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Maize under irrigation at Nyumba Agri Farm in Galana-Kulalu in Kilifi County. [Robert Menza]
African leaders, policymakers, farmers, financiers and development partners will convene in Kigali, Rwanda, on August 31 for The Africa Food Systems Forum 2026 to grapple with an age-old question: How will the African continent produce more food, create more jobs and build resilience in a rapidly changing world rife with climate risk, population increase and rising urbanisation?
Too often, water is treated as a secondary issue in Africa’s agricultural transformation agenda; something for the water sector to address while agriculture, finance and trade pursue their own priorities. This must change.
Around 90 per cent of cultivated land in sub-Saharan Africa is rainfed, compared with 37 per cent in Asia. Only about 6 per cent is irrigated. For millions of farmers, late rainfall, a failed rainy season or devastating flood can determine whether a harvest becomes food and income—or debt and loss. This is not simply a problem of too little water but one of insufficient investment in managing the water we have.
