AfricaRice Advances Science Diplomacy and Forges New Alliances at AFSF 2026
The Africa Food Systems Forum 2026, held in Kigali, Rwanda, provided Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) with a high-impact stage for science diplomacy, ministerial engagement, and strategic partnership building — cementing the Center's role as an essential bridge between rice research, policy, and investment across the continent.
AfricaRice Director General Dr. Baboucarr Manneh led the Center's delegation through a dense week of bilateral meetings, panel appearances, and coalition-building sessions. From ministerial engagements to investment roundtables, the message was consistent: African rice transformation requires science, policy, and finance to move together.
High-level ministerial engagements
Dr. Manneh held a productive meeting with H.E. Cheikhou Oumar Ba, Ministre de l'Agriculture, de la Souveraineté alimentaire et de l'Élevage, to explore expanding the REWARD-AfricaRice Program to Senegal and deepening collaboration with the country's national agricultural institutions. Senegal's food sovereignty ambitions and AfricaRice's science make for a natural partnership, and both sides expressed strong intent to take the conversation forward — including through a planned ministerial visit to the AfricaRice Sahel station in Saint-Louis, Senegal.
Alongside colleagues from the Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT, AfricaRice met with H.E. Dr. Musa Kpaka, Minister of Agriculture, in a bilateral that reinforced the importance of coordinated CGIAR support for Sierra Leone. The conversation connected research, innovation, and policy as complementary pillars of the same effort — delivering real impact for the country's farmers and food systems.
A focused exchange with Nigeria's Minister of Agriculture, Honorable Abubakar Kyari, and the Director General of IITA, Dr. Simeon Ehui, reaffirmed shared commitments to accelerating rice transformation at scale. With more than 220 million people, Nigeria's food security is inseparable from Africa's food security as a whole — and the meeting reinforced the shared determination between AfricaRice, IITA, and Nigeria's government to keep that momentum moving.
AfricaRice met with officials from the Ministry of Agriculture of Burkina Faso for a forward-looking discussion on strengthening collaboration. Burkina Faso faces significant food security challenges, and AfricaRice's science — particularly around climate-smart technologies and resilient seed systems — has an important and concrete role to play in the country's response.
In a joint meeting alongside the Director General of IITA, AfricaRice engaged with officials from Madagascar's Ministry of Agriculture to maximize the combined impact of CGIAR centers operating in the country. Key focus areas included the Food Systems Resilience Program and the potential to scale AfricaRice's Smart-Valleys approach — a proven, cost-effective innovation for developing lowland rice production while reducing land degradation and building climate resilience.
AfricaRice delegation also met with Dr. Florence Uwamahoro, Director General of the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB). The discussion spanned high-yielding and climate-adapted rice variety deployment, research and extension capacity building, and a renewed partnership framework involving Rwanda's private sector rice value chain actors.
“These engagements reflect exactly what needs to happen for African agriculture to transform. Science, policy, and investment must be connected from the earliest stages. AFSForum2026 gave us the space to build those connections — and we return from Kigali with a stronger platform for impact.” stated Dr. Baboucarr Manneh, AfricaRice Director General.
Building the coalitions that outlast a conference
Beyond the bilateral meetings, AfricaRice shaped the intellectual agenda of AFSForum2026 through a series of speaking engagements and multi-stakeholder sessions that positioned the Center at the intersection of science, development finance, and policy advocacy.
REWARD Program — Resilient Rice Value Chains in West Africa
Co-organized with ECOWAS, the REWARD session gave the opportunity to position AfricaRice's scientific and technical contribution within regional rice self-sufficiency efforts, framing the Center's work as essential infrastructure for the continent's food system transformation.
Scaling Innovative Finance for Competitive Rice Value Chains
Convened by the Gates Foundation, AGRA, GIZ, and partners, this session drew Dr. Manneh into a wider conversation about connecting science and capital. His call was direct: Africa needs a science-finance interface that brings governments, international financial institutions, and CGIAR together from the earliest stages of investment design — not as an afterthought once projects are already structured.
Connecting Scientific Innovation with Development Finance at Scale
In a CGIAR-convened side event led by its Scaling for Impact Program, Dr. Manneh drew on AfricaRice's contribution within the TAAT Program as evidence that proven innovations can drive country-level transformation when backed by coordinated investment. The numbers spoke for themselves, TAAT Program generated over 21,000 jobs created, and a 32% increase in incomes for program beneficiaries.
Coalition for evidence-based agricultural policy
AfricaRice co-convened a high-level partnership meeting with PANAP, FARA, RUFORUM, YPARD, and AFSPAN to build a coalition for agricultural policy advocacy at scale. The group agreed to formalize collaboration through a memorandum of understanding, a joint workplan, and identified funding opportunities — with plans to use platforms such as the Nairobi Global Parliamentary Forum for a formal signing moment.
PABRA 30th Anniversary
AfricaRice was recognized at PABRA's 30th Anniversary celebration, highlighting its collaborative contribution to integrated food-systems research — and signaling the Center's growing relevance in a landscape where rice increasingly needs to be understood alongside other crops and value chains.
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