that somebody is going to come and help. Young people, my simple message to you is: let’s not run away from problems. Because even where you run to, you will find problems, may be even more problems. Especially when they will send you back where you came from. But alongside that, find a purpose, know there are going to be problems, try and fail but don’t fail to try." H.E President Kagame
Hosting the forum, H.E. President Bassirou Diomaye of Senegal reaffirmed Africa’s capacity to achieve food self-sufficiency and contribute to global food security.
"Our continent has all it needs to achieve food self-sufficiency. Africa could help feed the whole world. To feed itself, Africa must first rely on itself. It must insist on a solution-led dynamic. He declared. He also thanked the AGRA alliance, the co-organizer of the summit, for prioritizing African food security: together, we will work to change the perception that agriculture is a sector of survival.
Africa Food Systems Forum- AGRF, is the world's premier forum for African agriculture and food systems, bringing together stakeholders to take practical actions and share lessons that will move African food systems forward.
Written By: Jean Bernard MUKUNDENTE