By: Audrey Raymonda John
The Regional Forum on Coffee Value Chain Development in Africa opened in Marrakech on 5 May with a clear objective: to support African coffee-producing countries in moving beyond raw bean exports and building stronger value chains anchored on quality production, processing, traceability, investment, and improved access to international markets.
The forum, co-organised by the Islamic Development Bank, the Kingdom of Morocco, the African Coffee Hub, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, brought together governments, development finance institutions, private sector actors, and experts to develop a regional investment programme for competitive and inclusive coffee value chains across Africa.
Sierra Leone was represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Henry Musa Kpaka, alongside the Deputy Minister of Finance II, Kadiatu Allie. Both officials highlighted key interventions aimed at improving Sierra Leone’s coffee sector through enhanced production, stronger value addition, improved market access, and increased investment in specialty coffee varieties such as Stenophylla.
At the forum, Minister Kpaka described Stenophylla as a coffee species native to Sierra Leone, known for its distinctive quality and its ability to thrive under warmer climatic conditions, making it an important asset as the global coffee industry faces increasing climate-related challenges.
A major outcome of Sierra Leone’s participation was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and African Coffee Hub Invest. The agreement establishes a framework for technical cooperation to strengthen Sierra Leone’s coffee sector in areas such as post-harvest handling, quality control, traceability, aggregation, logistics, branding, value addition, investment preparation, and market access.
For Sierra Leone, this partnership is significant as coffee has strong potential to increase farmer incomes, create jobs, boost exports, and attract investment. Through this engagement, the country is positioning its coffee sector to move beyond low-value raw commodity exports toward a more organised, traceable, higher-value, and investment-ready industry that can deliver tangible benefits to farmers, agribusinesses, and the national economy.