Foreword
As a global network representing 56 organizations, the Smallholder and Agri-SME Finance and Investment Network (SAFIN) has uniquely positioned itself as a dynamic, collectively owned space for its members to tackle the challenges facing agricultural small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) globally in accessing finance. In its current phase, SAFIN supports many transformative initiatives to build investment pipelines and co-create inclusive, effective financial ecosystems in collaboration with partner organizations and donor agencies. SAFIN learning events on emerging issues in the sector have been widely recognized as an outstanding contribution to the global community. Its focus on disseminating novel business models, case studies and best practices, building on the breadth of knowledge within our network, will continue in the coming years.
During 2022, our network invested its time and resources in identifying areas of collaboration among its members, which is demonstrated by a significant increase in the joint initiatives they undertake together. We also recognized the importance of regional working groups, which have the potential to connect diverse local challenges to solutions and to the global community in support of the agri-SME development agenda. The SAFIN members present at our Annual Plenary Meeting 2022 discussed at length the current global scenario and how it is affecting agricultural SMEs. Particular concern was voiced about post-COVID recovery and the conflict in Ukraine, which have put a strain on global agricultural value chain actors, with SMEs among those most affected. It was also agreed that there is no silver bullet for addressing their immediate and long-term needs, but multi-actor solutions are potentially the best alternatives. Fortunately, SAFIN is exclusively devoted to supporting such initiatives, with strong support from our members and donors.
As the network advances towards new horizons in 2023 and beyond, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Frank Rubio for his leadership as the network’s Senior Coordinator in 2022 and welcome Nadia Martinez to the SAFIN Secretariat. I am confident that her wealth of experience will contribute to boosting our efficiency and impact on the ground. I also call on our members to actively engage in co-creating impactful solutions and sharing their expertise through SAFIN. Going forward, we plan to continue leveraging our membership’s capacity to deliver improved financial and non-financial services to agricultural SMEs and smallholder farmers across the globe.
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It gives me great pleasure to present SAFIN’s Annual Progress Report for 2022. As we reflect on the year, we are proud of the progress SAFIN has made towards our mission of building an inclusive ecosystem for finance and investment in rural areas.
The past year has been a challenging one for small-scale farmers, agricultural SMEs and, consequently, all those who benefit from their contributions to ensuring a regular food supply, creating jobs and generating economic prosperity locally and globally. These are the times when working together is not only helpful but essential. From producer organizations to financiers, and all the supporting and complementary service providers in between, SAFIN members are contributing individually and collectively to advancing the interests and heightening the resilience of our sector.
In 2022, SAFIN continued to extend its reach through a strong and active network of members, which now comprises 56 organizations spanning the entire investment value chain across the globe. This has enabled us to leverage our expertise and resources to share knowledge and experiences, facilitate conversations, foster partnerships that promote sustainable and inclusive agricultural finance and showcase positive models of multi-stakeholder collaboration towards a common interest.
Looking ahead, I recognize that there is still much work to be done. As I take over the role of Senior Coordinator of SAFIN from Frank Rubio, I intend to build on the substantial progress made under his leadership. One of the network’s key achievements this year has been the conclusion of a 2-year learning agenda that has yielded significant knowledge about key issues that will help to advance our work. I plan to engage closely with members and partners to ensure that these research findings turn into tangible activities and projects that benefit the network and the sector. I hope to bring my experience from multi-stakeholder initiatives to foster new and innovative collaborations, and my commitment and enthusiasm to promote the work of the network.
On behalf of SAFIN, I would like to express my gratitude to our members, partners, supporters and other stakeholders for their continued commitment, support and collaboration in our collective mission. I look forward to working with the entire SAFIN community towards a thriving ecosystem for farmers and agricultural SMEs. Together we can build a more sustainable and resilient world for all.
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About SAFIN
A global network advancing inclusive access to finance for SMEs in the agriculture sector.
Small and medium-sized enterprises in agriculture often struggle to access the appropriate capital they need for their businesses to thrive. They operate in a fragmented financial landscape, where SMEs, the institutions that finance them and other actors that can help them flourish do not effectively communicate or coordinate efforts with each other. The Smallholder and Agri-SME Finance and Investment Network (SAFIN) builds bridges between these different actors.
