NADF, Stakeholders Debate Sustainable Financing Model for Africa at 2026 AFSF

News in Brief: 

— NADF and stakeholders have called for a coordinated financing architecture to accelerate Africa's food systems transformation and fast-track CAADP goals at the  2026 AFSF. 

— At the forum, other stakeholders pushed for blended finance and stronger investment to help small agribusinesses access the billions already being pledged for Africa's agriculture.

Nigeria’s National Agricultural Development Forum (NADF) and other stakeholders in African food production debated ways to sustainably finance the development of the continent’s food systems at the 2026 Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) in Kigali.

At other panel sessions and side events of the annual continental gathering for agriculture stakeholders, representatives of government and private bodies discussed how to turn billions of dollars of available agricultural funds into investment for farms and agribusinesses that really need it.

Industry leaders discussed blended finance, public-private collaboration, and data-driven investment to ensure national agri-financing schemes address critical areas of food production in the continent.

NADF Case for New Financing Architecture

Speaking at a Policy and State Capability plenary titled "Aligning Investment to Fast-Track CAADP Objectives," the agency's Executive Secretary, Mohammed Ibrahim, claimed that Africa needs a financing architecture that brings public, private and concessional funding together, aligns investment with national priorities and reduces the risks tied to agricultural projects.

He said African countries must move past old-style funding and build structured systems that can pull in more private capital.

"Africa's agricultural financing challenge is not only about the availability of capital, but also the fragmentation of existing resources and the absence of effective structures to coordinate investments," Ibrahim said.

He argued that government funding should be used to "crowd in, not crowd out" private investors, adding that the shortage of commercially viable agricultural projects remains a major obstacle to attracting private money. 

Talking about what Nigeria is doing, Ibrahim said NADF is working to identify national priorities, build investment opportunities that can attract funding, and deploy public and concessional resources in ways that draw in additional capital.

"We want to see that we are coordinating financial capital because there is sometimes a problem of capital availability, but also fragmentation of capital; that lack of a structure," he said.

He also called for stronger data and accountability systems to guide investment decisions and independently monitor systems to track what works.

Supporting Ibrahim's statement, Ana Loboguerrero, Director of Adaptive and Equitable Food Systems at the Gates Foundation, who also spoke at the forum, said philanthropic funding can act as patient, higher-risk capital that helps innovative agricultural projects prove themselves before commercial investors step in.

Small Agribusinesses Still Struggle to Get Funded

Elsewhere at the forum, discussions centred on getting money to small and growing agribusinesses, which are central to Africa's food systems but often locked out of the billions being mobilised for the sector. 

Dr Mallé Fofana of the Global Green Growth Institute said many agri-SMEs need help strengthening their business models and financial management to become 'investment-ready' and attractive to commercial lenders.

He also prescribed blended finance as a solution to the risk issues of funding smallholder farming and agribusiness.

With blended finance, mixing public or development funding with private capital, governments can reduce risk for commercial banks and encourage them to lend more to agriculture. For a sector that remains essential to Africa’s food security and economic growth, unlocking this capital could be transformative.

Lessons from TAAT and Bigger CAADP Push

These conversations also presented lessons from implementing interventions during the recent Russia-Ukraine war that could help define long-term agri-financing interventions.

Two high-level sessions at AFSF 2026 examined how the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) programme, an emergency-response intervention implemented as a response to the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war on Africa, could be built into permanent national investment programmes.

TAAT, worth  $1.5 billion, was rolled out by the African Development Bank (AfDB) as an African Emergency Food Production Facility (AEFPF) when the Russia-Ukraine war cut off roughly 30 million metric tonnes of Black Sea cereal supplies to Africa. 

The facility helped produce more than 45 million metric tonnes of food, distributed over 406,000 metric tonnes of certified seed and 2.9 million metric tonnes of fertiliser. It reportedly reached 15 million farmers across 35 countries.

The conversations explored how the AfDB-CGIAR and Islamic Development Bank-CGIAR partnerships, which powered the intervention, can serve as templates for scaling this proven agricultural science into large-scale investment that tackles challenges of African food systems.

This debate also aligns with the goals of continental frameworks like the adopted Kampala CAADP Declaration in 2025 and the Malabo Declaration, which called for higher production, more intra-African trade, greater public and private investment, and expanded opportunities for women and young people.