African Union Leaders Endorse Inaugural Africa Coffee Festival
Heads of State from across Africa, led by the African Union First Vice Chairperson and President of Angola, João Lourenço, have endorsed the inaugural Africa Coffee Festival, which is scheduled to take place from October 10 to 12, 2025, in Ntungamo, Uganda.
The festival, themed "Africa Renaissance: Chapter One Coffee," was unveiled during the African Union Extraordinary Summit on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) in Kampala.
Keep Reading
The summit, hosted from January 9 to 11, 2025, at the Commonwealth Resort Munyonyo, concluded with the adoption of the Kampala Declaration and the launch of a 10-year strategy aimed at transforming Africa's agricultural and food systems.
The Kampala Declaration lays out a roadmap to increase agri-food output, reduce post-harvest losses, and raise substantial investments in the agricultural sector.
Leaders emphasised the need to collectively implement the plan to achieve sustainable growth and food security.
President Museveni called for the commercialisation of agriculture as a path to prosperity.
He stressed the importance of value addition and urged households to embrace agricultural enterprises tailored to their land size.
His remarks aligned with the broader goals of the CAADP strategy, which seeks to address hunger and poverty by allocating at least 10 percent of national budgets to agriculture.
The CAADP strategy for 2026-2035 builds on earlier commitments to strengthen resilience and sustainability in Africa’s agrifood systems.
The plan aims to increase agricultural output by 45 percent by 2035, reduce post-harvest losses by 50 percent, and attract $100 billion in public and private investments within the same period.
Governments, the private sector, and civil society were called upon to work together to achieve these targets.
The summit, attended by over 2,000 delegates including agricultural experts, ministers, and heads of state from more than 40 African Union member states, addressed critical challenges in the continent’s agricultural sector.
The Africa Coffee Festival’s launch underscored the importance of coffee as a unifying symbol and an economic driver for many African nations.
Scheduled for Ntungamo later this year, the festival is anticipated to draw participants from across the continent and beyond.
