The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 26 2026 (IPS) - For decades, official development assistance has been a central pillar of financing in sub-Saharan Africa. That pillar is now weakening—quickly and broadly.
In 2025, bilateral aid to the region fell sharply, with early estimates pointing to cuts of about 26 percent in a single year. Multilateral support is also under pressure, with major institutions projecting sizeable budget reductions. More cuts may follow as donors reset priorities in a shifting geopolitical environment.
As we explain in chapter 2 of the IMF’s recent Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa, this is not a routine fluctuation. It is hitting countries that have limited room to adjust and few alternative sources of financing.
Why aid matters
Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest aid dependency globally in 2024. On average, aid accounted for 3 percent of GDP at the regional level. But that average hid sharp differences. In low-income countries and fragile states, aid often reached the equivalent of 6 percent of GDP or more, and in some cases far higher.
Over half of that aid was used to finance essential services such as health, education, and humanitarian assistance. And because development partners and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) often deliver services directly to people in need, aid cuts can also curtail the very systems that people rely on. Effective responses to crises such as the Ebola emergency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, the high and rising needs of people forcibly displaced by conflict, and the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa rely heavily on the health and humanitarian infrastructure that aid has consistently helped to build.
A different reality
Aid flows have always fluctuated. But this episode stands apart.
The recent cuts are large and broadly simultaneous across countries. They are driven by donor decisions rather than changes in recipient economies. And they come at a time when traditional buffers are weaker: multilateral institutions and NGOs, which have often cushioned past declines, are themselves facing funding constraints. While non-traditional donors, such as China and the Gulf States, have grown their aid presence in the region, the magnitudes are not able to cover the reduction in traditional donors.
The cuts are also difficult to manage because they follow six years of successive shocks—including the pandemic, tighter global financial conditions, and food and energy crises—that have already eroded fiscal space.
Tough trade-offs
Governments now face difficult choices. Many have limited fiscal space, rising debt, and low reserves.
IMF-administered surveys covering 28 African countries suggest four broad policy responses:
o Some governments are not replacing lost aid, allowing programs to lapse. This limits immediate fiscal strain but carries high social costs.o Many are reprioritizing spending, often cutting public investment—easier politically, but damaging to future growth.
o Others are borrowing more, including domestically, increasing debt risks.
o Some are stepping up revenue mobilization, though results take time.
Each option comes with trade-offs. Replacing lost aid can protect services and growth, but at the cost of wider deficits and external imbalances. Not replacing it stabilizes budgets and protects debt sustainability, but risks lasting damage to human capital and development.
There are no easy choices.
How to respond
The policy challenge is to manage the adjustment while preserving core development gains. Three priorities stand out.
First, protect and target high-impact aid.
With resources scarce, allocation matters more. Aid should be directed toward the countries and sectors where it has the greatest effect—especially low-income countries and fragile states, and essential humanitarian needs. Stronger coordination can reduce fragmentation and avoid duplication.
Second, broaden the financing toolkit.
Grant financing will remain essential, particularly in humanitarian contexts. But other instruments can play a larger role. Blended finance—using public funds to mobilize private investment—can help expand financing for infrastructure, energy, and agriculture. It is not a substitute for aid: it is harder to scale, more complex, and can add to debt if poorly designed. Managing these trade-offs will be critical.
Third, strengthen domestic capacity.
With aid less predictable, resilience increasingly depends on domestic institutions. This means mobilizing more revenue, improving spending efficiency, and strengthening policy design and service delivery. Aid has often provided both funding and implementation; replacing that capacity will take time and sustained investment.
A turning point
The shift that began in 2025 is unlikely to be temporary. It reflects a broader reconfiguration of development finance, shaped by tighter donor budgets and changing priorities.
The implications will vary by country, depending on exposure, initial buffers, and policy choices. But the direction is clear: reliance on external aid will become more uncertain, and domestic policy will matter more.
The immediate task is to manage the decline in aid without backsliding on the significant human development achievements of the past decades. The longer-term challenge is to adapt to a world where aid is less abundant and less predictable. How countries navigate both will shape growth and development outcomes for years to come.
Chie Aoyagi, Maurizio Leonardi, and Athene Laws are economists in the IMF’s African Department, where Hamza Mighri is a research analyst.
IPS UN Bureau
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 26 2026 (IPS) - Smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia are likely to still be reeling from the fuel and fertilizer crisis caused by conflict in the Middle East when what forecasters expect to be a “super” El Niño arrives later this year.
Appolinaire Djikeng
Consensus is increasingly clear that tackling climate change to avert such crises is a legal duty under international law. Bringing down emissions requires both short-term and long-term action. And yet one of the most effective levers available — sustainable livestock farming — receives just 1 to 2 per cent of climate finance dedicated to agriculture. That is a vanishingly small share for a sector that, in many low- and middle-income countries, accounts for as much as 80 per cent of agricultural GDP.
This funding gap matters because livestock offer something relatively rare in climate policy: the chance to cut emissions fast while also building resilience. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over the short term, which means reducing it delivers quicker climate benefits.
Cattle and other livestock are among the primary sources of methane emissions. But crucially, both direct and indirect methane emissions from livestock production are often higher than necessary because of the same factors that hold back productivity. Poor animal health, low quality feed and nutrition, and climate stress all undermine production and increase both direct emissions and emission intensity. Tackling these fundamental factors solves both challenges.