2022: State of the agri-SME finance sector
The agri-SME finance sector in 2022 was marked by interconnected shocks, which together led to the greatest food crisis since 2007-2008. The combined impact of the conflict in Ukraine, global inflation, climate-driven events and the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the various challenges that agricultural SMEs face in accessing finance. Several macro trends linked to the global crisis, including rising prices for imported grains, inputs such as fertilizers and energy have directly impacted the business performance of agricultural SMEs, particularly those operating in Africa. In addition, demand from both domestic and international buyers has slowed due to the inflationary environment. SMEs in the agriculture sector have faced difficulties passing price increases to consumers, especially in the value chains for locally consumed commodities, as prices have become volatile and food increasingly unaffordable. As a result, many businesses at the farm production level have responded by reducing their production capacity to cut costs.
Nevertheless, the advent of the “polycrisis” has also contributed to some positive trends and opportunities, which SAFIN has sought to better define through its learning agenda. This includes new research funded by SAFIN member FAO and conducted by ISF Advisors that highlights the impact of these crises on agri-SME finance in Africa, as reported by lenders and agricultural SMEs. According to the report, financial institutions and impact investors broadly experienced positive portfolio performance in 2022. These lenders shared plans to allocate more capital to agricultural SMEs going forward, albeit by adopting a more cautious approach. This may imply more conservative investment decision-making, marked by lower risk tolerance, exhaustive risk assessments, increased risk mitigation and more rigorous due diligence processes.
Similarly, many advances in the landscape of digital innovation in agriculture have been associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, as different actors have turned to technology to cope with the disruptions caused by lockdowns. This rapid growth bolstered investor interest in these innovations throughout the year, but it is evident that few digital solutions managed to achieve significant scale. To facilitate more visibility into this market, SAFIN supported a landscape mapping study of agritech and fintech solutions across East and Southern Africa, focusing on solutions with a demonstrated impact on access to finance. The study identifies the key drivers of commercial viability and the role of concessional finance at different stages of solution development. The report also emphasizes the growing role of bundled services, which combine agricultural and financial services, in addressing multiple pain points and offering the most compelling value proposition to agricultural SMEs and small scale farmers.
The provision of business development services (BDS) is another critical approach to strengthening the capacity of agricultural SMEs and other value chain players to build resilience to future shocks, improve access to finance and actively support systemic growth. However, little is known about the effectiveness and efficiency of BDS providers or their service delivery models. New research supported by SAFIN on this topic has brought to light some of the priority areas to be addressed in this sector, including the outsized role of donor institutions as the main funders of BDS providers at the local and international level. While there is overwhelming evidence of the positive impact of BDS services, better-quality data and industry-wide alignment on a set of indicators would allow for better assessment and understanding of the broader impact of BDS across agri-food systems.
Turning the focus to farmers’ organizations, SAFIN set out to shed light on the state of their access to finance through a survey covering multiple countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and the Pacific. The survey's findings revealed significant differences across regions in terms of existing access to capital, as well as unmet needs and key barriers to meeting them. Farmers’ organizations in South-East Asian countries generally benefited from larger volumes of financing, accessed predominantly from financial service providers, and reported lower unmet needs compared to those operating in West Africa. Although such findings are not unique to the past year, the report indicates some trends that resulted from the ongoing crisis, such as a high demand for emergency loans reported by members of farmers’ organizations. The report also exposed a massive gap between the number of farmers' organizations actively addressing the impact of climate change through adaptation and reforestation projects (nearly 60 per cent of farmers’ organizations) compared to the mere 2.7 per cent of them that reported access to dedicated sources of green finance.
Going forward, SAFIN will seek to build on this learning in collaboration with its members and partners to shape the future of the agri-SME finance sector. While the overlapping crises of the past year are likely to continue influencing the broader state of the sector, it is important to understand their varying impacts in different contexts. SAFIN therefore plans to bring its members together at a regional level to generate new knowledge and promote more collaborative action to improve access to capital for agricultural SMEs.
Highlights from 2022
Progress in our focus areas
2022 was a year of re-energized efforts to facilitate collaboration among SAFIN members and improve the ecosystem for agri-SME finance. Through its five focus areas, SAFIN strived to balance its public good offering with its member-focused activities. This took the shape of thematic learning and peer support events, joint research initiatives, targeted engagement on policy and operational issues, new digital tools to track sector developments as well as a revamp of the network's communication channels.
Convene
SAFIN curates spaces for collective learning and joint reflection on issues of relevance to agri-SME finance through a variety of events throughout the year. In 2022, the network hosted six open learning events reaching over 600 agri-finance practitioners and various member-only sessions, including one full day at the SAFIN Annual Plenary Meeting focused on the network’s trajectory.
Annual Plenary Meeting 2022
Members of our network and the broader agri-finance community came together at our Annual Plenary Meeting to exchange views on how to shape the future of financing for agricultural SMEs. The event was held from 21 to 22 November 2022 in Morelia, Mexico as an official side event of the 7th World Congress on Rural and Agricultural Finance. Under the theme, Opportunity in an evolving landscape, the SAFIN Annual Plenary Meeting emphasized how the global “polycrisis” of war, climate change and pandemic is affecting agricultural SMEs and their financiers. Over 14 sessions featuring 27 speakers, 13 exhibition booths, a virtual speed networking café and two in-person members’ receptions, the following key messages emerged:
- Crisis is the new normal: Agricultural finance players should plan for and adapt to it.
- Towards a greener future: All finance is green finance
- Multi-actor solutions, not isolated projects, are critical for inclusive access to finance.
Open webinars and workshops
SAFIN’s current learning agenda was established by network members in 2021 to address key knowledge gaps that hinder collaboration in the sector around the following themes- green finance for agricultural SMEs and digital innovations for agricultural finance. In 2022, the network responded to the growing demand from our members and new trends in the external environment with learning sessions on two additional themes- enterprise support environment for agricultural SMEs and financing agricultural SMEs during times of crisis.
In the context of the war in Ukraine, SAFIN members, including the International Finance Corporation and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), joined forces with the SME Good Food Hub to organize an in-depth workshop to ascertain the impact of the war on the operations of agricultural SMEs, financial service providers and donors. SAFIN also hosted a session to bridge the gap between the suppliers and seekers of green finance in the coffee sector of Latin America and the Caribbean, in collaboration with the International Trade Centre, a SAFIN member. An additional webinar explored how enterprise support organizations can boost their impact on the growth of SMEs and their access to finance. This was hosted in collaboration with SAFIN member Argidius Foundation. The Secretariat also continued its efforts to capture and transfer the learning from these sessions through blogs and learning notes.
Closed meetings and consultations
During 2022, SAFIN stepped up its offering of internal meetings to facilitate joint learning, peer support and coordination among its members. The SAFIN Secretariat improved its design clinic process, through which members share inputs to improve the design and implementation of new or upcoming initiatives in the agri-SME finance space. The improved process consists of targeted expert selection for project consultation, pre-consultation documentation that includes key design questions and a detailed design clinic note to inform the development of the selected initiatives. In 2022, two member initiatives benefited from this peer support process:
- A financing and technical assistance facility spearheaded by Palladium that aims to harness geomapping and other digital technologies to de-risk lending to smallholder farmers.
- A policy acceleration facility to improve the enabling environment for agricultural lending in Africa, led by AGRA.
Other internal sessions held within the network include a closed session for SAFIN members to review an advance copy of the State of the Agri-SME Finance Sector report, hosted in partnership with the Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness (CASA) Programme.
Influence
Engaging global leaders and agriculture experts on ‘crisis-ready’ financing solutions for agricultural SMEs in Africa
At the Africa Green Revolution Forum 2022 Summit, SAFIN and AFEX co-hosted a side event to highlight the key challenges faced by Africa-based agricultural SMEs in accessing fit-for-purpose financial services during global crises. During the session, experts shared their experiences in innovative risk mitigation approaches and partnerships that can sustain the flow of capital to these enterprises despite ongoing market volatility. Participants also emphasized the importance of policy measures that can unlock more financial resources during global crises. While emergency policies like export bans are rapidly being introduced to secure local production, financing and food security, these measures are rarely long-term. Agriculture experts at the event urged governments to introduce longer-term policies that can ensure greater coordination across agricultural value chains and markets during times of crisis and thereby contribute to higher volumes of investment in agricultural SMEs in the region.
Engaging private financiers on their role in scaling climate adaptation finance for agricultural SMEs in South-East Asia
SAFIN joined forces with the Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness (CASA) Programme to co-host a breakfast roundtable at the Grow Asia Forum 2022. The session brought together green finance providers from the private sector to discuss the opportunities and challenges they face in investing in climate adaptation. Event participants expressed optimism about the potential for adaptive practices, innovative technologies and new business models to attract more green finance to agricultural SMEs in the region. They also highlighted the need for further evidence to support this, backed by affordable and effective measurement tools to quantify and track the impact of adaptation investments. Prominent private sector players also shared their concerns about the high risks and costs, the restrictive policy and regulatory environment of some countries in the region and the lack of harmonized taxonomies for green finance in agriculture. Addressing these challenges would be key to further engaging the private sector in deploying climate adaptation finance in South-East Asia.
