The Gates Foundation says it shares responsibility for AGRA's missed goals and will keep funding it

The Gates Foundation said on November 2 that the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) did not meet its 2020 goals, that the foundation, as a longtime funder, shares responsibility, and that it will keep working with the group.

The statement came in a post by Enock Chikava, who directs the foundation's economic opportunity work in Africa, reflecting on 20 years of the partnership. AGRA, based in Nairobi, was set up in 2006 as a partnership of the Rockefeller Foundation and what was then the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, chaired by Kofi Annan, according to AGRA's own history. It works with African governments and companies on seed, soil, markets and farm policy.

What did the foundation say went wrong?

It said AGRA's headline targets were not met. By 2020, AGRA had aimed to double the yields and incomes of 20 million small farm households and to cut hunger and food insecurity in half in 20 countries, Chikava wrote. He said the foundation agrees with civil society groups that have called for accountability, and that hunger is still high and higher output has not yet translated into the incomes and food security farmers need. "As a longtime funder, we share responsibility," he wrote.

The post also lists gains. Citing AGRA's 20-year review, it says African cereal yields are up about 40% since 2005 and that the continent's real farm output has almost doubled. It credits AGRA's network with support for roughly 35,000 agro-dealers and 118 African seed companies, and with helping put more than 650 improved crop varieties on the market. A 2022 evaluation by Mathematica found mixed results for farmers, the post says, after which AGRA aligned its strategy more closely with national priorities.

How much has Gates given AGRA?

By our tally, $886.3 million in 34 grants committed between December 2006 and October 2026. The post gives no dollar figures, so we added up every grant to AGRA in the foundation's public committed grants database, last updated October 14, 2026. The database lists grants as committed, not as paid, and may not capture every dollar; we did not count grants to other organizations working with AGRA.

Two grants stand out. The largest, $200 million committed in March 2017 over 72 months, describes its aim as increasing "the productivity and incomes of at least 30 million smallholder farming households," a larger number than the 20 million in the 2020 goals Chikava cites. After the deadline, the foundation committed $195 million in May 2023 in two grants: $105 million to support AGRA "as our proximate partner" and $90 million in general operating support. Since 2024, the database shows smaller grants, none above $5.9 million.

What comes next for AGRA?

The post does not announce a new grant or a dollar amount. Chikava wrote that further funding "cannot mean business as usual" and quoted AGRA's president, Alice Ruhweza: "We have learned that distributing seeds and fertilizer, while necessary, was never going to be sufficient on its own." According to the post, she has set three priorities: tying climate adaptation to market building, using public money to draw in private companies, and helping governments build institutions that can carry out their farm strategies. "We remain committed to that work for the long haul," Chikava wrote.

What can other funders learn from this?

In our view, two things. A public statement that a funder shares responsibility for a grantee's missed goals is rare, and it is more useful when paired with the numbers, which here a reader has to assemble from the database. And big outcome targets set years in advance are hard to verify without an independent evaluation built in from the start, which is one reason simple ratios can mislead, as we argued in The overhead ratio tells you less than you think. For a funder that publishes an outcome-linked commitment, see GiveWell's malaria plan.