Financing For A Better World Nearly one-sixth of the world’s population - around one billion people - are farmers. Of these, most are smallholders in developing countries. These farmers produce most of the food and are key to ensuring global food security. Yet few of them are able to get sustainable access to financial services, which hinders their ability to enhance productivity and better manage their risks.
Improved access to financial services provides opportunities to save safely; borrow at a reasonable cost; make and receive timely payments; and obtain insurance for life, assets and health. Access to long- and medium-term financing will also allow farmers and rural enterprises to make productive investments.
AgriFin aims to scale up access to financial services for smallholder farmers and rural enterprises in developing countries. It aims to do this by supporting financial institutions in developing scalable models of agriculture finance through targeted grants and customized learning activities.
News!
AgriFin held its first Annual Meeting, Financing Agriculture Forum 2012, in Kampala, Uganda, on March 28-30, 2012, co-hosted by Centenary Rural Development Bank.. The Agenda and related presentations in English and French can be viewed by clicking here. The Forum was part of AgriFin's effort to promote knowledge exchange and foster partnerships among key stakeholders in agriculture finance.
Financing Smallholder Farmers in Africa: Lessons from Five Countries, a presentation by Opportunity International (OI) as part of AgriFin's Seminar Series, explains this organization's financing of smallholder farmers in five countries – Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi and Mozambique. The presentation is available here.
New Publications
"Cracking the Nut: Overcoming Obstacles to Rural and Agricultural Finance - Lessons from the 2011 Conference." This publication is a synthesis of the contributions made by more than 300 participants from 40 countries, who attended the Cracking the Nut: Overcoming Obstacles to Rural and Agricultural Finance conference in June 2011.
"Scaling Up Access to Finance for Agricultural SMEs - Policy review and Recommendations." Based on a global stocktaking exercise, this report derives guidelines for policy and regulatory frameworks conducive to agriculture finance. It is designed to elaborate on the recommendations of the G-20 SME Finance Sub-Group.
"Making Finance Work for Africa Conerence (MFW4A) - Zipping Finance and Farming in Africa: Harnessing the Continent's Potential" is a summary of the contributions made by more than 300 agriculture finance and development professionals, and presents the main outcome of the the Kampala Principles event of June 30, 2011.
