Location
27 countries in Africa and Asia, supporting 80+ agribusinesses
Stakeholders involved
UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), agribusinesses, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), development finance institutions, impact investors, smallholder farmers
Lead organization
Scale
Funded by UK official development assistance (ODA) and implemented by TechnoServe, the CASA Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) unlocks inclusive and sustainable growth in agricultural markets across Africa and Asia. The USD $14 million CASA TAF works with the largest emerging market agriculture investors to support win-win inclusive agribusiness models that invest more effectively in smallholder farmers as customers or suppliers in ways that deliver measurable impacts in terms of enhanced resilience, climate adaptation and increased farmer incomes.
CASA TAF’s direct, validated contribution to investment decisions (public and private) in this portfolio is approximately USD $18 million. The anchor funder of the initiative is UK FCDO, with leading development finance institutions (DFIs) such as British International Investment (BII) and FMO – the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank – joining as co-funders in 2024 (contributing USD $1.5 million each) and UK embassies in countries such as Egypt, South Africa and Kenya also funding country-level initiatives since 2024.
million (USD) CASA TAF
million (USD)
million (USD) each
Co-investment model
By introducing new business models that drive enhanced climate impacts and enhanced profitability, the initiative seeks to unlock additional investments in agriculture across Africa and Asia. Most of the businesses the initiative supports are in the portfolios of leading impact investors and DFIs. As these impact investors are motivated to drive growth and impact in their portfolios, they co-fund many of these initiatives.
CASA TAF works with investors to identify agribusinesses in their portfolio that can benefit from tailored support to strengthen and make their business models more inclusive and climate resilient. Then the CASA team, investors and selected agribusinesses co-develop and pilot inclusive business models that benefit smallholder farmers. While CASA TAF funds the initial business case development, agribusinesses typically co-finance the cost of implementation. Its technical assistance provides access to expertise, de-risking grants and additional capital to deploy and scale inclusive business models in ways that promote inclusive and sustainable agricultural growth.
Impact
businesses
impact investors
million (USD) in investments.
The CASA TAF has worked with ~80 businesses, 15 impact investors and ~137,000 smallholders across 27 countries since 2019. These businesses have collectively seen over USD $300 million in investments.
The smallholder farmers reached in Africa and Asia through agribusinesses benefit from hands-on agronomy support, input optimization, access to quality bio-inputs and market access, financing and digitalization. This TA has strengthened agri-SMEs and their supply chains at the farm level, boosting farmers’ incomes, productivity and resilience.
At the company level, the project has found that working with agribusinesses to promote commercially sustainable women’s economic empowerment initiatives can lead to a shift in business understanding of gender issues. This is reflected in over 50% of the facility’s partners adopting and sustaining gender initiatives after CASA TAF support, compared to less than 20% pre-partnership.
Levers and enablers
The program primarily uses technical assistance as a lever to drive more investment into smallholder farmer agriculture, with development capital grants introduced more recently as a tool to mobilize investments into harder to reach agribusiness segments and markets.
Having worked with over 80 businesses in the past 6 years, CASA TAF is beginning to codify quantitatively what models can maximize impact and where there are limits with technical assistance alone. TA can help businesses invest progressively in farmers, starting by providing access to markets and knowledge, before graduating to offer access to credit. But even strong inclusive business cases require third-party financing to scale. Technology and innovative approaches to finance are fundamental to achieving transformational impact.
Having worked with over
businesses in the past 6 years, CASA TAF is beginning to codify quantitatively what models can maximize impact and where there are limits with technical assistance alone.
Barriers
Financial barriers, such as limited working capital and access to affordable finance for agribusinesses and smallholder farmers hinder the scaling up of the project. Many agribusinesses and smallholder farmers lack the cash or access to low-cost capital needed to buy inputs, procure raw materials and grow crops at scale. In addition, external market conditions and price shocks limit market access: global price changes and trade disruptions often reduce market access and make shared value models risky for businesses and farmers. Finally, a lack of regulatory frameworks limits investment flows for certain supply chains or markets. Restrictive policies on land or foreign exchange discourage investment in certain supply chains and markets, slowing inclusive growth.
Lessons for scaling
- Use shared value creation as a growth strategy to maximize the impact of limited investment by pursuing revenue/margin opportunities that directly deliver impacts for smallholder farmers, including increased incomes;
- Drive measurable growth and profitability for the business through shared value opportunities (between farmers and agribusiness), with a realistic pathway to scale based on capital intensity and available financing;
- Recognize that inclusive sourcing initiatives typically generate deeper per-farmer impact but at a lower scale, while inclusive distribution/ag-tech models have greater scale potential but lower impact;
- Leverage third-party delivery and finance as they are fundamental to scaling inclusive business models and achieving transformational impact at scale.
