Across Africa, food systems are in flux. The challenges of climate change, rapid urbanisation, deepening inequality, and industrial pressure are reshaping how food is produced, distributed, and consumed. But amid these shifts, researchers like our Project Lead Dr Florian Kroll are helping to re-imagine what a just and sustainable food system could look like for the continent.
At the heart of his recent work is the African Food Systems Transformation Collective (AFSTC), a collaborative research initiative supported by the African Climate Foundation (ACF) who have spent the past two years producing a set of 19 issue briefs aimed at guiding philanthropic investment toward catalytic, systemic transformation in Africa’s food systems.
This work forms part of the Centre of Excellence in Food Security’s collaborative partnerships with leading African research and policy networks, aimed at shaping equitable and sustainable food system transformations across the continent.
Rethinking Philanthropy and Power
“The African Climate Foundation approached us to help conceptualise a series of issue briefs that would inform philanthropy,” explains Kroll.
“The idea was to use relatively modest interventions at key leverage points to help shift the direction in which food systems are transforming across the continent.”
Unlike conventional agricultural programmes focused narrowly on production, the AFSTC takes a food systems approach, examining the entire chain from production to consumption, as well as the social, economic, and environmental dynamics that shape it.
The result is a panoramic analysis that spans agriculture, livestock, fisheries, processing, distribution, and retail, alongside cross-cutting themes such as gender equity, land governance, and the food-energy-water nexus.
But, as Kroll notes, this isn’t just an academic exercise:
“We wanted to ensure the work was pragmatic. That’s why we identified current initiatives already doing important work in these spaces, so philanthropy could invest in strengthening them rather than starting from scratch.”
What is Acro-ecology and Why is it important?
A key orientation of the AFSTC’s work is agro-ecology; a framework that extends beyond farming practices to include questions of democracy, justice, and governance.
“Agroecology often gets reduced to a rural, production-based model,” Kroll says. “But we’re applying the 13 principles of agro-ecology to the entire food system. That means not only environmental sustainability, but also social justice, resilience, and people’s agency in shaping their own food systems.”
This broader framing places the AFSTC in productive tension with dominant narratives of agricultural ‘modernisation.’ It offers a counter-vision to other popular models which have been criticised for emphasising technological fixes while neglecting deeper structural inequalities.
“Our work tries to move away from technocratic solutions toward approaches that empower smallholders, traders, and consumers as agents of change,” Kroll explains:
“We’re saying food sovereignty, democracy, and decent livelihoods matter as much as yields.”
A Pan-African Network for Change
From Kenya to Ghana, Mali to Malawi, the AFSTC has convened a vast network of researchers and practitioners who share a commitment to agroecological transformation. Each issue brief was co-authored by contributors from at least two African regions, ensuring a genuinely pan-African lens.
“We worked with a wide range of colleagues—researchers, development practitioners, and policy experts,” says Kroll. “This diversity was crucial, because it allowed us to draw on both academic rigour and grounded, practical experience.”
An 11-member advisory committee of seasoned practitioners helped ensure the briefs responded to real on-the-ground challenges rather than abstract theory. “We wanted the outputs to have both legitimacy and utility,” he adds.
Influencing Policy and Philanthropy
While the issue briefs are not primarily public-facing, their influence is strategic. They target high-level decision-makers in philanthropy, civil society, and government—those shaping Africa’s food and climate agendas.
“Our goal was to help philanthropies think differently about food system transitions,” says Kroll. “We want to influence how they design programmes and calls for proposals, to make their interventions catalytic rather than incremental.”
The AFSTC’s forthcoming strategic synthesis brief will weave together insights from the 19 issue briefs into a broader vision for action, identifying short-term innovations (‘niche’ interventions), mid-level governance shifts (‘regime’ changes), and longer-term structural transformation.
“This synthesis will help funders and policymakers see where to intervene most effectively,” he explains. “The idea is to align small innovations with larger political and institutional shifts.”
Intersecting with the G20 Agenda
As the world’s attention turns to the G20’s Food Security and Agriculture meetings, the AFSTC’s work resonates deeply with the global debates around equity, sovereignty, and resilience in food systems.
“The inclusion of the word ‘agroecology’ in the G20 documents is itself a major step forward,” Kroll reflects. “It signals recognition that the future of food can’t be built only on industrial intensification, it must also be just, inclusive, and ecologically grounded.”
Several AFSTC issue briefs intersect directly with G20 themes, particularly those on commodity markets and intra-African trade. One brief, developed in collaboration with the Centre for Competition Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) at the University of Johannesburg, calls for stronger state capacity to monitor price-fixing and cartel behaviour that inflates food prices. Another advocates for pan-African trade reforms to enable small-scale producers and processors to participate equitably in regional markets.
“These are structural issues,” Kroll says. “They’re about power, accountability, and who benefits. If we want transformation, we need to address these questions head-on.”
Towards an African Food Systems Transformation Collective
As the AFSTC’s first phase concludes, discussions are underway to formalise it as a long-term entity, with the CoE-FS playing a key role in its next chapter.
“This first round was just the entry point,” Kroll notes. “The vision now is to establish the Collective as a sustained platform for collaboration, research, and policy engagement, anchored in African knowledge, and responsive to African realities.”
For Kroll, this work embodies the mission of the CoE-FS: to connect rigorous research with policy influence and to ensure that the transformation of food systems is driven from the continent outward, not imposed from above.
“The food system is political,” he says simply. “If we want justice, sustainability, and resilience, we have to build them together.”
As the CoE-FS, we take pride in the leadership of researchers like Dr Florian Kroll, whose work with the African Food Systems Transformation Collective demonstrates the power of collaboration to drive meaningful change. These partnerships embody our shared vision of transforming food systems through knowledge, equity, and collective action.
AFSTC Kigali Convening
