Africa Refrigeration Day 2026: “Marking this date is neither a celebration nor a commemoration. It is a call to account”, says Madi Sakandé
On the occasion of African Refrigeration Day, celebrated on September 24th by the Union of Association of African actors in Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, its president, Madi Sakandé, addresses African technicians—through their associations—as well as government officials and civil society, including journalists, for whom covering the refrigeration sector should be a priority. Read on.
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF U-3ARC, MADI SAKANDÉ
In Africa, refrigeration kills. When it is absent.
Refrigeration is not reserved for big cities or wealthy companies. It is vital for every African. When 70% of harvests rot for lack of a cold chain, that is not a technical inevitability, it is an injustice. That we are delivered equipment designed for other climates is already an insult to our intelligence. But that our own governments tax up to 111% the import of new and high-performance equipment that our people need that is the total aberration. Yet refrigeration is the backbone of our food and health sovereignty. But not only that.
This 24 September 2026, U-3ARC celebrates its fifth African Refrigeration Day. It is neither a party nor a commemoration. It is a call to account. To you. To all of us.
Technicians: actors or spectators?
Six years ago, on 24 September 2020 in Ouagadougou, thirty associations from twenty-nine African countries founded U-3ARC with a simple conviction: together, we weigh. Today, we are more than forty-five associations, more than twenty thousand companies, nearly one hundred and fifty thousand people. That figure is a force. But a force that sleeps is not a force.
I address you, technicians, refrigeration and air-conditioning professionals from Dakar to Nairobi, from Casablanca to Johannesburg: are you ready to carry the African refrigeration revolution, or are you waiting for it to happen without you?
Training in alternative refrigerants (R290, R1270, R744, R717, R1234yf and R32), obtaining certifications, adopting good practices for refrigerant recovery, these are not options reserved for technical elites elsewhere. They are your responsibilities. They are your professional dignity. Our training academies launched in Tunis, in Ouagadougou, soon in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Cameroon and certainly in many other U-3ARC member countries, have trained hundreds of technicians from several countries. This is only the beginning. The path belongs to those who walk it.
National associations: relays or empty shells?
We have registered more than ten thousand technicians to date. We want ten times more. A hundred times more. But this registration will not happen from an office in Ouagadougou. It will happen in your countries, in your cities, in your neighborhoods.
U-3ARC member associations, I ask you plainly: do your governments know that refrigeration is an infrastructure as essential as water or electricity ? Have you told them ? Have you challenged your ministries of Health, Agriculture, Energy ? Have you run campaigns so that your populations understand that the refrigeration that protects a vaccine or preserves a harvest is not a luxury, it is a right?
We advocate for an African Refrigeration Directive, with common standards and a priority on energy efficiency and refrigerants adapted to our realities. This advocacy cannot come from me alone. It must come from you, from the field, from your national parliaments, from your local media.
Journalists, civil society, governments: refrigeration is looking at you too.
To journalists: how many of you have devoted a report to the refrigeration technician who keeps a rural health center alive? Refrigeration dies of media indifference. Make the invisible visible. This profession deserves your microphones, your cameras, your pens.
To civil society: do not delegate this fight to refrigeration professionals alone. Demand public policies for training, certification, and subsidies for low-carbon equipment. The cold chain is a matter of food and health survival. It is therefore your fight.
To African governments: Africa can no longer be the dumping ground for technologies from elsewhere. Make refrigeration a continental strategic axis or accept remaining forever in the waiting line of development. Invest in training centers. Legislate on refrigerants. Protect local technicians from unfair competition from imported substandard equipment. Please review taxation on refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment and tools.
Our future is refrigeration. And that is good news.
The intelligence of refrigeration is not only technical. It is political. It is strategic. It is African.
Refrigeration is our profession. Intelligence is our strength. Africa is our field.
This 24 September, I ask you one thing: do not remain spectators. Get trained. Speak out. Build. Share this message with those who need it: the technician, the minister, the journalist, the neighbor.
The Africa of refrigeration is being built now. Together.
Happy African Refrigeration Day to all refrigeration and air-conditioning professionals across Africa
Madi Sakandé
President of U-3ARC