In Ethiopia, for example, poor animal health has been found to increase livestock emissions by 50 per cent while also resulting in lower meat, milk and egg yields. Parasites and other vector-borne diseases increase the methane produced in animals’ guts while stunting growth and development.
Simply by applying existing tools to improve animal health, such as vaccines, drugs that kill parasites and good nutrition, research suggests that emissions could be conservatively reduced by at least 15 per cent per unit of output. The same interventions also increase productivity and improve livelihoods.
New research is also uncovering new opportunities to reduce methane from livestock while also boosting productivity and resilience.
Scientists from CGIAR research centres and partners have analysed nearly 300 forage samples and found that varieties of African clover, cowpea and lablab could reduce methane emissions by up to 90 per cent. These plants contain compounds that alter the microbes in cows’ stomachs and block the process that generates methane.
Testing is now under way to identify varieties that could be grown as low-methane feed, which not only helps reduce emissions but also supports local seed systems.
Restoring rangelands adds another layer: it helps improve forage availability to support better animal nutrition, lower methane emissions and build stronger ecosystems. Last year, for example, participatory rangeland management (PRM) was strengthened across 340,000 hectares in Ethiopia and 50,000 hectares in Tanzania, improving rangeland health and supporting livestock production.
Many more solutions exist to improve livestock sustainability for short-term and long-term gains, including those developed by the Livestock and Climate Solutions Hub. But despite growing evidence of impact from livestock interventions, climate finance continues to flow elsewhere, away from the agricultural systems that hundreds of millions of people depend on most directly.
In a post-aid world, directing more climate finance towards sustainable livestock farming in low- and middle-income countries is an investment in global stability.
Investing in more sustainable livestock production has a ripple effect that improves food security, livelihoods, and economic growth and contributes to greater stability and resilience in the face of shocks like the “super” El Niño.
Climate vulnerability is costly. Building resilience through the primary sectors of low- and middle-income countries is an insurance against future crises.
Prof. Appolinaire Djikeng is Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute
IPS UN Bureau
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 26 2026 (IPS) - Leadership of the Global South has gradually declined since the 1980s. Many hope BRICS+ will fill the vacuum, but its purpose and membership suggest such hopes may be misplaced. A repurposed Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) offers the best way forward.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
The post-World War Two (WW2) Keynesian ‘Golden Age’ saw significant postwar reconstruction and post-colonial development, especially in South Asia.
In 1964, developing countries formed the G77 caucus and created the UN Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) within the UN system.
In 1974, the UN General Assembly called for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) after President Nixon ended the 1944 Bretton Woods international monetary system in 1971.
In 1979, the US Fed responded to Western stagflation by sharply raising interest rates. This triggered fiscal and sovereign debt crises in Latin America and Africa, forcing many to seek IMF emergency funds to cope.
Meanwhile, the Thatcher-Reagan-inspired counter-revolution against Keynesian and development economics led to ‘neoliberal’ Washington Consensus policy reforms, deepening economic contraction.
At New York’s Plaza Hotel, the US got its G7 caucus of the world’s 7 largest allied economies to address its overvalued dollar by requiring the currencies of Japan and Germany to appreciate sharply.
Nurina Malek
With its legitimacy at stake following the East Asian, Russian, and other financial crises of 1997-99, G7 finance ministers agreed in 1999 to create a more inclusive G20 grouping of finance ministers of the world’s 20 largest economies.
Soon after the 2008 global (actually Western) financial crisis began, the first G20 leaders’ summit convened in the White House in November 2008.
Making BRICS
‘BRICs’ was coined in late 2001 by then-Goldman Sachs Global Economic Research head Jim O’Neill, referring to Brazil, Russia, India, and China.
Ostensibly to include Africa, the BRICs invited South Africa to join, creating BRICS as a coalition of the five more independent large ‘emerging market’ economies.
Also serving as a caucus within the G20, BRICS has tried to improve international monetary and financial relations. It has since admitted more nations into an expanded BRICS+ with two tiers of affiliation.
To be sure, neither BRICS nor BRICS+ was ever intended to represent the even more diverse interests of the entire Global South. Understandably, it serves its ‘financially significant’ developing economy members.
BRICS and the South
The BRICS promise a world less dominated by the rich and powerful nations of the Global North, mainly in the West.
The world has been dominated by the US since the end of WW2, and especially after the first Cold War. Despite occasional dissent, the US’s European NATO allies seem happy playing second fiddle.
Many developing countries have long felt that existing arrangements do not serve their best interests. The BRICS seem to offer some ‘voice’ and alternative bases for international economic cooperation.
BRICS has undoubtedly strengthened the Global South’s voice and developed new arrangements to support developing country interests, especially to finance development.
The BRICS have also advocated on specific international issues for the Global South. All five BRICS countries have also led developing-country groupings on specific issues with varying degrees of success.
Unsurprisingly, many developing countries appreciate the BRICS role in such matters, with some choosing to publicly align with and even affiliate with it.
However, the BRICS expansion into BRICS+ is unlikely to resolve many problems faced by developing nations due to international power asymmetries and imbalances.
Potential and problems
The diversity of the Global South complicates any grouping’s claim to represent it.
BRICS+ brings together countries with very different political and economic systems, priorities and aspirations, including development goals and interests.