Engaging donors and philanthropic organizations to embrace their role as catalysts in attracting private investment to the agri-food sector
In June 2022, Ayodeji Balogun, former chair of SAFIN’s Steering Committee and CEO of AFEX, represented the network at the opening session of the Annual General Assembly of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (GDPRD). During the session, he engaged with key donor countries and philanthropic organizations about how they can support early-stage innovations and crowd in food system investments from the private sector to amplify the impact of each donor dollar tenfold through blended financial instruments. He also shared the case of the SAFIN Investment Prospectus Pilot in Nigeria, implemented through grant funding from donors, which illuminated investment opportunities in agricultural SMEs in Nigeria and informed the design of the AFEX agro-service provider model (ASP). Through the ASP model, AFEX aims to support up to 300 agripreneurs and through them, impact the lives of 600,000 small-scale farmers by 2025.
Engaging commercial and central bankers in Latin America and the Caribbean to prioritize the underserved segment of agricultural SMEs
At the opening session of the 7th World Congress on Rural and Agricultural Finance in November 2022, SAFIN spoke about the global context of investment in food and agriculture alongside leaders from the Bank of Mexico, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and IFAD. During the session, SAFIN made a case for central banks and financial service providers at the event to prioritize and grow their agri-SME lending portfolios despite the uncertain global context. SAFIN offered examples of current innovative solutions in the market from its members, including Aceli, Africa’s financial incentives for loans to agricultural SMEs in East Africa and IFAD’s Private Sector Financing Programme (PSFP), which provides agricultural SMEs and financial institutions with debt, equity and risk mitigation tools to weather turbulent times.
Track
For the period 2021-2025, SAFIN aims to track new developments and innovations in the agri-finance sector to inform collaborations within its network and beyond. During 2022, SAFIN built on initial efforts made in this work stream the previous year through new digital tools and regular member coordination meetings. Beginning in 2023, the network plans to further leverage these new avenues to highlight opportunities for innovation and co-creation among its members.
Facilitating mutual discovery and coordination within the network
Following the positive response from members in 2021, SAFIN continued its regular coordination meetings through which members seek co-funders or implementation partners for their new or ongoing initiatives targeting agricultural SMEs. Throughout the year, three group meetings were hosted by the network, including programme spotlight segments focused on the work of GDPRD, Chemonics International and IFAD. Additionally, the network rebooted its monthly bulletin with key member updates to introduce a new focus on the themes of SAFIN’s learning agenda.
SAFIN also maintained its “Network Discovery Tool,” an interactive map that captures the diverse types of expertise, stakeholder groups, thematic focus and regional coverage currently available across the network. The tool grew to cover over 80 per cent of SAFIN member institutions in 2022, further boosting its potential to build bridges across the network. In the second half of 2022, the network initiated the development of dedicated webpages for each SAFIN member institution and a new members’ portal as part of the redesign of its website. Through dedicated member pages, member institutions can explore the achievements and approaches of others in the network in agricultural finance. The new members’ portal, to be made available to all staff of SAFIN member institutions in 2023, aims to consolidate the different functionalities of the network’s digital tools for peer-to-peer information exchange, coordination and discovery into one user-friendly venue.
Mapping sector developments for the broader agri-finance community
Using the model of our coordination efforts after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, in mid-2022, SAFIN established a knowledge hub to track and share information about the impact of the war in Ukraine on the agri-finance sector. Building on this experience, later in the year the network began developing six public good knowledge hubs to address all the thematic areas covered by SAFIN since 2018, from blended finance for agriculture to enterprise support for agricultural SMEs. SAFIN also introduced new functionality for moderated content submissions on its website to facilitate the active engagement of agri-finance practitioners in building the knowledge base of each thematic hub.
Focus
SAFIN documents persistent and emerging issues in agri-SME finance, helping our members and the broader agri-finance community focus on topics that matter most for the future of the sector. During 2022, the Secretariat leveraged the broad reach and resources of the network’s diverse membership to generate new evidence around four themes of our learning agenda.
