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AgriFin's Evolving Covid-19 Response
The AgriFin model is deliberate about adapting our programming to cope with the effects of systems-level disruptions, leveraging our network of digital partners and solutions that can collaborate to support both farmers and each other. We are supporting innovation and collaboration across growing groups of partners to combat the joint threat of COVID-19 and Desert Locusts. Our response page is a living document highlighting our COVID-19 response activities in the different countries where we work.
Read the full response.
Read the July 2020 2-Pager.
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Impacts of COVID-19 on Agro-dealer Businesses in Kenya
We are excited to introduce the Agro-Dealer case-study, which is a snapshot of our planned series of research projects on the impacts of Covid-19 on businesses. This study focuses on the challenges that different agro-dealers are facing - ranging from input sales and supplies to marketing and financing - in order to come up with viable solutions by liaising with various stakeholders and partners.
Read the full case study.
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The Future of Rural Employment after COVID-19
How can edutainment trigger impactful farmer behaviour & improve their capability? We collaborated with The Mediae Company to support the development and roll-out of digital farmer capability tools with the aim of improving farmer productivity, access to, and adoption of Financial Services. This is what we found out.
Read the full case study and 2-Pager.
View webinar presentation and recording.
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Big Bets for Food Security in a time of COVID-19: Solar Irrigation Policy Brief
Which smart interventions can help Kenya’s agricultural sector address the challenges of environmental threats, climate variability and COVID-19? We sought to understand the potential impacts and pathways for the adoption of Solar Irrigation as one such Big Bet. With a distinguished panel of experts, we launched the resulting policy paper at our Irrigation Webinar.
Read the Policy Brief and Policy Paper.
View the webinar presentation and recording.
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AgriFin's "Top 100" Proposal for MacArthur's $100M Grant Wins a Special Award
In a unique Global Philanthropy course at Columbia Business School, graduate students analyzed the “Top 100” proposals from the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change competition and selected AgriFin’s proposal to receive a special grant. The proposal, submitted in partnership with NASA and with support from Digital Green, aims to transform farming in the face of climate change.
Learn more in our blog.
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Making Digital Financial Solutions Relevant and Accessible for Zambian Smallholder Farmers
For three years, we adopted a market facilitation model to develop scalable and commercial, farmer-centric innovations for smallholders in with our ecosystem partners in Zambia. Our activities ranged from product design to go-to-market strategy development to advising implementation and conducting market research to ensure product-market fit. After the program closed its Zambian office at the end of 2019, we reflected on a culmination of key highlights and lessons learned from our engagements in Zambia.
Learn more in our blog.
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The Libra Opportunity for Smallholder Farmers
Libra has high potential to disrupt financial systems and the regulatory gymnastics necessary to do so. While that discussion remains ongoing we are optimistic that these questions will be overcome, and policy frameworks will fall in line. In this post, we discuss the potential impact of Libra for smallholder farmers to potentially leap-frog traditional financial systems.
Read the full Case Study here.
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AgriFin & NASA Make Top 100 Proposals for MacArthur $100M Grant
Mercy Corps’ 100&Change proposal, submitted in partnership with NASA and with support from Digital Green, is one of the Top 100, in the bid for a single $100 million grant to help solve one of the world’s most critical social challenges. Through this proposed program, AgrFin would work with NASA as a climate-smart data transformation partner to build smallholders resilience to climate shocks.
Visit Mercy Corps’ solution on the Bold Solutions Network and view our fact sheet here.
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Digital Climate Smart Agriculture (D-CSA)
The emerging wave of digital innovations in the agri-tech sectors allows for new digitally accessible, low-cost channels for climate smart products and services, which were often not previously possible via analogue means. This leads to the nascent and rapidly emerging field of “Digital Climate Smart Agriculture” (D-CSA). Read our sector learning playbook for D-CSA here.
Read our sector learning playbook here.
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Digital Credit Insights
The AgriFin Accelerate program has partnered with DigiFarm and Farm to Market Alliance (FtMA), two initiataives aimed at promoting financial inclusion of smallholder farmers through digital financial services. We have captured lessons from loan evaluations of DigiFarm and Farm to Market Alliance (FtMA). This case study shares lessons learned across the user journey from uptake, usage to repayment as well as lessons on inclusion of women and youth.
Read the Case Study here.
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| Jul 30 |
60 Decibels +
DfID
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60 Decibels COVID-19 Insights From Kenyan Farmers |
Presentation
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| Jul 23 |
CGAP +
ISF
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The future of the food system and
rural livelihoods
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Presentation
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| Jul 21 |
Cafe Direct +
Producers Direct
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Farmer-led Response to Covid-19
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Webinar recording
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| Jul 9 |
The DLEC Community of Practice
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Exploring Opportunities for Commercially Sustainable & Climate-Smart Advisory Services Confirmation
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Webinar recording
Presentation & Q&A
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| May 26 |
Cropin
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Sustainable Agriculture: Where Are We Headed After 2020?
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Webinar recording
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| May 1 |
Arifu +
Mercy Corps AgriFin
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Maintaining extension, training and information services in times of C-19 and beyond.
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Webinar recording
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We've been working with Ideo.org, Wefarm, Café Direct and Producers Direct to create and disseminate a bespoke set of materials which will minimise the impact of #Covid19 on millions of smallholder farmers. Watch the video for more information, including feedback from Producers Direct’s smallholders.
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The 2020 State of the Sector Report by Council on Smallholder Agricultural Finance (CSAF) reflects on the present and future impacts of COVID-19 across the agriculture sector, presents 2019 data from the growing alliance of 15 CSAF lenders, and shares updates on the launch of Aceli Africa.
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Precision Agriculture for Development (PAD) developed the COVID-19 Survey Dashboard based on a multi-country phone survey with up to 11,000 farmers to understand and inform policymakers and stakeholders how the pandemic is affecting their production, food security and behaviour.
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As an extension of the stakeholder research and collaboration that informed our Irrigation Policy brief, SunCulture’s Samir Ibrahim gives three compelling reasons why smart, time-bound subsidies are the secret to increasing accessibility and unlocking the benefits of solar irrigation for smallholder farmers at scale in this article.
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Now in its 5th installment, the COVID-19 Emergency Briefing Series jointly authored by ISF Advisors and the Rural and Agricultural Finance Learning Lab looks at how the pandemic is likely to affect rural households, and the cascading effects on markets, food security, and national security.
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The RAF Learning Lab also recently published this case study of ACRE Africa’s Service Delivery Model showing how the risk management solutions designer has emerged as one of the few examples that might be able to crack the smallholder insurance business model.
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GSMA M4D’s latest report on agricultural insurance for smallholders looks at how mobile network operators can use their assets to drive the adoption of index insurance services in developing countries.
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The Pandemic Crisis and its Effects on Agriculture and Finance by Massimo Pera is a comprehensive overview of the COVID state of play and recovery ideas for SHF financing that advocates for stimulus to farmers and SMEs and then structures some longer-term ideas.
- This dashboard created by 60 Decibels (funded by DFID’s Research and Evidence Division) visualises data from 500 Kenyan farmers surveyed every month between June and December 2020 to understand their experience of living through the pandemic and the support they will find useful.
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