This diversity enhances BRICS’ broad appeal but also makes it difficult to ensure it becomes an effective platform consistently advocating all developing nations’ interests.
This challenge becomes more apparent when the interests and ambitions of weaker developing countries are compared with those of the major BRICS+ powers.
Many vulnerable nations are preoccupied with food security, structural change, deindustrialisation, environmental sustainability, planetary heating, and financialization.
Meanwhile, BRICS members seek to pursue their own strategic interests, garner finance and investments, boost their exports and increase their influence internationally.
Such objectives are not inherently contradictory, but rarely fully aligned. This makes it more difficult to pursue shared interests, advocate collectively, and sustain cooperation.
BRICS+ membership by invitation also limits its effective accountability to the Global South. It is unrealistic to expect BRICS+ to consistently advocate for the full range of concerns of all developing countries, especially the poorest and least influential.
The Global South should undoubtedly try to benefit from the economic weight and voice of BRICS+. But it can best advance its shared interests with its own voice and organised strength via a revived NAM, repurposed for peace, development and justice.
IPS UN Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 25 2026 (IPS) - Amidst increased geopolitical tensions, the risk of volatile energy markets, trade corridors, and regional stability in the Middle East has garnered more attention than trade policy in terms of its power to alter the global economy, according to new findings from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
In their report on trade and development, “Global Economy Faces a Geopolitical Challenge”, UNCTAD says that a protracted escalation “raises the likelihood of deeper disruptions in global trade and finance, potentially, foreshadowing a cascading crisis”.
Credit: UN Conference on Trade and Development (Trade and Development Foresights 2026)
Daily crude oil prices in the Middle East since the beginning of the conflict have risen from around USD 60-70, to a fluctuating rate between a high of over USD 110-. With oil prices surging more than 60 percent, and gas doubling in price, many markets have been left in an inflating scenario as higher energy prices increase macroeconomic pressure and overall slow and contract the economy.
The increase per barrel is largely due to a constriction of supply, where most Gulf economies can barely output oil due to a lack of transport ability through the strait of Hormuz. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) records a spike in the price of Brent crude rising over USD 100 per barrel and remaining at elevated levels, with European gas also jumping roughly “60 percent amid disruptions to LNG exports”.
The numbers are impacted by an estimated loss of capacity of 10 million barrels per day of oil and “about 500 million cubic meters per day of natural gas”. This is roughly 10 percent of global oil production, and roughly 5 percent of global natural gas production for every single day.
The IMF records the following:
Daily Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz (in number of vessels) between 26 February and 6 April 2026. Credit: IMF
Oil being an inelastic good means that consumers won’t be able to curb their spending. Rather, they have to pay more for as long as the conflict lasts as fuels are needed for many essential routine tasks, from driving your car, to taking your vitamins, to growing your food, and having your Amazon packages shipped.
In their April 2026 Regional Economic Outlook Update for the Middle East and Central Asia, the IMF details that a continued conflict will likely for every 10 percent rise in the average oil price lead to a loss of about 0.5 percent of GDP and an inflation increase of around 1 percent in Gulf economies, ultimately affecting global markets heavily.
As the report notes, “Longer trade disruptions or greater damage to oil production capacity raises the possibility of higher and more sustained oil prices and a larger risk premium than is currently embedded in oil futures prices”.
However, for developing countries higher energy prices hit a lot harder to consumers in developing countries, which in this case don’t have the same money to spare. The IMF warns that “Low-income countries and other fragile and conflict-affected states in the MENAP region are especially vulnerable to higher energy, fertilizer, and food prices”.
Due to the conflict, estimates stand that vulnerable economies, mostly least developed countries (16.1 billion) and small island developing states (4.3 billion), could incur a USD 20 billion a year increase in spending, representing a huge composition of their GDP expenditure.
Among least-developed nations, Mauritania is recorded to have their bill increase by 7.3 percent, The Gambia 6.3 percent, Burkina Faso 5.0 percent, Liberia and Zambia 4.3 percent, with 17 other least developed countries also estimating to increase their spending by at least 0.5 percent in terms of GDP points.
Similarly for small-island developing states, Vanuatu is recorded to have an increase of 5.8 percent, Maldives 5.2 percent, Tonga 4.4 percent, Mauritius 4.2 percent, and Fiji 3.2 percent, with 18 other small developing states recording an increase of at least 0.6%.
UNCTAD also expects this conflict to take away capital investment into developing nations, as these assets are perceived as riskier. The UNCTAD report states that “the start of the Middle East conflict triggered a sell-off of developing countries’ assets, with equity markets of emerging markets sliding by more than 12 per cent between 28 February and 29 March.” Likely such effects will trigger a compacting of issues, contributing to an economic downturn that could take years to recover from depending on the length of the conflict.
IPS UN Bureau Report
URBANA, Illinois, US, Jun 25 2026 (IPS) - Across the United States, record breaking extreme weather events have already occurred, including severe storms and Tornadoes in the State of Illinois to flooding in Texas, southern Wisconsin and the South. Throughout the summer, and the remainder of the growing season, additional severe weather events will come through including several hurricanes and tropical storms beginning with Tropical Storm Arthur.
While the impacts of severe weather on people, communities, and infrastructure dominate headlines, the damage flooding inflicts on agricultural systems, crop productivity, and food security often goes unnoticed and underestimated.
