By the Witness Radio team.

Africa grapples with some of the world’s most severe food security challenges. Today, 309 million people go hungry—outnumbering even Asia’s 292 million. The continent pours between US$70 billion and US$100 billion annually into food imports.

Despite decades of effort by governments, development partners, and countless organizations to improve agriculture and uplift smallholder farmers, these challenges remain. A flagship initiative, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), launched in 2006 with backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, now marks two decades of striving to transform African agriculture.

In a statement marking its 20th anniversary this year, the organization described the milestone as an opportunity to reflect on two decades of working with governments, farmers, research institutions, the private sector and development partners to strengthen Africa’s food systems.

Yet African faith leaders argue the initiative has fallen short of its promise to reduce hunger and improve food security. They are now demanding that the Gates Foundation be held accountable for the consequences of the agricultural model it has championed.

On Thursday, October 29, 2026, faith leaders from more than 20 African countries held an online press conference after delivering an open letter to the Gates Foundation on October 28.

The letter, titled African Faith Leaders Demand Reparations from the Gates Foundation and signed by 625 faith leaders with backing from 360 organizations and partners, urges the Foundation to provide reparations and shift its funding toward smallholder farmers, indigenous seeds, healthy soils, and agroecological farming systems.

The leaders contend that AGRA’s Green Revolution approach has failed to tackle hunger and, worse, has eroded food sovereignty and weakened communities’ control over their own food systems.

They add that AGRA has received more than US$1.5 billion since its establishment, with approximately two-thirds of the funding coming from the Gates Foundation.

“The Green Revolution promised to halve hunger. Instead, 55 million more people in AGRA’s focus countries are going hungry today than when it began,” said Ms. Francesca de Gasparis, Executive Director of the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI).

“When a strategy fails this badly, for this long, continuing to fund it perpetuates harm. We are calling on the Gates Foundation to take the independent research seriously and change its approach,” Ms. de Gasparis added.

The leaders’ concerns are informed by research from Tufts University and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), which found that the number of undernourished people in AGRA’s 13 focus countries increased by 58% between 2004–2006 and 2022–2024.

AGRA has pushed back against these findings, challenging both the research and its methodology. This debate has reignited doubts about whether two decades of investment have truly improved livelihoods and food security for Africa’s smallholder farmers.

In the online discussions that followed the letter’s launch, faith leaders urged the Gates Foundation, AGRA, African governments, and development partners to place the sovereignty and well-being of African people at the heart of all agricultural investments.

“African people must be the architects of their own agricultural future. The church does not oppose science but demands science that saves lives,” said Rev. Dr. Tolbert Thomas Jallah, a faith leader from Liberia.

Rev. Dr. Jallah said science must serve humanity, innovation must serve the public good, and technology should strengthen communities’ ability to feed themselves.

The faith leaders said they had previously raised similar concerns with the Gates Foundation. In 2021, they wrote to the Foundation asking it to stop funding Green Revolution programs. SAFCEI said it later met with Foundation representatives, but those engagements did not result in a meaningful response to their concerns.

The press conference brought together representatives from Liberia, Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa, while the letter’s signatories came from more than 20 countries across West, East and Southern Africa.

The faith leaders also voiced concerns about how corporate-driven agriculture affects women, who are the backbone of food production and household food security throughout Africa.

Ms. Josephina Ngishoono, representing the Namibia Council of Churches, emphasized that women shoulder much of the burden when agricultural systems put commercial interests ahead of the needs of farming communities.

She pointed out that while women are major contributors to food production, they still face unequal access to land, resources, agricultural knowledge, and decision-making power.

“Corporate-led agriculture that prioritizes patented seeds, chemical inputs, as well as monoculture, risks undermining the women’s traditional knowledge systems, the agroecological practices that have been passed down from generations,” Ms. Ngishoono said.

She warned that when women lose control over seeds and farming decisions, their financial independence and their power to choose what and how to grow food for their families are put at risk.

She called for women to be recognized as agricultural leaders in their own right, not just as passive beneficiaries of development programs.

She further urged the Gates Foundation to champion community seed banks, indigenous seeds, community-managed seed systems, composting, soil restoration, and research led by local communities in agroecology.

“There is a need to protect farmers’ rights and their seed sovereignty and to prioritize public health, environmental health, and long-term food security,” she said.

Ms. Gorata Ramokgothwane of the Botswana Council of Churches highlighted how climate change relentlessly undermines food sovereignty and food security throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

She voiced alarm over the push for farming systems that rely heavily on chemical inputs, cautioning that these methods could damage fragile ecosystems and erode traditional farming practices.

Speaking for women faith leaders, Ms. Ramokgothwane called for a powerful regional movement to advance community-led agroecology throughout Southern Africa.

“As councils of churches in the region, we must identify and intensify our efforts in resource mobilization towards grassroots solidarity in advancing indigenous or traditional preservation,” she said.

She pointed to communities in Botswana that use leadwood ash to preserve seeds for beans, millet, and sorghum, showcasing these traditions as vital knowledge that can fortify local food systems.

“Some communities have resorted to seed banks dedicated to preserving native staples, such as millet, sorghum, beans, and some traditional vegetables,” she added.

Ms. Ramokgothwane said these methods could empower communities to break free from costly agricultural inputs, safeguard indigenous foods, and sustain ecological balance.

She also cautioned that women smallholder farmers are especially at risk when input prices soar or harvests fall short of covering costs. She added that restrictive seed laws can further limit farmers’ ability to save and share traditional seeds.

“As women of faith and leaders in our communities, we know that the Gates Foundation has the moral obligation to independently analyze the needs of smallholder farmers and support the seed-saving practices in irrigation for smallholder farmers,” she said.

Muslim faith leaders in Africa were also represented at the discussions by Dr Sheik Hassan Kenyamari, Chairman of Muslim Provinces in Africa.

Dr Kenyamari voiced unease about the direction, priorities, and lasting consequences of agricultural innovations backed by the Gates Foundation, especially through its partnership with AGRA.

He insisted that Africa’s agricultural transformation must put farmers, communities, ecological integrity, and the right to food above narrow productivity goals and commercial interests.

AGRA, however, rejects claims that its agricultural model has failed, arguing that its progress over the past 20 years should be assessed against the broader challenges facing African food systems.

In its August 2026 Impact, Learning and Foresight Report, the organization says agricultural output across Africa has roughly doubled in real terms since 2005, while cereal yields have increased by about 40%.

It also points to the growth of local seed companies, agricultural input distribution networks and community extension services as evidence of progress.

StopEACOP demands accountability after undisclosed bank loans revealed

…149 civil society organisations demand full disclosure from regional lenders tied to the $3.7B in EACOP financing, as Uganda pushes for commercial production by June 2027.

THE StopEACOP coalition today sent an open letter to eight African and Middle East financial institutions, urging them to fully disclose their involvement in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).

The letter, signed by 149 organisations including groups from EACOP affected communities, follows new analysis that revealed previously undisclosed lending to the EACOP project.

Reclaim Finance identified roughly US$3.7 billion in project lending between 2025 and 2026, with Afreximbank, KCB Group and KCB Bank Uganda, the Islamic Development Bank Group and the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, NMB Bank Tanzania, Qatar National Bank, Standard Bank Group and Stanbic Bank Uganda, and Uganda Development Bank linked to deals.

At African Energy Week (October 12–16), Uganda National Oil Company officials said they now aimed for commercial oil production by June 2027, a further delay after previous first-oil target dates were set for 2025, then June 2026 and July 2026. Tanzania’s state petroleum company separately stated crude should reach Tanga by February 2027, with the first tanker loading in March.

After more than 40 banks and 30 insurers refused to back EACOP or adopted policies against it, African and Gulf lenders largely covered the remaining debt. Only a first portion, from Afreximbank, Standard Bank, Stanbic Bank Uganda, KCB Bank Uganda, and ICD, was ever publicly confirmed by EACOP Ltd, and without amounts. The terms and exposure of the larger group, including NMB Bank, Qatar National Bank, and Uganda Development Bank, remain undisclosed.

What the coalition wants:

The letter demands each institution:

• Disclose the full scope, structure, and terms of its support to EACOP, including exposure through bonds, guarantees, or réhaadvisory roles.
• Commit to no further funding for EACOP expansion or related oil development in the Albertine Graben or elsewhere.
• Fund remedy for harm to affected communities, through an independent, community-led mechanism providing compensation, livelihood restoration, and environmental cleanup, paid by EACOP Ltd and its backers proportional to their role.

Why does it matter now?

“First oil does not mark an end to the harm caused by EACOP. It escalates and entrenches it,” said Zaki Mamdoo, StopEACOP Campaign Coordinator. “The institutions who have poured billions into EACOP must now answer publicly for what they have financed and must take responsibility for repairing the destruction brought by their investment decisions.”

For people whose land and livelihoods have been affected by the pipeline, the consequences of these financing decisions are already part of daily life.

“When they took our land, we lost more than the land itself. We lost the means to support our families. Compensation was supposed to help us rebuild our lives, but for some of us, that has not happened. Now we hear about the banks financing this pipeline, and we want to know: do they understand what has happened to the people whose land made this project possible?”, said Rachael Tugume, EACOP-Project Affected Person.

“Dozens of banks and insurers have rightly refused to support TotalEnergies’ EACOP project due its massive impacts on climate, local biodiversity, communities’ livelihoods and human rights. The 8 banks that have accepted to finance the project will be held accountable by civil society organisations for these impacts. They must get ready to contribute to reparative justice for communities and commit to exclude any new financing to oil and gas expansion in Uganda and the rest of the world.” said Antoine Bouhey, Defund TotalEnergies’ campaign coordinator at Reclaim Finance.

The coalition warns that the risks it has documented – including land acquisition and compensation failures, lost livelihoods, militarization, and environmental damage along the route and at the Chongoleani terminal in Tanga – won’t end when oil flows. They will get worse.

In the letter, the financial institutions are asked to clarify their position by 16 November. The coalition will publish all responses and non-responses after the deadline.

Notes to editors

• The open letter, signatory list link
• Spokespeople are available in Uganda, Tanzania and from our internal experts.

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For media inquiries, contact:

Abiud Onyach

Communications & Digital Lead

StopEACOP Campaign

info@stopeacop.net | +254700593687

About the StopEACOP Campaign

The StopEACOP Coalition is an alliance of local groups, communities, and African and global organizations. The #StopEACOP Coalition has been calling for a halt to the proposed pipeline and associated oil fields at Tilenga and Kingfisher. The StopEACOP campaign is gaining momentum, building pressure on the remaining supporters and financiers of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. To date, 43 banks and 30 (re)insurers have already ruled out support for EACOP.

Source: realnewsmagazine.net