A memorable gathering of partners and changemakers at the Kigali Leadership Reception, celebrating collaboration to accelerate food, energy and climate solutions across Africa.
A moment of dialogue and collaboration at the Kigali Leadership Reception, highlighting the promise of agrivoltaics to transform Africa’s food and energy future.
Connecting ideas, building partnerships and fostering collaboration in Kigali to accelerate the future of African agrivoltaics.
Harvesting the sun, strengthening communities: a new pathway to African resilience
PHOENIX, AZ, UNITED STATES, September 8, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Consortium for Sustainable Agrivoltaics (C4SA) and AKADEMIYA2063 convened African government officials, development partners, investors, researchers, farmers, and private-sector innovators in Kigali for a leadership and networking reception introducing the African Agrivoltaics Platform Initiative (AAPI) to stakeholders across the continent.
Held along the margins of the Africa Food Systems Forum, the reception built on the formal launch of AAPI at OECD headquarters in Paris in April of this year and focused on how agrivoltaics can help address Africa’s interconnected food, energy, and water security challenges.
Agrivoltaics, the integration of solar energy generation with agricultural production on the same land, offers the potential to generate clean energy while supporting agricultural productivity, improving water-use efficiency, powering irrigation and cold storage, and creating new economic opportunities for farmers and rural communities.
A major highlight of the Kigali gathering was the presentation of the first-ever “Handbook of African Agrivoltaics”, a practical resource developed to help policymakers, researchers, practitioners, investors, and project developers better understand the opportunities and challenges of deploying agrivoltaics across diverse African contexts.
The handbook emphasizes that successful agrivoltaics will require more than technology. Locally tailored research, specific government policies, innovative financing, community engagement, skills development, and strong agricultural value chains will all be essential to building sustainable markets.
The Kigali reception also highlighted AAPI’s three structured working groups: evidence and capacity building, finance, and value-chain development. These working groups are designed to complement each other, focusing on creating the knowledge and enabling conditions to allow viable, private-sector led agrivoltaic markets to thrive. Furthermore, the working groups connect project developers, business leaders, investors, researchers, bankers and other stakeholders to help move promising ideas toward viable impact on the ground.
The event was supported by Arizona-based 22nd Century by Design Solutions and BioLargo, Inc., whose shared commitment to sustainable technology solutions spans food, agriculture, water, clean energy, and community development.
“Agrivoltaics gives us an opportunity to think about food, energy and water as interconnected systems rather than separate challenges,” said Dr. Cynthia A. Phillips, Founder, Chairman and CEO of 22nd Century by Design Solutions. “AAPI can help connect innovation, investment and local capacity to create solutions that strengthen communities and generate lasting economic opportunity.”
Chris Hegadorn, Founder of C4SA and the AAPI, said “Given all that we are all seeing globally in terms of spreading conflicts and climate change, it is no longer a question of if, for agrivoltaics, but when and how fast?”
The Kigali gathering reinforced a central message of AAPI: Africa has an opportunity to shape its own agrivoltaics future by bringing together African policymakers, farmers, researchers, entrepreneurs, financial institutions, and international partners. The group also acknowledged and celebrated the creation of the Egyptian Agrivoltaics Initiative - a local initiative following in the footsteps of AAPI to accelerate agrivoltaics in Egypt.
As AAPI continues to build its country networks and working groups, C4SA and its partners will focus on turning knowledge and innovation into practical, scalable solutions that strengthen food security, expand clean-energy access, conserve water, and support sustainable economic development across Africa.
About the African Agrivoltaics Platform Initiative
The African Agrivoltaics Platform Initiative (AAPI) is a continental collaboration designed to accelerate responsible development of agrivoltaics across Africa by strengthening evidence and capacity, mobilizing finance, developing agricultural value chains, and connecting governments with research, development, and private-sector partners.
About C4SA
The Consortium for Sustainable Agrivoltaics (C4SA) is a collaborative platform advancing sustainable agrivoltaics through research, policy, financing, capacity building, and cross-sector partnerships.
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Cynthia A Phillips
22nd Century by Design Solutions Group
+1 602-819-9731
email us here
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