COUNTRY-LED, PEOPLE-POWERED
Leadership Reflections
Leadership Reflections
AGRA’s leadership reflects on a year of challenge and progress, the continued rollout of Strategy 3.0, and a renewed commitment to unlocking systems-level change through country-led approaches. These efforts are not just reshaping policies and markets, they are delivering tangible benefits at the household level, helping farmers to access better tools, practices, and opportunities to improve their livelihoods and food security.
Letter from the AGRA Board Chair
H.E. Hailemariam Dessalegn,
Former Prime Minister of Ethiopia
Chair of the Board of Directors of AGRA
The year 2024 saw accelerated implementation of AGRA’s Strategy 3.0, our long-term vision for aligning country goals with continental and global goals of food and nutrition security, poverty reduction, inclusive economic growth, and climate resilience.
The new strategy emphasizes integration and country-led transformation rooted in country change narratives that define clear, five-year goals for agricultural systems change. These narratives move AGRA beyond fragmented activities toward integrated, results-focused pathways co-developed with governments and aligned with national priorities.
2024 was about identifying the most critical binding constraints and opportunities in each country and investing in a coordinated manner to address them. For example, in Kenya, the country change narrative supports the adoption of sustainable farming practices, strengthening market systems and creating an enabling environment for food security. Later in the report, you’ll read about our work in regenerative agriculture to boost yields and income for farmers. In Ghana, the goal is to increase the competitiveness of the rice and soy value chains, drive farmer productivity and resilience, and increase employment activities. The binding constraints being addressed are low levels of farm production and productivity, negative attitudes toward agriculture among unemployed youth, and limited access to essential services such as finance, extension, mechanization, irrigation, and agricultural inputs.
In 2024 and 2025, 61% of AGRA’s portfolio is committed to multi-year investments that target catalytic opportunities and address complex barriers across input and output markets and value chains. Across the continent, AGRA teams are working to strengthen seed systems, promote sustainable farming, improve market access, and build effective government and private sector partnerships — core pillars in advancing systems change. These efforts are aligned with national priorities and are central to delivering each country’s change narrative.
As Chair of the Board, I am proud of the organization’s resolve to move beyond incremental change, and grounded in policy, partnerships, and evidence, to drive meaningful transformation where it matters most. AGRA caught up on its late start, investing USD 164 million in 2024 in programmatic resources—93% of its USD 176 million target—while enabling partners through USD 41.7 million in direct expenditures to drive results on the ground. In total, AGRA’s investment portfolio supported 155 grants across 12 priority countries in 2024, with all funding strategically aligned to one or more of our core result areas.
Let me share a few 2024 milestones that exemplify our commitment:
Sustainably growing Africa’s food systems
Partnerships for sustainable farming
Hosted by the African Union and supported by AGRA, the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit marked a major continental milestone in 2024. The event spotlighted the essential role of fertilizer—both organic and inorganic—and soil health in driving sustainable agricultural growth across Africa. A key outcome was the Nairobi Declaration on Fertilizer and Soil Health, endorsed by African Union Member States, which committed to tripling fertilizer production by 2034, restoring at least 30 percent of degraded land, fully operationalizing the Africa Fertilizer Financing Mechanism, and advancing other measures to revitalize soil health across the continent. AGRA is committed to supporting the Summit’s 10-year action plan to improve access to fertilizer for smallholder farmers, addressing one of the most pressing constraints to productivity and food security.
AGRA’s support for the 2024 Africa Food Systems Forum—the continent’s largest platform for food systems policy and investment—strengthened alignment and action across governments, development partners, and the private sector. The Forum advanced key priorities including the new Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) framework, regional food trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and mobilized over USD 13 billion through government-led legacy programs to transform national food systems.
Investment frameworks to enable policy implementation and resource alignment
Throughout 2024, AGRA helped lay the groundwork for the January 2025 signing of the Kampala Declaration for CAADP (2026–2035), which reinforces the commitment by 11 African countries to implement priority programs and flagships through National Agricultural and Food Systems Investment Plans (NAFSIPs). These plans are central to advancing agricultural transformation in Africa. They translate each country’s agricultural and food system priorities into a coherent, investment framework aligned with CAADP goals. NAFSIPs foster country ownership, strengthen stakeholder collaboration, and enable transparent, coordinated resource allocation.
