Leading lenders make a bold move to address the agricultural financing gap in Africa

In an unprecedented scale, several influential lenders have joined forces with MIX and SCOPEinsight to help tackle the financing gap for agribusinesses in Africa. Mix and SCOPEinsight have been working together to develop bankability metrics for the agricultural sector. SCOPEinsight, having assessed over 4,000 agribusinesses on their professional acumen, has a lot of data from the agri-SME perspective. However, to build a bridge between agri-SMEs and the capital they require to grow their businesses, we needed data from the financial sector.

Our goal with this project is, on one hand, to de-risk as well as create greater ease in lending to the agricultural sector for capital providers. On the other hand, we want to create a bridge for agri-SMEs to these financiers. Through better, more reliable, and comparable data, we can create greater transparency, help lenders make more informed decisions, and connect agri-SMEs with the capital they need to grow. But collecting, cleaning, and standardizing that data is only possible with partners committed to improving the information ecosystem in agricultural finance.

This is why we are excited to welcome several leading organizations and front-runners as data partners for this effort:

These organizations work with agri-SMEs in their lending portfolios to share anonymized data and feedback that allow us to develop and test a set of ‘bankability metrics’. Their involvement demonstrates a dedication to sector-wide progress while delivering valuable benchmarking data to strengthen their portfolio management abilities. We are grateful to each of these data partners and their portfolio companies for engaging in this effort to create visibility for lenders and agri-SMEs, enable comparison through common data standards, and decrease costs and risks for lending institutions.

If you lend to agribusinesses in sub-Saharan Africa and would like to learn more about becoming a data partner, please send us an email at info@scopeinsight.com or to agrismeportal@themix.org.

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