By Atayi Babs Opaluwah
Africa holds the record for the fastest population growth among all regions, yet it suffers from the lowest levels of agricultural productivity.
Climate change threatens to undermine the progress made in recent decades. The agricultural sector in Africa is fundamental to the continent’s economic growth and food security goals.
Nevertheless, realising sustainable agricultural transformation necessitates robust research and innovation systems that are in harmony with policy frameworks and objectives, including the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and the targets set forth in the Kampala Declaration and Action Plan.
The updated Kampala CAADP Strategy and Action Plan prioritises science, innovation, youth inclusion, gender equity, and climate resilience as drivers of sustainable transformation.
Enhancing the links between research and innovation is crucial for effectively advancing Africa’s agricultural agenda as the continent races against time to achieve food security, particularly in light of the challenges posed by climate change.
The global standards for food, nutrition, and environmental security are jeopardised and hinge on Africa’s forthcoming actions.
Key factors influencing success or failure encompass policy directions, the extent of scientific advancement across the continent, the involvement of both private and public stakeholders, and initiatives to disseminate technologies to farmers on a large scale.
With a food crisis on the horizon, the continent must promptly reform its food, land, and water systems by arming farmers with the scientific tools and technologies they require to prosper.
Concurrently, the large-scale transformation required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the CAADP Malabo Commitments can be best accomplished by making technologies available to millions of farmers through the CGIAR, in conjunction with national agricultural research centres and regional research organisations.
The contributions of CGIAR Centres in Africa are crucial for achieving food security on the continent.
Over the past fifty years, CGIAR has delivered a variety of groundbreaking technologies in crop production, livestock management, and aquaculture across Africa.
The CGIAR system’s training programmes have significantly bolstered the continent’s agricultural human capital. These investments have created a group of trained scientists who have taken on leadership roles in advancing agricultural productivity, as well as economic and environmental benefits.
Lately, CGIAR has taken on a pivotal role in facilitating the delivery of technologies to farmers at scale through the African Development Bank’s,Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT).
TAAT, a flagship initiative of AfDB’s Feed Africa Strategy, has significantly advanced agricultural productivity, food security, and economic resilience across the continent since its inception in 2018.
By deploying proven climate-smart technologies, strengthening seed systems and distributing high-quality seeds, fostering private sector engagement, and enhancing policy frameworks, TAAT has reached 25 million farmers (62% of its 40 million target), increased crop yields, and generated USD 4.09 billion in agricultural value.
This initiative relies on Commodity Compacts that connect CGIAR’s research and development with farmers, seed companies, agricultural value chains, seed system policy support, and crop campaigns that bulk-certify seeds of climate-adapted varieties for farmers.
Thus far, TAAT has supplied climate-smart seeds to 12 million farmers in 27 countries. The CGIAR and TAAT are collaborating to align their innovation pathways with the CAADP, with the goal of accelerating the transformation of food systems in Africa.
This alignment involves strengthening regional integration, scaling innovation, and amplifying the impact of CGIAR’s research on food, water, and land systems.
At the 2025 African Food Systems Forum (AFSF) in Dakar, Senegal, CGIAR and TAAT set the stage running for the forum with a morning session that unveiled vistas and strategies for aligning CGIAR and TAAT innovation pathways to achieve food systems transformation in Africa.
The session focused on strategies for achieving alignment, including efforts to foster collaboration, build capacity, and ensure that research findings are translated into actionable policies and practices.
Speakers and participants included Sandra Milach, Chief Scientist, CGIAR, Dr Simeon Ehui, Director General, IITA, Dr Baboucarr Manneh, DG AfricaRice, Innocent Musabyimana, TAAT Coordinator at AfDB, Johan Swinnen, Olufunke Cofie and Timothy J. Krupnik.
Others were Namukolo Covic, Lauren Good, Dr Solomon Gizaw, Head of TAAT Clearinghouse, Noel Mulinganya, TAAT Youth in Agribusiness Compact Leader, and Dr Aggrey Agumya, FARA’s Executive Director, who unveiled key scaling initiatives for impact and their alignment with the goals and targets of the CAADP-Kampala Strategy and Declaration.
Participants explored limitless opportunities for leveraging CGIAR’s resources and expertise in supporting Africa’s food systems transformation agenda and promoting knowledge sharing and best practices for operationalising research-policy linkages.
To strengthen the engagement of CGIAR and TAAT with the AUC in the implementation of CAADP-Kampala strategy, speakers harped on the imperatives of research and innovation in addressing food security, climate resilience, and sustainable agriculture challenges, distilling strategies for operationalising the alignment of CGIAR and TAAT’s work with the CAADP-Kampala Targets and workable mechanisms for strengthening partnerships between CGIAR, African and regional economic communities.
Best practices in fostering co-creation of solutions through multi-stakeholder engagement and pathways for scaling research outputs and innovations across Africa were equally espoused.
The session also featured policy dialogues, innovation showcases, and a vision for a global CGIAR Clearinghouse based on the TAAT model, all within the theme of youth-led innovations, digital platforms, and scaling-ready technologies.
Concrete examples of youth-led agribusinesses, digital scaling tools such as the TAAT e-catalogue, and CAADP-aligned delivery models were also showcased.
Innocent Musabyimana stressed the importance of policy, research and data in scaling, calling out in particular the need for effective pre- and post-impact evaluations when new technologies are launched while Noel Mulinganya spoke compellingly about the need to engage youth in careers within agriculture and food systems early on, “they can also serve as brokers of agricultural technologies.”
A session, as strategic as this, among policymakers, donors, and science leaders—focused on actionable pathways to deepen collaboration across public research and regional development institutions —reinforces the belief in Africa’s capacity to feed itself, Solomon Gizaw said.
The launch of a new Gates Foundation–funded project integrating the TAAT Clearinghouse into CGIAR’s Scaling for Impact programme dazzled participants with glimpses of a prosperous and resilient food system for Africa.
In the final analysis, the session reaffirmed a shared commitment to ensure that CAADP implementation is grounded in science, driven by country needs, and focused on achieving results.
CGIAR’s Chief Scientist Sandra Milach sent participants home with this thought for food: “There’s no stronger business case for increasing agricultural yields on the continent than the goal to not only reduce substantial imports of rice, wheat and other commodities, but also for Africa to become a substantial exporter! Norman Borlaug rightly said that food is the moral right of all humans!”
