{"id":8,"date":"2026-08-30T14:02:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T14:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/?p=8"},"modified":"2026-08-30T18:10:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T15:10:00","slug":"where-east-african-agriculture-money-moved-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/where-east-african-agriculture-money-moved-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Where East African agriculture money moved in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"standfirst\"><strong>In eighteen months the money that funds agriculture in East Africa changed hands, changed instrument and changed client. Grant money administered by an American agency has largely gone. What replaced it is borrowed money sitting on national balance sheets and spent through government project units. For any organisation that delivers on the ground, that is not a funding story. It is a procurement story.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>The size of what left<\/h2>\n<p>Global official development assistance fell 23.1 per cent in real terms in 2025, the largest single year contraction in the history of ODA. Total ODA came to USD 174.3 billion, roughly USD 50 billion below 2024. Sub-Saharan Africa took a 26.3 per cent cut, least developed countries 25.8 per cent, and humanitarian assistance 35.8 per cent. The OECD expects a further 5.8 per cent decline in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The American component of that is the sharpest. USAID ceased operations on 1 July 2025 and its remaining functions moved into the State Department. Of the agency&#8217;s award portfolio, 5,341 programmes were terminated and 898 retained, a cancellation rate near 86 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>Agriculture was cut harder than the average. On the Center for Global Development&#8217;s reading of foreignassistance.gov data for fiscal 2025:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u25c6 Agriculture <strong>obligations<\/strong> fell from USD 1.161 billion to USD 363 million, a drop of <strong>69 per cent<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>\u25c6 Agriculture <strong>disbursements<\/strong> fell from USD 1.152 billion to USD 855 million, a drop of 26 per cent.<\/li>\n<li>\u25c6 Across all sectors, obligations fell 43 per cent and disbursements 23 per cent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The gap between those two agriculture lines is the part most people have not yet felt. Disbursements in 2025 were still paying out commitments made in earlier years. Obligations are the pipeline. A 69 per cent cut to obligations is a 2026 and 2027 event arriving on a delay.<\/p>\n<p>Country level obligations tell the same story across the region, comparing FY2024 with FY2025:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#x25aa; Ethiopia: USD 1.209 billion to USD 743 million, down 39 per cent<\/li>\n<li>&#x25aa; Kenya: USD 630 million to USD 386 million, down 39 per cent<\/li>\n<li>&#x25aa; Uganda: USD 510 million to USD 368 million, down 28 per cent<\/li>\n<li>&#x25aa; Tanzania: USD 438 million to USD 319 million, down 27 per cent<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Feed the Future, the vehicle that carried most American agriculture programming in these four countries, was stopped by the January 2025 order, and its network of innovation labs received termination notices. In August 2025 the White House cancelled a further USD 72 million in Feed the Future funding. A replacement call for proposals went out in March 2026, anticipating five to seven labs at USD 20 million to USD 40 million each, with the selection criteria weighted toward the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n<p>The FY2026 appropriation gives the forward number: USD 720 million for food security and agricultural development, inside a USD 50 billion topline that is itself 16 per cent below FY2025. Set that against USD 1.161 billion obligated for agriculture by USAID alone in FY2024. The FY2027 request proposes eliminating Food for Peace outright.<\/p>\n<h2>What replaced it, and on what terms<\/h2>\n<p>Money did arrive to fill part of the gap. It arrived from the multilateral system, and it arrived mostly as loans.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IFAD<\/strong> closed its thirteenth replenishment at USD 1.7 billion, of which USD 1.4 billion in grants and USD 300 million in concessional loans, supporting a programme of work targeted at USD 10 billion. IFAD14, covering 2028 to 2030, was launched at the Governing Council in February 2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IDA21<\/strong> was agreed in December 2024 at a USD 100 billion package built on USD 23.7 billion of donor contributions from 59 countries, with more than two thirds directed to low income African countries. Note one risk in that number: the United States pledged USD 4 billion, and the FY2027 budget appendix implies a revision down to USD 3 billion, with the annual appropriation falling from USD 1.067 billion to a requested USD 866 million.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The African Development Fund<\/strong> produced the strongest single result of the period. ADF-17 mobilised USD 11 billion in December 2025, a 23 per cent increase on ADF-16, with food systems and food security named as one of five focus areas. Twenty three African countries contributed USD 182.7 million, nineteen of them for the first time. BADEA committed up to USD 800 million and the OPEC Fund up to USD 2 billion in co-financing. The United States does not appear in the release.<\/p>\n<p>The project level picture in the region is genuinely active:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u25c6 <strong>Kenya, INReMP<\/strong>, approved June 2025: USD 262.8 million total, USD 126.8 million from IFAD, eight years, targeting more than two million people in the Cherangany Hills and Mau West.