By Edwin Austin

About three years ago, Yohanis from Ethiopia stood inconsolably on a quarter hectare of land planted with maize that no longer wanted to grow. Years of chemical fertilizer had acidified the soil, and heavy rains had stripped away what fertility remained. The land yielded less each season, and with it dwindled the food and money his household depended on.

Then came a training day at his district agricultural office. He returned not with costly machinery, but with a wooden composting box, a handful of earthworms, and instructions so simple they seemed almost trivial. Yet those humble tools carried the promise of restoring his land, and with it, his livelihood.

Yohanis says the results were immediate. One season later, with vermicompost and 50 kilograms of fertiliser from the project, his maize yield had jumped 67 percent, from 9 to 15 quintals. Suffice it to say, there finally was food on his table and money in his pocket.

Behind his compost box sits the Food Systems Resilience Program (FSRP), a World Bank-financed, multiphase initiative approved on June 21, 2022, whose overall envelope has grown from US$2.3 billion to US$2.75 billion. And among those steering its regional engine is the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Djibouti-based bloc whose member states include some of the most food-insecure territories.

The bet was placed against ugly numbers. When the World Bank expanded the program in May 2023, an estimated 73 million people across Eastern and Southern Africa were facing acute food insecurity, hammered by drought, pests, disease, market instability and conflict. Inside the IGAD region, more than 55 million people, close to a quarter of the population in seven of eight member states, were in crisis levels of hunger in 2023.

A program built for a region, not a border

The FSRP works in phases, and it wants to fix systems, not just seasons. Phase 1, approved in June 2022, put US$600 million into Ethiopia, US$158.1 million into Madagascar, US$25 million into IGAD itself and US$5 million into CCARDESA, the Southern African research coordination body.

Phase 2 brought in Tanzania at US$300 million. Phase 3, approved on May 31, 2023, added Comoros (US$40 million), Kenya (US$150 million), Malawi (US$250 million), Somalia (US$150 million) and the African Union Commission (US$13 million), reaching an additional 2.8 million people and bringing expected direct beneficiaries to five million across the first three phases.

“The addition of five countries responds to the ongoing demand for long-term solutions offered by the Food Systems Resilience Program. Studies demonstrate that proactive investments in building resilience not only pay off but also minimize the costs of disaster relief and recovery,” said Victoria Kwakwa, then World Bank Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa.

The program stands on four pillars: rebuilding resilient agricultural production capacity; developing natural resources sustainably for resilient agricultural landscapes; getting food to market; and embedding food systems resilience in national and regional policymaking.

A fifth mechanism, the Contingency Emergency Response Component (CERC), is the safety valve that lets countries swing funds into emergency mode when hunger deteriorates. The African Union Commission joined IGAD and CCARDESA as a third regional body precisely because, as the World Bank argued at approval, the root causes of food insecurity defy national borders.

At the formal launch in Addis Ababa in February 2024, Ambassador Josefa Sacko, the African Union Commissioner for Agriculture, highlighted the shared goal of enhancing the region’s food systems resilience so that vulnerable populations have reliable access to safe, nutritious food, calling the program strategically vital for a continent whose hunger crisis is driven above all by climate change.

The machinery IGAD built

If the money is the fuel, IGAD’s contribution has been the engine room. The bloc has converted its convening power into hard institutional infrastructure:

• A Regional Steering Committee, built from scratch. In May 2025 IGAD convened the inaugural meeting of the FSRP Regional Steering Committee, which endorsed its own terms of reference, reviewed implementation and adopted a 2025 work plan. A second meeting followed in November 2025, setting the 2026 work plan and preparing the program’s mid-term review.
• A ten-year regional strategy. In December 2024, IGAD ministers endorsed the Regional Food and Nutrition Security Strategy (2025-2034) in Djibouti, with the FSRP named as a key instrument for putting it into practice.
• A new investment blueprint. In June 2025, IGAD validated the end-term review of its Regional Agricultural Investment Plan, the foundation for the Regional Agri-Food Systems Investment Plan (RASIP) 2026-2035. In September 2026, member states formally endorsed RASIP alongside a Regional Seed Policy and Regulatory Framework that lowers regulatory barriers to moving certified, climate-resilient seed across borders.
• Political ownership, engineered. Through the FSRP, IGAD has trained ambassadors and parliamentarians from all eight member states and launched a Parliamentarians Working Group on Agrifood Systems. In August 2026 it convened the IGAD Committee of Ambassadors and Parliamentary Forum to push the CAADP Kampala Declaration into national law, budgets and oversight.
• Trade and safety infrastructure. IGAD has validated regional strategies on post-harvest loss management and food safety, advanced its Regional Sanitary and Phytosanitary Strategy, and in 2026 worked with AfCFTA institutions on a roadmap to digitise SPS certification and clear border bottlenecks for agricultural trade.
• A science backbone. In July 2026, member states validated the framework for a Regional Network of Centres of Excellence on Climate-Smart Agriculture, connecting existing national research institutions under IGAD’s Agriculture and Environment Division rather than building a new one.

