Feed the Future Mobilizing Finance for Agriculture (MFA)

(Ghana): Access to agricultural finance in Ghana is challenging and expensive to obtain. Because the agriculture sector is regarded as innately risky, firms and smallholders are faced with interest rates as high as 30 percent, greatly limiting their ability to modernize and expand. To address these challenges, USAID/Ghana developed the Mobilizing Finance for Agriculture (MFA) Activity to drive financing to smallholder farmers and the "missing middle" in amounts up to $500,000. The MFA Activity will develop financing in the agriculture sector by: (1) mobilizing new sources of capital for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME); (2) expanding the supply of finance for MSMEs; and (3) forming strategic partnerships to expand inclusive financing. Specific interventions include developing the capacity of financial sector transaction advisors to generate and close deals, financial institutions to profitably lend to new sectors, forging strategic partnerships to reduce interest rates and drive finance to smaller actors and microenterprises.

Source: IATI activity description, US-GOV-1-72064120C00003 (2020). The source's own text.