Newsletter, September 2025

Africa Rice Sector Update

CARD is a coalition of 32 Sub-Saharan African countries and 14 Development Partners.  We are working together to double rice production in Africa by Year 2030.

🌾 OVERVIEW OF THE RICE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT IN UGANDA 

In Conversation with the National Focal Point of the Uganda National Rice Development Strategy (NRDS) Task Force team.

Mr Peter Dhamuzungu is the focal point (FP) of the National Rice Development Strategy (NRDS) for Uganda. As the FP, he is responsible for coordinating all activities of the Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD) in Uganda. In this interview, Mr Dhamuzungu provides an overview of the rice sector of Uganda by explaining the current rice production and demand pattern, challenges, and the way forward for the sector to meet the set objective of increasing production to reduce reliance on importation.  👉 Click here to the full article

🌾 TICAD 9 SPOTLIGHT: AGRA & CARD DRIVE AFRICA’S AGENDA IN JAPAN 

The Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 9), held in Yokohama from August 20–22, 2025, highlighted Africa’s agricultural progress and partnerships. At a JICA side event, CARD Secretariat’s Mr. Shinjiro Amameishi presented Phase 2 of CARD, while Mr. Fahari Marwa of the East African Community provided updates on rice development at the sub-regional level. AGRA, led by President Alice Ruhweza, actively participated through high-level meetings with Japanese government agencies and the private sector, and contributed to several sessions showcasing Africa’s agricultural agenda  👉 Click here to the full article

🌾 UNLOCKING RICE POTENTIAL: REGIONAL/COUNTRY ACTIVITIES 

Workshop on Monitoring & Evaluation of NRDS-2 in Tanzania on 20 – 22 August 2025

Tanzania has recently become a net exporter of rice in the region.  Against an estimated domestic consumption requirement of 2.06 million tons, the country produced 2.13 million tons of milled rice in 2023.  Average volume of annual rice exports from Tanzania since 2020 stands at 386,438 tons.  Most (98.74%) of the surplus is exported to neighboring countries in the EAC region under zero tariff rate.  With EAC markets running a deficit of 2 million tons of milled rice, Tanzania’s scopes for further expansion of its domestic rice production holds several advantages. 👉Click here to the full article

Nigeria National Rice Development Strategy – Annual Rice Sector Review Meeting (ARSRM )

Nigeria is one of the pioneer countries involved in the Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD) initiative. In alignment with the CARD Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework under the CARD phase 2, the task force members held a preparatory meeting in March 2024 to discuss the necessity of the NRDS kick-off meeting (KOM). This meeting was crucial for preparing for the baseline data collection survey, ensuring that all required processes and methodologies were in place for effective data gathering and analysis. The secondary data collection has been on-going. While collection of secondary data for the overall indicators was successful, collection of the data for the RICE indicators posed a challenge. In consultation with the CARD secretariat the task forc decided to organize the Annual Rice Sector Review Meeting (ARSRM) with the available data.👉Click here to the full article

Equatorial Guinea joins the Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD)

On September 11, an online meeting was held between Equatorial Guinea and the Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD), marking a decisive step towards the country’s integration into this initiative. 👉Click here to the full article

The Smart Valley Compendium Workshop in Cote d’Ivoire

In order to contribute to the achievement of rice self-sufficiency in sub-Saharan Africa, AfricaRice has experimented a low-cost lowland development approach called the “Smart Valley Approach”. Indeed, AfricaRice projections show that to achieve rice self-sufficiency, the continent needs an additional production of 30 million tons of rice by 2035 (an additional production of 3 Mt per year). To achieve this, AfricaRice believes that the SMART Valley approach needs to be massively scaled up. It is in this sense that from September 8 to 12, 2025, a workshop on the Compendium of “SMART Valleys” was held in Mbé, Côte d’Ivoire. The objective of the workshop was to stimulate the co-creation of the Smart-Valleys Compendium for Sustainable Lowland Development and Food and Nutrition Security in Africa. 👉Click here to the full article

Check out all the recent developments on CARD activities. Our news includes coverage of major events and activities, programmes, and CARD engagement with its stakeholders. 👉Click here to see the news

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