Opening the inaugural Steering Committee on behalf of Executive Secretary Dr Workneh Gebeyehu, IGAD’s Director, Mr Daher Elmi, said: “This committee will serve as a platform for aligning efforts, sharing knowledge, and ensuring that national progress contributes to a stronger regional outcome. By working together through this structure, we can harmonise implementation, avoid duplication, and build a coherent approach that feeds into the continental agenda.”

Djibouti, as IGAD Chair, backed the structure. Its Director of Agriculture, Mr Moktar Mahamoud, said the committee reflects “our shared commitment to building resilient food systems across the IGAD region,” pledging support for collaboration that “strengthens food security, promotes sustainability, and uplifts communities.”

Ethiopia’s representative, Zena Habtewold Biru, Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Agriculture, put it more compactly. “When we align our efforts, we multiply our impact.” At the November 2025 meeting, IGAD FSRP Coordinator Dr Senait Regassa summed up the philosophy: “The FSRP continues to be a critical platform for harmonising national and regional actions that contribute to food security and resilience in the face of climate change.”

From fields to markets: what delivery looks like

Ethiopia: 1.2 million farmers and counting

Ethiopia anchors the program with the single largest country allocation, US$600 million, co-financed with a further US$65 million from Germany’s KfW and the Netherlands Embassy. By mid-2025 the project had reached more than 1.2 million people and delivered intensive soil-health training to 48,700 farmers, covering vermicomposting, organic fertiliser use and integrated pest management.

The World Bank’s own implementation reporting records 1,153,791 direct beneficiaries reached, 67 percent of the project-life target of 1.7 million, with implementation accelerating across all components in the program’s second year.

In March 2025, at a World Bank familiarisation event in Addis Ababa, Bank officials reported that 330,000 Ethiopian farmers had already adopted resilient agricultural practices and 3,000 hectares had been brought under irrigation. The conflict-affected zones of Oromia, Amhara and Tigray remain a hard test; the Bank’s missions have pressed for security mapping and phased re-engagement in inaccessible areas.

Kenya: wiring 13 drought counties into the digital age

Kenya’s US$150 million operation, running from September 2023 to August 2029, is implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development across all 265 wards of 13 drought-prone counties: Baringo, Marsabit, Wajir, Mandera, Garissa, Tana River, Lamu, West Pokot, Laikipia, Isiolo, Turkana, Samburu and Elgeyo-Marakwet.

At a joint national-county review in August 2026, Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe reported that through the World Bank-supported portfolio the government had “reached over 2 million farmers with promising and productivity-improving technologies,” with over one million farmers accessing services and market linkages on digital platforms, and 7.3 million farmers registered on the Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information System (KIAMIS), receiving agronomic, agro-weather and market advisories by mobile phone.

“We sit at a critical point where we must reprogramme these two programmes to respond to the current drought reality, while also putting in place permanent solutions to avert future crises,” he said of the FSRP and the National Agricultural Value Chain Development Project, urging deliberate youth inclusion in both.

Somalia: rebuilding the state while fighting the flood

Somalia’s story is the program’s stress test. When catastrophic flooding hit in late 2023, the government activated its CERC and allocated US$28.28 million for food and non-food items, cash-for-work, emergency animal health services, seeds and tools for replanting, irrigation and flood-control rehabilitation, feeder roads and early warning systems in key river basins.

The response delivered relief to 10,500 flood-affected households through the World Food Programme, supplied rainfed seeds and hand tools to 12,000 targeted households across four Federal Member States, ran mass livestock vaccination campaigns and initiated a National Research Centre.

By July 2025, US$50.38 million (33.6 percent) had been disbursed, and the World Bank approved an additional US$30 million to close capacity gaps and accelerate delivery, lifting Somalia’s budget to US$180 million. Five-day implementation support missions now convene the Federal Government, all Federal Member States, including Puntland, Jubaland, Southwest, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and Somaliland, and Bank specialists.

What the World & Bank Learn from this

Three lessons emerge from the IGAD-anchored experience.

• Regional institutions can steward IDA money when given real mandates. IGAD was not hired to print brochures; it built a steering committee, a decade-long strategy and harmonised seed and investment frameworks that member states have formally adopted. That is the difference between a regional body and a regional office.
• Resilience financing and emergency response are not rivals. Somalia proved that funds can pivot to save lives through the CERC and be replenished , without collapsing the original investment program.
• Results are visible at the farm gate. From a 67 percent maize yield jump in Oromia for Yohanis, to 7.3 million Kenyan farmers on digital advisory systems, the program’s evidence base is increasingly lived experience rather than project paperwork.

None of this is finished. The mid-term review is underway, disbursement rates vary by country, and conflict-affected areas of Ethiopia test implementation daily. IGAD enters its fortieth year with a new Treaty in force and the FSRP as proof that the machinery of cooperation, given fuel, can deliver.

In Gebeyehu’s words at the UN General Assembly Science Summit, the point of it all is “the children who go to school hungry, the families uprooted by drought, and the communities whose survival depends on resilience.” His ask to the world was simple: invest in science, innovation and systemic change, so that “resilience and food security are a reality for all, not just a distant goal.”