Whether for profit or social motives - and often both - an increasing number of investors are targeting opportunities in African agriculture. At the same time innovative approaches for deploying aid to support farming businesses linked to smallholders are emerging. This blog provides a snapshot of who is doing what, where and how.
The Grow Africa partnership aims to accelerate private-sector investment for sustainable growth in African agriculture. Seven countries joined the initiative when it was launched in 2011 - Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda and Tanzania. Malawi has since joined.
To date these countries have attracted investment commitments from 62 companies including 39 based in Africa. The
Grow Africa report highlights AgDevCo's work building profitable and sustainable agriculture businesses in Mozambique and Ghana:
- development of three irrigated farming blocks in Ghana aimed at generating income transformation and food security for large numbers of farmers
- management of a $20 million catalytic fund in Mozambique which has invested in 14 farming and agriprocessing businesses to date, including ECA which works with smallholder farmers to supply maize to a local brewery and other customers
One of the main conclusions of the Grow Africa forum meetings in Cape Town in May 2013 was that agricultural finance can be unlocked by impact investors providing medium-sized investment in SMEs.
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