Mobilizing Agricultural Finance

While agri-SMEs face many challenges and barriers, access to finance is frequently identified as a critical barrier to their growth and resilience. Improving the information flow between lenders and agri-SMEs can help address this finance gap. Currently, lenders do not have clear and standard lending requirements and, in turn, agri-SMEs are not always clear on what factors can make them creditworthy.

This report presents the context and value of a common language, identifies bottlenecks in lenders' strategies and processes in assessing the bankability of agri-SMEs, and details the bankability metrics themselves. It concludes with calls to action for key stakeholders to not only adopt the metrics but also nudge others and ignite a systemic change to unlock access to finance for agri-SMEs