Equally concerning is the noticeable lack of focused dialogue among researchers, policymakers, and other key stakeholders in agricultural crop production and food systems, including farmers, about whether current best management practices and innovations are keeping pace with efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of severe weather and flooding on agriculture.
The impacts of flooding on crops and soils, as well as the beneficial web of microbes, can persist long after floodwaters have receded. Research shows that even after floodwaters have receded, plants continue to grow slowly and remain highly vulnerable to pests and diseases, further exacerbating crop damage and yield losses
Flooding can affect agricultural crops, including corn and vegetables like tomatoes, in many ways. These effects range from altered growth patterns and the wiping out of millions of acres of crops to tons of unsellable vegetables due to potential contamination from floodwaters.
I have seen this firsthand in my research at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In just a few days, due to a lack of oxygen, crops like tomatoes and corn visibly stop growing, and when flooding is severe, they suffocate to death.
Belowground, flooding is also harmful to beneficial soil microbes that provide many benefits to plants, including improving nutrient availability and uptake, fixing nitrogen, promoting growth, boosting resilience to biotic and abiotic threats, and improving soil health and fertility.
By harming beneficial microbes and other organisms, including earthworms, flooding can disrupt the belowground ecosystem that sustains healthy soils, crop growth, resilient agricultural production systems, and food security.
Disturbingly, the impacts of flooding on crops and soils, as well as the beneficial web of microbes, can persist long after floodwaters have receded. Research shows that even after floodwaters have receded, plants continue to grow slowly and remain highly vulnerable to pests and diseases, further exacerbating crop damage and yield losses.
Alarmingly, current studies show that agricultural losses from flooding do parallel those caused by drought, and future projections indicate that the intensity, frequency, and severity of flooding events will continue to increase.
Ultimately, flooding causes systemic issues and disruptions across food systems, affecting all stakeholders connected to agriculture, a trillion-dollar industry. These impacts that come along with flooding can increase food costs, trigger higher insurance claims, and place additional mental burden on farmers and agricultural workers.
The question then becomes: What can be done to prepare for this future? What best practices and innovations can be implemented? What can farmers, researchers, policymakers, and all stakeholders in agriculture do to ensure that the crops we depend on to meet food security, along with the practices and flooding mitigating innovations in place, can withstand flooding?
First, there is a need for more investment in flooding research in the United States and globally. Compared with drought, we know far less about the full extent of flood impacts on agricultural crops, from the onset of flooding through the post-flood recovery phase.
Additionally, we do not know whether the current best management practices and innovations that farmers are deploying to cope with flooding are effective.
Investing in research will enable researchers to build a comprehensive understanding of flood impacts on plants, soils, and microbiomes in current and projected future climates, while uncovering the many strategies plants use to resist, adapt, and thrive.
Notably, our understanding of flooding impacts to crops, microbes, agroecosystems, and agricultural productivity remains siloed and fragmented across disciplines. Yet flooding impacts span multiple disciplines, including plant biology, entomology, agronomy, microbial and soil ecology, predictive modelling, and climate systems biology and engineering.
Arguably, there is a need to collaborate across disciplines to develop a more integrated and holistic understanding of how flooding affects crops and agroecosystems. In doing so, we will advance scientific knowledge and lay the groundwork for developing solutions to address and conquer flooding and its negative impacts on agriculture.
Necessarily so, there is an urgent need to conduct field-based research across a spectrum of climates, soils, and management practices. Although researchers have made great strides in building foundational knowledge about flooding impacts on crops, most of this research has been conducted in controlled settings, primarily in greenhouses.
To capture the complexity and inherent variability of agricultural systems, soils, and environments, field experiments are necessary. These experiments can offer insights and help determine the factors that determine crop resilience.
A metric of success for researchers is collaborating with farmers and using farms as living laboratories to understand flooding and co-build flooding solutions. These collaborations offer many benefits, as farmers are the ones who suffer most, but also have on the ground intelligence that research may not have.
When researchers and farmers co-build solutions, the resulting insights, solutions, and innovations become more practical, trusted, and embraced by farmers and in turn, these can be quickly integrated and translated into the suite of strategies and solutions farmers are deploying to mitigate flooding.
Research alone would still not go very far. Policymakers, governments, philanthropists, the private sector, and the media are equally needed if we are to make strides in addressing flooding and its negative impacts.
Media outlets such as NBC, CNN, local TV news channels, and major outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The News-Gazette, can expand public understanding of flooding by discussing and sharing the rarely highlighted consequences of flooding for agricultural production. Greater visibility can raise awareness and highlight the need to invest in flooding research.
In the end, we cannot solve a problem we do not fully understand. Only by acknowledging and demonstrating the impacts of flooding through research and having the media and other stakeholders share widely about the consequenses of severe weather including flooding on agriculture can we begin to identify the sustainable short- and long-term solutions needed to protect our agricultural systems.
When agricultural crops are lost to flooding, food costs rise, food systems are weakened, and our ability to meet our food security needs is threatened. It’s time to paint a realistic picture of flooding and acknowledge its full impact. In doing so, we can begin to develop solutions that help us withstand flooding and the extreme weather-related challenges ahead. Time is of the essence.
