Project narrative
Context and challenge
An estimated 130,000 agri-SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa need around USD 90 billion annually, yet only USD 15.5 billion is delivered, leaving 83% of the formal financing need unmet. Traditional commercial banks extend less than 5% of lending to agriculture, while Public Development Banks account for more than 70% of formal agricultural financing in many developing countries.
This joint AFRACA-AGRA initiative identifies practical opportunities to enhance the public sector's contribution to agricultural finance through regulatory and policy reforms adapted to agrifood financing, with a special focus on increasing financial access for smallholder farmers, youth and women.
Strategy and approach
The project mapped and established a preliminary cohort of 27 institutions: 11 Central Banks, 3 regional PDBs and 13 national and sub-national PDBs, engaged through desk review, one-on-one leadership consultations, thematic convenings and joint consultative webinars with the Agri-PDB Platform (IFAD) and AFD.
Five continental convenings anchored the engagement: the AFRACA Central Bank Forum on Collateral Registries (Harare), a consultative webinar with AFD/KfW/IFAD, the AFRACA PDB Pre-Summit at the Africa Forward Summit (Nairobi), the AFRACA PDB Forum (Lomé), and the FINAS Summit side event (Nairobi). Institutions access support through the Agricultural Finance Policy Accelerator Facility (AFPAF).
