Warren Buffett's foundation gives Kenya $29 million for a second straight year

Warren Buffett's charitable foundation has committed Sh3.8 billion ($29.2 million) to Kenya's health sector for the second consecutive year, the National Treasury disclosed in budget estimates for the fiscal year starting July 2026, as the vacuum left by Donald Trump's sweeping cuts to USAID persists and private philanthropy scrambles to hold the line on a continent where American aid once formed the backbone of health financing.

The grant, channeled through the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and directed to Kenya's State Department of Medical Services, is identical in size to the one disclosed in the same budget process 12 months ago. When it was first reported in May 2025, Business Daily described it as the first time the foundation had ever directly financed the Kenyan government. The repetition for FY2026/2027 suggests that initial intervention has become a structured commitment rather than a one-off response to a crisis.

Buffett's contribution ranks 3rd among the external grants Kenya will receive in the coming financial year. The World Bank tops the list at Sh12.37 billion ($95.2 million), followed by the Global Fund at Sh4.4 billion ($33.8 million). After Buffett comes the Green Climate Fund at Sh950 million ($7.3 million), the European Development Fund and European Economic Community at Sh840 million ($6.5 million) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development at Sh540 million ($4.2 million). Kenya's total external grants for FY2026/2027 amount to Sh24.47 billion ($188 million).

The Sh3.8 billion is equivalent to 18.1% of the State Department for Medical Services' total project budget of Sh20.93 billion. GAVI will separately provide a Sh2.6 billion grant to the department. USAid, which once provided Sh32.4 billion a year to Kenyan programmes, has pledged just Sh231.56 million ($1.78 million) directly to the health department for the coming year. Most of its remaining support flows through NGOs rather than the government.

How the hole opened

The gap that Buffett's foundation is partially filling has been 16 months in the making. Trump signed executive orders halting almost all USAID programmes on January 20, 2025, his first day back in office, tasking Elon Musk's government efficiency operation with scaling down the agency. The effect on Kenya was immediate and broad. Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi disclosed that the freeze would leave a Sh52 billion deficit in the 2024/2025 fiscal year alone.

The crisis hit Kenya's health sector particularly hard because USAID had been funding HIV antiretrovirals, vaccines and maternal health infrastructure at scale for decades. When those funds were frozen, shortages of critical medical supplies began appearing within weeks. The Kenyan government put the cost of replacing lost US funding at Sh24.9 billion, with Sh2 billion needed immediately to prevent supply chain collapse in essential medicines.

The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation's direct intervention addressed some but not all of that need. At Sh3.8 billion, the grant covers roughly 15% of what Kenya calculated was required to replace lost American support. The World Bank and Global Fund grants fill more of the gap, but the combined total still falls short of what USAID was providing before the cuts.

Who Buffett is and what the foundation does

Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, turned 95 in August 2025 and has announced he will step down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the $1 trillion conglomerate he built over 60 years from a struggling textile mill. His net worth, now tracked at $161 billion by Bloomberg, makes him the 6th richest person in the world. He has pledged to give away 99.5% of it, with 99% going to a charitable trust run by his 3 children after his death.

The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, founded in 1964 and renamed in 2004 to honour his late first wife, is run by his daughter Susie Buffett. Its global office sits in Kigali, Rwanda, not Omaha, a location that reflects where much of its active health work is concentrated. The foundation specialises in 2 areas: reproductive health including access to contraception and safe abortion services globally, and a college scholarship programme for students from Nebraska.

Buffett has been donating Berkshire Hathaway stock to 5 foundations every year since 2006. In 2025, he gave $6 billion in total, his largest annual donation on record. The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation received 943,384 Berkshire Class B shares in that round.

He has also made his position on the USAID cuts and Trump's broader trade agenda explicit. At Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting, he described the administration's tariff policy in language that pulled no punches. "Tariffs can be an act of war," he said. "Trade should not be a weapon."

The decision to maintain a direct Sh3.8 billion commitment to Kenya's government health budget for a second year, while that political backdrop plays out, is as pointed a statement as a philanthropist of Buffett's stature is likely to make in public.