De-risking Agricultural Finance and Climate Resilience (DAFCR)
Empowering businesses, SMEs and smallholder producers across the agricultural value chain through catalytic financing, comprehensive risk mitigation tools and strategic partnerships.
Unlocking Finance, De-Risking Investments, and Building Resilience
for Africa’s Agricultural Future
The De-risking Agricultural Finance and Climate Resilience team (“DAFCR”) is part of the Bank’s Agricultural Finance and Rural Development Department and is responsible for blending and de-risking investments to stimulate investment and inclusive growth in African agri-food systems, while supporting improvements in the enabling environment.
01
Providing highly concessional capital to de-risk Agri-SMEs and catalyze private sector investment
02
Delivering technical assistance to develop bankable, climate-smart, and gender-responsive Agri-SMEs
03
Mainstreaming support for underserved Agri-SMEs by leveraging the Bank’s expertise and partnerships
How DAFCR is structured
DAFCR is comprised of three complementary solutions that deliver as one to de-risk and catalyze access to finance and facilitate technical assistance for the transformation of African agriculture. These include:
The Africa Disaster Risk Financing Programme (ADRiFi)
In 2018, the African Development Bank launched the Africa Disaster Risk Financing (ADRiFi) Programme to bolster the resilience of African nations against climate shocks by promoting proactive, ex-ante risk financing. ADRiFi’s primary aim has been to build capacity among regional member countries, enabling them to assess and manage climate risks more effectively and make informed choices on transferring disaster risks to the insurance market.
The Africa Climate Risk Insurance Framework for Adaptation (ACRIFA)
ACRIFA is designed as a strategic framework that builds on ADRiFi's successes and represents the next phase in scaling climate insurance solutions across Africa. ACRIFA catalyzes private sector investment and expands coverage beyond the sovereign level by leveraging the network of primary insurers and financial partners to provide coverage at meso- and micro-levels, ensuring that Africa’s agri-value chain actors have access to structured and sustainable risk protection.
The Agri-food SME Catalytic Financing Mechanism (ACFM)
The Agri-Food SME Catalytic Financing Mechanism (ACFM) is designed to unlock financing for underserved Agri-SMEs by leveraging blended finance, technical assistance, and de-risking instruments. ACFM supports financial intermediaries and large agri-businesses by extending concessional loans to drive investments, climate resilience and gender empowerment.
DAFCR works to close the over $100 billion annual Agri-SME financing gap, address the 97% insurance protection gap faced by African farmers and promote climate resilience, gender equality and youth inclusion across Africa.
DAFCR’s Delivery Model
DAFCR combines four complementary approaches to mobilize finance, reduce risk and build the markets and institutions needed for sustainable scale.
Mobilizing catalytic capital
Mobilizing concessional, risk-taking and blended finance to crowd in public, private and domestic capital for Africa’s agri-food systems.
Designing and deploying de-risking solutions
Combining risk-sharing, guarantees, insurance, concessional finance and other instruments to address specific financing and climate-risk constraints.
Building markets, enabling systems and digital ecosystems
Strengthening financial institutions, insurance markets, policy and regulatory environments, digital platforms, data systems and institutional capacity needed for sustainable scale.
Partnering for scale, learning and replication
Working with governments, financial institutions, insurers, development partners and market actors to test, track results, learn, standardize and scale effective approaches across countries and value chains.
Strategic Alignment
DAFCR and the Bank’s Four Cardinal Points
DAFCR advances the Bank’s Four Cardinal Points through an integrated platform combining catalytic finance, climate and disaster risk financing, insurance and market-development support across ACFM, ADRiFi and ACRIFA.
Unlocking Africa's Capital Power
ACFM mobilizes concessional and catalytic capital to crowd in private investment for agri-SMEs, while DAFCR instruments such as the Sovereign Catalytic De-Risking Framework (SCDF) use targeted de-risking to stretch scarce public resources and expand financing capacity.
Rebuilding Africa’s Financial Sovereignty
ACRIFA strengthen African risk-financing and insurance markets by working with governments, African insurers and financial institutions. ACFM complements this through risk-sharing and blended-finance structures that deepen domestic financing channels for agriculture.
Turning Demographics into a Dividend
ACFM expands access to finance for agri-SMEs that create jobs and enterprise opportunities, with deliberate attention to women and young people. ACRIFA and ADRiFi help protect those livelihoods and productive assets against climate and disaster shocks.
Building Resilient Infrastructure and Competitive Value Chains
ACRIFA and ADRiFi expand insurance, preparedness and risk-transfer solutions that help farmers, firms and governments manage climate shocks, while ACFM supports investment in more resilient and competitive agri-food value chains.
DAFCR also aligns with core Bank sector strategies, including:
The Feed Africa Strategy
Transforming African agriculture to increase productivity, reduce dependence on food imports, and create job opportunities.
Instruments & Solutions
Sovereign Catalytic De-risking Framework
The SCDF is a standardized mechanism that converts underutilized concessional sovereign capital into catalytic leverage — unlocking the African Development Bank's own lending capacity and crowding in private commercial finance to reach Africa's agri-food SMEs and smallholder farmers.
Leadership
Dr. Martin Fregene
Richard Ofori-Mante
Dr. Andrew Mude
Ilyes Bdioui
