By Adedapo Adesanya

Start-ups in Africa raised $2.2 billion in 2024 in funding across equity, debt and grants, lower than the $2.9 billion raised in 2023 by 25 per cent amid a continued slowdown after a peak of $4.6 billion recorded in 2022.

The Big Deal noted that this excludes exits – which is when investors realise a return on their investments, most likely when the startup has become profitable or when there is a change of ownership.

The funding slowdown has occurred for consecutive years due to a wider global funding freeze impacted by macroeconomic developments and geopolitical events as well as a change in market offering trend leading to funding going elsewhere.

There have also been concerns about inflated valuations, business sustainability, and increased due diligence and scrutiny from investors.

For the review year, there wasn’t much funding activity as $800 million (36 per cent) of the total funding was computed in the first six months, while the remaining $1.4 billion came in the second half of 2024.

The $1.4 billion raised in H2 alone (+25 per cent YoY and +80 per cent compared to H1),  made it the second-best semester since the beginning of the ‘funding winter’ in mid-2022.

This development was considerably driven by two deals in the fourth quarter of last year, which minted two fresh unicorns in the African startup space, in the form of Nigeria’s Moniepoint and South Africa’s Tyme Group.

This was the first such event since early 2023, as the companies joined the exclusive club that has MNT-Halan, Interswitch, Flutterwave, Chipper, OPay, Andela, and Wave as members.

Some of the raises reported include Yellow Card raising $33 million in October to fund its growth and expansion, JuicyWay raising $3 million pre-seed to facilitate affordable cross-border payments, as well as Seedstars Africa Ventures raising $42 million in its first-ever round to help pioneering African startups in climate, food systems, energy, and payments infrastructure sectors.

The data showed that a total of 188 ventures raised $1 million or more in 2024 (excluding exits), which is just 10 per cent less than in 2023  (169 ventures).

On the exit front, there were 22 exits made public last year (up 10 per cent) versus 20 in 2023.

By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh

For three working days, 9th –11th January 2025, in the Speke Resort Conference Centre in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, the African Union Commission (AUC) will host the Extraordinary Summit on the Post-Malabo Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). This Summit is supported by the Government of Uganda.

The event is organized jointly by the African Union Commission, Department of Agriculture Rural Development Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment (DARBE) and African Union Development Agency- New Partnership African Development (AUDA-NEPAD).

Dignitaries will deliver statements on the consideration of the Kampala Declaration, the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Ten-Year Strategy and Action Plan (2026-2035); the draft Statute of Africa Food Safety Agency; and the report on selection of African Union Centres of Excellence for Research and Training in Fisheries, Aquaculture, Aquatic Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystems Management.

The Objectives of the Summit:

The convening of the extraordinary session of the Assembly is specifically to:

Endorse the draft Kampala CAADP Declaration. The draft declaration provides a vision for transforming Africa’s Agrifood Systems for the period: 2026-2035.

Endorse Ten-Year CAADP Strategy and Action Plan: 2026-2035. This plan provides details on how to achieve the goals and targets in the draft Kampala CAADP Declaration.

Risk Management and Mitigation

The post-Malabo CAADP strategy will span ten years, from 2626 to 2035. Given the longtime horizon, many risks and uncertainties could affect the strategic positioning of the agri-food systems transformation agenda to deliver on its goals. There are external socioeconomic, environmental, and other shocks that might come up, which will demand that the strategy be agile enough to respond to such unforeseen developments. The strategy will therefore call for institutional adaptation to changes in a complex and rapidly changing context. Major risks and uncertainties will need to be identified and outlined together with their respective mitigation actions.

Key interventions to ensure better risk management include:

• Identify potential risks (e.g., political instability, climate change) and put in place mechanisms for dealing with or mitigating such risks
• Identify health crises, including pandemics or epidemics, early and develop mechanisms for minimizing negative impacts
• Identify and address gender inequalities or biases and restrictive social norms that may limit the access of women and youth to education, resources, and decision making processes thereby preventing them from fully participating in and benefiting from agricultural activities or initiatives
• Invest in durable peace because it is essential for building resilient agri-food systems (from the local to global levels) and affects agricultural production, food security, market access, investment, resilience, and social cohesion. Establishing and maintaining peace is critical for enabling long-lasting investment to unlock the full potential of Africa’s agri-food systems. The Kampala CAADP Declaration will need to emphasize establishing conflict-resolution mechanisms at the community level while strengthening local markets and value chains.
• Promote household insurance and other coping mechanisms that can help mitigate the impact of health shocks on livelihoods. These mechanisms will be key to enhancing the resilience of communities.
• Enhance public health surveillance systems to detect and respond to health threats, including of zoonotic origin. It will also be important to strengthen food safety measures to prevent health shocks related to foodborne diseases.
• Financial resources will be required to achieve the Kampala CAADP declaration’s resilience objectives. Specifically, households need access to credit, savings, and other financial instruments that help them weather economic shocks.
• Food price monitoring: It will be necessary to implement policies that stabilize food markets and prevent price volatility to ensure a steady supply of food and agricultural inputs.
• Capacities development of African governments to formulate resilience-focused policy measures is a critical step and a priority for the CAADP Strategy and Action Plan. Mainstreaming resilience-focused policies will trickle down to operational actions led by various stakeholders towards sustainable agri-food systems.