<\/li>\n<li>\u25c6 <strong>Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, DaIMA<\/strong>, July 2025: USD 358 million dairy climate programme with the Green Climate Fund, 2.5 million direct beneficiaries.<\/li>\n<li>\u25c6 <strong>Uganda, ReLIV<\/strong>, September 2024: USD 181.3 million resilient livestock value chain programme, USD 99.6 million of it IFAD lending, running to 2033.<\/li>\n<li>\u25c6 <strong>Uganda, AfDB irrigation and agro-industrialisation<\/strong>, June 2026: USD 207 million total, around USD 140 million from the ADF.<\/li>\n<li>\u25c6 <strong>Rwanda, KIIWP Phase 2<\/strong>, signed February 2026: over RWF 110 billion, under PSTA 5.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The instrument changed, and that is the real story<\/h2>\n<p>Across Sub-Saharan Africa, grants were 97 per cent of ODA in 2010. By 2024 they were 68 per cent, with concessional loans up from 3 per cent to 32 per cent. The IMF&#8217;s April 2026 Regional Economic Outlook puts a number on how governments are responding to the 2025 shock: 31 per cent plan to increase borrowing to offset lost aid, 42 per cent plan expenditure reprioritisation, and around 40 per cent of the lost ODA is expected to remain simply unfunded.<\/p>\n<p>Rwanda&#8217;s FY2026\/27 budget shows the shift in a single table. Of RWF 7,796.3 billion, domestic revenues supply 67.6 per cent, external loans 25.3 per cent and external grants 7.0 per cent. Borrowed money is now 3.6 times larger than grant money in the national budget. Agriculture was the biggest single winner in that budget, with MINAGRI receiving an increase of RWF 78.8 billion, up 41.3 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>Kenya&#8217;s FY2026\/27 agriculture vote shows what this means for who actually holds the money. The allocation is KSh 64 billion against a national budget of KSh 4.84 trillion, roughly 1.3 per cent, well below the 10 per cent that the Kampala Declaration of January 2025 carried forward from Malabo and Maputo. More than a third of that KSh 64 billion is externally financed project lines:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#x25aa; Food Systems Resilience Project, KSh 5.4 billion, World Bank<\/li>\n<li>&#x25aa; National Agricultural Value Chain Development Project, KSh 4.7 to 4.9 billion, World Bank<\/li>\n<li>&#x25aa; DRIVE, pastoral economies, KSh 3.3 billion, World Bank<\/li>\n<li>&#x25aa; Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security, KSh 1.6 billion, AfDB<\/li>\n<li>&#x25aa; Rural Kenya Financial Inclusion Facility, KSh 1.1 billion, IFAD<\/li>\n<li>&#x25aa; Plus aquaculture, seed, fisheries and livestock lines that are also donor supported<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Domestic discretionary spending in that vote is dominated by the fertiliser subsidy at KSh 18 billion. Almost everything else that looks like a programme is an IFI credit.<\/p>\n<p>Across the region, none of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania or Rwanda meets the 10 per cent commitment. Tanzania sits near 4.0 per cent, Uganda near 3.0 per cent, Rwanda near 4.5 per cent, Kenya near 1.3 per cent. Burundi is the only EAC member currently at or above the target.<\/p>\n<h2>What this changes for organisations that deliver<\/h2>\n<p>Five consequences follow from a shift out of grants and into sovereign loans, and none of them are about the amount of money available.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The client changes.<\/strong> A grant funded programme was contracted by a donor&#8217;s contracting officer to an international prime. A loan funded programme is procured by a project management unit inside a line ministry, under that country&#8217;s procurement law and the financier&#8217;s procurement rules. The person who decides whether you are hired now sits in Nairobi, Kampala, Dodoma or Kigali, not in Washington.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The paperwork changes.<\/strong> National registration, a current tax compliance certificate, e-procurement portal registration and audited accounts move from useful to mandatory. In Kenya that means the e-GP system and a valid KRA tax compliance certificate. In Tanzania it means NeST, which replaced TANePS in 2023. In Uganda it means the PPDA e-procurement portal, in Rwanda Umucyo.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The timing changes.<\/strong> Loan money is slower than grant money. Kenya&#8217;s NARIGP took about eleven months from board approval to effectiveness, and a single restructuring that moved it between ministries cost twelve months. IFAD&#8217;s own last published figure for time from project approval to first disbursement was 13.67 months, in 2021. Work is procured after effectiveness, not at design.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The competitive field changes, in your favour.<\/strong> Under World Bank rules, a consulting shortlist may be composed entirely of national firms below a ceiling set in the project&#8217;s procurement plan. In the two Kenyan agriculture projects we checked, that ceiling is USD 300,000. Below it you are not competing with an international prime. You are competing with the firm down the road.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The money is on the country&#8217;s balance sheet.<\/strong> This is the part the sector talks about least. Programmes that were once given are now borrowed, in countries where 77 per cent of the most aid dependent are at high risk of debt distress. That raises the standard for value for money, and it raises the political salience of showing results in country rather than in a donor report.