Aceli Africa: Incentivizing Lending to Underserved Agri-SMEs
Delivering a just rural transition by incentivising capital markets to better serve agri-SMEs - the engines of prosperous rural economies
Services
Investment Partnerships
An Incentive Scheme for Agri-SME Lending by Aceli Africa
A data-driven, marketplace approach to mobilize private sector lending
Location
East Africa
Context
Agricultural Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (agri-SMEs) in East Africa are unable to access the finance they need to grow their businesses, despite accounting for 70% of the region’s workforce and holding a key role in supply chain resilience. Agriculture in Africa faces a sector-wide USD $180 billion annual financing gap, with a USD $65 billion gap existing just for agri-SMEs, which fall into a missing middle of capital markets, where loans between USD $25,000 – USD $500,000 are too large for microcredit providers, but have overheads too costly and risks too high to qualify for commercial bank loans.
