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About GLF Africa 2022

GLF Africa 2022: How to build an equitable, resilient food future brought together over 8,500 participants from 122 countries and featured 182 leading scientists, activists, Indigenous leaders, financiers, youth and government leaders, and 68 incredible partners to explore African solutions to the global food crisis caused by climate change, COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine.

Across 31 plenaries, interactive sessions, launches, virtual tours, dialogues, performances, and a job fair, the digital conference explored ways to transform the future of food through healthy landscapes, equitable access to land, and shorter, greener value chains. Messages on social media rallied 26 million people around concrete ways for Africa to regain its food sovereignty.

Boosting finance for sustainable agriculture in Africa

Africa is losing an alarming 3.9 million hectares of forest ecosystems each year. How can the continent prevent these losses while also providing its population with healthy diets and livelihoods?

This session gathers innovators and entrepreneurs in agriculture to discuss the challenges the sector faces in accessing funds to scale their sustainable business models. Together they explore ways to boost financing for sustainable agriculture in Africa, including challenges and opportunities facing African agribusinesses, as well as good practices for impact investing in green commodities value chains:

Jane Feehan from the European Investment Bank(EIB) elaborates on the work the Bank is doing in financing smaller institutions and supporting microfinance banks that can make smaller loans to the farmers. By doing so, “the Bank faces the issue of risk in loans by smarter restructuring, which provides the risk capital.” Feehan also mentions that the EIB is powerful in climate action and aligns with the Paris Agreement.
Lorisa Canillas from Cordaid Investment Group, points out their organization helps bridge the finance gap by promoting investment in sustainable agriculture. “Innovations in finance are needed in order to increase investment in sustainable agriculture in Africa because of several early-stage innovations.”
Anthony Kimani, Investment services manager at E4Impact, claims there is a need for a blended finance approach as the best way to increase financing for sustainable agriculture in Africa as it combines risk, opening the space for commercial investors as a result.