Esther Ngumbi, PhD is Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, African American Studies Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Christy Gibson is an Illinois Distinguished Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she studies how floods and droughts reshape farming systems and the ecosystems that sustain them.
LONDON & DAR ES SALAAM, Jun 25 2026 (IPS) - Before anyone called her an innovator, before artificial intelligence entered the conversation, before solar-powered cold rooms, before the language of sustainable development, Shifra Ainomugisha knew food loss in its painful form.
At dawn, she would grab a bucket and walk into rows of tomato plants on her family’s farm in Western Uganda to collect what had already been lost.
The tomatoes looked healthy from a distance. But many had softened, burst, or spoilt before reaching the market – the true meaning of food loss.
“I used to wake up every morning to collect rotten tomatoes and throw them away while trying to save whatever remained,” she recalled.
Almost half the family’s harvest disappeared this way.
Yet the labour never stopped.
Her parents worked relentlessly. Seasons came and went. Fields produced food. But income remained painfully uncertain.
“Meanwhile, we struggled to pay school fees,” she said. “Some children dropped out of school even though we worked very hard during holidays on the farm. We were producing food but could not earn enough money to support our education.”
Shifra Ainomugisha poses beside a solar-powered irrigation system in Uganda. She was named the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year. Her contribution includes combining renewable energy and AI-enabled agricultural support to help smallholder farmers increase productivity and reduce post-harvest losses. Credit: Solar Farm Uganda
Mission Accomplished
Those childhood memories – of abundance turning into loss and hard work failing to translate into opportunity – would eventually shape a mission that has now earned Ainomugisha recognition as the regional winner for Africa under SDG 2: Zero Hunger in the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Awards.
Selected from almost 1,000 applicants across the Commonwealth’s 56 member states after a two-stage adjudication process involving 57 judges, Ainomugisha joined 19 finalists recognised for advancing the Sustainable Development Goals through innovation and community impact.
But the award was not her only accolade.
Today, the Ugandan farmer and innovator earned the prestigious title of 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year at the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Awards ceremony in London.
The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Shirley Botchwey, presented the award to Ainomugisha.
In her remarks Botchwey congratulated all the finalists.
“You are already winners. To be selected from across 56 nations is a testament to your courage and your creativity. You embody the very best of our family. You have shown resilience in the face of challenge and innovation in the face of constraint.”
She continued, “Today is not about recognition alone – it is about momentum. It is not about isolated excellence — it is about collective advancement. Together, we will continue to strengthen the Commonwealth Youth Programme as a flagship vehicle for youth development in the Commonwealth.”
A Journey That Began With a Big Question
For the young Ugandan entrepreneur, however, the journey did not begin with awards.
It began with a question she carried since childhood:
How can people who grow food still remain hungry?
“Nobody should die of hunger,” she tells IPS.
“Because we are here to help. Farmers are doing agriculture, and we are solving food waste, which means we are fighting hunger. That is one of the SDGs we are working on.”
Today, Ainomugisha serves as co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Solar Farm Uganda Limited, a social enterprise using solar-powered technologies and artificial intelligence to help smallholder farmers reduce food losses, improve yields and increase incomes.
Her work combines three interconnected interventions: solar-powered cold storage, solar irrigation systems and an AI-enabled advisory platform known as Lean AI – a WhatsApp chatbot designed to guide farmers on planting decisions, irrigation timing, pest management, post-harvest handling and market access.
Together, the technologies aim to solve one of Africa’s challenging agricultural paradoxes: producing food but losing too much of it before it reaches consumers.
According to regional agricultural estimates, post-harvest losses continue to absorb a huge share of food production across sub-Saharan Africa, undermining incomes, nutrition and rural resilience. Smallholder farmers – who form the backbone of food systems – are particularly vulnerable because many lack access to storage, irrigation and agricultural extension services.
For Ainomugisha, those statistics have faces.
Her mother’s face.
Her father’s.
Her neighbours’.
And her own.
“I come from a tomato-growing family,” she said.
“Growing up, we experienced food wastage and low returns despite all the hard labour we invested in farming.”
Her father became one of her earliest inspirations.
Although he never had the opportunity to pursue formal education, he constantly experimented with solutions.
“He tried solving it by buying a diesel irrigation pump to increase yields because we only have one major farming season,” she explained.
“If you don’t make enough money during that season, the whole year becomes difficult.”
He attempted to preserve produce in improvised storage spaces.
But tomatoes continued spoiling.
Years later, after gaining access to education and exposure to technology, Ainomugisha began thinking differently.
“First of all, it wasn’t simply my decision alone,” she reflected.
“It began with my father. My father did not get the opportunity to go to school, but I did. I felt I had a better chance to solve the problem than he did.”
That conviction followed her into university.
Shifra Ainomugisha (centre, in reflective vest), co-founder and CEO of Solar Farm Uganda, stands with farmers and community members beside a solar panel installation that supports climate-smart agriculture initiatives. Through renewable energy and farmer-centred innovation, the project seeks to reduce food loss and improve rural incomes. Credit: Solar Farm Uganda
Solar to AI to Filling Knowledge Gaps
Together with colleagues, she founded Solar Farm while still studying.
Initially, the concept was straightforward: cold-chain storage.
Support from entrepreneurship initiatives – including LEAP Africa – helped transform the idea into a functioning enterprise.
