Gates Foundation and MAFAP programme convene for annual update

The Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) programme and the Gates Foundation held their annual check-in meeting in March 2025 at FAO Headquarters to review progress, share insights, and refine strategies for advancing agricultural policy reforms across Africa. This year’s annual gathering, held at the mid-point of the programme’s third phase (2022–2027), provided a vital opportunity to update programme-wide activities, address challenges, and set priorities for the coming year.

Reviewing achievements

The meeting opened with welcoming remarks from Marco V. Sánchez, Deputy Director of FAO's Agrifood Economics and Policy Division and Officer-in-Charge of the MAFAP programme, followed by opening comments from Alan Rennison, the Gates Foundation’s Senior Programme Officer. Marco Moncayo, Policy Officer with the MAFAP team, then presented a global progress overview, highlighting that the programme has successfully implemented over 10 reforms, with many nearing completion.

Later, Alethia Cameron, who leads policy monitoring, and Policy Analyst Juan José provided an in-depth update on public expenditure and commodity price incentives. Their presentation showcased the current state-of-play and ongoing analyses, including the forthcoming expansion of the AgIncentives Consortium to incorporate more countries. In addition, MAFAP’s public-expenditure analysis is set to integrate nutrition, climate, and biodiversity markers, underscoring the programme’s commitment to factor in environmental and food security and nutrition core MAFAP analytics.

Marco V. Sánchez (top of table) opens the two-day meeting at FAO Headquarters.

Advancing policy reforms across Africa

A dedicated session led by Economist Thibault Meilland, with support from key country focal points, explored policy reforms aimed at fostering inclusive agricultural transformation. The session featured country-specific insights, starting with Uganda, followed by updates from Nigeria led by Manson Nwafor, from Rwanda with Clarisse Mukaneza and Davide Del Prete, and concluding with Meizal Popat’s coordination update from Mozambique.

Later, discussions turned to nutritious agrifood systems. Economist Clara Picanyol and Senior Policy Modeller Martín Cicowiez detailed the MAFAP programme’s innovative collaboration with FAO’s Food and Nutrition Division and Ethiopian authorities. This initiative focuses on developing a nutrition-sensitivity marker for public expenditure and least-cost, contextually appropriate dietary patterns to enhance food security and nutrition, leveraging MAFAP’s data analysis, cross-organizational expertise, and direct country engagement.

Strategic partnerships and future engagement

The second day of the meeting concentrated on MAFAP’s broader strategic positioning. Discussions underscored the importance of institutionalizing MAFAP’s policy monitoring and agrifood reform support within FAO’s Agrifood Economics and Policy Division (ESA). ESA Director David Laborde contributed to this dialogue, helping to align the programme’s work with FAO’s strategic objectives and showing how MAFAP’s imprint is already part of ESA’s structure and work. A collaborative session then followed on the “enabling policy environment” at the country level, and identified key bottlenecks, enablers, and actionable strategies to propel further reform.

Looking ahead, the meeting explored MAFAP’s potential role and visibility at major regional and global policy fora, including engagements with the African Union’s post-Malabo agenda, and the Food Systems Summit, among others.

The annual check-in concluded with a review of MAFAP’s financial and human resource outlook. The insights and discussions from the two-day meeting will guide FAO and the Gates Foundation in their joint efforts for the MAFAP programme to continue to shape data-driven, inclusive, and sustainable agrifood systems across Africa.

David Laborde (left), Director of Agrifood Economics and Policy Division at FAO and Fabrizio Moscatelli, the Gates Foundation's Rome-based consultant (right), discuss further institutionalizing and embedding MAFAP programme work into the division.