Examining the financing needs of farmers’ organizations in Africa and Asia
In 2021, IFAD surveyed 45 farmers’ organizations in East and Southern Africa to better understand the gap in the volume of finance and financial products for these institutions that can be addressed through IFAD’s private sector investments. In 2022, SAFIN joined the initiative, building on interest from its members in scaling their support to farmers’ organizations by expanding the survey to cover West Africa and Asia and the Pacific, reaching 220 farmers’ organizations in collaboration with two SAFIN member institutions: ACCESS Development Services (ACCESS) and the Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA). The survey team also held two consultations with farmers’ organizations from the two regions in late 2022 to validate and help interpret its key findings.
Reconsidering the economics and effectiveness of business development services (BDS) for agricultural SMEs in Africa
In 2022, SAFIN joined a multi-stakeholder research effort to examine the cost-efficiency and effectiveness of BDS delivery to agricultural SMEs in Africa. This collaboration with Agriterra, AGRA, the Agribusiness Market Ecosystem Alliance (AMEA), the Argidius Foundation and Small Foundation resulted in a ground-breaking study that shed light on the critical business development sector. Along with an extensive desk review of existing research and key informant interviews, the research team collected data from 15 global and local BDS providers that offered support to 509 agricultural enterprises representing a collective revenue of US$415 million. Broad dissemination and validation activities are planned throughout 2023.
Building the evidence base for the use of concessional finance for agri-SME lending and development impact in Africa and Latin America
In 2021, SAFIN supported an initiative led by the Council on Smallholder Agricultural Finance (CSAF) to explore the link between the use of concessional finance for additionality in mobilizing finance for agri-SME investors, agri-SME growth, and development impact as measured through selected indicators, including farmers’ livelihoods and environmental impact. The research, conducted in 2022 in partnership with the International Growth Centre (IGC) at the London School of Economics (LSE), builds on vast data from the lending portfolios of CSAF members, experiences and literature from SAFIN members and the SAFIN agri-SME taxonomy. The resulting evidence will inform industry actors on how best to use concessional funding to attract private capital to agricultural SMEs and how to steer that capital to ensure the greatest development impact in the two regions. The final reports will be published and disseminated in 2023.
Assessing the landscape of digital innovations for agricultural finance in East and Southern Africa
IFAD and SAFIN commissioned a study to evaluate agritech and fintech solution providers in East and Southern Africa, aiming to improve access to affordable finance and increase climate resilience for small-scale farmers, agricultural SMEs and farmers’ organizations through innovative digital solutions. The study, conducted by SAFIN member Palladium, uncovers the main challenges these providers face in accessing finance, scaling their offering and increasing uptake of their solutions by traditional financial institutions. It also recommends agritech and fintech business models that can effectively unlock access to climate adaptation finance in the region.
Co-create
As a network, SAFIN works to connect institutions, initiatives and resources towards the goal of improved access to finance for agricultural SMEs. In 2022, SAFIN brokered or supported collaborations among mission-aligned institutions within and beyond the network.
Towards a regional approach to collaboration and knowledge generation
In 2022, SAFIN members opted to create regional working groups, aiming to link the network’s global learning agenda to local challenges and solutions. The groups bring SAFIN members together around a specific thematic issue relevant to improving access to finance for agricultural SMEs in the region. Initially, the regional working groups will jointly generate new knowledge and linkages that resonate with the global agri-finance community while also highlighting specific challenges to be addressed and opportunities to be exploited locally. The working group plans to collaborate on a second phase, with the aim of co-designing a solution to address the challenges that emerged in Phase 1.
In September 2022, SAFIN piloted its first regional working group in South-East Asia consisting of IFAD, AFA, Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA), Heifer International and Grow Asia. The group came together around the findings of the survey on access to finance for farmers’ organizations, aiming to collaborate on the design of a financing solution that addresses the emerging financing gaps. The working group reconvened in October 2022 to consult representatives from farmers’ organizations on financing solutions. In 2023, SAFIN plans to facilitate the co-design of a related solution, including through a facilitated design clinic session. Plans for 2023 also include the formation of regional working groups for Latin America and the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa for intraregional and cross-regional knowledge exchange and solution development.
