Powering continental expansion through advocacy and engagement

Our client

Our client is a global food and beverages giant and one of the continent’s main food manufacturers, producing staple products such as pap, maize meal, oats, cereals, pasta and dried fruits. Yet, this is a little-known fact, as is the company’s employment and job creation footprint in Africa.

The client’s mission

The client realises that its size and diversified portfolio enable it to be a catalytic actor in building sustainable food systems across the continent. However, to be able to occupy this role requires a clear brand, relationships of trust, and a strategic approach to its investment that emphasises its positive impacts. Against this backdrop, the client sought to understand the continent’s food systems agenda, its main stakeholders, opportunities for investment and change, and to build strategic relations by engaging key actors directly and in multilateral contexts.

Our support

Africa Practice designed and implemented an advocacy and engagement strategy rooted in a detailed understanding of the continent’s policy context and stakeholder ecosystem, and utilising a robust evidence base.  Our support included: 

• Political economy analysis
• Stakeholder mapping
• Policy landscape analysis 
• Systems change theory design
• Policy partnership strategy and building
• Proof point development
• Policy-maker capacitation
• Stakeholder engagement
• Media engagement

The results

PepsiCo is engaged in a variety of critical conversations that are shaping the continent’s food systems future. This includes national, regional and international policy-making and investment processes around farming practices, nutrition innovation, climate change adaptation, new trade routes to leverage the African Continental Free Trade Area, and low-emission transport and packaging solutions. International innovation and best practices are thus finding their way to the continent, while the client works through its in-country teams to ensure that they are adopted to meet local needs and context across the continent.