Nuru Releases 2025 Annual Report

For Immediate Release: September 10, 2026

Contact: Tacy Layne | info@iamnuru.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nuru has officially released its 2025 Annual Report, which offers a summary of how the Nuru Collective adapted to the unprecedented sector-wide disruptions of 2025 while continuing to build durable livelihoods, restore land, and stabilize communities across Africa. The report reflects on how generous partners supported Nuru at a crucial juncture, amid the closure of USAID and severe reductions in global aid funding. 

“2025 was marked by profound change. The closure of the largest foreign assistance agency, USAID, created upheaval. Other major donor countries followed suit, leading many nonprofits to close. As a result, hunger, poverty, and instability increased in marginalized communities. Nuru is still here because of generous supporters like you. You enabled us to focus on what we do best: reduce hunger, poverty, and instability through livelihoods that stabilize communities and equip families to thrive.”  -Aerie Changala, Nuru CEO

Top Key Highlights from Nuru’s 2025 Annual Report

• Establishment of Nuru’s Resilience Corridor: Nuru scaled operations to Benin and Togo. This brings the Nuru Collective’s reach to eight countries, creating a cohesive multi-country corridor of resilience-building communities across West Africa to disrupt the spread of conflict and poverty in tipping-point border regions.
• 456,000+ People Reached: Since 2008, by strengthening rural agribusinesses for smallholder farmers and pastoralists, by the end of of December 2025, Nuru had helped over 456,000 people begin charting a lasting path out of extreme poverty.
• Agribusiness & Cooperative Professionalization: Nuru supported 413 professionalized cooperative agribusinesses using ISO 18716–aligned standards to expand market access, increase credit availability, and ensure long-term commercial viability.
• Proven Local Yield & Income Gains: As an example, in Burkina Faso, supported farmers have achieved an 86% increase in crop yields and a 138% increase in net income, with women making up 78% of participant farmers.
• Nature-based Solutions: Nuru expanded regenerative agriculture and climate-smart initiatives, including a multi-year effort in Ethiopia to plant 300,000 trees backed by the Swiss Re Foundation. Nuru also launched the Gumti Sustainable Livelihoods Project in Nigeria near Gashaka-Gumti National Park in partnership with Africa Nature Investors (ANI).
• Workplace Culture Recognition: Nuru was named a Best Nonprofit Workplace for the third consecutive year, maintaining an organizational culture grounded in locally-led mission values.

In a joint letter from the Nuru Collective Global Advisory Council, leadership notes:

“When rural communities lead, when land is treated as an asset to be restored rather than depleted, and when livelihoods are strengthened through local ownership, families can thrive in stable communities. We remain deeply grateful for your partnership in creating a world without cycles of unjust poverty.”

To read the full report, explore detailed impact by location, or view financial statements, visit: annualreport.nuruinternational.org.

About Nuru

Nuru is a global collective that enables inclusive and sustainable prosperity by identifying communities at the stability tipping point, strengthening rural livelihoods and market systems, and fostering stabilizing connections that repair social fabric and pave a pathway to peace.

Nuru envisions a world without cycles of unjust poverty, where resilience and hope are cultivated in the most marginalized communities. As of 2026, the Nuru Collective has impacted over 505K people through local organizations in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo. Learn more by visiting nuruinternational.org.