Equity and inclusion as a cornerstone of transformation
We began expanding youth-focused programming—launching the Youth Employment for Food and Agriculture (YEFFA) program in several countries—and have embedded our gender strategy across business lines. AGRA has supported women-led farms and agribusinesses with programs like Value4Her, and initiated efforts to create pathways for youth in high-value markets and trade. These are early but deliberate steps toward addressing structural barriers and fostering the next generation of agricultural leaders. In parallel, AGRA is partnering with governments to ensure that national policies reflect the needs and contributions of women, youth, persons with disabilities, refugees, and other marginalized groups—recognizing that their inclusion brings value, drives innovation, and is essential for the long-term success of agriculture and agribusiness.
Leadership transition
2024 was also a year of transition for AGRA. After a decade of transformative leadership,
Dr. Agnes Kalibata stepped down as President. A visionary in the field of agriculture and food security, Dr. Kalibata led AGRA with unwavering dedication, advancing its mission to improve the productivity and livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers across Africa. Her contributions—spanning strengthening state capability to championing global food systems reform—have left a lasting impact. We are deeply grateful for her leadership and for the legacy she leaves behind, which continues to shape AGRA’s path forward.
We were also proud to welcome Alice Ruhweza as AGRA’s new President. With extensive experience in international development and natural resource management—including her recent role as Regional Director for Africa at the World Wildlife Fund—Alice brings a dynamic and forward-looking vision to AGRA. We are confident that under her guidance and leadership, AGRA will continue its role in shaping resilient, inclusive food systems.
On behalf of the Board, I thank you, our partners and stakeholders, for your continued trust. Together, we are sustainably growing Africa’s food systems.
Letter from the President
Alice Ruhweza, AGRA President
I am honored to join AGRA at a time when the organization is boldly confronting the deep, structural barriers to agricultural transformation across Africa. What drew me here is AGRA’s ability to convene and align local, national, regional, and global actors to drive Africa’s agrifood system transformation — and the sector’s potential to deliver outcomes that extend far beyond agriculture, reaching into health, climate, nature, energy, education, employment, and trade. I look forward to building on AGRA’s solid foundation to make the organization even more effective, accountable, and impactful. One of the ways we’ll do this is by strengthening our partnerships with governments and expanding collaboration with the private sector, especially with indigenous enterprises that are essential to driving Africa’s agricultural transformation.
Africa’s agricultural sector faced formidable challenges in 2024: global trade disruptions, volatile input prices, depreciating currencies, and persistent insecurity. Climate change continued to exert pressure, with severe droughts affecting crop yields across southern and eastern Africa—including in Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique.
Yet even in the face of these challenges, there are reasons for optimism.
We are seeing growing investments in infrastructure, sustainable farming, and policy frameworks that are unlocking value chains, building resilience, and improving food and nutrition security across the continent. AGRA’s country change narratives chart clear, five-year pathways to transformation aligned with national priorities. These narratives define the critical value chains, policy shifts, and institutional investments needed to build resilience and competitiveness at scale. Each country’s narrative is shaped by an analysis of systemic constraints—those binding issues that, if alleviated, would unlock smallholder access to affordable inputs, competitive markets, and inclusive growth.
In Ethiopia, for instance, AGRA’s focus is on strengthening seed systems and scaling production of wheat and soy. In Tanzania, AGRA advanced its country change narrative, which focused on optimizing the maize and rice value chains and creating jobs, by leveraging USD 129 million in financing through the African Development Bank (AfDB). This investment is helping expand youth access to land, finance, and markets, with the aim of increasing productivity, accelerating agribusiness development, and generating dignified employment opportunities in high-impact value chains.
