The African Development Bank Group and the Pan-African Farmers Organization (PAFO) will jointly host a high-level conference to discuss and share knowledge on enhancing smallholder farmers’ access to financial resources, investment opportunities, market infrastructure, capacity-building initiatives, and sustainable agricultural practices.
The conference will bring together policymakers, research institutions, farmer associations, financial institutions, investors, development partners, civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations, agribusiness leaders, and technology providers.
Key focus areas:
- Mapping the ecosystem of actors and highlighting scalable financial mechanisms.
- Showcase innovative funding models to support smallholder farmers.
- Strengthening linkages between the smallholder support ecosystem and funders.
- Provide a robust data collection platform to track progress.
- Identify actionable innovative financing mechanisms, including climate-finance for smallholder farmers, that can be employed to scale successful financing models.
Although, the African Development Bank and other development partners support African governments and large agricultural companies, critical players supporting smallholder farmers –seed and fertilizer companies, agtech and fintech firms, microfinance institutions, off-takers, aggregators, and advisory service providers – struggle to tap affordable financing at suitable terms.
PAFO represents more than 80 million African farmers integrated into nearly 73 national organizations, including unions, federations, cooperatives, and associations. It is recognized as the representative body of African farmers’ organizations at the highest continental level.
Source: afdb