Webinar series by SAFIN and USAID. Session 1 – Small tickets: Big returns

Investors typically shy away from lending to smaller agricultural enterprises because the financial costs and risks often don’t match the financial returns of these investments.

The first session of the SAFIN and USAID’s ‘Backing the Middle’ webinar series explores this notion, looking first at how some investors are using innovative tools to reduce the overall cost to serve small businesses in the sector, and then discussing whether smaller enterprises can cumulatively generate more social returns than larger ones in terms of job creation, resilience and sustainable development. Is there a path to sustainably support small businesses along their journey to accessing commercial investments with market returns?

Speakers

Songbae Lee, Agriculture Finance Team lead, USAID (Moderator)

Wouter Vandersypen, Executive Director, Kampani

Jovitus Rutakinikwa, Country Manager, SME Impact Fund (SIF)

Backing the middle is a webinar series by SAFIN and USAID.

Sessions include:

22 February 2024 | Small tickets: Big returns

March 2024 | Donors as investment catalyst | With the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development

April 2024 | Nudging the local financial marketplace

Smaller enterprises in the agriculture sector have long struggled to access adequate and timely capital for their business activities, despite their critical role in moving food from farm to fork. The development finance sector has increasingly focused on such enterprises, launching various funds and initiatives to bridge the estimated US$ 74.5 billion annual financing gap1 they face across Sub-Saharan Africa. While practical experience has advanced significantly in recent years, some questions still linger in the minds of agri-finance practitioners. How can investors sustainably invest in smaller ticket sizes that are most needed by agricultural businesses in emerging markets, despite the unfavourable risk/return ratios? Are donor funds attracting or crowding out private investments into SMEs in agriculture? How can local banks offer more loans to agripreneurs in local currency? Will financial incentives change investor behaviour in the long term? This webinar series dives deeply into the crux of these questions, highlighting diverse approaches and perspectives from agri-SME finance practitioners, from fund managers and commercial banks in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, to donors backing large-scale agricultural SME funds.

Who is this series for?

· Investors targeting agricultural enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa

· Donors and philanthropic organizations active in the agriculture sector.

· Commercial bankers looking to scale their agriculture portfolios.

· Agripreneurs aiming to improve their investment readiness.

· Anyone interested in improving rural livelihoods and the development of sustainable agricultural value chains.

What will you learn?

· How to balance large-scale and small-scale offerings in agri-SME investment funds.

· How donors can effectively use public funds to crowd in private capital in the sector.

· Incentive structures available on the market for commercial banks lending to the missing middle.

· The perspectives of local lenders, donors and fund managers financing agricultural enterprises.

· The role agricultural enterprises play in economies and how they can effectively access more capital.

· The role that various institutions can play in addressing targeted challenges that effect systemic change.