Member engagement and external relations
Network membership and governance
In 2022, SAFIN welcomed five new institutions to the network: Center for Entrepreneurship and Executive Development (CEED), Chemonics International, Samawati Capital Partners, SCOPEinsight and Small Enterprise Assistance Funds (SEAF). The new members are representative of SAFIN’s efforts to attract more private financiers that target agricultural SMEs to the network, which will continue in 2023. In early 2022, the SAFIN Steering Committee approved a new member engagement approach for the network, aiming to maintain a vibrant and engaged network through structured outreach, application and onboarding processes. As part of the enhanced member engagement plan, the Secretariat held annual bilateral calls with each member institution and in-depth onboarding sessions for new members in 2022. Finally, following consultation and voting by the full membership at the Annual Plenary Meeting 2022, the current Steering Committee’s term was extended by one year with a view to ensuring continued guidance and leadership during the transition period.
External communication and outreach
The second half of 2022 saw SAFIN initiate two key activities to strengthen its positioning as a leading network within the agricultural finance sector. SAFIN revamped its branding to better align with its thematic areas, with a sharp focus on the role of agricultural SMEs in fostering more sustainable food systems. This brand enhancement will continue in 2023, particularly through publications and outreach activities targeting key actors and influencers in the agri-finance ecosystem. The network’s website redesign and development, also kicked off in the second semester of 2022, embodied efforts to place SAFIN members’ work in support of agricultural SMEs at the centre of the network’s narrative. Simultaneously, SAFIN continued to maintain and scale the reach of its existing communication channels: its website and newsletter. Throughout the year, the SAFIN website reached over 1,600 resources, while the newsletter experienced over 30 per cent growth in subscriptions, a reflection of the value it brings to the sector.
SAFIN also continued to grow its portfolio of partnerships for external outreach and knowledge transfer. This took the form of a collaboration with the CGAP-hosted FinDev Gateway to highlight the need to rethink how agricultural SMEs are financed during global crises through featured articles and the dissemination of events and publications. An event sponsorship for the 7th World Congress for Rural and Agricultural Finance was also established with the Latin American Association of Development Financing Institutions (ALIDE), in line with the network’s ambitions to grow the representation of finance providers within its membership and increase the engagement of its members in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Lessons learned and the way forward
In 2022, SAFIN built on the progress made during 2021 in implementing the network's second phase (2021-2025), also known as SAFIN 2.0. SAFIN members were able to carry out in-person activities, the Secretariat welcomed new leadership and the network introduced a new approach to meeting its goals. The following key lessons emerged from SAFIN’s efforts to maximize the value proposal for its members and the broader agri-finance community in 2022:
Thematic focus: The three thematic areas covered by SAFIN’s learning agenda remained highly relevant to the work of our members in 2022. SAFIN complemented its existing calendar of learning events with active support for new or existing research initiatives to address knowledge gaps in the sector. This was primarily done by engaging network members in collaborative efforts to address thematic questions and provide specific expertise or support that would otherwise be lacking. This approach also brought to light the value of remaining flexible to explore emerging issues that can shape the future of financing agricultural SMEs. New topics such as the enterprise support environment for agricultural SMEs and the global food crisis gained increasing relevance throughout the year. SAFIN responded to this by convening key actors for timely research initiatives and Introducing thematic hubs for agri-finance practitioners to track important developments around these themes. The cross-cutting nature of green finance in the food and agriculture sector also came to light through network consultations and discussions with external experts. This resulted in the integration of a green finance perspective across other thematic areas such as digital innovations and access to finance for farmers’ organizations.
Strategic positioning and operations: In early 2022, SAFIN set out to build on previous successes by enhancing its member benefits package and introducing a regional dimension to its work. Throughout the year, SAFIN made efforts to maintain its public good offering while addressing the business needs of its members. This resulted in open learning events and new publications available to the broader agri-finance community, coupled with enhanced project design clinics, new digital tools and contact brokering for its members. SAFIN’s regional approach was implemented through strategic influence in various regional forums and the launch of regional working groups to engage members around our thematic areas. The working groups represent a renewed approach to facilitate greater collaboration to address context-specific challenges through joint generation of knowledge and financing solutions by SAFIN members. Going forward, SAFIN will seek to integrate lessons learned from the pilot working group in Asia and the Pacific into future working groups and other network activities.
This work was made possible by the generous contributions of our donors.
Photo credits: IFAD, Lianne Milton, Panos Pictures, Isaiah Muthui, Ruvin de Silva, Andrew Esiebo, Ibrahima Kebe Diallo, Andrew Esiebo, Xavier Cervera, Giancarlo Shibayama, and Factstory.