Current partners
The African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA) is the leading pan-African network of financial and non-financial institutions promoting access to rural and agricultural finance. In late 2021, Small Foundation provided a multi-year grant to AFRACA to strengthen AFRACA’s network development and functions, including membership engagement, especially through the AFRACA Impact Task Force (AITF), knowledge management, and sector data collation and dissemination. This grant builds on our initial partnership in 2020.
Small Foundation’s partnership with AFRACA supports its functions as a network, aiming to improve engagement and information flow across its members to unlock more financial services for rural MSMEs in sub-Saharan Africa. By identifying best practices and innovations across the provision of finance to the rural economy and agricultural sector, AFRACA provides its members with opportunities to strengthen their capacity, and seeks to strengthen financial institutions at regional and national levels for better integration of local expertise into decisions around capital flows for rural and agricultural ventures across the African continent. AFRACA supports best practice and collaboration across its membership in service of a conducive policy and regulatory environment, improving access to finance for rural and agricultural stakeholders.
Connect
www.afraca.orgNetwork Spotlight – Impact in 2025
In 2025, the African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA) convened the 8th World Congress on Rural and Agricultural Finance in Mombasa, Kenya in late October.
Held under the theme “Building Resilient Local Agrifood Systems,” the Congress drew over 450 delegates from more than 60 countries across six continents and produced the Mombasa Declaration on financing mechanisms and policy, alongside a financing mechanisms toolkit and a set of strategic recommendations; Small Foundation convened its own session on scaling agri-SME finance through catalytic capital and local institutions. The 23rd AFRACA General Assembly, held alongside the Congress, elected a new Executive Committee for the 2025–2027 term, chaired by the Bank of Uganda, and approved strategic priorities for the coming cycle.
Beyond the Congress, AFRACA delivered a fuller calendar of member convenings through the year, including a Public Development Bank Forum in Nairobi, an international study tour on agricultural risk-sharing hosted around Ghana’s GIRSAL model, a Blue Finance training workshop in Dar es Salaam, and AFRACA’s first climate-finance training, run with CIAT in Nairobi.
A particular focus of the year was strengthening AFRACA’s knowledge management pillar, which Small Foundation funds. AFRACA published a coherent body of knowledge products under its Impact Measurement and Monitoring framework, anchored by a detailed case study of GIRSAL – documenting how the scheme facilitated over GHS 3.28 billion in loan applications and guarantees worth GHS 1.57 billion across 156 agribusinesses between 2019 and 2025, sustaining around 3,000 jobs, reaching 67,000 farmers and generating USD 25 million in foreign exchange earnings – and presented as a replicable de-risking model for Sub-Saharan Africa.
AFRACA also released an IMM baseline survey and a summary report on central bank policies shaping rural and agricultural finance, which assessed eleven central bank policy levers across member countries and found a majority to be enabling while underscoring the need for targeted reform. Through the year AFRACA further contributed to Kenya’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy (2025–2028) and developed a new Strategic Plan for 2026–2030, positioning the network for the next phase of its work financing Africa’s agricultural transformation.
