AFSF 2026: Liesa Bidali intends to make AFSF accessible through stories

1. Why is this year’s AFSF important to your work?

The AFSF summit this year hits the nail on the head, by bringing into focus particular issues that I have been grappling with: How do we make food systems more resilient in the local context? How do we move from good ideas to investable solutions? And how do we ensure young people, women and communities are active participants in that transformation?

Through my work at City Shamba, I am at the practical end of the food system; exploring agroecology, school gardens, regenerative approaches and community engagement. At the same time, The African Food Stories Podcast gives me a platform to ask questions, document perspectives and make food-systems conversations more accessible. AFSF’s focus on nourishing nations, growing jobs and building resilience creates an opportunity to connect these ground-level experiences with the bigger conversations around finance, markets, soil health, youth and private-sector investment. 

2. How are you looking forward to contributing your skills and expertise at the AFSF?

As a practitioner, I bring experience working around agroecology, community engagement, school food systems and partnerships. As a storyteller through African Food Stories Podcast, I am interested in translating some of the technical conversations around food systems into stories and questions that ordinary people can understand and relate to.

I’m particularly looking forward to the sessions on soil health and sustainable production, youth-led agribusiness, women-led SMEs, private-sector investment and AfCFTA. Together, they speak to a question I find particularly important: what does it actually take to move a food-system solution from a promising idea on the ground to something that can create livelihoods, improve nutrition and reach more people?

I also hope to contribute by asking the simple questions that can lead to broader conversations: Who is this solution working for? Who is financing it? Can a young person make a living from it? And can we take it to scale without losing the community at the centre?

3. What are the most important outcomes you are hoping will come out of the AFSF?

Definitely looking to leave with connections that become collaborations, ideas that become action, and stories that continue the conversation beyond Kigali. For City Shamba, I am particularly interested in finding partners and learning from models that can strengthen our work.

For African Food Stories, I want to leave with new perspectives and conversations that help us tell a more nuanced African food story; not one that only focuses on challenges, but one that captures the innovators, farmers, entrepreneurs, policymakers and young people building solutions. More broadly, I hope AFSF pushes us to think about investment beyond money. Investment can mean finance, but it can also mean investing in soil, knowledge, young people, local markets, partnerships and the institutions that allow good ideas to survive and grow. 

4. Who are you most looking forward to meeting or hearing from at the AFSF, and why? 

I’m looking forward to meeting the people who sit across the different parts of the food system; farmers, young agripreneurs, investors, policymakers, researchers, innovators and private-sector actors.

I’m especially interested in hearing from people working on youth-led agribusinesses, women-led enterprises, climate-resilient production and food innovation, because these are areas where I see enormous potential but also some very real gaps especially for startups or scale ups.

I’m also curious about the investors and private-sector actors in the room. From a City Shamba perspective, I want to better understand what makes a food-system solution investable and learn from any innovative ways of generating revenues for OPEX in social enterprises.  

And from an African Food Stories perspective, I’m looking forward to the unexpected voices: the people whose work may not normally make it into mainstream food-systems conversations, even into speaking spots in events such as AFSF or bigger. These unique stories of actors who play a role that is sometimes overlooked.