Feed Africa

Feed Africa is the second of the African Development Bank's High 5 strategic priorities, directing the bank's financing toward agricultural transformation, food security, and agribusiness value-chain development across the continent, generating a broad range of procurement opportunities in irrigation, storage, processing, and technical assistance.

What is Feed Africa?

Africa produces a fraction of its agricultural potential and imports large volumes of food that could be grown domestically. Feed Africa is the afdb response: a strategic commitment to finance projects that raise smallholder productivity, develop agribusiness value chains, improve post-harvest infrastructure, expand irrigation, and support agro-processing and food manufacturing. Projects span a wide range from large-scale irrigation schemes and grain storage facilities to technical assistance for national agricultural extension programmes and rural financial services.

The breadth of Feed Africa creates procurement across many contract types: civil works for irrigation canals and dams, supply of agricultural inputs and equipment, construction of warehouse and cold-storage facilities, consulting services for agricultural policy and programme design, and IT systems for agricultural market information. Because many projects target rural and smallholder contexts in adf-eligible countries, the eligibility window is typically universal, making these contracts accessible to suppliers from any country.

Why Feed Africa matters for bidders

Agribusiness equipment suppliers, irrigation engineering firms, cold-chain logistics companies, and agricultural consultants all find a recurring pipeline under Feed Africa. The contracts tend to be smaller on average than energy or transport infrastructure, but they are numerous and geographically distributed. Suppliers who combine sector expertise with knowledge of specific African agricultural contexts, such as drip irrigation in the Sahel or grain storage in East Africa, can differentiate their proposals beyond price. The csp for countries with food security challenges will consistently include Feed Africa-aligned projects, making them predictable targets for sector-focused firms.

FAQ

What categories of goods does Feed Africa procurement typically cover?

Common categories include irrigation equipment (pumps, pipes, drip systems), farm machinery, seeds and inputs for demonstration programmes, grain storage structures, and cold-chain refrigeration units.

Are Feed Africa projects primarily in the poorest countries?

Many are, because food insecurity is concentrated in ADF-eligible low-income countries, but Feed Africa projects also appear in middle-income countries financed through the ADB window with regional-member eligibility restrictions.

How large are typical Feed Africa contracts?

Contract values range widely, from small consulting assignments of a few hundred thousand dollars to major irrigation schemes worth tens of millions. The median contract is smaller than in the energy or transport sector.