The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is in the final stages of developing a new Regional Agrifood Systems Investment Plan (RASIP) for 2026–2035, a flagship framework designed to reshape agrifood systems across the Horn of Africa amid mounting climate, economic and food security pressures.
The plan, which is set to succeed the Regional Agricultural Investment Plan (RAIP) 2016–2020, was reviewed during a regional validation meeting in Nairobi, bringing together representatives from IGAD Member States, the African Union, AUDA-NEPAD, development partners and technical experts. The validation process was expected to pave the way for ministerial endorsement and eventual implementation across the region.
IGAD says the new investment plan responds to a rapidly changing operating environment for agriculture in the Horn of Africa, where communities have faced recurrent droughts and floods, desert locust invasions, pandemics, market disruptions, conflict and displacement over the past decade. These shocks have steadily eroded livelihoods, weakened food security and slowed progress toward poverty reduction, even as population growth and urbanisation continue to drive demand for affordable and nutritious food.
During the process, Dr. Tahomi, Director of IGAD’s Economic Cooperation and Regional Integration, stated that RASIP marks a fundamental shift in the regional approach to agriculture and food systems.
“RASIP focuses on the agrifood system and represents a paradigm shift from previous approaches. Earlier efforts emphasized economic agricultural growth and securing 10% of public finance for agriculture, but now the scope has broadened,” Dr. Tahomi explained.
IGAD describes the new plan as a results-oriented and investment-driven framework designed to guide regional policies, investments, and partnerships over the next decade, while enhancing cooperation among Member States.
Dr. Sylvia Henga, IGAD’s Policy and Food Security Expert under the Food Systems Resilience Programme (FSRP), highlighted that the systems-based approach aims to fix longstanding inefficiencies, such as the disconnect between food surplus areas and markets experiencing shortages.
“For example, in Kenya, there are regions where excess milk is wasted because it cannot be transported to areas facing shortages. While one area has massive production, another experiences losses and hunger. The systems approach helps link producers directly to markets to address this imbalance,” she said.
This validation meeting takes place at what IGAD calls a critical time, as climate-related disasters and insecurity continue to threaten food security and nutrition outcomes in the region.
“One is a critical one to assure that the implementation of this RASIP and also contribute directly to the sustainable waste in the region. While our region face a lot of challenges, conflict, drought, desert, invasion, lost lockers and so and also issue of food security,” Dr Tahomi said.
Experts say these challenges have been compounded by structural weaknesses within agrifood systems, including low productivity, limited access to modern inputs and technology, weak value chains and trade linkages, inadequate processing and storage infrastructure, and limited access to finance for farmers, pastoralists and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Dr Henga noted that the new framework recognises that agriculture cannot operate in isolation from the wider economy.
“Agriculture cannot stand alone. So there was need to build the economy beyond agriculture, because agriculture depends on infrastructure. For example, agriculture depends on energy. The energy sector industrialization, the finance sector is critical. If there are no funding, then we cannot carry out agriculture. So because of this, we realized that focus alone on agriculture was quite limited, and therefore the need for us to broaden it so that we look at the entire system,” she said.
The pressures facing the region have also been highlighted by national officials. Dr Hesbon Otinga, Director of Planning at Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, said climate-related disasters continue to take a heavy toll on people, livestock and the environment.
“IGAD region suffers regular catastrophes related weather, floods, land and mudslides, runoff, droughts, resurgent, trance, boundary pace, all bringing suffering and loss of human lives and livestock and environmental destruction.This means food and nutrition security and environmental conservation should ever be at the center of our plans,” Dr Otinga said.
IGAD says the RASIP builds on lessons from the previous RAIP and aligns closely with Member States’ ongoing National Agrifood Systems Investment Plans. The new framework places stronger emphasis on climate adaptation, sustainable natural resource management, youth and women’s economic empowerment, regional trade integration and digital innovation.
Dr Tahomi stressed the importance of ensuring the plan moves beyond policy into practical implementation.
“Food System is a new approach, and really, I’m very much in line with the modern institution, African Union, where especially Department of Agriculture. So, I think, and also to assure this technical people from the member states, and to assure that this document, ready for endorsement by responsible minister after this to be as a documentary, can be translated in a bankable project. To assure the implementation of this RASIP,” he said.
Dr Henga added that the food systems approach is intended to cover the entire value chain.
“So it’s called a systems approach, a food systems approach means we are looking at the entire value chain, from production to processing to manufacturing to transportation, if there is need for packaging value addition,” she said.
IGAD further noted that gaps in data systems, monitoring and policy coordination have limited governments’ ability to anticipate and respond to emerging crises, a challenge the new plan seeks to address through stronger regional coordination.
“Actually the idea all of all of us, to address the issue of food insecurity in the region, and food insecurity and nutrition, but that there is many areas where mainly to move from the value chain, industrialization, trade supporting this corridor on the trade areas and also looking to this also what we call factor of resilience, climate issue, drought in the region,” Dr Tahomi said.
Once validated, the RASIP 2026–2035 is expected to provide a coherent regional roadmap for mobilising investment, strengthening resilience and transforming agrifood systems across the Horn of Africa, while linking agriculture with broader IGAD priority areas such as water, land, the blue economy and environmental sustainability.
