* I used an LLM to copyedit this post, and it likely contains <10% of AI-generated text.
Aurelia Adhiambo and I are excited to launch the African Food Ecosystem Series, a free virtual training program for African advocates and early founders beginning on 24th July 2026 (right after AVA Ghana 2026!!!).
Africa's food systems are at a critical juncture. Industrial animal agriculture is expanding, alternative proteins are emerging elsewhere, and consumer and policy landscapes are evolving rapidly. At the same time, a growing number of founders and small teams across the continent are working on farmed animal welfare, alternative proteins, sustainable agriculture, food policy, and related issues. Yet many of them operate with limited organizational capacity and few opportunities for structured support.
The African Food Ecosystem Series is designed to help fill some of this gap. We created the program to equip early-stage advocates and organizations with practical skills grounded in our experience. Consider this an add-on to participants' passion and agency to grow resilient, high-impact initiatives and strengthen the broader food-system ecosystem across Africa, setting them up for success.
We are organizing this initiative together because we have both seen the importance of investing in people, organizations, and movement infrastructure. Strong leaders and organizations have the potential to influence the lives of millions of animals in Africa, yet ecosystem-building efforts in this region remain comparatively underdeveloped.
I, as the founder and executive director of the Animal Welfare League, have helped grow and bootstrap the organization to an annual funding/technical support base of $250,000. Aurelia, on the other hand, brings years of experience in African-centered advocacy, grantmaking, and movement building, and has worked across the continent to strengthen organizations and advance food-system transformation through leadership, advisory roles, events, and movement-building initiatives. This initiative is an unfunded attempt (a donation of our time) to consolidate all the individual support requests we each receive regularly.
Series 1 is designed for idea-stage and early-stage founders and small teams (2–5 people) working across the food-system landscape in Africa. The curriculum focuses on the capabilities that often determine whether organizations survive and grow during their first years, including:
- Mission clarity and theory of change
- Fundraising
- Creating legal and financial foundations
- AI tools and workflows
- Storytelling and communications
- Coalition building
- Personal resilience
Participants will leave the program with a one-year strategic plan, a budget, a funder-ready one-pager, an outcome-tracking framework, and practical systems that can improve effectiveness and save time.
We anticipate that this first cohort will contribute to a stronger and better-connected food-system ecosystem across Africa. Future cohorts may explore more specialized areas, including a corporate series and a food policy series with other partners.
We look forward to learning and working alongside participants and helping build the next generation of organizations working to transform food systems across Africa.