Rockefeller Foundation Celebrates 60th Anniversary of Nairobi Office and 100 Years of Impact in Africa

• The Rockefeller Foundation celebrated the 60^th anniversary of its Africa Regional Office at the 2^nd annual AfricaXchange in Nairobi, Kenya
  
  
• Part of more than century-long legacy of investing in African-led solutions for human capital, health, agriculture, and energy across the continent

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Rockefeller Foundation celebrated the 60^th anniversary of its Africa Regional Office – established in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1966 – and over a century of investing in human capital, health, agriculture, and energy solutions across the continent. The 113-year-old philanthropic organization commemorated the milestone at AfricaXchange 2026, designed to catalyze systemic reform by connecting leaders who can deploy capital, shape policy discussions, and scale commercially viable solutions to the most pressing challenges. In addition to bringing together over 400 leaders from across the business, development, energy, health, nutrition, climate, and other fields to advance solutions and advocate for systemic change, The Rockefeller Foundation also launched the inaugural class of Africa Big Bets Fellows, a group of 10 changemakers in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania who are driving bold, community-led solutions that expand opportunity, strengthen resilience, and improve lives across Africa.

"African philanthropy, private capital, and regional institutions are reshaping not just how development is financed, but how it is delivered," said William Asiko, Senior Vice President and head of The Rockefeller Foundation's Africa Regional Office, during his opening remarks. "Progress doesn't come from perfect plans; it comes from the courage to act."

Earlier this month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its preliminary data confirming a 23% decline in official development assistance (ODA) from 2024 to 2025. This marked the largest single-year global reduction in decades, with bilateral development assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa falling between 16% to 28% in 2025, according to the EBC Financial Group. At the same time, the continent is home to 11 of the 15 fastest-growing economies globally, and it is estimated that by the end of this century, one in three people globally will live in Africa. With the aim of positioning Africa not as a recipient, but as an equal partner in shaping economic destiny, AfricaXchange 2026 represented a shift from recognizing the need for reform to building and implementing the alternative.

"Philanthropy's job is not to be the hero. It's to take risk others can't, build trust where it's been missing, and move countries from ambition to execution, and from proof points to scale," said Elizabeth Yee, Executive Vice President of Programs at The Rockefeller Foundation, during the closing session. "AfricaXchange is not an endpoint—it's a platform. What matters now is what we do next, together."

AfricaXchange 2026:
Hosted by The Rockefeller Foundation's Africa Regional Office, AfricaXchange 2026 centered on activating the capital and policy levers needed to drive self-determination. Discussions focused on the future of development, including a shift from aid dependence toward sovereignty and trade-led growth, as well as the development of safe, equitable food and water markets. More than 400 leaders across the energy transition, climate-resilient agriculture, health systems transformation, and AI-enabled, data-driven market platforms came together to advance solutions to the continent's most urgent challenges, including:

• H.E. Prof. Anyang' Nyong'o, Governor of Kisumu County, Government of Kenya
• H.E. Nardos Bekele-Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, African Union Development Agency (NEPAD)
• H.E. Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, former Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria
• H.E. Prof. Bitange Ndemo, CBS, former Kenyan Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium and the European Union
• Prof. Agnes Binagwaho, Member of The Rockefeller Foundation's Board of Trustees; former Vice Chancellor, The University of Global Health Equity, Rwanda
• Mamadou Biteye, OBE, Executive Secretary, The African Capacity Building Foundation
• Peter Laugharn, President and Chief Executive Officer, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
• Kennedy Odede, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, SHOFCO
• Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, President and CEO, ONE Campaign; Member of The Rockefeller Foundation's Board of Trustees
• Alice Ruhweza, President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

At its core was a clear ambition: Ensure that Africa's future is built, financed, and led by Africans, a vision captured in this year's theme, "Money, Markets, and Mindsets." In addition, as part of the convening, The Rockefeller Foundation also launched the inaugural class of Africa Big Bets Fellows, a group of 10 changemakers driving bold, community-led solutions across Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania.

Over a Century of Impact in Africa:
Though 50 United Nations entities now call Nairobi home, The Rockefeller Foundation's office had been open for the better part of a decade when the UN opened its first offices in the 1970s. Even before opening an office in 1966, the Foundation had been supporting African solutions for half a century. Early grants and charitable investments include, but are not limited to:

• Focusing on specific biological threats. After finding high yellow fever prevalence in West Africa, The Rockefeller Foundation established the West Africa Yellow Fever Commission in 1925 to identify the virus, affected areas, and its method of transmission. In order to try and prevent the spread of the virus to East Africa, the Foundation also established the Yellow Fever Research Institute in Entebbe, Uganda, in 1936, which continued to study yellow fever transmission throughout the 1960s, conducting early field studies to understand the ecology of malaria-carrying mosquitoes and helping to develop vaccines
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• Investing in fellowships and "Centers of Excellence." Building on support for the Research Institute in Entebbe, Uganda, The Rockefeller Foundation funded the development of additional research and helped establish more training centers across Africa through the 1960s, such as Makerere University in Uganda, University of Ibadan in Nigeria, and the University of East Africa (a former federal university spanning Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda). In addition, the Foundation granted thousands of African scholars with fellowships to pursue advanced degrees in the U.S. and Europe, with the requirement that they return to staff these local universities and government ministries.
  