But customers quickly changed the direction.
People arriving at the cold rooms often revealed a deeper challenge.
Some had little produce to preserve.
Storage alone was not enough.
The team expanded.
Solar irrigation came next.
The goal was to help farmers reduce dependence on expensive diesel fuel and enable year-round production.
Farmers could access irrigation systems through a flexible financing model – paying 20 percent upfront and then making weekly payments of approximately USD 1.60 until ownership.
“We wanted to create a solution that farmers could actually afford,” she said.
Then came the next leap: artificial intelligence.
Ainomugisha says the AI component emerged from another observation.
Many farmers lacked access to agricultural training.
Knowledge gaps were driving losses.
“Many people are farming, but they are not always doing it the right way,” she explained.
“You might find a tomato farmer irrigating in the morning, yet tomatoes are better irrigated in the afternoon or evening.”
The team launched Lean AI – a chatbot accessible through WhatsApp that provides real-time agricultural guidance.
Farmers can ask questions and receive recommendations on farming practices, pest control, irrigation and post-harvest management.
The system is now being adapted to work via real-time messaging protocol known as USSD to reach users with basic mobile phones.
“We use AI to continue training farmers even when we are not physically present,” she said.
“We believe this will improve yields, increase incomes and eventually change the narrative that farming is only for the poor.”
Shifra Ainomugisha poses beside a solar-powered irrigation system in Uganda. She is combining renewable energy and AI-enabled agricultural support to help smallholder farmers increase productivity and reduce post-harvest losses. Credit: Solar Farm Uganda
Changing the Narrative
That narrative matters deeply to her.
“In Uganda, there is a narrative that agriculture is for poor people,” she said.
“That is sad.”
She pauses.
“People believe that because despite hard work, they cannot escape poverty.”
One of the defining moments came in 2023.
After struggling to convince local markets to host their first cold room, the team installed it at her family home.
Her mother became the first customer.
Then came neighbours.
Then more farmers.
Initially, usage was free.
People needed proof.
One woman – a friend of Ainomugisha’s mother who traded fruits and vegetables – became an unexpected validation.
She stored produce for a month.
Fresh vegetables that once spoilt within days remained viable for nearly two weeks.
That extra time allowed her to wait for better prices instead of selling under pressure.
“She later realised how much it was helping her,” Ainomugisha said.
“Now she earns more from farming than she did before.”
Solar Farm eventually introduced a pay-per-use model.
The impact, Ainomugisha says, became measurable.
“What makes us proud is that we have increased farmers’ incomes by 28 percent.”
“We have also reduced post-harvest losses by about 30 percent.”
Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General (Programmes), Tanmaya Lal, Commonwealth Secretary-General, Shirley Botchwey, and Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General (Corporate), Tania Baumann, pose with the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year and Africa Regional Winner, Shifra Ainomugisha, at the Commonwealth Youth Awards ceremony in London. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat
Winning Reaction
Those outcomes helped propel Solar Farm onto the Commonwealth stage. The Commonwealth Youth Awards are an initiative of the Commonwealth Youth Programme, which has supported youth development work in member countries for over 50 years.
“I am honoured to be named the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year. This recognition is not only personal but also represents the farmers and communities in Uganda whom we serve. It also affirms that solutions built from lived experience can create real impact. I cannot wait to continue this journey with the support of the Commonwealth and its remarkable network of partners.”
The Awards recognise young leaders advancing development solutions across member states.
For more than a decade, the programme has provided visibility, networks and funding opportunities to support youth-led initiatives.
This year’s finalists span sectors ranging from climate action and health innovation to entrepreneurship and communications.
For Ainomugisha, being selected is an honour.
“I’m glad to be a finalist for the Commonwealth Youth Award and a regional winner for Africa,” she said.
She believes three things contributed most to the selection.
Sustainability.
Impact.
Accessibility.
“First of all, our project is sustainable. We have maintained it from 2022 until now.”
“Secondly, we are creating meaningful impact.”
“Also, our technology is affordable for smallholder farmers.”
But perhaps what distinguishes her work most is who it centres.
Women.
“Because this problem is personal to me,” she said.
“I did not hear someone else’s story and decide to solve it.”
“I am a woman, and I saw how my mother worked every day on the farm, yet our lives were not improving.”
Across much of Africa, women form a large share of the agricultural workforce while often facing unequal access to land, financing, technologies and extension services.
Ainomugisha says designing with women in mind is not a strategy.
It is lived experience.
“Of course, we also work with men, but the majority of our beneficiaries are women.”
As global conversations increasingly focus on artificial intelligence, her message is clear.
Technology alone is not enough.
It must be accessible.
Affordable.
And designed around people’s realities.
Her next ambition is expansion—making agricultural intelligence available even to farmers without smartphones.
The larger vision is not simply digitising agriculture.
It is restoring dignity to farming.
The memory of rotten tomatoes remains.
So does the memory of school fees that almost went unpaid.
But today, those memories no longer represent failure.
They represent the beginning of a different harvest.
One where innovation is measured not only in algorithms or solar panels but also in whether families who grow food can finally afford to eat, learn and dream.
And for Ainomugisha, that future has already started.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Excerpt:
Shifra Ainomugisha from Uganda is the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year. Her award was announced at the 2026 Commonwealth Youth Awards ceremony in London, where she was also named the Africa Regional Winner.
