OVERVIEW

The Brief
The AgriFI Kenya Challenge Fund is a European Union initiative to support productive and market-integrated smallholder agriculture through the provision of financial support worth EUR 18,000,000 to agri-enterprises. The aim is to contribute to improvements in the capacity of smallholder farmers/pastoralists to practise environmentally sustainable and climate-smart agriculture as a business in inclusive value chains. The Challenge Fund is funded by the European Union and co-funded by SlovakAid and is implemented in parallel with a planned European Investment Bank (EIB) facility provided to local banks.

Self Help Africa and Imani Development Limited are the Fund Managers for the programme.

The Challenge Fund is part of the wider AgriFI funded under the 11th EDF signed in 2017 to unlock, accelerate and leverage investments within value chains.

THE FUND MANAGER
AgriFI Kenya Challenge Fund is implemented by Self Help Africa with technical support from Imani Development Limited.

Self Help Africa (SHA) is a leading international development organisation based in Nairobi with headquarters in Ireland and offices in the United Kingdom and United States of America. Globally, Self Help Africa has operations in 9 countries across East, Southern and West Africa. We work with smallholder farmers, farmer associations, cooperatives and small and medium size enterprises in the agribusiness sector to help them grow and sell more agricultural commodities, improve diets, diversify incomes and make their livelihoods more sustainable and resilient to external shocks. We also work to raise awareness of smallholder farmer issues and represent their interests at policy and institutional level.

Imani Development is a private economic and development consultancy firm that facilitates the process of economic growth and poverty reduction in the developing world. Imani has been active in East and Southern Africa, the Caribbean, South East Asia and the Pacific for over 30 years, advising policy makers, governments, development agencies, regional and international organisations, and the private sector in our core areas of work.

PARTNER

The European Investment Bank (EIB), under the same AgriFI Kenya programme, is providing long term local currency financing to Equity Bank (Kenya) Limited for on-lending to eligible food and agriculture sector projects. This facility is also available for match funding to the applicants.