  
• Funding food security solutions, agricultural education, and research. Taking lessons learned from The Rockefeller Foundation's earliest food security work in Latin America and India, it provided funding and expertise in the late 1950s to help convert the Siriba Vocational School of Agriculture in Maseno, Kenya, into a diploma-granting agricultural college — the first of its kind in East Africa – with the Africa Regional Office opening in Nairobi in large part to help better coordinate investments in local universities and with agricultural scientists.

Since the Nairobi office opened in 1966, Africa has grown into a focus area for The Rockefeller Foundation, which currently dedicates approximately one-third of its funding to the continent. Today, priority investments include, but are not limited, to:

• Advancing energy abundance. Currently, 600 million people in Africa lack access to electricity. Since co-launching the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet in 2021 with a $500 million commitment (the largest single investment in The Rockefeller Foundation's US$30 billion history), the Alliance has implemented projects in more than 30 countries worldwide, and in Africa, it has unlocked nearly $4.2 billion in finance, which will improve access for an estimated 31 million people and support jobs and livelihoods of an additional estimated 727,000 people. In addition, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Energy Alliance announced in March 2026 that they have collectively committed more than US$100 million over the last two years in support of Mission 300, the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank's ambitious effort to connect 300 million people in Africa to electricity by 2030. This includes helping strengthen government delivery capacity through technical assistance, mobilizing private investment, accelerating project pipelines, and advancing electrification efforts in nearly two dozen countries. 
  
  
• Strengthening food and nutrition security. The Rockefeller Foundation is focused on building sustainable, resilient, and regenerative food systems as part of country-led efforts to feed the most vulnerable people. Investments on the continent include deepening the research on the nutritional and environmental benefits of indigenous and traditional crops and supporting local transitions to regenerative agriculture practices. In 2025, The Rockefeller Foundation announced a US$100 million regenerative school meals commitment, which builds upon initial work in Kenya and Brazil to address rising global nutrition insecurity and reach 100 million children in more than a dozen countries worldwide. Current investments in Kenya and elsewhere on the continent are supporting more nutritious school lunches, including with fortified whole grains, clean cookstoves in school kitchens, and efforts to connect smallholder farmers to school meal programs that nourish children and the planet.
  
  
• Investing in resilient health. The Rockefeller Foundation's grants are supporting efforts to transform health sovereignty on the continent and reduce dependence on external aid. This includes support for the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University, the Global Fund's the Laboratory Systems Integration program, and Centre de Suivi Écologique, which are building Africa's next generation of capacity to confront climate-amplified epidemics and extreme heat — the fastest-growing threat to health and economic stability. From an 11-country West African surveillance network to heat-health innovation in Senegal to the development of Africa's first AI-designed mRNA vaccine for Rift Valley Fever, these programs demonstrate how catalytic investments can enable the necessary shift toward locally led innovations grounded in country priorities. This work supports the broader reform efforts of the global health architecture, including the Accra Reset, which was launched in 2025 by H.E. John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana to reform health, development, and financing systems in the Global South.
  
  
• Funding AI for Good. In November 2025, Cassava Technologies and The Rockefeller Foundation announced a new effort to harness the transformative potential of artificial intelligence for good across Africa. Cassava, which previously announced plans to build Africa's first AI factory, will provide access to compute capacity to several of the Foundation's grantees, including Digital Green, Jacaranda Health, and Rising Academies, working in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe.
  
  
• Impact investing. Coining the term, "impact investing" in 2007, The Rockefeller Foundation, alongside GuarantCo (part of the Private Infrastructure Development Group – PIDG), provided the initial capital and technical assistance to Acre Impact Capital in 2021, which provides underserved communities in Africa with access to essential services through its investments in infrastructure sectors such as healthcare, education, social housing, transport, renewable power, agriculture, water and sanitation, waste management, climate adaptation, and technology/digital infrastructure.

About The Rockefeller Foundation
Investing $30 billion over the last 113 years to promote the well-being of humanity, The Rockefeller Foundation is a pioneering philanthropy built on unlikely partnerships and innovative solutions that deliver measurable results for people in the United States and around the world. We leverage scientific breakthroughs, artificial intelligence, and new technologies to make big bets across energy, food, health, and finance, including with our public charity, RF Catalytic Capital (RFCC). For more information, sign up for our newsletter at www.rockefellerfoundation.org/subscribe and follow us on X @RockefellerFdn Instagram @rockefellerfdn, YouTube @RockefellerFdn, and LinkedIn @the-rockefeller-foundation.

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