East Africa urged to back farm pledges with cash as food security goals face funding gap

TUESDAY August 4, 2026

By Adam Ihucha

The Tranquillity News Correspondent, Kenya

East African governments risk falling short of ambitious food security and agricultural growth targets unless they match political commitments with substantially higher investment, policymakers and agricultural experts warned, highlighting widening financing gaps as fiscal pressures squeeze public spending across the region.

Officials from the East African Community (EAC), legislators, development experts, and civil society representatives said during a regional budget review that the biggest obstacle to implementing the Kampala Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Declaration is no longer political commitment but inadequate financing and weak execution.

“The region has moved beyond a deficit of political commitment. The constraint is readiness to implement—the capacity to finance, execute, coordinate, and sustain agrifood systems transformation,” the EAC-CAADP Non-State Actors Group said in its assessment.

The warning comes as governments face mounting debt repayments, rising security costs, and slowing fiscal space, making it increasingly difficult to finance agriculture despite the sector remaining the backbone of East Africa’s economy.

Agriculture contributes between 25 per cent and 40 per cent of gross domestic product across most EAC member states, employs more than 60 per cent of the region’s workforce, and supports the livelihoods of roughly 70 per cent of rural households.

Yet, public investment has consistently lagged the sector’s economic importance, even as climate shocks, population growth, and food inflation intensify pressure on governments to raise productivity.

The East African Community, home to more than 330 million people, is seeking to transform agriculture into a modern, resilient, and market-oriented sector under the Kampala Declaration, which commits African countries to increase agrifood output by 45 per cent by 2035, eliminate hunger, expand intra-African agricultural trade, and strengthen climate resilience.

Achieving those targets will require significantly greater public and private investment, David Wafula, Coordinator for Agriculture and Food Security at the EAC Secretariat, said while presenting findings from the Fifth CAADP Biennial Review.

The region has moved beyond a deficit of political commitment. The constraint is readiness to implement—the capacity to finance, execute, coordinate, and sustain agrifood systems transformation,” the East African Community-Kampala Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme- Non-State Actors Group assessment.

“Success requires a multisectoral approach that coordinates investments in agrifood systems,” said Wafula, adding:. “Governments must strengthen implementation capacity while mobilising additional financing.”

The webinar reviewed the newly launched EAC Regional Agri-food Systems Investment Plan (RASIP) 2026-2035, which is designed to coordinate regional investment in food production, agricultural trade, natural resource management, rural infrastructure, and private-sector participation.

The financing challenge is evident within the regional bloc itself.

The EAC allocated $4.13 million to productive sectors in the 2026/27 financial year, up from $3.44 million a year earlier.

However, development partners will provide US$3.68 million, or 89.2 per cent, of that funding, while partner states will contribute only $447,395, representing 10.8 per cent.

The Community’s overall budget for the fiscal year totals $110.86 million.

Participants said the figures underscore the region’s continued dependence on external financing to support agricultural transformation.

A separate assessment of national budgets found that only Burundi currently meets the long-standing CAADP commitment to allocate at least 10 per cent of national expenditure to agriculture, with approximately 13 per cent of its budget directed to the sector.

Even so, analysts cautioned that higher spending does not automatically translate into stronger implementation.

“Budget shares alone cannot establish implementation readiness,” said Joe Mzinga, who presented the EAC-CAADP Non-State Actors Group’s regional analysis.

Instead, the assessment measured six indicators, including investment adequacy, expenditure quality, domestic financing sustainability, budget execution, institutional accountability, and alignment with national agricultural investment plans.

The findings suggest that how governments spend is becoming as important as how much they spend.

Rwanda emerged as the region’s strongest performer on implementation readiness despite allocating only 4.5 per cent of its national budget to agriculture.

Analysts attributed the ranking to sustained investment in irrigation, improved seed systems, livestock genetics, and climate-smart farming.

Kenya, East Africa’s largest economy, increased agricultural spending by 34.5 per cent, yet the sector still receives only 1.3 per cent of total government expenditure, leaving the country with what the report described as the region’s largest measurable financing gap relative to Kampala Declaration commitments.

South Sudan’s agricultural allocation could not be independently assessed because detailed budget information was unavailable.

The report also found that fiscal pressures are increasingly crowding out agricultural investment across the region.

Debt servicing continues to constrain spending in Kenya and Uganda, while conflict-related expenditure has diverted resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

Tanzania’s agricultural budget has also come under pressure as the government pursues broader expenditure rationalisation.

Meanwhile, donor financing continues to bridge structural funding gaps, while governments often prioritise politically visible subsidy programmes over longer-term investments in agricultural research, extension services, irrigation, rural roads, and climate adaptation.

The financing imbalance comes at a time when East Africa remains one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable agricultural regions.

Smallholder farmers—who produce an estimated 80 per cent of the region’s food—continue to face recurring droughts, floods, and rising production costs, while demand for food is projected to increase steadily alongside rapid population growth and urbanisation.

Participants argued that future agricultural spending should be viewed as an economic investment rather than social expenditure, given agriculture’s central role in employment, exports, industrial development, and regional trade.

Speaking during the meeting, East African Legislative Assembly member Françoise Uwumukiza called on parliamentarians to strengthen oversight of agricultural financing and ensure national investment plans remain aligned with regional commitments.

Among the recommendations were the publication of a regional Kampala Readiness Scorecard, regular monitoring of budget releases and expenditure, protection of financing for agricultural extension, nutrition and climate resilience, disclosure of funding gaps in National Agricultural Investment Plans, and adoption of harmonised standards for tracking agrifood expenditure.

Closing the webinar, CAADP Non-State Actors Group Continental Chairperson Chikondi Chabvuta said governments must ensure political commitments are supported by credible financing strategies.

“Move from promises to financed implementation: Every commitment should carry a costed financing pathway,” she said.

For East African policymakers, the challenge is no longer agreeing on what must be done to transform agriculture. It is finding the fiscal space—and the political discipline—to pay for it.