Christian Hospitals in Kenya and Zambia Adjust as US Foreign Aid Shrinks

Faith-based hospitals and clinics in Kenya and Zambia are cutting services and renegotiating contracts after the United States reduced foreign aid funding.

Many of these facilities serve rural communities where they are the only available source of medical care. Administrators say the funding cuts have forced them to reduce staff, limit operating hours, and scale back programs for maternal health and HIV treatment.

Christian mission hospitals have operated across sub-Saharan Africa for more than a century. In Kenya alone, faith-based organizations run roughly 40 percent of the country's health facilities, according to government data. In Zambia, the figure is similar.

The cuts stem from a broader reduction in US foreign assistance that began earlier in 2026. Programs funded through USAID and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, have seen significant reductions.

Hospital leaders say they are working to find alternative donors, including European governments and private foundations. Some have begun charging fees for services that were previously free, which has reduced patient visits in communities where most people cannot afford to pay.

"We are doing more with less," said one administrator at a mission hospital in western Kenya. "But there is a limit to how long we can sustain this."

Church leaders in both countries have called on the US government to restore funding, arguing that faith-based health networks deliver care more efficiently and at lower cost than government facilities.

The situation has drawn attention from Christian advocacy groups in the United States, who are pressing Congress to protect funding for faith-based health programs abroad.