Introducing the Smallholder Agriculture Finance and Investment Network (SAFIN)

Bridging financing and investment gaps around agri-food and rural small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including small-scale agricultural producers, is key to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

However, the current pace of progress under "business as usual" approaches is inadequate. Better alignment across actors in the ecosystem for agri-food and rural SME finance and investment is critical to accelerate the pace of change and to improve its quality.

SAFIN is an emerging network incubated by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to facilitate and nurture this alignment.

It focuses on five action areas: Policy engagement and the "enabling environment," innovation, financial resource mobilization, alignment around concrete investments, and a strategic knowledge agenda.

In this webinar, participants hear from the IFAD team incubating SAFIN about what this initiative aims to achieve and what initial activities are underway. Most importantly, participants help shape the initiative by sharing their feedback on the practical relevance of planned activities for actors in the ecosystem for agri-food and rural SME investment. The presentation focuses on key areas where a better coordinated knowledge agenda needs to be taken forward; practical tools and approaches to better understand "demand" for agri-food; and the potential value of country-specific investment prospectuses for the sector as tools for better alignment of actors, both on the demand and on the supply side of agri-food and rural SME finance.

Speaker(s):

Bettina Prato, Senior Coordinator of the Secretariat of the Smallholder Agriculture Finance and Investment Network (SAFIN)

Dagmawi Habte-Selassie, Technical Specialist of the Secretariat of the Smallholder Agriculture Finance and Investment Network (SAFIN)