- African Indigenous Foodways (AIFs)1 offer a sustainable alternative to industrialised agriculture, promoting food sovereignty, biodiversity conservation and climate resilience. AIFs are rooted in traditional knowledge and practices, adapted to local environments with minimal external inputs.
- Knowledge co-creation and sharing are crucial for advancing AIFs. This involves collaboration between farmers, researchers and other stakeholders to develop and disseminate practical, locally relevant agroecological knowledge. Networks and platforms play a vital role in facilitating this exchange.
- AIFs align with agroecological principles, contributing to food and nutrition security (FNS) and cultural preservation. They empower local producers, including smallholder farmers, wild harvesters, fishers and pastoralists, while responding to the complex, interconnected polycrisis of food security and health, livelihoods poverty and inequality, and climate change and environment.
- Transitioning to AIFs requires policy support, funding mechanisms and regional collaboration. Initiatives like seed festivals, national dialogues and agroecological farm projects demonstrate the potential for scaling up AIFs across Africa.
- Philanthropy can play a significant role in supporting AIFs by funding knowledge co-creation initiatives, empowering local community-based organisations, and promoting policies that protect biodiversity and reduce corporate influence in food systems. This support is crucial for building resilient, equitable and sustainable food systems capable of feeding Africa’s growing population while mitigating climate change impacts.
related Publications
African Food Systems Transformation Collective Brief Series 10: Urban Food Environments
The purpose of this brief is to take stock of the variety of urban food environment initiatives underway across Africa and compile these into an actionable menu of investment opportunities. The brief outlines the rationale for increased investment focus into urban food environments to guide strategic operational discussions on how ...
African Food Systems Transformation Collective Brief Series 09: Pan-African and Regional Trade and Policy for the Food Systems Transition
The links between trade and food security and nutrition are inherently complex yet undeniably affect the six dimensions of food security: availability, access, utilisation, stability, sustainability and agency (High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) (2020). Reforming regional and pan-African trade and policy for the agroecological transition ...
African Food Systems Transformation Collective Brief Series 07: Agroecological Territories and Integrated Landscape Approaches to Advancing Food Systems Transitions in Africa
Africa faces deep interconnected and systemic socioeconomic and environmental challenges. Formal economic activity tends to be extractivist, causing biodiversity loss, land degradation and water and soil pollution. Integrated responses are required if effective and restorative natural resource management (NRM) and sustainable agricultural production are to be implemented. The core framing ...