Three partnership priorities for building productive, resilient, and sustainable agri-food systems in Africa

African agriculture employs 45% of the continent's working population and accounts for 21% of its GDP. Yet the sector's technical and economic performance remains insufficient, both to meet the continent's growing food needs and to fully leverage its key position within global food and industrial value chains. Every exogenous shock - financial crises, COVID-19, and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East - highlights and exacerbates this situation, which is characterized by deep-seated structural constraints: rapid population growth, climate change, soil degradation, infrastructure deficits, insecurity, and weak institutional frameworks. The Kampala Declaration set ambitious targets for 2035 - increasing production by 45%, halving post-harvest losses, tripling intra-African trade, and mobilizing $100 billion - but achieving them requires enhanced coordination between public and private, African and international actors. Building productive, resilient, and sustainable African agri-food systems is a shared challenge for Africa and Europe. Ferdi identifies three areas of focus with significant multiplier effects and, for each, a priority for action at the Africa Forward Summit.