Background: The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) has been crucial in driving agricultural transformation across Africa since its inception in 2003. The program is aimed at increasing food security and nutrition, reducing rural poverty, creating employment, and contributing to economic development while safeguarding the environment. CAADP aims for a 6% annual growth rate in the agricultural sector, with African Union member states allocating at least 10% of their budgets to agriculture.

Building on the Maputo Declaration (2003-2013), the 2014 Malabo CAADP Declaration renewed commitment to CAADP and established ambitious goals for 2025, including eradicating hunger, reducing malnutrition, tripling intra-African trade, and building resilience of livelihoods and production systems. The Malabo Declaration underscored the importance of mutual accountability through agricultural biennial reviews and recognized the essential role of related sectors like infrastructure and rural development. During the Thirty-Seventh Ordinary Session of the African Union Assembly in February 2024, the Heads of State and Government expressed concern that the continent is not on track to meet the Malabo CAADP goals and targets by 2025. This has spurred a call for the development of a post-Malabo CAADP agenda to build resilient agri-food systems.

It is in this context that the An Extraordinary Summit of The African Union Assembly of Heads of States and Governments is scheduled for January 9th to 11th 2025 in Kampala, Uganda, to deliberate on the post-Malabo CAADP agenda to consider the draft Ten-Year CAADP Strategy and Action Plan with its associated draft Kampala Declaration on Advancing Africa’s Inclusive Agrifood Systems Transformation for Sustainable Economic Growth and Shared Prosperity.

Format and Structure of the Summit: The Extraordinary Summit will start with a one-day meeting of the Ministers responsible for Agriculture, Rural Development Water and Environment on the 9th of January 2025, to be followed by Joint Session of the Ministers of Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment together with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs on the 10th of January 2025.

The sessions will feature two presentations the: i) draft CAADP Ten-Year Strategy and Action Plan (2026-2035); ii) draft Kampala CAADP Declaration and both will be done in closed sessions. The Ministerial sessions will be structured to encourage inclusive and interactive conversations and dialogue among the Ministers, as well as between the Ministers and key strategic stakeholders. At the same time, it will enable the Ministers to review the strategic documents presented to them for their consideration and recommendations to the Assembly.

The Assembly of Heads of State and Government will convene on the 11th of January 2025 to endorse the: i) draft Ten-Year CAADP Strategy and Action Plan (2026-2035); ii) draft Kampala CAADP Declaration.

Participants: The Extraordinary Summit on the CAADP Agenda will be attended by Heads of States and Government of the African Union Member State, Ministers of Foreign Affairs, PRCs, Ministers and Experts in-Charge of Agriculture (forestry, fisheries, crops and livestock), Rural Development, Water and Environment, RECs, Youth, Women, Non-State Actors, Media, Academia and Development Partners

African Union: The AU is guided by its vision of “An Integrated, Prosperous and Peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena.” The African Union (AU) is a continental body consisting of the 55 member states that make up the countries of the African Continent. To ensure the realisation of its objectives and the attainment of the Pan African Vision of an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, Agenda 2063 was developed as a strategic framework for Africa’s long term socio-economic and integrative transformation. Agenda 2063 calls for greater collaboration and support for African led initiatives to ensure the achievement of the aspirations of African people.

By Adedapo Adesanya

Global food commodity prices declined by 2.1 per cent in 2024 compared to the previous year, 2023, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Friday.

However, it warned they remain considerably higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UN FAO overall Food Price Index averaged 122.0 points — 2.6 points or 2.1 per cent lower than the average value in 2023Food prices increased over the course of the year, with the index climbing from 117.6 points in January to 127.0 in December.

The index rose 6.7 per cent from December 2023 to 2024, with meat, dairy and food oils accounting for the increase.

The UN’s food agency tracks monthly and global changes in the international prices of a set of globally traded commodities.

The disruption to global trade during the COVID-19 pandemic initially saw food prices dip but they later climbed higher amid the surge in inflation as the global economy rebounded.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sent them spiking to records since both nations are major wheat exporters, but efforts to ensure shipments were not blocked led to prices easing lower until the beginning of 2024.

The dip in the average value for the index between 2023 and 2024 was mainly due to falls in cereals and sugar prices.

Cereals dropped 13.3 points compared to 2023 underpinned by lower wheat and coarse grain prices, marking a second annual decline from the 2022 record level.

The Sugar Price Index averaged 125.8 points, down 19.2 points (13.2 per cent) from 2023 mainly reflecting record-high exports from Brazil during the year and a positive global supply outlook for the 2024/25 season

The decreases were offset in part by a 9.4-per cent rise in the vegetable oil price index.

In 2024 as a whole, the FAO Dairy Price Index averaged 129.6 points, up 5.8 points (4.7 per cent) from 2023. This increase was mainly attributed to a sharp surge in butter prices, on the back of a high global demand and constrained exportable supplies, resulting from erratic weather patterns that negatively impacted production.

For meat prices, they averaged 117.2 points, up 3.1 points (2.7 per cent) from 2023. This was driven by robust import demand from key meat-importing countries, amid slower global production growth.

This sustained higher average prices for bovine (cattle), ovine (sheep), and poultry meats, while average pig meat prices declined, prompted by subdued import demand, particularly from China.