Kenya has overtaken Nigeria to grow to be the continent’s third-largest recipient of funding from the African Improvement Financial institution (AfDB), highlighting the nation’s rising reliance on multilateral loans amid financial pressures.
New disclosures by the continental lender present that it disbursed Sh43.7 billion to Kenya final yr, up from Sh33 billion in 2024, dwarfing Nigeria’s Sh41.9 billion after Abuja greater than halved its drawdowns from the financial institution.
Nairobi accessed two further loans from AfDB’s non-concessional arm, bringing the entire to 23, with an impressive stability of Sh366 billion. It additionally secured three extra loans from the African Improvement Fund (ADF) – the lender’s concessional arm – elevating the entire to 74, additionally valued at a complete of Sh366 billion.
The rise in Kenya’s borrowing from the continental lender got here amid burgeoning public debt and better debt-servicing prices on business loans, prompting better reliance on multilateral financing.
Improvement funding
Kenya has historically tapped AfDB loans to finance improvement initiatives and ease strain on the Exchequer. Final yr, the most important mortgage accredited for Kenya was value Sh10.7 billion and was earmarked for the modernisation of science, expertise, engineering and arithmetic (STEM) infrastructure in public universities.
Along with this challenge, the lender disbursed funds for a number of different programmes, a lot of which had been accredited in earlier years and stay underneath implementation.
“The financial institution additionally supported clear cooking by standalone operations in Kenya and Uganda… these interventions superior the Financial institution Group’s vitality priorities as a key supply channel for local weather motion,” AfDB stated in its annual report.
With Sh43.7 billion obtained, Kenya ranked behind solely South Africa and Morocco in AfDB disbursements final yr. Each international locations have historically been among the many lender’s largest recipients and shareholders on the continent.
South Africa obtained Sh151 billion, up from Sh77 billion, whereas Morocco obtained Sh87.5 billion, in contrast with Sh70.6 billion in 2024.
Regional rating
Nigeria, which was the most important recipient of AfDB funds in 2024, noticed its disbursements from the financial institution greater than halve in 2025, from Sh87 billion a yr earlier, signalling a pointy slowdown in uptake of the lender’s financing.
For Kenya, the rise got here as its financing relationship with the Worldwide Financial Fund (IMF) entered a interval of uncertainty following the expiry of its programme.
Knowledge from the Nationwide Treasury reveals that Kenya is more and more turning to concessional multilateral debt for exterior borrowing. Loans from improvement finance establishments akin to AfDB now account for 56 p.c of all exterior debt, up from 50 p.c on the finish of 2023.
AfDB is Kenya’s second-largest multilateral lender after the World Financial institution.
Typically, Kenya is extra indebted to AfDB than a lot of its continental friends. As of the top of 2025, Kenya’s unpaid loans to the financial institution’s non-concessional arm accounted for five.42 p.c of all excellent balances, rating behind solely Morocco, South Africa, Tunisia and Nigeria.
Its excellent loans from the concessional arm accounted for 11.19 p.c of complete balances, second solely to Tanzania.