OUIDAH, Benin, Jun 25 2026 (IPS) - It is barely noon, and a group of women sit near the beach on the outskirts of Djégbadji village, in West Africa’s Benin, sifting through mounds of salt harvested from the Gulf of Guinea’s ocean.
Large concrete vats covered with black tarpaulin show traces of white salt sediment as the seawater slowly evaporates under Benin’s midday sun – except that instead of using fire, the group uses solar energy.
The women have been working as part of a grassroots project called ProSEL Benin, a collaborative effort of the governments of Benin along with India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that focuses on strengthening local salt-producing communities to access sustainable energy sources and create medium-sized enterprises for the production and marketing of local iodised salt.
Salt production is one of the main income-generating activities for the populations living in and around southern Benin.
Generations-Old Traditions
“In Benin’s coastal areas, women skim the salt from the coastal marshes… they put up their little huts and boil salt water in massive vats over an open fire inside the hut. They then sell the ‘cooked’ salt at the markets and on the roadsides. It’s an unhealthy practice for various reasons,” says Robina Marks, who served as South Africa’s ambassador to Benin and Togo from 2021 to 2024 and was closely involved in the implementation of the IBSA-backed project.
The traditional method of collecting and cooking the salt has been practised in Benin since at least the 15th century, primarily by women, and involves collecting saline soil, evaporating the water and filtering brine by burning chopped mangrove wood to produce salt.
The practice harms women’s health due to how they collect the salt and the conditions in which it is prepared.
“It takes a very long time and is very labour-intensive,” Marks says.
The ProSEL Benin project attempts to change this traditional practice and make the process of collecting salt healthier and cleaner.
Salt-making is an important source of income for communities here, relying heavily on the cutting down of mangroves.
ProSEL Benin’s research estimates that approximately 20,000 cubic metres of mangrove wood are cut down annually in coastal Benin for use as firewood in Indigenous salt-making.
The UNDP and the Benin government discussed the new method about five years ago.
“But the idea came from the people on the ground, who had the needs. The Benin government came up with the project and wanted to work with UNDP,” says Aoualé Mohamed Abchir, who served as the UNDP Resident Representative in Benin from 2020 to 2024 and was instrumental in its development.
ProSEL Benin, Abchir says, is an attempt to advance three out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: gender equality; decent work and economic growth; and responsible consumption and production. This project aims to help rural women in Benin make and sell clean salt and become self-reliant.
In 2021, the Board of Directors of the India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation Fund awarded USD 1 million to the UNDP to implement the salt project.
IBSA is an example of collaborative efforts between the three developing countries, as well as a South-South cooperation initiative within the United Nations that focuses on development cooperation among developing countries in the Global South.
When 60-year-old Cécile Koffi was first introduced to the salt project, it took some time to convince her to switch from the traditional method of making salt.
“There are a lot of things the salt does. Salt is intrinsic to the community’s women,” Koffi says, examining the day’s salt collection.
Salt is culturally important to Benin, and its uses go beyond culinary applications.
“It is not only used as food, but it also has a cultural aspect to it. It is regarded as sacred and is used in many of the vodoun practices,” says Marks.
“When we go to the market to sell our produce, we sprinkle salt on the ground and sweep it up before setting up our spot. It is believed that every bad spirit will go away if we do that. Salt is very important. We use it in a lot of rituals,” says Koffi.
Julienne Dekon collects saline water using the traditional method to make salt in rural Benin. Credit: Neha Banka/IPS
These deep-rooted cultural beliefs were one reason why it was difficult to get the women to change and adapt to the ProSEL Benin project, even though it was backed by the Benin government, explains Abchir.
Traditionally salt production is a cultural activity carried out by the Xwla populations of the coastal zone in Benin. The traditional production of salt by the salt farmers in the villages is subject to many prohibitions related to working days, village deities, and so on.
“The name Xwlajè is also intimately linked to the Xwla ethnic group,” says Luc Obale, national project director of ProSEL Benin. The Benin government has been working to certify the salt so that it can be sold with the label ‘Xwlajè’ to identify its cultural origin.
“The old method is their ancestral way of producing salt, so it has significance. Sometimes when you change the way you produce something, some people believe it may have negative implications. The women could have got the salt directly from the sea, but there is a reason why they weren’t doing that before the project,” says Abchir.
The ProSEL Benin project targeted five areas in coastal Benin where people have traditionally harvested salt: Sèmè Kpodji, Grand Popo, Ouidah, Kpomasse, Comè and Lokossa.
“In those other areas, people have been more open to using sea water to make salt, but Ouidah is Ouidah. It is very special. They believe that the best salt can only be cooked, not dried. They believe that they have to cook it,” explains Abchir.
Ground-Level Interventions
The ProSEL Benin project is not the first intervention programme that has attempted to make local salt cleaner and more environmentally sustainable, but it has been successful because caseworkers managed to get it off the ground, says Cessi Marlene Capo-Chichi, who works with UNDP as a project coordinator.
“Organisations have struggled to convince the local community to change their ways,” she says.
Some 500 metres from where the ProSEL project is ongoing by the beach, within the limits of Djégbadji village, is a coastal lagoon where women work inside a network of thatched huts, making salt in the traditional way.