In Kenya, AGRA advanced its country change narrative of driving resilience through climate-smart sustainable practices by supporting smallholder farmers to adopt regenerative agricultural practices that restore soil health, improve productivity, and build long-term resilience. These regenerative techniques are helping to boost yields and profitability while laying the groundwork for more resilient, market-ready farming systems. In Rwanda, AGRA advanced its country change narrative—focused on boosting incomes, jobs and exports through high-value government-prioritized value chains—by mobilizing more than 20,500 youth to engage in horticulture (avocado, chili) and poultry value chains, supported by maize and soy. These sectors offer strong potential for dignified and fulfilling employment, particularly for young people entering agricultural markets.
These are just a few examples how AGRA is working with governments and partners to address binding constraints and deliver integrated, country-led solutions that lay the foundation for resilient and competitive agri-food systems across Africa.
Let me share a few of the ways AGRA contributed to that progress in 2024:
We integrated the Mastercard Foundation supported YEFFA program into our strategy, with USD 56 million committed in multi-year investments that reached nearly 500,000 young people. This matters because agriculture remains one of the largest sources of employment in Africa, and unlocking opportunities for youth in this sector is critical to addressing rising unemployment, driving innovation, and securing the future of food systems. YEFFA is also helping youth engage in policy discussions and government programs, ensuring their voices are heard in shaping the future of agriculture. YEFFA youth are working alongside CAADP country teams, leading technical working groups on inclusion, and building partnerships with financial institutions to unlock better economic opportunities. In 2025, we will continue to scale this program across our country portfolio.
We strengthened our regional and national teams to better deliver across our four core business lines: Seed Systems, Sustainable Farming, Inclusive Markets and Trade, and Policy and State Capability. Our technical advisors understand that system transformation requires integration—linking markets, inputs, and policies in ways that work for farmers and agribusinesses alike. In 2024, for example, our seed systems experts helped more farmers access climate-resilient, locally adapted seed varieties, and our sustainable farming advisors promoted regenerative practices that improve yields and soil health. Meanwhile, our inclusive markets and policy teams worked to ensure that farmers’ products can reliably reach markets by addressing regulatory bottlenecks and market transparency.
AGRA’s four business lines provide resources and technical expertise to support country-level change narratives by addressing both supply- and demand-side challenges. They serve as the foundation for building resilience in agricultural production while enhancing market and sector competitiveness for long-term, inclusive growth.
In response to key lessons learned from the AGRA 2.0 evaluation, we significantly reshaped our approach to markets and finance. In 2024, we rolled out market systems concepts across countries—promoting anchor firms that support farmers, catalyzing value chain investment, and driving ecosystem development. This included end-to-end value chain structuring to build demand for smallholder farmers’ products and enabling more inclusive, functional markets.
We also anchored our regional and continental platforms—such as the Africa Food Security and Trade Initiative—in country-level ecosystem building. This initiative focuses on three core objectives. First, it supports market development by strengthening linkages between anchor firms and smallholder farmers, often through grants to market facilitators and agricultural extension efforts. These connections help farmers to build direct relationships with off-takers who provide guidance on production needs and access to inputs.
Second, the initiative enhances business capacity through technical assistance, including business development services training—as seen in Rwanda, Mali, and Tanzania—improved access to finance, and efforts to boost agri-SME competitiveness. This includes innovative financing models, such as value chain-based risk-sharing in Tanzania and partnerships with banks in Ghana, as well as exploring insurance and angel investment solutions. Third, the initiative strengthens the enabling environment by improving policy and financing architecture to support inclusive, resilient, and commercially viable food systems across Africa.
These are just a few examples of how we are learning, adapting, and delivering. I invite you to read the full report to see how AGRA is working side by side with governments, private sector actors, civil society and development partners to catalyze meaningful change.
Looking forward, AGRA will keep investing in solutions that are rooted in the priorities of each country and in the priorities of smallholder farmers. Agriculture remains Africa’s most powerful lever for inclusive economic growth—and smallholder farmers are at the heart of that transformation. Thank you for believing and partnering in AGRA’s mission to turn farming from a struggle for survival into a business that thrives.