Africa Elevates Food, Water Security to Strategic Policy Priority

Africa’s food and water security has been formally elevated to a matter of national and geopolitical strategy, with governments and investors across the continent now treating structural vulnerabilities in these sectors as drivers of policy and capital allocation at the highest levels.

The reframing emerged at a high-level Thought Leadership Forum hosted by Alfa Laval in partnership with Business Sweden, where Swedish and South African government representatives, industry leaders and technical experts convened to assess the continent’s industrial future. Kudakwashe Koke, strategy and business development manager for Business Sweden’s Middle East and Africa operations, articulated the scope of the challenge: Africa’s deep dependency on global supply chains creates acute vulnerability, particularly as the continent imports massive volumes of staple foods including wheat, rice and maize while remaining exposed to international shocks, such as wars that disrupt fertiliser, grain and logistics flows.

The human cost is no longer deniable. In 2025, 167 million people faced acute food insecurity, with 78 percent of that population concentrated in conflict-affected countries. Conflict itself functions as a primary driver of food insecurity across the region. Climate change has compounded these pressures, reducing agricultural productivity by 34 percent since 1961, while droughts and floods increasingly disrupt both food systems and water availability.

Africa’s import dependency remains staggering. The continent spends more than 50 billion dollars annually on food imports, 300 million people lack safe water access, and millions live in undernourishment. Yet this dependency coexists with substantial untapped potential: Africa holds 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land. That paradox has pushed policy makers to treat the development of local and regional value chains as a strategic imperative, not a development aspiration.

Governments across the continent are now implementing policies designed to support domestic production networks and attract investment into agricultural infrastructure. Koke emphasized that strong policy frameworks remain essential to mobilise investment and strengthen food security financing. Those frameworks must create enabling environments that attract capital while reducing financial risk, allocate adequate public resources to agriculture, nutrition, rural infrastructure and extension services, address structural inequalities, and coordinate climate adaptation, social protection and conflict-sensitive interventions to build resilient food systems.

Concrete policy mechanisms include implementing the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), alongside national food system strategies with measurable targets and accountability mechanisms. Governments must also support access to finance through guarantees, insurance schemes and public-private partnerships, while strengthening land, trade and regulatory frameworks to improve agricultural productivity and market efficiency.

By contrast, the capital picture has already begun to shift. Africa recorded a 75 percent rise in foreign direct investment between 2023 and 2024, driven substantially by a mega infrastructure project in Egypt. Excluding that single project, FDI flows still grew 12 percent, supported by investment reforms and improved facilitation across the continent, reflecting broader investor confidence in Africa’s economic trajectory.

Africa’s macroeconomic fundamentals support that confidence. The continent counts 18 of the world’s 30 fastest-growing economies, a 2.8 trillion dollar regional GDP and 3.9 percent GDP growth in 2025. Africa holds 30 percent of global mineral reserves and could capture over 10 percent of the 16 trillion dollar revenue opportunity from key green minerals by 2030. A median age of 19 years represents a significant demographic dividend; improved workforce participation alone could add 47 billion dollars to GDP. Pension fund assets have grown to 1.1 trillion dollars, while formal remittances could reach 500 billion dollars by 2035 if transfer costs decline. Full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement could increase exports by 560 billion dollars and boost continental income by 450 billion dollars by 2035.

Demographic expansion will reshape the continent’s scale entirely. Africa’s population has grown more than sixfold since 1950, adding 1.3 billion people, and will add nearly one billion more residents by 2050, reaching 2.5 billion total. The working-age population will expand from 660 million in 2024 to 1.25 billion by 2050. Africa is urbanising faster than any other region globally, at an average annual rate of 3.5 percent, with urbanisation rates rising from 43 percent to 60 percent by 2050 and total urban footprints expanding to 175,000 square kilometres.

Urbanisation consistently correlates with higher regional productivity, job creation and improved socioeconomic outcomes. The risk is that unprecedented spatial expansion will strain housing, transport and basic municipal services while driving informal settlement development. Whether proactive investment in climate-resilient and inclusive planning keeps pace with that growth, or falls behind it, may determine how much of Africa’s demographic dividend actually translates into durable food, water and economic security.