IT solutions to be used in providing food security in Africa

On October 21, 2024, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia hosted a closed-door expert round table named “Dimensions of Food Security in Africa and Russia.” It was organized jointly by Rossotrudnichestvo with the support of the HSE’ Center for African Studies. The meeting aimed to address the pressing challenges of food sovereignty that affect both Russia and African countries and to explore directions for mutual cooperation. 

Food sovereignty is a crucial issue for Africa since it touches not just the immediate availability of food but also the prospects of socio-economic development of states. As the food issue is rather multifaceted, a large spectrum of measures must be taken to resolve it. In his opening remarks, moderator Mr. Andrey Maslov, Director of the Center for African Studies, proposed the most important of them: supply chains’ optimization, financial backing of projects, educational programs promotion, human resources development, integration of IT solutions. At the top of this list is collaboration between the stakeholders, including government officials, academic scholars, and representatives from research institutions across both Russia and Africa. He also underscored the role of advanced technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI), in addressing food security challenges. He cited a collaborative project with the UN Economic Commission for Africa to establish an AI Center of Excellence in Congo, which aimed at enhancing data analytics and crisis forecasting. 

Philip Grinin, Deputy Coordinator for the Knowledge Sharing Program, admitted that it can make a contribution to skill-building and capacity strengthening among Africans. The Program connects African officials, local representatives with Russian innovative companies. Together, they can develop region-specific solutions, focusing on sustainable agriculture, IT integration and infrastructure improvement. 

At this moment, Africa spends around US$80 billion annually on food imports, and this figure is expected to rise to US$110 billion by 2030. However, it doesn’t benefit African food production capacities at all. As Mr. Vsevolod Sviridov, Deputy Director of the Center, mentioned, the global food security model favors wealthy countries, which supply food to Africa cheaply, but neglects investment in local infrastructure. That’s why African states are import-dependent and left vulnerable to global supply chain disruptions. 

Mr. Sviridov also presented the paper “From Food Security to Food Sovereignty for Africa,” a draft chapter from the “Africa 2025: Prospects and Challenges” book. It is the result of fruitful collaboration between experts, and the significant contribution was made by the Center’s African partners. 

During the following discussion, Dr. Hassan Khannenje, Director of the HORN International Institute for Strategic Studies in Kenya, presented an in-depth analysis of the multi-layered food security challenges facing Africa. To resolve them, he advocated for stronger African-Russian agricultural partnership and knowledge-sharing. These measures should be aimed at equipping African farmers with the tools to adopt modern agricultural practices and improve productivity, and this is actually what countries need to remain food-sovereign. 

Following his colleague, Mr. Makau Masila, Executive Director of the Eastern Africa Grain Council, highlighted the importance of infrastructure in addressing food security, referring to the Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya and Ethiopia, one of the recent developments in transport infrastructure. He supposes that the continent can achieve food sovereignty only through coordinated efforts, like a well-planned road system.

As Dean of the College of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences at the University of Gondar, Dr. Kehali Jembere Tiruneh underscored the critical role of educational initiatives among students and farmers. They should be trained on how to use IT and mobile applications to improve resource tracking and management and to be aware of the modern agronomic practices tailored to local conditions. In his opinion, integration of educational components into programs like the “Productive Safety Net Program” is a great idea to enhance participants’ awareness. 

Mr. Adeyemi Adewoye, Senior Special Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security in Nigeria, called for the establishment of infrastructure that supports modern technologies, including demonstration farms and IT laboratories where young farmers can learn and apply new agricultural methods.

In line with these ideas Mr. Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Professor in the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at HSE University, and Mr. Alexander Evtigneeve, Head of the Rossotrudnichestvo office in Ethiopia, emphasized the importance of collaboration and knowledge sharing in our changing international dynamics. 

To improve food production in Africa, digital solutions seem to play a huge role. ICT tools increase connectivity between farmers and farm enterprises and consumers and provide access to reliable information. AI algorithms, for example, can serve as smart assistants to farmers, facilitating the analysis of the weather patterns, soil conditions, and crop types. 

Droughts are one of the major humanitarian disasters in Africa, particularly in the Horn of Africa. They lead to agricultural problems, withering crops and livestock mortality, humanitarian losses, and starvation. Regarding this challenge, Internet of environment technologies can provide drought control mechanisms that are deployed in the countries that are mostly vulnerable to it. As it is shown in Kenya’s e-government profile by our experts, Kenyan companies CROPNUTS and Hortitechno Produce and Services Ltd, conduct developments in this field. They’ve created stationary humidity sensors that transmit the input information to the cloud, where it is processed and then sent back to the user with the information necessary for irrigation planning.  In Ethiopia, the NextGen Agricultural Drought Monitoring and Warning System (NADMWS) was created. Based on the space data, it helps to adapt agribusiness to predicted water scarcity. 

For more analytics on how digital technologies resolve agricultural challenges in Africa, visit our Program’s African countries E-Gov Profiles page. There, you can find up-to-date analytical materials on what has been done in the field of digitalization by African countries and what still remains unresolved.