<\/p>\n<h2>What we take from it<\/h2>\n<p>The organisations that struggle in this period will be the ones waiting for the grant environment to return. The ones that do well will be the ones that treat a published procurement plan as a business development document, that get their national compliance in order before the tender appears, and that can be shortlisted on their own registration rather than as a subcontractor to someone else&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>The money did not leave East African agriculture. It changed hands. Knowing whose hands is now most of the job.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h3>Sources<\/h3>\n<p class=\"sources\">OECD, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oecd.org\/en\/data\/insights\/data-explainers\/2026\/04\/a-historic-decline-in-foreign-aid-preliminary-2025-oda-data.html\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">preliminary 2025 ODA data<\/a>, April 2026 \u00b7 Center for Global Development, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cgdev.org\/blog\/usaid-spending-country-and-sector-level-what-happened-fiscal-2025\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">USAID spending at country and sector level<\/a>, April 2026 \u00b7 CGD, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cgdev.org\/blog\/us-congress-says-yes-foreign-aid-now-comes-hard-part\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">FY2026 appropriations analysis<\/a>, January 2026, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cgdev.org\/blog\/deep-cuts-new-directions-trumps-fy27-budget-and-future-us-foreign-assistance\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">FY2027 budget request<\/a>, April 2026 \u00b7 Devex, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.devex.com\/news\/which-usaid-funded-food-and-agriculture-programs-were-cut-which-remain-109759\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">USAID food and agriculture terminations<\/a>, April 2025 \u00b7 Grist, <a href=\"https:\/\/grist.org\/food-and-agriculture\/inside-america-first-makeover-of-usaid-global-hunger-program\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">on the Feed the Future innovation labs<\/a>, July 2026 \u00b7 IFAD, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ifad.org\/en\/replenishment\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">replenishment<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ifad.org\/en\/w\/news\/new-ifad-supported-us-126.8-million-project-to-boost-food-security-incomes-and-resilience-for-over-two-million-kenyans\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">INReMP<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ifad.org\/en\/w\/news\/ifad-and-gcf-partner-in-us-358-million-climate-programme-for-east-africa-s-dairy-sector\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">DaIMA<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ifad.org\/en\/w\/projects\/2000003953\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">ReLIV<\/a> \u00b7 World Bank, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/en\/news\/press-release\/2024\/12\/05\/donors-and-world-bank-group-boost-ida-development\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">IDA21<\/a>, December 2024 \u00b7 African Development Bank, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afdb.org\/en\/news-and-events\/press-releases\/african-development-fund-mobilises-historic-11-billion-marking-new-era-african-ownership-and-investment-led-development-89755\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">ADF-17<\/a>, December 2025, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afdb.org\/en\/news-and-events\/uganda-african-development-bank-group-approves-140-million-programme-expand-irrigation-agro-industrialisation-jobs-and-rural-incomes-94365\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Uganda irrigation programme<\/a>, June 2026 \u00b7 IMF, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imf.org\/-\/media\/files\/publications\/reo\/afr\/2026\/april\/english\/ch2.pdf\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Regional Economic Outlook, Sub-Saharan Africa, chapter 2<\/a>, April 2026 \u00b7 MINECOFIN Rwanda, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.minecofin.gov.rw\/news-detail\/minister-murangwa-presents-frw-7796-billion-budget-for-2026-27-prioritizing-agriculture-jobs-and-economic-stability\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">FY2026\/27 budget<\/a> \u00b7 African Union, <a href=\"https:\/\/au.int\/sites\/default\/files\/documents\/44705-doc-OSC68108_E_Original_CAADP_Stratedy_and_Action_Plan.pdf\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">CAADP Strategy and Action Plan 2026 to 2035<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"note\"><em>Figures are as published at the dates shown. Where sources differ we have used the arithmetically consistent figure and said so. Kenya&#8217;s agriculture budget share is stated at 1.3 per cent on the basis of KSh 64 billion against a KSh 4.84 trillion budget; other published figures of 2.0 and 2.7 per cent use wider definitions of the sector.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>East African agriculture funding moved from USAID grants to World Bank, IFAD and AfDB loans in 2026, and what that shift means for local delivery firms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,14,16,15,34,10,13,12,9],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funding-flows","tag-african-development-bank","tag-aid-cuts","tag-climate-finance","tag-concessional-lending","tag-east-africa","tag-ifad","tag-official-development-assistance","tag-usaid","tag-world-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25,"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/25"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hagrotrading.com\/briefings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}