By Paul Matthew, Global Cold Chain Alliance director for Africa
The growth of temperature-controlled logistics across Africa is reducing post-harvest food loss, increasing the resilience of the continent’s food supply chain, boosting trade, creating new jobs and improving healthcare.
We know that these benefits can be greatly amplified by accelerating the growth of the cold chain,and our industry wants to deliver. A policy environment that supports and facilitates investment into business growth is crucial.
The Global Cold Chain Alliance (GCCA) is proud to represent our members in dialogue with politicians and policy makers at global, regional and national levels. We work to ensure a better understanding among decision-makers of the needs, challenges and opportunities of our industry, which has historically been overlooked. In the 18 months since we launched the GCCA’s Call to Action for Africa (which proposes a suite of policies to support cold chain growth across the continent) we have taken these messages to numerous ministers and officials for constructive and fruitful discussions. Throughout 2026 we will build on this work with an advocacy strategy for Africa that focuses on three core themes.
Infrastructure resilience
The first core theme is infrastructure resilience, seeking to minimise disruption to the infrastructure on which Africa’s food and healthcare supply chains depend; and to remove the barriers for businesses seeking to invest in the infrastructure that the cold chain needs today and for the future.
We will propose policies throughout Africa which facilitate quality cold store construction, set practicable refrigerated vehicle and equipment standards, recognise the importance of temperature-controlled logistics in civil crisis preparedness, and harness technological innovations in cold storage and refrigerated transportation.
Infrastructure resilience is also crucial to improving the continuity of flow of temperature-controlled goods between African nations under the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), and with the rest of the world. Addressing the disruption at Africa’s major ports is key. GCCA is facilitating a new initiative at the Port of Durban, convening a committee to evaluate the feasibility for railing import reefer containers directly from Durban to City Deep (Johannesburg). This evaluation will inform a pilot, demonstrating the changes that will reduce congestion and quicken turnaround.
Safe and secure trade
Cold chain operators in Africa will also benefit from new opportunities to grow when the safety, security and continuity of regional and global trade are enhanced. This is the second core theme of GCCA’s advocacy strategy for 2026, and we will be advancing the case – in Africa and worldwide – for the practical, workable reforms that can help remove friction from trade.
Digitisation in trade processes will take our global community a great stride towards this vision. Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) control systems, for example, are based on highly technical, paper-heavy processes which create delays, cost money and invite fraud. It is slow and complex, but progress is being made as governments around the world seek robust solutions that both strengthen oversight and support commerce. Africa can be a major player as the world transitions to digitised trade processes and GCCA is active in these conversations on our members’ behalf
There would also be a major boost to the safety, security and continuity of trade through overhaul of national responses to outbreaks of animal disease. Governments’ measures should allow confidence to continue trade, using containment strategies that focus on zoning rather than blanket bans on the whole country’s goods. During 2026, GCCA will seek to facilitate collaboration between Africa’s governments and supply chains to identify, contain and minimise the effects of any outbreaks while reducing length of time, and breadth of coverage, of restrictions on safe and secure trade.
Sustainable supply chains
The third core theme in GCCA advocacy’s strategy for 2026 is sustainability in supply chains. For cold chain operators in Africa, energy security is at the heart of sustainability: it is crucial to operational resilience, business viability and environmental credentials.
Over the course of 2025 we demonstrated clearly to politicians and officials, particularly in South Africa, how severely energy disruptions impact the food supply chain. In 2026 we are building on this work, making the case for temperature-controlled logistics operators to be made a priority for supply in times of energy interruptions, and for policies that facilitate and encourage investment in co-locating renewable energy generation at cold chain sites.
By focusing on these three core themes (infrastructure resilience, safe and secure trade, and sustainable supply chains) GCCA’s advocacy is supporting cold chain operators’ ability to invest in growth, as well as boosting economic prosperity and the availability of safe, high quality, and affordable food. An expanded, future-facing cold chain could help Africa become the food basket of the world. GCCA is working for a policy environment that will allow this exciting vision to become our continent’s reality.
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