African Food Fellowship

The African Food Fellowship wishes you a delightful holiday! We extend our gratitude to all our partners from the agriculture sector, private sector, government, civil society and development partners who have been instrumental in enhancing food systems within the region. As we take a break, we look forward to the year 2025 that carries a lot of optimism for Africa’s food systems. This includes the Rwanda Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation (PSTA5) that was a significant feature at the recent Rwanda Food Festival. Have a read here https://lnkd.in/dAaTb2Er To healthy, inclusive and sustainable food systems in Africa and to a great holiday! See you in 2025. Wasafiri Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation IKEA Foundation Small Foundation Joost Guijt Alex Rees Claudia Piacenza Brenda Mareri Anysie Ishimwe

#Africa continues to face challenges of hunger and malnutrition among its population while at the same time experiencing significant loses in crop production every year. Amid these challenges, could the power of networks offer solutions? In this piece published on Wasafiri , our regional manager Claudia Piacenza explores the significance of networks in adapting to an ever-changing context. She also explores how building trust within these networks is necessary to freely share knowledge and resources, shifting from a learning phase to actionable plans. Finally, she weighs ways to know if networks are creating impact. These lessons learnt from the Fellowship’s work are key in enhancing the practice of impact networks as a way to create healthy, inclusive, and sustainable #foodsystems. Some reflections for you: Who's in your network? Who would you like to invite in? How can you ensure that the network thrives and achieves its goals? Read more on this link https://buff.ly/4gEmEca?

The African Food Fellowship held its second Rwanda Food Festival today and what a delightful way to bring the year to a close. This unique event brought together Rwanda’s food systems leaders and actors from the public and private sectors, researchers, financiers, civil society, and development partners. In his opening remarks, our Director, Joost Guijt, reinforced his call to actors to elevate leadership in food systems across the continent that will help make sense of the people involved in food systems. Our key guest and Director-General in charge of planing in the Ministry of Agriculture-Rwanda, Dr Chantal Ingabire presented Rwanda’s Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation (PSTA5). This gave the guests and Fellows an opportunity to contribute to the policy dialogue and action around the PSTA5 and to create meaningful connections with potential collaborators in the room, in order to translate the strategy into action. Joost Guijt later moderated a panel on "Inspiring food systems transformation: Global, national, and community perspectives". On his panel were Dr Alfred Bizoza (Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Rwanda, Rwanda Food Fellows Richard Makuza (Policy Officer – Climate Smart Agriculture at the World Food Programme and NIRERE Sylvie (Managing Director at IDH Rwanda) The guests and Fellows then took part in group discussion, delving into food systems actions focusing on Climate Smart Agriculture, reducing malnutrition among adolescents and addressing post-harvest losses. These discussions and presentations were a great opportunity for the Fellows to gain very good and diverse insights on how to enhance their food systems actions for better impact. The African Food Fellowship’s approach to food system transformation is built on collaborative leadership. We create an ecosystem that encourages and supports food system actors to work together. We recruit new Fellows for the 5th Cohort in March 2025 and can’t wait to grow our the community of food systems leaders. Be on the look out for that! A big thank you to everyone who made today’s festival memorable. Wasafiri Wageningen University & Research Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation IKEA Foundation Small Foundation Alex Rees Claudia Piacenza Anysie Ishimwe Brenda Mareri #RwFoodFestival #TransformFoodRw

The African Food Fellowship is excited to bring together Rwanda's food systems leaders and innovators at the second Rwanda Food Festival in Kigali. We can't wait to share highlights of the day. Get a glimpse of the last #RwFoodFestival https://buff.ly/4g6WpLo on our Youtube channel

The Aquaculture Learning Hub by Kenya Food Fellow, Robert Shumari in Kajiado County challenges food systems leaders to think outside the box. The effects of climate change have seen residents of Kajiado County, who are largely a pastoralist community, faced with serious challenges with their main source of livelihood and nutrition - cattle. Through his food systems action (FSA), Shumari dares to go against the grain by slowly causing a behaviour shift among Kajiado residents to embrace aquaculture as a practice and fish as an alternative source of protein. With over 300 beneficiaries and the current partnership with the local government, this FSA brings a lot of optimism that can transform food systems in and similar pastoralist regions.

What fuels Esther Mukundane’s drive as a food systems leader? For this Rwanda Food Fellow, who is also a member of the African Food Fellowship board, it’s the change in lives, change in mindsets and ownership of the knowledge by the communities she works with. It’s a gratifying for Esther to see the ideas and knowledge she spread being put to practice to achieve sustainable impact in food systems. It’s always inspiring to hear stories of change from our Fellows. Check out the highlights of the Rwanda Cohort 3 Graduation for more. Link https://buff.ly/3ZI8oct

On the sidelines of the Kenya Transform Food Festival 2024, Talk Africa had a chat with Kenya Food Fellow, Sylvia Kuria 🇰🇪 who is promoting local indigenous foods in school feeding programs. This ground breaking food systems action is taking root in Vihiga and Kiambu counties and transforming school feeding programmes by diversifying children’s diets, addressing nutritional deficiencies, promoting healthier growth and supporting local agriculture. Sylvia’s food systems action is informed by the broken and fragmented nature of our food systems currently and the gaps in agriculture, research and policy-making. It also exemplifies the power of collaboration as she works alongside Fellows, Auleria Apopo and Catherine Karanja on this initiative. Learn more about this initiative on this link

The ever-inspiring Prof Ruth Oniang'o’s passion for youth is undeniable. It’s on her shoulders that women and young food systems actors stand and dream of transforming their communities through nutrition. During the Kenya Food Systems Leadership Cohort 3 Graduation, guests had an opportunity to gain from her vast experience in research and leadership which inspired renewed vigor and energy as they work on food systems actions. The African Food Fellowship is proud to create a space for impactful inter-generational collaboration and mentorship. Learn about some of the food systems actions that we got a glimpse of during the Graduation https://lnkd.in/dpy8wXri

Happy new month! The African Food Fellowship has helped to shape Kenya Food Fellow Susan Omenyo’s leadership by enhancing her collaboration superpowers: she tells us how recognizing the importance of good communication and strengthening partnerships has brought bigger impact in her work. She had with renowned nutrition expert and food systems leader Prof Ruth Oniango to demonstrate not only the power of leadership but partnership and mentorship in skilling future generations to own the vision of healthy, inclusive and sustainable food systems in Africa. Susan and Prof Oniang'o give us lots to think about as we embark on the last month of the year. #TransformFoodAfrica

Happy new month! The African Food Fellowship has helped to shape Kenya Food Fellow Susan Violet Omenyo’s leadership by enhancing her collaboration superpowers: she tells us how recognizing the importance of good communication and strengthening partnerships has brought bigger impact in her work. She had a chat with renowned nutrition expert and food systems leader Prof Ruth Oniang'o to demonstrate not only the power of leadership but partnership and mentorship in skilling future generations to own the vision of healthy, inclusive and sustainable food systems in Africa. Susan and Prof Oniang'o give us lots to think about as we embark on the last month of the year. #TransformFoodAfrica