The Kampala Declaration: How African Youth Can Lead Food System Transformation to Accelerate the Achievement of Zero Hunger by 2030 -By Emeka Christian Umunnakwe

Africa’s journey toward food security has long been guided by continental frameworks designed to reposition agriculture as the engine of inclusive growth, economic resilience, and human development. One of the most significant of these frameworks is the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), adopted by African Union member states in 2003.

CAADP emerged from a shared understanding that agriculture remains central to Africa’s development trajectory and that sustained investment, policy coherence, and political will are indispensable for ending hunger and poverty on the continent. Over the years, this commitment has been reaffirmed through landmark agreements, including the Maputo Declaration and later the Malabo Declaration, which collectively called on African governments to allocate at least 10 percent of national budgets to agriculture while prioritizing food security, nutrition, climate resilience, and inclusive growth.

Despite these bold commitments, progress toward Zero Hunger has remained uneven and, in many countries, distressingly slow. As the global community moved closer to the 2030 deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, it became increasingly evident that structural gaps in implementation, financing, and inclusion threatened to undermine Africa’s food system transformation agenda.

It was within this context that the Kampala Agreement of 2025 emerged as a pivotal moment, explicitly recognizing that without the active participation, leadership, and agency of young people, actualizing Sustainable Development Goal -2 (Zero Hunger) would remain aspirational. The Kampala Declaration underscored that Africa’s youth are not peripheral actors in food systems, they are the critical mass upon which transformation and sustainability depends and must be mainstreamed in the implementation of the proposals of the declaration.

This recognition shaped the focus of the 2025 Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) held in Senegal, convened by AGRA and partners under a theme that centered Africa’s youth as leaders of collaboration, innovation, and implementation in agri-food systems transformation.

The urgency of this focus cannot be overstated. Demographically, Africa stands as the youngest continent globally, with more than six in ten of its people under 25 years old. Each year, millions of young Africans enter the labor market in search of meaningful livelihoods, yet agriculture, Africa’s largest employer remains largely unattractive to them. This is not due to a lack of interest in food systems, but rather because agriculture is widely perceived as high-risk, capital-intensive, poorly remunerated, and structurally constrained by weak infrastructure, limited access to finance, and policy inconsistency.

If Africa is serious about achieving Zero Hunger by 2030, these perceptions must be confronted with deliberate action. Young people must be positioned not merely as beneficiaries of agricultural programs but as leaders of food system transformation across the entire value chain.

As agripreneurs, young people can drive productivity, value addition, processing, and market integration using innovation, technology, and climate-smart practices. As farmers, they can redefine primary production through modern methods that increase yields while preserving ecosystems. As innovators and co-creators, they can design solutions that respond to local realities, from digital extension services to post-harvest loss reduction and nutrition-sensitive food products. As policymakers, politicians, and community leaders, they can shape governance systems that are accountable, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of both rural and urban populations.

However, leadership without leverage is ineffective. One of the most persistent barriers to youth participation in agribusiness is the risk profile of the sector. Agriculture requires long investment horizons, yet most financing available to young entrepreneurs is short-term, expensive, and inflexible. To change this reality, financiers must embrace the concept of patient capital, recognizing that food systems transformation cannot be rushed without compromising sustainability. Equity investors, development finance institutions, and impact-driven NGOs must begin to invest intentionally in youth-led agribusinesses as a vote of confidence in both the sector and the capabilities of young Africans. Reducing barriers to entry for early-stage agripreneurs through concessional finance, blended funding models, and risk-sharing mechanisms is essential if youths are to move from subsistence to scalable agri-enterprises.

At the same time, governments must recommit to their long-standing budgetary obligations. More than two decades after the Maputo Declaration, many African countries, including Nigeria, continue to allocate far less than the agreed 10 percent of national budgets to agriculture. In recent years, Nigeria’s agricultural allocation has hovered below two percent, signaling a persistent disconnect between policy rhetoric and fiscal priorities. This underinvestment has far-reaching consequences, limiting funding for improved agricultural outputs, research, extension services, youth programs, and rural infrastructure. Without adequate public investment, private capital alone cannot drive the systemic change required to end hunger in Africa.

Beyond financing, education and capacity building remain non-negotiable pillars of transformation. Africa cannot rely indefinitely on imported technologies, external research, or foreign solutions to feed its people. There is an urgent need to train and retain local researchers, agronomists, food scientists, and innovators who can develop improved crop varieties, enhance processing and value addition, and strengthen food system resilience from within. Investing in youths formal, technical, and experiential education is not a secondary consideration, it is central to achieving an autonomous African food system, sustainability, and long-term food security.

Crucially, youth engagement must move beyond tokenism. As emphasized by leaders within the Food And Agricultural Organization (FAO) youth and women constituencies, meaningful co-creation requires that institutions stop talking about young people and start talking with them. Youths must be educated, financed, mentored, and ultimately entrusted with the agency to design and implement their own solutions. Without the synchrony of youth education, mentorship, funding, and decision-making power, the Kampala Declaration will remain an unfulfilled promise.

The urgency of this moment demands that bureaucracy be reduced, meritocracy be upheld, and accountability be enforced in all youth-focused interventions.

Local action must be embraced, ensuring that no young person, whether in rural communities or urban centers is excluded from the opportunities and responsibilities of rebuilding Africa’s food systems.

Regional, national, state, and local governments, along with government ministries, departments,agencies, donor agencies, and development partners, must work in concert rather than in silos. Cross-sectoral collaboration between agriculture, education, science and technology, youth development, and women’s affairs ministries is essential for creating an enabling environment in which youth leadership in the food system can thrive.

Equally important is the need for intergenerational collaboration. The transformation of Africa’s food systems will not be achieved by replacing one generation with another, but by blending the wisdom and institutional expertise of seasoned agricultural stakeholders with the energy, creativity, and technological fluency of youth. This confluence of experience and innovation offers Africa its strongest pathway toward a resilient, inclusive, and food-secure future.

As emphasized by the President of AGRA at the 2025 ministerial roundtable in Senegal, the integration of youth into the implementation of the Kampala Declaration is not a matter of choice but a strategic necessity.

Africa’s food systems future is already being shaped by its young people, what remains is for governments, investors, institutions, and society at large to intentionally equip them with the agencies, resources, and enabling environment required to lead. In this way, the African Food system will witness expansive transformation within the shortest time possible.

To underscore this urgency, the words of Dr. Agnes Kalibata, former President of AGRA and UN Special Envoy for the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit, remain profoundly instructive:

“Food systems transformation is not about the future generation,it is about empowering today’s generation to act now. Without bold leadership, sustained investment, and inclusive participation, hunger will persist. But when people, especially youth, are placed at the center, transformation becomes inevitable.”

Through sustained investment, inclusive governance, and resolute political will, youth-led food system transformation can accelerate Africa’s progress toward achieving Zero Hunger by 2030.

Written by: Emeka Christian Umunnakwe, Food Security Advocate.

Contact: +2348168559853, emekachristian453@gmail.com

NB: The opinions expressed in this piece are solely mine and I take responsibility for any errors therein- if there be any.

Email: Emeka Christian Umunnakwe
Phone:+2348168559853
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emeka-christian?