“The traditional way of making salt is more laborious,” says 45-year-old Julienne Dekon, lifting a cane basket heavy with saline soil collected from the marshy land that surrounds her.
These days, the Benin government prevents the chopping down of mangroves for wood, and women are encouraged to use dried palm leaves and coconut shells for fuel instead.
Dekon says that she wants to continue working using the traditional method, although many of her friends have now switched to the modern method of salt making using seawater after joining the ProSEL project.
As she begins boiling the saline water inside her hut, smoke fills the small space.
“When I have to work a lot, I do get tired. But I don’t know much about how this affects my health,” says Dekon.
Dekon doesn’t remember when she started making salt, but it has been a very long time, and she is now accustomed to preparing using the traditional methods.
“The method on the beach (ProSEL project) is easy to do. But when it is raining, it is not possible to do it outside. But I can continue to make salt even in the rain, because I collect the soil and start cooking indoors. The two systems are too different,” says Dekon, referring to the open-air concrete salt vats by the sea that are susceptible to the vagaries of the weather.
However, the wet weather also affects the women using traditional methods.
From April to August, Benin experiences its rainy season, with short spells of rain between September and November, and the low-lying marshes near the lagoons are prone to flooding.
“We are pushing them to switch to the ProSEL system because during the rainy season the area where the salt is produced traditionally is inaccessible. It is completely flooded, and so for more than half the year, there is no production of salt. We needed to give them alternatives,” says Abchir.
While it is easier for the women to avoid the rains by tracking the weather, it is harder to bypass the persistent floods, he says.
Abchir says the project focused on giving the women access to seawater to make sure they could make salt and have steady income through the year.
“Using the seawater to make salt is less painful. You just get the water and let the sun evaporate it. You don’t have to cook it, and it is safer. You can also make more money,” says Abchir.
Just down the unpaved road from where Dekon works, a woman stands by the highway selling salt.
The difference between the salt produced by women like Dekon, who have been working using traditional methods and those engaged with ProSEL Benin is clear: the traditional salt is visibly yellow-brown with streaks of grey, colours that come due to the lack of a filtration process. The ProSEL Benin salt is clean and white, fortified with iodine that the women mix into the salt just before filling it into bags.
A one-kilogram bag of salt produced by women using the traditional method, sold in local marketplaces and by the road, would cost approximately 800 West African CFA franc (approx. USD 2), while the same amount produced by ProSEL Benin would sell for 1,000 CFA.
For Public Consumption
ProSEL research indicates there are about 4,000 women harvesting salt in Benin. The country imports most of its salt from countries like Ghana, Senegal and India because its Indigenous salt farming covers only a small fraction of the country’s actual needs.
Stakeholders realised that it was not enough to teach the women how to make cleaner salt; they also had to be given access to markets to sell it. One market that the project aims to tap into is the World Food Programme (WFP) under the UN’s Benin office, which helps feed over 1 million children annually with daily school meals. The WFP has been undertaking research to understand the feasibility of purchasing and using salt through these cooperatives led by women under ProSEL.
The Benin government has ambitious plans for the harvested salt.
In December 2025, Benin’s food safety agency, ABSSA, the Agence Béninoise de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments, certified the salt for public consumption, after which the salt was prepared to be sold under the label Xwlajè.
Presently, the Xwlajè salt is sold in seven different supermarket chains across Cotonou, as well as in standalone shops located in the municipalities of Porto-Novo, Cotonou and Comè.
“In addition, steps are underway to market Xwlajè salt in the duty-free shops at Cotonou International Airport,” says Obale.
Abchir adds that a process that would take the women six hours now takes them two. Bringing about change has been difficult, he says, because it involved convincing people who were accustomed to working in a specific way for generations.
He admits that they wouldn’t have been able to do much without winning the trust of the women, their husbands who still oversee their lives, the mayor and the local community leaders.
“The local team went down to the women and understood their needs so that sensibilities could be understood and it would be accepted. It is very difficult in Benin when outsiders come in and tell them what to do.”
Abchir says that there is a high risk of undoing all that work if there is mistrust in the community towards the project.
“They are accepting the changes. Now we are trying to build construction for storage, keeping machines, etc. It is a sensitive phase, but we are hopeful that it will work.”
Benin’s government has prioritised tourism over the last few years, and its Indigenous salt farming practices are a key part of its plans to introduce tourists to Beninese culture.
The ProSEL project does not aim to fully remove the traditional method of salt farming, says Obale.
“The modern salt production unit is located not far from the traditional production site to allow tourists to see the difference between the two production methods,” he says.
Mireille Adjovi, a new mother in her 20s, has come to work at the ProSEL site with her infant sleeping on her back.
“With the money I get, I am able to take care of my children. I will be able to send them to school. I think about myself last: my husband and children come first. Maybe the men give money for the household, but women still suffer a lot. If women need something, husbands give the amount of money they want to give you, not what you need. The men don’t think about the women. So the project helps me earn my own money,” says Adjovi.
For women like Adjovi, making salt is not just about following the jobs women before her have done for generations.
She doesn’t know what the UN’s SDGs are or even what IBSA means, but the work at ProSEL Benin allows her to prioritise her own health and well-being while working collectively in a women-led cooperative.
When she talks to other women working at the site, she also thinks about the hard-earned independence and self-reliance she now has.
Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.
IPS UN Bureau Report