Mwaka Namukonda

I coordinate 200+ organisations across 54 African countries as Continental Secretary General of the CAADP Non-State Actors Group, championing farmer and youth voices in continental agrifood policy. I also lead partnerships for Msitu360's school feeding programme in Lusaka, and research trade facilitation along the Lobito Corridor for my PhD.

I'm a Zambian development cooperation professional whose work sits at the crossroads of policy, trade, and community; three worlds that, in Africa's food systems, are really one. My path started in the classroom and the boardroom: I hold a BEd/BCom and an MSc in International Trade from the University of Dar es Salaam. That grounding in both people and policy shaped how I approach my work; never just theory, always asking who it feeds. Today I serve as Continental Secretary General of the CAADP Non-State Actors Group (CNG), coordinating over 200 organisations across 54 African countries under the AU/AUDA-NEPAD framework - making sure the voices of farmers, youth, and grassroots actors shape the policies meant to serve them. Alongside this, I lead external partnerships at Msitu360, a social enterprise running a school feeding programme at Chainda Community School in Lusaka, where I see firsthand what it means when policy reaches a child's plate. Also building a Zero- Waste factory to keep the School feeding program sustainable. I'm currently completing a PhD examining trade facilitation and agri-food export transformation along the Lobito Corridor; work born from a conviction that Africa's trade corridors can be engines of food security, not just extraction routes. Earlier in my career, I served as Executive Coordinator of the Consortium of African Youth in Agriculture and Climate Change (CAYACC), where I first saw how much power young people hold to reshape the continent's food future, if given the room to lead. What drives me is simple: Africa doesn't lack talent, land, or ambition in Agri-food systems, it needs the bridges between policy rooms and kitchen tables. That's the bridge I try to build, one partnership at a time.