Dear RFILC subscribers,

In the month of love we ‘fall in love” with two new publications that we are bringing to your attention in this newsletter. First document is titled “Public-Private Partnership for Agricultural Innovation” and is published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).  This report aims to identify good practices in facilitating and implementing PPPs for agricultural innovation, based on experiences in countries and international organisations. It first discusses the rationale for engaging in PPPs and discusses challenges and opportunities for PPPs conceptually and as applied to agricultural innovation. It then outlines government actions to facilitate PPP approaches, whether sector-specific or not. It also identifies conditions for successful implementation, and concludes with considerations for policy makers adapted to the specificities of PPPs for agricultural innovation.

The second highlight is the brief published by the Initiative for Smallholder Finance “Value Chain Financing:  How agro-enterprises can serve as alternate aggregation points for delivering financial services to smallholder farmers” and it builds on a report titled Catalyzing Smallholder Agricultural Finance, which presents a series of  pathways for financing, including lending to farmers aggregated into producer groups, financing through integrated multinational buyer supply chains, and building direct‐to‐farmer financing models. This briefing elaborates on the concept of “alternate aggregation” to explore value chain financing models that serve non aggregated farmers through the agro-enterprises that interact with those farmers.

Finally, AgriFin’s webinar “Warehouse Receipt Systems: World Bank Reform Initiatives in Africa” will take place on March 23rd and will featuring recent initiatives supported by the World Bank to reform warehouse receipt systems in Africa. Mr. Jean Saint-Geours, economist at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) will provide a detailed overview of key reform initiatives and how they help facilitate agricultural finance, reduce post-harvest losses, improve the stability of market prices, ensure food security, and stimulate agribusiness development. Find more about the discussion and registration by clicking here.

With best regards,

The RFILC editorial team