Capacity building for lenders
Aceli offers lenders capacity building alongside incentives to generate a positive cycle of improved risk management, higher profitability, portfolio expansion, and reinvestment in agricultural expertise to drive sustained growth.
Capacity building
The challenging economics of agri-SME have deterred lenders from investing in the expertise to manage risk and serve the sector effectively. Aceli supports lenders in developing a sector-specific strategy for agriculture that includes: aligning senior-level commitment with capital allocation, risk appetite, and origination priorities; adapting financial products and processes to suit seasonal agriculture cash flows; and training staff at head office and branch levels.
In partnership with Value for Women, Aceli supports lenders to customize their product offering (for example, adapting collateral requirements in recognition that women are less likely to own titled land than men), outreach, and relationship management to serve more women-led businesses.
Building on the learning from our work with Value for Women, Aceli also offers capacity building focused on managing risk and identifying new business opportunities related to environmental sustainability.
Capacity building in action
Women’s Economic Opportunity in African Agriculture: 2024
Builds upon initial findings published in 2022 highlighting Aceli’s approach to partnering with a marketplace of 40 financial institutions to promote economic opportunities for women by increasing lending for agri-SMEs in East Africa.
Supporting Gender Lens Investing for Agri-SMEs with Value for Women: Case Studies
Insights from the gender lens investing journeys of an impact investment fund in Uganda and commercial bank in Kenya.
Capacity building partners
Lender engagement
With support from Value for Women, a Kenyan bank trained their staff on gender equality and integrated new data fields into their core banking system to enable sex-disaggregated data analysis across its loan portfolio. With this approach and complemented by Aceli’s incentives, the bank increased its financing for women-owned agri-SMEs from three to 54 over three years.
Lender anecdote
Kenya
“Management buy-in and support for agri-lending were the key drivers for growth.”
Commercial Bank
Tanzania
Expanding geographic reach
Aceli’s financial incentives and capacity building motivate lenders to serve SMEs in harder to reach areas.
