Donor funding plays a crucial role in advancing development goals across East Africa, not least in Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Kenya. These nations have made significant strides toward inclusive economic growth and improved infrastructure to enhance social impact, in part, due to the support of international donors, development agencies and philanthropic funds. However, as multiple organisations fund similar initiatives across these regions, questions arise about coherence, alignment, and potential duplication of efforts.

In the face of data paucity and indicator opaqueness, we aim to address a hypothesis: a lack of donor coherence is causing suboptimal allocation of resources. By ‘donor coherence’ we mean the degree of alignment between the objectives, processes, and priorities of various funding bodies, aiming to avoid redundancy and ensure that resources are used efficiently. Financial contributions should aim to nurture dynamic entrepreneurial environments while ensuring more effective use of public funds.

This report explores how donor coherence in Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Kenya impacts resource distribution across sectors, identifying potential overlaps and assessing the implications of these strategies. By assessing the activities funded and the thematic areas supported, we can gain insights into how donor coherence affects the overall impact of development assistance in East Africa.

"The evidence is indisputable: high-growth scaling ventures are game changers. Scale-ups are the ventures that:

Create the vast majority of new jobs in an economy;
Generate the most value in the form of financial, economic and social returns;
Drive innovation and shape ecosystems;
Incubate and develop talent pipelines; and
Spawn the next generation of thriving scale-ups and the experienced entrepreneurs that create them.

Africa needs more startups that transition to scale. Many more.

But scaling is rare. And difficult. All the more so in sub-Saharan Africa, where large populations do not equate to large addressable markets, necessitating very early (and risky) expansion into new markets in search of the critical mass of customers needed to raise funding and scale a business.

Whilst there are some universal scaling principles that can and should be applied, there isn’t a formula for scaling. Because it isn’t pure science. On the contrary, scaling is predominantly an art: a unique blend of inputs, decisions and actions that is different for each scaling business."