The AECF is a development institution which supports businesses to innovate, create jobs, leverage investments and markets in an effort to create resilience and sustainable incomes in rural and marginalized communities in Africa. Launched in 2008, the AECF has mobilized over US $310 million to date, leveraging more than US $580 million in matching capital and improving the lives of more than 13 million people in 2016 alone through jobs and increased household incomes. AECF has so far supported 257 companies in 24 countries in sub-Saharan Africa across 40 value chains in their focal sectors of agribusiness and renewable energy.
In the new 2018-2020 strategy, their goal is to “double their impact in half the time”. To achieve this, they will continue to focus on the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors, increase support to climate smart technologies, refine their challenge model, expand regional presence, deepen focus on gender, youth and employment by expanding their products and partnership approach to better meet their investees’ current needs; and ensure they rapidly scale and transition to external financing and sustainability thereby attaining their vision of ‘A Prosperous and Enterprising Rural Africa’
Areas of Investment
The AECF targets investments in the following sectors:
