East Africa Advances a Unified Digital Innovation Agenda for Agrifood Systems Transformation
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, November 2025
Bringing together government representatives, national digital agriculture focal points and FAO experts, the East Africa Regional Digital Innovation Workshop for Agrifood Systems Transformation marked an important step toward strengthening coordinated digital efforts across the subregion. This workshop created a platform for participating countries to exchange experiences, assess progress and identify shared priorities that will guide regional collaboration on new digital solutions for agrifood systems transformation.
Across East Africa, agriculture remains central to livelihoods and national economies, employing more than 70 percent of the population. Yet the sector continues to face long-standing challenges, from climate variability and limited access to markets and inputs, to information gaps and low productivity. Digitalization has emerged as a transformative pathway to address these constraints, offering tools that enhance productivity, improve service delivery and strengthen the resilience of smallholder farmers. FAO’s work in the subregion aims to accelerate this transformation by supporting countries to build coherent, scalable and inclusive digital innovation ecosystems.
Key stakeholders at the workshop included representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security of South Sudan, the Ministry of Agriculture Livestock Development of Kenya, the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation of Somalia, the Ministry of Agriculture of Ethiopia and FAO Country Offices. Senior technical officers, directors of agricultural data systems, digital support analysts, project managers and specialists in natural resource management, digital agriculture and agricultural statistics actively contributed to the discussions. Their participation ensured that national policy leaders, data managers and technical experts worked together to shape a shared vision for digital transformation.
Representatives from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda presented their ongoing digital agriculture initiatives and national roadmaps, showcasing both the diversity of their approaches and the common challenges they face. In particular, they highlighted efforts to strengthen agricultural data systems, modernize advisory and extension services, expand the use of geospatial tools and improve farmer registration processes. These exchanges revealed a shared recognition of the need for more robust policy frameworks, increased interoperability between systems and greater investment in digital infrastructure to support coordinated, data-driven decision-making.
Specialists from FAO headquarters, the FAO Regional Office for Africa (RAF) and participating Country Offices provided an overview of the Organization’s corporate digital tools, including the FAO Agro-informatics Platform, Farmer Registry, Hand-in-Hand Initiative and Digital Villages Initiative. These tools demonstrated how FAO’s global digital ecosystem can complement national development strategies, support the modernization of agricultural data systems and strengthen the foundation for harmonized regional action.
Breakout discussions enabled participants to collectively identify priority areas where FAO support can drive meaningful progress. Countries emphasized the need to advance policy development in ICT, data protection and digital agriculture, while also enhancing their national digital infrastructures through big data servers, disaster-recovery systems and digitalized agricultural training centers. Capacity development emerged as a central theme, with strong interest in data analysis, information management systems, digital literacy for farmers and extension workers, early warning technologies and machine learning. Delegations also expressed interest in knowledge exchange through study tours to countries such as Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Rwanda, Thailand and Zambia.
The workshop concluded with an agreement on the next steps for consolidating and advancing the subregional agenda. FAO will carry out a comprehensive stocktaking exercise and capacity needs assessment, which will inform the development of a unified subregional action plan aligned with global FAO initiatives such as the Hand-in-Hand Initiative and the Digital Villages Initiative. A Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) proposal, national digitalization surveys and a briefing for the Subregional Office for Eastern Africa (SFE) will be prepared in the upcoming months to guide implementation.
The event reaffirmed the strong commitment of East African countries to harness digital innovation for the transformation of agrifood systems. By strengthening cross-country collaboration, identifying shared priorities and engaging key ministries and technical entities, the workshop laid the foundation for a more coordinated and impactful digital agriculture ecosystem. FAO will continue to support these efforts, ensuring that digital solutions remain inclusive, sustainable and capable of advancing long-term resilience and growth across the region’s agrifood landscapes.