Agriculture is a way of life and the engine of growth for most economies in developing countries. There are numerous growth potentials for farmer organization to increase productivity only when they are able to access finance. This has made access to finance not only a necessity but an urgent quest, a quest that will enable farmer organization increase yield and ensure food security.

In a report by Dalberg on “Catalyzing Smallholder Agricultural finance“, it is estimated that 450 $billion is needed for the 450 million smallholder farmers globally. This presents an unprecedented opportunity for financial institutions to open their doors to farmer organizations with credit worthy profiles. This notwithstanding high farm risks such as poor management, bad debts, low profitability, and low reserves are very critical elements that banks consider before they open their doors to farmer organizations. No farmer organization can be viable when these issues are not addressed and tackled, and this is only possible through profiling the performance of these farmer organizations and assessing their risks management. Doing this will help to identify and create creditworthy farmer organizations with low management risks.

The JEREMIE initiative (“Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises”) offers EU Member States, through their national or regional Managing Authorities, the opportunity to use part of their European Union (EU) Structural Funds to finance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by means of equity, loans or guarantees, through a revolving Holding Fund acting as an umbrella fund.

I recently stood in front of a group of investors and business coaches and explained the gap in investment in women-led small businesses. After the presentation, an audience member asked me whether I thought banks and investors should start biasing their services toward women. "No," I replied, "you should unbias them away from men." This is the core of gender mainstreaming: recognizing that current products and services by default cater toward men, since there have historically been far more businessmen than businesswomen.

Having spent almost 20 years in global corporate business development and led several initiatives as an intrapreneur, Anne Ravanona decided that she wanted to finally realise her dual dreams of becoming an entrepreneur and developing a platform to help other women entrepreneurs obtain funding and succeed.

At the kind invitation of colleagues from the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank (FOMIN, in Spanish), I attended this year's Foromic in Mexico.  While not the largest forum ever held, my understanding is that over 1700 people attended.  My role was to chair a panel on SME Finance, which contained three institutions from outside the region:  (1) CARD SME Bank, a newly created thrift bank in the Philippines focusing on a higher segment than the core clientel of its older sibling, CARD Microfinance, (2) TEB Bank, the 6th largest bank in Turkey, an aggressive player in the SME segment, and a particularly expansive innovator in accompanying non-financial services, and (3) Business Partners, an African non-bank financial institution, focused on growing small firms with "risk capital", going beyond simple debt.  One surprise was how many people attended our session...but the bigger surprise was how many and how diverse the financial institutions were that attended Foromic as a whole.  There were a surprising number of commercial banks, regulated non-bank finance companies, and even financial technology firms.  In addition to our session, there were others on Women entrepreneurs finance (again, going upmarket from microenterprise), agrifinance, and crowdfinancing.  for more see the link below.  Thanks again, Tetsuro and Francisco, for bringing me along.  much learning was had!matt

Six months after it commenced operations, Group Head, SMEs, Heritage Bank Limited, Mr. Bayo Ogunnusi, told Obinna Chima that the financial institution was able to penetrate the industry through an innovative approach for funding small and medium scale enterprises.

Thorsten Beck, Professor of Banking and Finance at Cass Business School in London, Professor of Economics at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and Research Fellow at CEPR, explains the bottlenecks that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face in accessing much-needed finance despite their importance to economic growth and employment. He also shares lessons learned for financial institutions trying to target this missing middle that often fall in between micro- and bank finance.

I completed my first day at Criterion Institute’s Convergence gathering, which is focused on gender lens investing. It has been a truly energizing and mind-opening day. People are here from all kinds of institutions and sectors, most of them with an observable passion for figuring out how to formulate investment strategies that would help society achieve gender equality.

The world market relies heavily on male-owned businesses. WEConnect International, a corporate-led non-profit that certifies women-owned businesses around the world, estimates that on average less than 1% of global corporate or government spend is on women-owned businesses in any country.This staggering gap between male and female businesses reminds us that women’s economic energy is still an enormous untapped resource for global growth. This gap is partially due to persistent challenges including discriminatory regulation, less access to education, and societal norms.

This publication is the summary of a comprehensive study, the first of its kind, on the impact of Venture Capital (VC) in Latin America The study was conducted in 2012 by Dalberg Global Development Advisors and covers more than 149 companies, 28 funds and 13 countries, approximately 40% of the portfolio of the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF).