About 62.3 million people across the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) region are currently food insecure, according to a report accompanying the launch of a new regional Soil Health and Fertiliser Hub in Nairobi. IGAD inaugurated the hub’s Steering and Technical Committees in June 2026, putting into motion commitments made under the 2024 Nairobi Declaration on fertiliser and soil health.
The hub covers seven member states spanning the Horn of Africa and East Africa: Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan and South Sudan. It is designed to coordinate action on soil degradation and fertiliser access across a region where agricultural productivity has been squeezed by depleted soils, conflict disruption and recurring drought, factors that compound the food insecurity figures the launch report highlighted.
Commitments tied to the hub include tripling certified fertiliser production and distribution across the region by 2034 and restoring 30% of degraded land within the same timeframe. Both targets position soil restoration and fertiliser access as linked priorities, reflecting a regional diagnosis that degraded soils and poor fertiliser availability reinforce each other in driving down yields.
Turning declaration into institutions
The Nairobi Declaration, adopted in 2024, set out regional ambitions on fertiliser and soil health but left implementation structures to be built afterward. The inauguration of the Steering and Technical Committees gives the declaration’s commitments a standing institutional home, with Nairobi serving as the hub’s base for coordinating action across the seven member states. Committees of this kind typically bring together government representatives, technical experts and regional bodies to translate declared targets into funded programmes and monitoring frameworks.
Soil degradation has been identified across IGAD member states as a persistent constraint on agricultural output, with depleted nutrient content forcing farmers to rely more heavily on external fertiliser inputs that remain unevenly accessible across the region. Certified fertiliser, verified for nutrient content and quality, has historically reached only a fraction of farmers across much of East Africa and the Horn, with counterfeit or adulterated products filling gaps in several national markets.
Food insecurity as the backdrop
The figure of 62.3 million food-insecure people across the IGAD region frames the hub’s work as directly tied to food security outcomes rather than agricultural policy in the abstract. The region has faced repeated shocks from drought, flooding and conflict in recent years, each of which has interacted with weak soil health and fertiliser access to deepen production shortfalls. Restoring 30% of degraded land by 2034 represents a substantial land area given the scale of degradation documented across the bloc’s member states, and will require sustained investment well beyond the committees’ initial inauguration.
Fertiliser affordability has long been a sticking point for smallholders across the bloc, many of whom apply far below recommended nutrient rates because of cost, limited supply chains, or distance from distribution points. Tripling certified fertiliser production and distribution by 2034 would mark a significant shift from current baseline levels in most member states. The target’s credibility will depend on whether national governments back it with financing and infrastructure, rather than treating it as an aspirational figure.
IGAD’s member states have historically varied widely in their capacity to deliver agricultural inputs, with conflict-affected states such as Somalia and South Sudan facing additional logistical barriers that wealthier members do not confront to the same degree. The hub’s structure, spanning all seven states under one coordinating body, is intended to narrow those gaps by pooling technical support and aligning national fertiliser strategies with the bloc’s shared targets. The scale of the task means results are likely to unfold over years rather than months.
