In May, several African countries gathered in Marrakech to launch a program that will redistribute power to coffee-producing countries.
BY DANIEL MURAGA
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Featured photo: African Agriculture Ministers attend the Regional Investment Platform for African Coffee Value Chain Development. Photo courtesy of the Islamic Organisation for Food Security.
This past May, nine African nations reached a landmark milestone in coffee marketing in an event co-organized by African Coffee Hub (ACH), Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), with the Islamic Organisation for Food Security (IOFS) also in attendance. At the event, a number of coffee-producing countries reached the first wave of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) and launched a continent-wide program to restructure how African coffee reaches global markets.
In the forum dubbed Regional Investment Platform for African Coffee Value Chain Development, which was held May 5-6, 2026, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Madagascar, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, Uganda, and Morocco signed agreements spanning coffee post-harvest management, quality control, traceability, aggregation, logistics, branding, value addition, investment structuring, and market access, establishing the first contractual foundation of the regional program. Further signatures are expected in the coming months as the program rolls out. The regional program aims at repositioning Africa from a mere passive supplier of raw materials to an active designer of its commodity value chains.
“This is not only about economic rebalancing, but also about the redistribution of power,” Sanae Benabdelkhalek, the African Coffee Hub President, told the forum.
Coffee production—background
Annual coffee production in these countries varies significantly, with Uganda leading the pack as a major global exporter and Morocco producing none commercially, relying solely on imports. According to recent figures, Uganda produces about 330,000 metric tons of coffee annually, while Côte d’Ivoire does between 45,000 and 103,000 metric tons, depending on seasonal weather.
Madagascar produces between 44,000 and 49,000 metric tons, with a sizeable amount drunk locally, while modern agricultural programs have helped Cameroon get between 11,600 and 35,000 metric tons. Sierra Leone manages between 2,200 and 20,000 metric tons of Robusta, while Guinea averages between 9,000 and 40,000 metric tons. Togo ranges from 18,000 to 27,000 metric tons, while Nigeria does about 1,844 metric tons.
Economic justifications leave no room for ambiguity
The program by these African countries is justified by solid statistics: Africa produces some of the finest specialty coffee in the world, accounting for about 15% of global output; however, the continent enjoys less than 10% of the final value. When the continent exports a cup of coffee that fetches $4 in a city in North America or Europe, the donkey-worked farmer in Africa gets a tearful of about four cents. This forms the basis for action.
About 80% of African coffee is exported as non-standardized and unprocessed green beans. This means that coffee processing and blending, distribution, and international logistics have for centuries been done overseas, draining the majority of revenue from a sector and a crop that Africa traditionally gave birth to. Realizing that African problems require African solutions, the regional program aims to undo these injustices by coming up with an African-controlled infrastructure for coffee aggregation, standardization, traceability, and direct market access.
“Africa has not waited to be invited to prosper,” Ahmed Ag Aboubacrine, head of the IsDB Regional Bureau in Rabat, Morocco, told the forum. He also described the program’s scope as going beyond economics into what he referred to as an epistemic shift—redesigning the narrative on development on the continent.
The successful forum
Major milestones were achieved during the forum in Marrakech. In addition to producing the first wave of MoUs with coffee-producing countries and establishing a program to restructure how African coffee is marketed globally, the forum made other significant strides.
Nigeria, through AGRA, committed 2,000 hectares of land to the ACH for coffee and provided 1,000 square meters to IsDB and OIC for the establishment and construction of the largest coffee research center on the continent, under the control and supervision of ACH.
ACH signed MoUs with Agriculture Ministers from Sierra Leone, Madagascar, and Guinea (together with the Finance counterpart), and with Uganda, through Banta African Coffee Ltd, headed by Nzeire Kaguta, the brother of Uganda’s President Museveni.
Sierra Leone also committed $65 million to structure national agribusiness development under the Feed Salone program and used the forum to highlight its prized Stenophylla, a rare and heat-resistant coffee variety increasingly being appreciated in specialty and single-origin markets amid climate unpredictability.
The ACH role
As mentioned before, Morocco does not commercially produce coffee. But on the Strait of Gibraltar, there is a major Moroccan industrial port complex ranking as the largest container port in Africa and the Mediterranean. This complex is called Tanger Med, and in it, there is a continental platform called African Coffee Hub. ACH is a Pan-African logistics and trade platform that eliminates old-style European brokers to directly aggregate, sort, control quality, and export African green coffee globally. Through this platform, Morocco becomes a valuable actor in Africa’s coffee value chain.
With Morocco, the program is anchored on three geostrategic convergences: Guidelines set by Morocco’s King Mohammed VI for South-South cooperation with sub-Saharan Africa, the logistical muscle of Tangier Med, and the agronomic proficiency of OCP Africa that is dedicated to soil health, a requirement for coffee quality.
Looking ahead
The program is being deployed in two phases. The first phase targets improving agriculture, producer aggregation systems, coffee post-harvest standardization, and coffee yield optimization, with first export flows going through Tanger Med. The second phase focuses on coffee certification and an NFC traceability system planned to retain the origin identity of every coffee-producing nation through identifiable and traceable branding that meets the highest professional and global standards.
With this mobilization, Africa boasts the first functioning coalition of the continent’s coffee origins, covering East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and the Indian Ocean.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Muraga (he/him) is a communications expert, researcher, writer, and editor based in Kenya with over 10 years of experience in the industry. His mission is to highlight Africa’s contributions to the realms of science, technology, innovation, culture, food, and related fields. He has done extensive research and written widely in the coffee niche for Sprudge Media, as well as in related areas for Life & Thyme and CQ Researcher, among others. When not writing, he is always outdoors communing with nature. You can find him on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.
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